I thought I heard a very faint sigh from Jessamine’s corner. It was probably annoying listening to half a conversation. But she should be used to that. I’d bet Edythe and Archie never had to speak out loud at all when they talked to each other.

“It was implied,” Archie answered.

I thought about their fight in the Jeep. Was this what it was about?

“I don’t suppose our future friendship is enough to shift your loyalties?”

He frowned. “Edythe is my sister.”

“Even if you disagree with her on this?”

We stared at each other for a minute.

“That’s what you saw,” I realized. I felt my eyes get bigger. “And then she got so upset. You already saw it, didn’t you?”

“It was only one future among many. I also saw you die,” he reminded me.

“But you saw it. It’s a possibility.”

He shrugged.

“Don’t you think I deserve to know, then? Even if there’s only the slightest chance?”

He stared at me, deliberating.

“You do,” he finally said. “You have the right to know.”

I waited.

“You don’t know fury like Edythe when she’s thwarted,” he warned me.

“It’s none of her business. This is between you and me. As your friend, I’m begging you.”

He paused, then made his choice. “I can tell you the mechanics of it, but I don’t remember it myself, and I’ve never done it or seen it done, so keep in mind that I can only tell you the theory.”

“How does someone become a vampire?”

“Oh, is that all?” Jessamine muttered behind me. I’d forgotten she was listening.

I waited.

“As predators,” Archie began, “we have a glut of weapons in our physical arsenal—much, much more than we need for hunting easy prey like humans. Strength, speed, acute senses, not to mention those of us like Edythe, Jessamine, and me who have extra senses as well. And then, like a carnivorous flower, we are physically attractive to our prey.”

I was seeing it all in my head again—how Edythe had illustrated the same concept for me in the meadow.

He smiled wide—his teeth glistened. “We have one more, fairly superfluous weapon. We’re also venomous. The venom doesn’t kill—it’s merely incapacitating. It works slowly, spreading through the bloodstream, so that, once bitten, our prey is in too much physical pain to escape us. Mostly superfluous, as I said. If we’re that close, our prey doesn’t escape. Of course, unless we want it to.”

“Carine,” I said quietly. The holes in the story Edythe had told me were filling themselves in. “So… if the venom is left to spread…?”

“It takes a few days for the transformation to be complete, depending on how much venom is in the bloodstream, how close the venom enters to the heart—Carine’s creator bit her on the hand on purpose to make it worse. As long as the heart keeps beating, the poison spreads, healing, changing the body as it moves through it. Eventually the heart stops, and the conversion is finished. But all that time, every minute of it, a victim would be wishing for death—screaming for it.”

I shuddered.

“It’s not pleasant, no.”

“Edythe said it was very hard to do… but that sounds simple enough.”

“We’re also like sharks in a way. Once we taste blood, or even smell it for that matter, it becomes very hard to keep from feeding. Impossible, even. So you see, to actually bite someone, to taste the blood, it would begin the frenzy. It’s difficult on both sides—the bloodlust on the one hand, the awful pain on the other.”

“It sounds like something you would remember,” I said.

“For everyone else, the pain of transformation is the sharpest memory they have of their human life. I don’t know why I’m different.”

Archie stared past me, motionless. I wondered what it would be like, not to know who you were. To look in the mirror and not recognize the person looking back.

It was hard for me to believe that Archie could have been a criminal, though; there was something intrinsically good about his face. Royal was the showy one, the one the girls at school stared at, but there was something better than perfection about Archie’s face. It was totally pure.

“There are positives to being different,” Archie said suddenly. “I don’t remember anyone I left behind. I got to skip that pain, too.” He looked at me, and his eyes narrowed a little bit. “Carine, Edythe, and Earnest all lost everyone who mattered to them before they left being human behind. So there was grief, but not regret. It was different for the others. The phys-ical pain is a quick thing, comparatively, Beau. There are slower ways to suffer.…”

“Royal had parents who loved him and depended on him—two little sisters he adored. He could never see them again after he was changed. And then he outlived them all. That kind of pain is very, very slow.”

I wondered if he was trying to make me feel bad for Royal—to cut the guy some slack even if he hated me. Well… it was working.

He shook his head, like he knew I wasn’t getting it.

“That’s part of the process, Beau. I haven’t experienced it. I can’t tell you what it feels like. But it’s a part of the process.”

And then I understood what he was telling me.

He was perfectly still again. I put my arm behind my head and stared up at the ceiling.

If… if ever, someday, Edythe wanted me that way… what would that mean for Mom? What would that mean for Charlie?

There were so many things to think about. Things I didn’t even know I didn’t know to think about.

But some things seemed obvious. For whatever reason, Edythe didn’t want me thinking about any of this. Why? It hurt my stomach when I tried to come up with an answer to that question.

Then Archie sprang to his feet.

I looked up at him, startled by the sudden movement, then alarmed again when I saw his face.

It was totally blank—empty, his mouth half open.

Then Jessamine was there, gently pushing him back into the chair.

“What do you see?” she asked in a low, soothing voice.

“Something’s changed,” Archie said, even more quietly.

I leaned closer.

“What is it?”

“A room. It’s long—there are mirrors everywhere. The floor is wood. The tracker is in the room, and she’s waiting. There’s a gold stripe across the mirrors.”

“Where is the room?”

“I don’t know. Something is missing—another decision hasn’t been made yet.”

“How much time?”

“It’s soon. She’ll be in the mirror room today, or maybe tomorrow. It all depends. She’s waiting for something.” His face went blank again. “And she’s in the dark now.”

Jessamine’s voice was calm, methodical. “What is she doing?”

“She’s watching TV… no, she’s running a VCR, in the dark, in another place.”

“Can you see where she is?”

“No, the space is too dark.”

“And the mirror room, what else is there?”

“Just the mirrors, and the gold. It’s a band, around the room. And there’s a black table with a big stereo, and a TV. She’s touching the VCR there, but she doesn’t watch the way she does in the dark room. This is the room where she waits.” His eyes drifted, then focused on Jessamine’s face.

“There’s nothing else?”

He shook his head. They looked at each other, motionless.

“What does it mean?” I asked.

Neither of them answered for a moment, then Jessamine looked at me.

“It means the tracker’s plans have changed. She’s made a decision that will lead her to the mirror room, and the dark room.”

“But we don’t know where those rooms are?”

“No.”

“But we do know that she won’t be in the mountains north of Washington, being hunted. She’ll elude them.” Archie’s voice was bleak.

He picked up the phone just as it vibrated.

“Carine,” he said. And then he glanced at me. “Yes.” He listened for another long moment, then said, “I just saw her.” He described the vision like he had for Jessamine. “Whatever made her take that plane… it was leading her to those rooms.” He paused. “Yes.”