“I’ll wait.” Even though it would be the hardest thing she would ever do. “I’ll wait for however long it takes.”

She turned the other way and looked at her son. “Dearest Virgin Scribe, does he look like you, no?”

“I know, right?” Qhuinn shook his head. “It’s just crazy. I mean . . .”

“What are you going to name them?” Blay asked. “It’s time for you two to think of names.”

Oh, indeed, Layla thought. In the vampire tradition, youngs’ births were not anticipated by any kind of planning. There were no showers as humans did, no lists of boy names and girl names, no stacks of diapers, racks of bottles, or even bassinettes and booties. For vampires, it was considered bad luck to get ahead of oneself and assume a healthy birth.

“Yes,” she said, refocusing on her daughter. “We must have a naming.”

At that moment, the little tiny infant girl moved her head and seemed to look up, through the sunglasses and the Plexiglas, past the distance between mother and child.

“She’s going to grow up to be beautiful,” Blay murmured. “Absolutely beautiful.”

“Lyric,” Layla blurted. “She shall be called Lyric.”

Blay recoiled. “Lyric? You know, that’s my . . . do you know that’s my mahmen’s . . .”

As the male stopped speaking, Qhuinn started to smile. And then he bent down and kissed Layla’s cheek. “Yes. Absolutely. She’ll be called Lyric.”

Blay blinked a couple of times. “My mahmen will be . . . incredibly honored. As am I.”

Layla squeezed the male’s hand. “Your parents shall be the only granhmen and father these young will e’er know. It is fitting that one of their names be represented. And for our son—mayhap we shall petition the King for a Brother’s name? It seems fitting, as their sire is a brave and noble member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Qhuinn hedged.

“Yes.” Blay nodded. “That’s a good idea.”

Qhuinn started shaking his head. “But I don’t know if—”

“So it is settled,” Layla announced.

When Blay nodded, Qhuinn put his palms up. “I know when I’m beat.”

Layla winked at Blay. “He’s a smart one, isn’t he.”

Outside the birthing room, Jane reviewed the chart Ehlena had just handed her, flipping through pages that detailed the blood slave’s progress. “Good, good . . . his vitals are really improving. Let’s continue to push those fluids. I want to keep him on the IV for a little longer, and then let’s see if we can get a Chosen here to feed him.”

“I’ve already asked Phury.” Rehv’s shellan winced. “I honestly don’t know how that’s going to go, though. That male is in really bad shape. Up here.”

As Ehlena indicated her head, Jane nodded. “I talked to Mary about it. She said she’s ready to speak with him as soon as he’s medically more stable.”

“She’s awesome.”

“Too right.”

Jane gave the folder back, trading it for Layla’s. Yes, she could have easily transitioned to all-electronic medical records, but she had been trained back in the days before everything was computerized, and she’d always preferred good, old-fashioned paper.

She had to smile as she thought of Vishous’s disapproval. He was dying to get a halfway decent computer system going down here, but he respected her prerogative, even as he was frustrated by her. And they did enter summary notes into a database, something that Jane liked to spend Sunday afternoons on when everybody was quiet.

It was a meditation exercise as much as anything else.

“So how’re our kids doing?” she murmured as she ran through the notes Ehlena had made during the latest hourly check. “Oh, you go, girl. Look at those oxygen stats. Right where we want them.”

“There’s something special about that little girl. I’m telling you.”

“Absolutely agreed on that.” Jane flipped another page. “And, Mom, how you doing—oh, good. Very strong vitals. Urine output is perfect. Blood counts great. I’d like to get her to start feeding as soon as she can.”

“I know the Brothers are dying to help. I had to kick them out. I swear, I thought they were going to stay down here for however long it took to get those kids off to school.”

Jane laughed and closed the folder. “I’ll do a quick check on everyone while you start Luchas’s PT.”

“Roger that.”

“You’re the best—”

“Hey, partner.”

Jane glanced up. Manny was striding down the corridor, his hair wet, his scrubs clean, his eyes alert. “I thought you were taking off the next six hours?”

“Can’t stay away. Might miss something. You going in there?”

“You want to join me on the visit?”

“Always.”

Jane was shaking her head at herself as she put her hand on Layla’s door and pushed. Medical people were always the same. Just couldn’t leave well enough alone—

She stopped in the jambs.

Across the room, the new mom was standing at the incubators, Blay on one side of her, Qhuinn on the other, the three of them staring at the babies and talking softly.

The love was palpable.

And, for the moment, all the medicine that was needed.

“Something wrong?” Manny asked as Jane backed up and re-shut things.

Jane smiled. “It’s family time right now. Let’s give them a minute, ’kay?”

Manny smiled back. “High five, Doc. You were a helluva surgeon in there.”

As she clapped his palm, she nodded. “And you saved her uterus.”

“Don’t you love good teamwork?”

“Every night and every day,” she said as they wandered back down the hall, taking their time for once. “Hey, you want something to eat? I can’t remember the last time I ate anything.”

“I think I had a Snickers bar last Wednesday,” her buddy murmured. “Or was that Monday?”

Jane laughed and bumped him with her ass. “Liar. You had a milk shake. Two nights ago.”

“Riiiiiiiiiight. Hey, where’s your man? He should sit with us.”

Jane frowned and looked back and forth down the empty hall. “You know . . . I have no idea. I thought he wandered off for a smoke—but he was supposed to be coming right back?”

Where had Vishous gone?

Up in the Sanctuary, Vishous followed the call of the birds past the bathing area and the Reflecting Pool, all the way to the edge of the forest. For a moment, he wondered if the intention wasn’t to draw him into the boundary itself, even though it was his understanding that if you tried to go through that stretch of thick trees, the shit just spit you back out where you started.

But then he slowed.

And stopped.

The birds that had been lending their voices to the air fell silent as he looked over at the one place he hadn’t even considered ending up.

The cemetery where the Chosen who had passed had been set to rest was ringed on all four sides by a boxwood hedge that was tall enough so he couldn’t see over it. An archway broke up the dense, small leaves, and it was on the trellis that the birds sat, staring at him mutely, their job now done.

Walking over, he ducked down as he entered even though there was no need to as the arch was plenty high to accommodate his head. And as he stepped inside, the birds flushed into the air, taking flight and disappearing.

It was impossible not to think of Selena as he stared at the statues of the females, which were not in fact statues at all. They were Chosen who had likewise suffered from the Arrest, perishing, as Trez’s mate had, from a disease that was as relentless as it was deadly.

A flapping noise turned his head.

There, on one of the boxwood hedges, waving as if it were a flag, was a block of glowing symbols in the Old Language. The missive was not actually mounted on anything; the text was free-floating, coalesced into an order that presumably would make sense to whomever read it, and yet it moved in folds upon a non-existent wind, like the words had been stitched into cloth and sent up a pole.