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Alicia shrugged "Depends on your definition If you , I’d have to say no He’s pretty well versed on the subject, actually Which is the strangest thing about hiet Your ordinary drac doesn’t care one way or another--it’s just an eatingMaybe Michael could keep up with hied by a horse"

"So why test her? What was he trying to find out?"

Alicia glanced away, then said, "I think he wanted to know if she really was different from the rest of them I don’t think he wants to kill her That’d be too obvious If I had to guess, I’d say it all couy Really hated And not just because of what Lear did to hioes deeper than that Learjust can’t sit with that Like I said, heat the clock as if time stopped for him when Liz didn’t show"

Peter waited for ht you called hih there are a few differences He’s sensitive to light, much more than I am He never sleeps, or almost never Likes his dinner warer to indicate her incisors--"he’s got these"

Peter frowned "Fangs?"

She nodded "Just these two"

"Was he always that way?"

"Actually, no At the start, he was exactly like the rest of the happened, an accident He fell into a flooded quarry This was early on, just a few days after he broke out of the NOAH lab None of us can swiht to the botto like he does now" She paused, eyes narrowing on his face, as if struck by a sudden thought "Is that what happened to A to tell e back his Many?"

"Fanning says no, just hihtheadedness passed through him: he really needed to lie down, even for just a few minutes But it seemed important not to show her how exhausted he was--an old habit, froether, each always trying to best the other I can do this, can you?

"Sorry about those chains"

Alicia lifted her wrists, exa them with a neutral expression--as if they were not her hands but soain "Forget it It’s not like I’? Food, water?"

"My diet is a little peculiar these days"

Peter understood "I’ll see what I can do"

A silentthe aardness of the situation

"I know you don’t want to believeyou the truth"

Peter said nothing

"We were friends, Peter All those years, you were the one person I could always rely on We stood for each other"

"Yes, we did"

"Just tell "

As he looked at her, his oodbye to each other at the Colorado garrison, so ht before he had ridden up theoutside the soldiers’ barracks, the cold wind lancing through them, he had loved Alicia fiercely, as he had never loved anyone in his life--not his parents or Auntie or even his brother Theo: no one It was not the love of aleaner, pared to its essence: a binding, subatoer recall what they’d said to one another; only the impression remained, like footprints in snow It was one of those moments when it had still see one--he had been young enough to still believe that such a thing was possible--and the recollection carried a striking vividness of emotion, as if three decades had not passed since that cold and distant hour in which he had stood in the sheltering light of Alicia’s courage But then he blinked the memory away, his reat weight of sadness at the center of his chest Two hundred thousand souls gone, and Alicia at the center of it all