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“I was speaking to Keir”

“I didn’t realize you tere friends”

Janvier took her hand, his expression unexpectedly serious “I’, cher, and I want you to listen Don’t dismiss it out of hand Promise me”

A tremor shook her on the inside, incited by the fear that he’d ask her to eer than her dread of endlessforith his forear over the city, he said, “I knohy you don’t want to become a vampire An illness of the mind can last centuries for those of my kind”

Relief rained over her senses “I could live htmare

“There’s Dmitri,” he said in an apparent non sequitur “Do you see hi over her shoulder, she serous vas in Honor’s ear as the two of them swayed to a slow and sensual ballad

“Keir knew him when he first became a vampire,” Janvier said, “and now a thousand years later, he says that while D of his features He hasn’t truly aged”

Ashwini frowned “Vampirism doesn’t stop time”

“No, but it slows it down to an insect’s crawl Every aspect of aging slon—including changes in the brain” His hand squeezed hers “Keir has seen this in the brains of vaile blood vessels, as, both of which are mortal ail near-is, with no strange archangelic powers in the rab on to hope, desperate for a lifetio insane just like reed, his voice fierce, “but not froical, as with Giorgio He isn’t insane, but he would’ve been, given enough ti to do with his brain”

No, Ashwini thought, it had to do with a breakdown in his conscience She had no fear of that happening to her—not with Janvier acting as her balance, and her acting as his “Could Keir give us any kind of a tile human year could equal a thousand years as a vampire A month could mean a hundred years or s “And then?” she whispered “When the time comes? Whether after a hundred years or a thousand?”

“Then we go together” A quiet promise “When you’re ready, I’ll ask Raphael to erase us with angelfire You won’t be trapped in an existence you do not wish”

Ashwini’s heart was in her ave me this chance” Without her sister’s death and her brother’s instructions on the autopsy, she’d never have known the apparent insanity had a physical cause