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"Thanks for co so quickly"

Delk hadn&039;t taken off his coat, and had tracked roan) to the kitchen His full name was Jonathon Michael Delk, but tooall tough guy now and insisting on the moniker Delk I couldn&039;t blame him: I had a silly first name, too

"She said you were in trouble," J-er, Delk was saying "But it sounds like that was just another vaet me to-"

"I said the Queen needed you," Tina corrected him with more than a little sharpness Tina didn&039;t care for Delk, given his va past No doubt the car ride up from the farht it was perfectly fine to leave Jon out of it But I just couldn&039;t do it He had written the book It was being published How could I keep oing on?" He shook the catalog at ether; they were red with cold "One minute I&039;m home, the next I&039; to warht was subtle I was feeling sicker and sicker by the moment, and it wasn&039;t all the failed rainbows Delk had a bit of a crush onup to the Cities because he thought I was in trouble-well, that was just too dao when he heard about ist of our conversation:

DELK: You can&039;t marry Eric Sinclair

ME: Just watch

DELK: He&039;s a bad man

ME: You don&039;t know fro a mistake

ME: Shut your head

Not exactly Tristan and Isolde, but it passed the time around here

Then, inexplicably (except I was pretty sure I knehy) he hung around theme for a class project Eventually produced a book But then Sinclair-

"Tina, would you leave us alone for ais available," she said, backing out of the kitchen, looking at Delk the way a cat looked at a really big rat I can take you I ht

We were alone Except for Marc and Jessica, sha outside the kitchen door I couldn&039;t do anything about that, so I addressed the proble out this fall as a paperback everyone thinks is funny fiction"

"You&039;re saying so there, so earnest and flushed and blond and young, I almost couldn&039;t bear it He was a nice kid I liked hi between us, and not just because of Sinclair, but I still liked him and sure didn&039;t want to upset him

I could almost hear Sinclair inyou wrote this book, this Undead and Unwed Someone-probably you-turned it in to a publisher, and now it&039;s going to be on bookshelves this fall"

"But-I mean, I did a paper for class before holiday break-"

"You turned the paper into a book You followedyour own spin on it You had, like, three hundred pages"

He was blinking so fast, for a second I thought he had so in both eyes "But I don&039;t reht?"

"Yeah, noret you&039;d written it And since you didn&039;t re it, you didn&039;t think to warn us that you&039;d sent it in to get published"

" Warn you? I-" He walked dazedly back and forth by the table for aHe looked like he didn&039;t knohat to do with his hands "Sinclair et?"

"Well" Tell the truth and sha went? Sure, we could be done now, but I didn&039;t want any part of this conversation left undead Whoops-Freudian slip Unsaid Another surprise down the road I didn&039;t need "Tina found the electronic version of yourlike it-and told Sinclair Heall about it, and then they deleted your work They thought all of your work"

"Did you call me down here," he whispered, "because you just found out and you want my help to stop them?"

"Ah, no See, after they did all that, they told me This was around Christ, if you get what I mean But then I remembered"

"What?"

"I remembered I&039;m the queen and I&039;m responsible for all the vampires," I said simply "So I let it all stand It was shitty for you, but I thought if the book got out that would be shitty for all va the back of one of the kitchen chairs and I saw all the knuckles had gone from pink to dead white All the color had fallen out of his face, except for two patches of red way up on each cheek