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bored tone as she began an intricate creasing of a book page. Origami? A form started to emerge.
    “You know I’m only circa A.D.”
    “A.D. 1197?” Nïx murmured with a frown, then her face colored. Her expression turned mulish, and her fingers began flying over the paper, deftly folding. “Not sporting to bring that up. And one more time—I thought he and all of his pack mates were of age!”
    When her fingers stilled, she placed the perfect form on her bedside table. It resembled a dragon poised to attack. “Do I bring up your unpleasantries? Do I call you Mysty the Vampire Layer like the rest of the Lore does? Like the nymphs do?”
    Myst clasped her hands to her chest. “Oh, woe, the nymphs have shunned me. I weep bitter tears.” Her face hardened in an instant. “What information do you need from us to help you see something?”
    With a huffish flip of her heavy braid, Nïx turned from Myst to Nikolai and asked, “Why do you want to find them?” She started another origami without looking, this one requiring four pages from the Crutch book.
    “I want to know if they’re alive or dead. To know if I can help them and bring them back home.”
    “Why did they leave?” The way she studied him was almost invasive. Her fingers were so fast they were nearly invisible, making the paper appear to fold of its own accord.
    He put his shoulders back, hating having to be so open with her. “Sebastian was enraged that I turned him against his will. Both were furious that I tried to turn four young sisters and our elderly father when they were dying.” Myst studied him, nibbling her lip, knowing how reluctant he was to speak of this. “I have no doubts that they went away only to get strong enough to come back and kill me.” Because both had tried just before they left.
    Sebastian had woken with that terrible hunger that Nikolai remembered so well. When they’d placed a tankard of blood in front of Sebastian, he couldn’t drink it fast enough. But once he’d comprehended what he’d done, he’d lunged for Nikolai’s throat…
    Nikolai had waited months at Blachmount for them to return, uncaring if either attempted it once more. Each day they didn’t return made him wonder if they could fend for themselves, gathering blood each night—without drinking humans. Without killing.
    Never lowering her gaze from his face, Nïx finished a twisting shark and placed it by the dragon creature. He found his eyes drawn to the shapes again and again.
    “You knew they would be angry?” Nïx asked.
    After a hesitation, he admitted, “I did. But I turned them anyway.”
    When Myst saw him exhale wearily, she began relaying to Nïx everything he’d told her of his brothers. Granted a reprieve, Nikolai yet again justified his decision to himself. That night, seeing Sebastian about to die had made Nikolai realize how much Sebastian especially had missed out on. All he’d wanted was a family and a place to live in peace. Sebastian had never had a chance to find either—he hadn’t yet lived—and Nikolai couldn’t accept that.
    As a lad, Sebastian had shot to his full height of six and a half feet early, without the weight and muscle that would come a year or two later. Though he’d been rangy and awkward, Sebastian had almost fared better before his body had caught up with his height.
    After that, he hadn’t known what to do with his size, with his incredible strength that grew every day. He’d accidentally blackened more than one girl’s eye with his elbow and actually had broken one’s nose that way. He’d stepped on so many toes that the village girls joked that they wouldn’t walk near him without “clogs and fortitude.”
    But the worst occurred when he and Murdoch had been running in the village, most likely doing some mischief of Murdoch’s, and Sebastian had collided with a woman and her young daughter. He’d laid both of them flat, knocking the air from their lungs. A disturbing experience in itself, but