I looked at Jean-Claude, who was standing close to us. He was still giving a polite blank face, which meant he was hiding his feelings and thoughts as hard as he could. I looked at him. “You agreed with me, Jean-Claude, that the fact that the Mother of All Darkness mind-fucked Sin and me that first time together was what made me not be in love with him.”

   “Of course that impacted how you would think of him, ma petite. How could it not?”

   “Yes, but is your putting him in the ‘son I never had’ box making it worse?”

   “I do not know, and that is the truth.”

   “Then why are you hiding what you’re feeling so hard right now?”

   “Because it had not occurred to me that my effort to treat Cynric as a good legal guardian should have stopped your ability to love him as you might have.”

   “You feel stupid for having missed the possibility,” Nicky said.

   “I would not have put it that way, Nicky, but yes.”

   “So am I right?” Sin asked.

   “I cannot tell you that you are wrong,” Jean-Claude said.

   “See?” Nicky said. “You’re right and you’re wrong.”

   “It’s like Schrödinger’s cat,” I said, “alive and dead at the same time until someone opens the box.”

   “And what determines if the cat is alive or dead?” Sin asked.

   “Leave the metaphors behind, neveu. It is my attitude that may have killed the cat.”

   “For it to affect Anita this much, you must have been fighting pretty hard to keep Sin in the ‘young nephew’ box,” Nicky said.

   “I am his legal guardian. Bibiana and Max trusted me with Cynric’s well-being. I have tried to do what is right by him.”

   “You’ve been wonderful, Jean-Claude,” Sin said, moving toward the three of us.

   “I have done my best.”

   “No one could have done better,” Cynric said.

   “Agreed,” I said.

   “Agreed,” Nicky said.

   “But did my efforts cost Cynric Anita’s love?”

   “Let us worry about that,” I said.

   “No, Anita. Jean-Claude needs to help us see if this is really the problem,” Sin said.

   “How?” I asked.

   “How can I remedy this harm I may have caused?”

   “I’m right about saving Nicky as food for the trip.”

   “The reasoning is sound,” Jean-Claude said.

   “Feed on me tonight. If your putting me in the ‘nephew’ box is really hurting Anita’s ability to love me, then it should help change that. If it doesn’t change anything, then that’s not it.”

   “It is a dangerous experiment, nephew.”

   “If it doesn’t change her feelings toward me, then you don’t have to take blood from me again.”

   “It may not be that simple, Cynric,” Jean-Claude said.

   “You’ve called me Cynric at least three times. You never forget that I prefer to be called Sin.”

   “Perhaps I am trying to distance myself even more? Sin is a rather provocative word to use as a name.”

   Sin frowned. “Have I missed something here?”

   “What do you mean?” Jean-Claude asked.

   Nicky shook my hand in his. “I think I got this one.”

   I glanced up at him, because I was still a step behind.

   “Sin was only seventeen when he came to live here. He’s grown over half a foot taller, hit the gym, and started filling out all that height.”

   “What’s your point?” I asked.

   “He’s not just handsome. He’s borderline pretty, a beautiful man who is over six feet tall, and athletic.”

   I wasn’t following for a second, and then I caught up all at once. “Oh . . . crap,” I said.

   “Exactly.”

   “I’m still lost,” Sin said.

   “Jean-Claude only started calling you his nephew in the last year or so, right?” Nicky said.

   “I guess so.”

   “Until about a year ago you hadn’t gotten that secondary muscle development or filled out your face and the rest of you.”

   Sin blinked and then the light dawned all across his face. He looked surprised, then went pale, and then he blushed. He got control of himself and finally was able to look at Jean-Claude, who was wearing as careful an expression as I’d ever seen on him. “You’ve been so good, honorable, and I come in here and step all over it. God, Jean-Claude, I’m sorry for that.”

   “And if my efforts to be honorable have kept Anita from giving you her heart, then I am sorry for that.”

   “Now that we’re all sorry, do I stay, or do I go?” Nicky asked.

   I kept holding his hand, but I narrowed my eyes at him.

   “Don’t give me the look, Anita. You need to feed before you get on the plane and we are running out of time.” He squeezed my hand to take some of the seriousness out of his words.

   “Practical and correct, as usual, Nicky,” Jean-Claude said, “and I may have a compromise.”

   “What kind of compromise?” Sin asked, and sounded positively suspicious. It sounded like my tone of voice. Had he learned it from me, or had he inherited it through the metaphysics between us? We’d never really know, but it made me wonder what else he might have picked up from me, or me from him. Maybe I’d finally be able to throw a decent spiral football since Sin was Mr. Quarterback.

   “I would like you to see me take blood from Nicky, before I do so from you, Sin.”

   “Sometimes it’s good to see what you’re asking for beforehand,” Nicky said.

   “Are you saying that it weirds you out to donate blood?” Sin asked.

   “If I didn’t have qualms about it, I’d have done it sooner.”

   Qualms so didn’t sound like a word that Nicky would have chosen to use when he first came to us. I guess we were all learning from each other.

   “So you take blood from Nicky, and then what?” Sin asked; those big dark blue eyes were narrowed and again it was my expression on his face.

   “If ma petite approves, then she will feed the ardeur from you, and we will share her as you have with the other men.” Jean-Claude met that suspicious expression with one that was elegant, calm, and as unreadable as the dark side of the moon.