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"So use the best of both, Mal The man you could have been and the vampire you are, and help her Just because you can’t remember what your mother looked like doesn’t mean you don’t have her heart, the power to love another the way she did"

Mal pressed his lips together "Get out now, Kohana I mean it"

The man nodded "You knohere I’ll be"

When he stuht a fewup the phone, he braced hih the necessary operators to connect to the nuht in Australia, but he couldn’t put it off any longer After Dev received the call, Mal was glad he didn’t have to do more than say, "I need to talk to Danny" Apparently, Dev heard it in his voice He went to wake his Mistress immediately

As expected, Danny didn’t waste time on preliminaries "Tell me"

He relayed all the facts to her How the other four fledglings were doing, Jeremiah’s decision, how he’d chosen to execute it, how Elisa had helped him Then he found he didn’t knohat else to say

"Bloody hell I never thought to have Janus give me when they turned the three boys We just knew Ruskin’s four s are horribly unstable Only in Oz would Council have ignored violations of thatIt’s like we’re not on the bloody same planet with those European bastards"

"It wouldn’t have changed anything," Mal said quietly "Don’t worry about that I didn’t think about it, for the same reason We’d already assumed he was a few years older We just didn’t kno hted with tension, concern

"It’s like she’s fallen doell And she has no desire to come out of it"

The oath on the other side echoed his own senti class all her life They don’t have the luxury to entertain depression, let alone have it If she’s doing that, then she’s gone far beyond where she should go"

"I know that" He set his jaw "But she’s stilldusting Cleaning every da clothes I tried to stop her Kohana tried to stop her But we have nothing else to offer her"

"Really" The one as heavy with speculation "Do you want to send her home to us? Do you think that will help?"

"What do you think will help? That’s why I’a her home, to watch over her" Danny paused "But can I do that better than her Master?"

He sat on his desk, heedless of the paperwork that crumpled beneath hie to splinter the receiver "Danny, would you please stop being a goddah," she responded in that cool tone of hers "A servant isn’t about having soive you physical release when you need it, though all that co that keeps us connected to the pulse of our soul, Malachi, whatever that is"

"You held off getting a servant twice as long as I have, way longer thanan emotionally constipated male and admit that if I told you to put her on the next plane, you’d tell er off in twelve different ways?"

He re him to be ruthless with her, to be the Master she needed him to be He closed his eyes