"So how was the meeting?" Jack asked casually, putting down the spoon and nodding to the busboy that he was done.

"Interesting," she said, taking a sip from her wineglass. "Kingsley Martin's back."

Jack looked surprised. "But he…"

"I know." Mimi shrugged. "Lawrence wouldn't explain. Apparently there's a reason, but it's much too important to share with the Conclave. I swear, he runs that thing like it's the seventeenth century. It's a farce having 'voting members.' He doesn't ask our opinion on anything. He just does what he wants."

"He must have good reason for it," Jack said, his eyes lighting up as the waiter brought new delectables. He looked disappointed to find it was just a dollop of potato salad. Mimi frowned as well. She was expecting gastronomic fireworks, not a picnic dish. But one bite changed her mind. "This is … the…best potato salad … in the world." Jack agreed, as he busily devoured his.

"This is nice, isn't it?" Mimi said, indicating the room and the view of Central Park. She reached across the table and took his hand.

Almost getting killed in Venice was probably the best thing to have happened to their relationship. Faced with the prospect of losing his twin forever, Jack became the soul of devotion.

She still remembered how he'd held her the night after the Blood Trial. His face had aged overnight with worry. "I was so afraid. I was so afraid of losing you."

Mimi had been moved enough to forgive his transgressions. "Never, my love. We will be together always."

After that, there had been no more talk of Schuyler. Even when the little rat had moved into their home, Jack remained cold and indifferent. He never spoke to her, he barely even looked at her. As far as Mimi could tell, secretly probing his mind when his guard was down, he never thought about Schuyler at all. She was simply an irritating houseguest. Like a blemish you couldn't erase.

Maybe she had accomplished what she'd wanted after all. She hadn't been able to get rid of Schuyler, but the attack had succeeded in securing the love of her vampire twin.

"Butter-poached lobster," the waiter murmured, silently setting down two new dishes. "So I was thinking, we might as well invite everyone to the bonding," Mimi said, in between bites. Jack grunted.

"Oh, I know. You like the old-fashioned way, just the two of us in the moonlight, blah, blah, blah. But remember Newport? Now that was a party. And you know, having the Four Hundred at a bonding is the way to go now. I heard Daisy Van Horn and Toby Abeville just got bonded in Bali. It was a 'destination bonding.'" Mimi tittered.

Jack signaled the waiter for another bottle of wine. "You know, most Red Bloods these days wait until their thirties to wed. What's the rush?" he asked, regarding with supreme satisfaction the seventh—or was it eighth?—course: a bowl of chilled pea soup.

"Well, my blood is blue, my friend." Mimi curled her lip. True, the Red Bloods they knew did wait a ridiculously long time for their bondings, but those were mere earthly weddings. Humans broke their vows every day with no consequence. This was a celestial situation. While it was tradition for vampire twins to bond on their twenty-first birthday, Mimi saw no reason to wait until then, and there was nothing in the Code that said they couldn't do it earlier. The sooner they said their vows, the better.

When the oaths were exchanged, their souls would mold to each other. Nothing could come between them. They would become one in this lifetime, as they had in all their others. Once the bond was sealed, it could not be broken for the cycle. Schuyler would become nothing more than a distant memory. Jack would forget whatever feelings he had for her. The bond worked in mysterious and irrevocable ways. Mimi had seen it in lifetimes before—how her twin would pine for Gabrielle (who was now Allegra Van Alen in this cycle) in his youth, but once he said his vows, he would not even remember her name. Azrael would be the only dark star in his universe.

"Shouldn't we graduate from high school first?" Jack asked.

Mimi didn't listen. She was already planning to get fitted for her bonding dress. "Or I don't know, maybe we could elope to Mexico, what do you think?"

Jack smiled, and continued to eat his soup.

Nine

It occurred to Schuyler that the last time she was at the Odeon, she had been with Oliver and Dylan. It was just over a year ago—Dylan had recently transferred to Duchesne, and Oliver's driver had taken them downtown. They had wandered the streets, in and out of shops and bookstores and record stores, poking in apothecary jars and getting their palms read by a gypsy woman on the sidewalk. Then at the end of the day, they'd trooped into the restaurant, into one of the comfortable, cracked-leather red booths and had eaten moules frites while Dylan ordered beers with his fake ID and told them stories about being kicked out of every prep school in the northeast corridor.

Dylan was telling them a new story now, Bliss sitting quietly by his side.

He was telling them about what had happened to him.

Now that he wasn't trying to kill her, Dylan didn't seem so scary, so … crazy and unfocused. Now he just looked too thin, like a cat left out in the rain while its owners were on vacation. His eyes were hooded, and there were black bruises on his cheeks. His skin looked jaundiced and he had cuts—little cuts everywhere on his forearms, as if he'd walked through glass. Maybe he had.

Oliver put an arm around Schuyler. After what just happened, he had gone beyond caring who would see them together. And for once Schuyler agreed. She liked his hand there. Liked feeling protected. Her mind drifted to the empty apartment on Perry Street. But she made herself focus on Dylan.

"I don't remember much, really. I ran away, you know. I went to the old Ward House, on Shelter Island … I took some refuge there. But the beast caught up with me eventually. I don't remember much of what happened, but I managed to get away again, and this time I got some help.

"Venators," he continued in an awed tone. "You know about them, right?"

They nodded. They also knew that one had been sent to Duchesne. Bliss told them about how Kingsley Martin was back. Her father had been at the Conclave meeting that afternoon. But Schuyler didn't pay attention to the news; she wanted to know what had happened to Dylan.

"Anyway, they let me stay with them, they took care of me while I was recuperating. One of the SB's got me pretty bad in the neck. But the Venators said it was all right, that I hadn't been 'corrupted,' you know…'turned' into one of them. Anyway"—he looked at Schuyler warily—"I overheard their conversations…how the Conclave had finally discovered who was the Silver Blood among us, and they said—"

"They said it was me, didn't they?" Schuyler asked, taking a french fry off Oliver's plate.

Dylan didn't deny it. "They said it was you, that you were the one. The night at The Bank. The last thing I remember was hanging out with you, Schuyler, and they said you were the one who'd attacked me."

"Do you believe that?" she asked.

"I don't know what to believe."

"Do you even know who she is?" Oliver demanded. "I mean, I'm glad you're back and all, man, but you're talking smack. Schuyler is… Her mom is…" Oliver was so angry he couldn't finish.

"Do you know the story of Gabrielle?" Schuyler asked.

"A little," Dylan admitted. "Gabrielle, the Uncorrupted, who was bonded to Michael, Pure of Heart. The only vampires who didn't sin against the almighty. In this cycle, Michael's name is Charles Force. So what?"

"Gabrielle is my mother," she told him.

"Show him," Bliss urged.

Schuyler pushed the large man's watch she wore on her right wrist. Pushed it up the same way she'd seen Charles do it the night she had accused him of being the Silver Blood. How funny that now she had to resort to clearing her name in exactly the same way.