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my best behavior the rest of the night. If I don’t have anything nice to say, I won’t say anything at all.”
    “Men,” Bryn said, shaking her head.
    I curled my nose and looked away, sticking the fork in my mouth and gagging. Please, for the love of onlookers and third wheels’ eyes everywhere, please tell me Emma and I didn’t nauseate those around us like these two did.
    “So what were you two talking about down here?” William asked, pulling a fork from the drawer and heading towards me and my pie. I repressed snarling my lip and guarding it from him. “What were you concerned with me knowing?”
    “About the damn reversal topics father’s been discussing with your wife.” The rebirth of the topic resulted in loss of appetite. I shoved the half eaten pie William’s way.
    “They’re just talking about them, Patrick,” William said, in his most appeasing, calming voice. “There’s been no talk of actually carrying out a reversal. It’s all theory and speculation. Nothing more.”
    “Hmmm,” I mused, scratching my head. “I seem to remember the Holocaust starting with talking. You know what else? Those crazy e’ffers that drove the planes through the twin towers didn’t get there without first talking about how they could kill as many innocent Americans as possible. You want to know who else I’d bet my Immortal life started out talking before killing?”
    I didn’t wait for an answer. “Those British bastards that murdered our mom, sister, and Nathanial’s wife, right before they turned their muskets on the five of us.” I fought through the bowling ball sized lump in my throat. “Talk is every beginning, the catalyst to every horror story in mankind’s history. Talk is dangerous.”
    “Talk is dangerous?” William repeated in his ever calm voice. “This coming from someone who never shuts up?” Now he was smirking.
    “ I’m dangerous,” I said.
    Bryn exhaled her agreement.
    “You’re a Hayward. Of course you are,” William said, grinning. “But in case the pessimist in you fails to remember, talk has been the catalyst for good as well. It’s a tool that can be used for evil just as much as it can for good.”
    Of course the good professor could deliver a lecture that could convince the most rigid of the cynics.
    “What matters, what you should concern yourself with, is whose hands the tool is in.”
    I snorted, crossing my arms. “Yeah, Chancellor Hayward. A very responsible and active participant in the last ‘talks’ before the Reversal Project ended the lives of friends we both cared for.”
    His expression didn’t change. Trying to fluster William was as impossible an endeavor as it was trying to keep me calm. “And Bryn,” he said, nodding at the woman who, at one time, we’d both loved. “And me,” he added, staring at me‌—‌making sure I was taking mental notes. “And now you too.”
    I scrubbed my hands over my face. Damn it was infuriating how much sense he made when sense was the last thing I wanted to see. But he was right. I couldn’t decipher father’s intentions‌—‌he was too much a the-needs-of-the-many-outweigh-the-needs-of-the-few brand of soldier‌—‌but I knew the stuff the three of us were made of.
    It was the kind of stuff that believed no one’s life was worth the advancement of our kind. An eternal life lost was not worth uncovering the secrets and possibilities of reversal.
    “Fine, you’ve made your point,” I grumbled, hacking into the pie again as William’s fork zoomed in. “Does it ever get old being right all the time?”
    He took a bite that was all apples and ice cream, smiling through it. “Not really, no.”
    Sighing, I clanged my fork against his when he came in for seconds. “Bugger off. Get your own dessert.”
    Setting his fork down, his eyes trailed across the room, falling on one blushing bride. “I intend to.”
    I cringed, letting it shake my whole body. “I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.” William