Chapter 35: Lions and Blackmail

I was dozing in my room, the door cracked open a little, when my cell phone rang in the living room. I struggled to sit up – a bit of a challenge with my huge belly. I was eight months along now, and felt as big as a house. As I got out of bed and began rushing down the hall, I heard a solemn little voice say from the living room, "Hello? … No, this is Violet. ... Oh, hi." There was a pause, and then the little voice went on, "You sound very grown-up, too."

By then I had reached the living room and I smiled at Violet, who said, "Yes, she's here now. Bye, Aunt Zoe. … What? Oh, yes, I love you, too. Bye." Violet handed the phone over to me, saying, "It's Aunt Zoe, Mom," then ran back down the hall to Amy's room.

"Hi, Zoe," I said into the phone, settling down onto the couch. "How are you doing, getting re-acclimatized to life in Utah?"

I wasn't prepared for her response, which was to say "Shut up, Sydney," in a tone so cold it made the hair on my arms stand on end.

"Are you angry at me?" I asked. Inside me, the baby kicked, twice, really hard. I got the feeling the baby wasn't any happier about this situation than I was.

"I figured out what you did," Zoe said. "Well, what you did, and what Carly helped you do. God, Sydney, did you lose your mind?"

"I feel pretty sane, actually," I said. "What, precisely, are you talking about?" I balled my free hand into a fist, feeling anxious. Zoe had come home from her alchemist assignment last week, a few weeks ahead of schedule. Once Carly had access to Zoe's laptop again, Adrian and I had finally filed our marriage paperwork, making our union officially sanctioned, from a legal standpoint anyway. The alchemist system updated at midnight Eastern time, and Carly had casually accessed Zoe's laptop at just after 10 pm Utah time and deleted the reference to the marriage from the queue. The moment Carly deleted the reference, she texted me to say that all was well, but I knew that there was a chance that it wasn't all over yet. This phone call was exactly what I had been afraid of.

"Don't play dumb," Zoe said, in a low hiss. "You know what you did. It's disgusting. How could you betray humanity in this way? Not to mention your family!"

"Zoe," I said, softly, giving up on plausible deniability. "Please, try to understand."

"What's to understand? I mean, I knew you had 'a thing' for Adrian back in Palm Spring. That was obvious after everything that happened. But I thought you'd grown out of it. And now you go back to him? Did you even think about what this would do to Amy and Violet?"

"Amy and Violet are fine," I said. "Great, in fact. Happier than they ever were when I was married to Rick."

There was a short pause, and then Zoe said, with apparent effort, "Well, yeah, Rick is a … you know. It rhymes with 'Rick'. We all thought so."

"Then why were you all so happy when I married him?"

"Because he was normal," Zoe said. "Normal. From a good family. Not, you know, evil."

I sighed. "Depends on how you define the word," I said.

"I'm not going to argue this with you, Sydney," Zoe said. "You know right from wrong, and you chose wrong. By all rights I should take this to my superiors and see what they have to say about it."

"But...?" I prompted, crossing my fingers.

"But it would break Dad's heart," Zoe said. "And he isn't doing well these days. Not that you'd know or care. But those of us who actually spend time with him know how down he is. So I'm going to make you a deal."

"Okay..." I said, slowly. "What deal?"

"You come out here for Thanksgiving," Zoe said. "I know Dad's invited you like, twenty times. He's even offered to buy your plane tickets so I don't know what the hold up is."

I looked down at my belly. As if on cue, the baby kicked, pretty hard, too. I was due the last week of November, just a week after Thanksgiving. "Well, I would visit, Zoe, but that's really not a good time for me to be traveling," I said. "I mean, the girls are just getting used to the new apartment..."

"Oh, that's BS and you know it," Zoe said. "You're coming. You're bringing Amy and Violet, and leaving Adrian behind."

"Zoe, I –"

"Listen, Sydney. It's time for you to start being part of this family again, ok? I want you to visit Dad at least once a year. And just so you know, I'm going to keep watch over Amy and Violet to make sure that Adrian's not having a bad influence on them."

"He wouldn't –"

Zoe barreled along, not letting me speak. "So you're visiting more often, that's part one of the deal."

"How many parts are there?"

"Two," Zoe said. "The other part is you have to promise me not to have any kids with Adrian. It's bad enough that you're married to him, but no way am I going to condone you having... dhampirs." She said the word as if it were a disgusting medical condition.

"Zoe," I said, then stopped. I didn't know what else to say. She sounded so disgusted that I had to assume she wouldn't change her stance if she knew I was already pregnant. I would have to at least give her some time to get used to the idea of me being married to Adrian before I told her about the baby. And it might never be the right time to tell her the truth about Amy. I sighed. "Fine," I said, not knowing what else to say. "I guess that's a deal."

"Good," Zoe said, with satisfaction. "So you'll be here for Thanksgiving?"

"Are you sure that it couldn't just wait until Christmas?" I asked, trying one more time. "Come on, it's only one more month away and it would be a great time to visit..."

"No," she said. "It has to be Thanksgiving. Dad's gotten really sentimental about it ever since Mom died. You know how she used to be about Thanksgiving."

I paused, remembering the turkey shaped cake pans, the harvest themed wall hangings, and the heart-felt grace she'd always said before our family meal. Thanksgiving had always meant so much to her, maybe because it was the one holiday that the church didn't seem to decry in any way. "I remember," I said, feeling a lump come up in my throat.

"Could have fooled me," she said flatly. "Anyway, Dad's all into it. He goes the whole nine, gets out the turkey salt and pepper shakers and everything."

"It sounds great, Zoe, it's just that Thanksgiving is so tough..."

"I told you, Syd, I'm not going to debate this. So, what's it going to be? Do you think you can be part of this family, keep up some sort of vague veneer of normalcy for Dad's sake? Or am I going to give up on you and take it up with my superiors?"

"I'll be there," I said, softly.

"With the girls?"

"Yes," I said.

"And you're leaving him at home?"

"Well, I'm hardly bringing him to dinner, Zoe," I said.

She laughed a little, apparently cheerful now that she was getting her way. "Exactly," she said. "Ok. Just email me your flight info and I can pick you up at the airport."

"I'll probably just rent a car when I get out there," I said. "You don't need to pick us up."

"Ok," she said. "Good idea. And remember, if you go back on the deal, so do I. Clear?"

"Clear," I said.

"Bye," she said, and just like that, she hung up.

I put the phone down and spent a few moments trying to get my bearings. It seemed like a losing battle, though, and pretty soon I found myself following the sound of voices down the hall to Amy's room. I nudged aside the partially open door and peaked inside.

"Hey," I said, looking around. Clothes were scattered everywhere, and Adrian was sitting with his back to the door. "How's it going –"

"Roar!" A three foot tall lion lunged at me from the corner, little paws held up aggressively. I let out a surprised shriek and Violet laughed.

"I'm not a lion, Mom," she said. "It's just me." She had put on her lion costume since I'd seen her just a few minutes ago, and Adrian had applied face paint to create the illusion of whiskers, a triangular nose, and other feline features.

"Oh, thank goodness it's you, Violet," I said. "I don't know what I'd do if there was a real lion in my house."

"Probably you'd do one of your cool tricks," she said, as I settled down on a chair. "Does my makeup look good? Do I look like a nice lion?"

"You look like a very nice lion," I said. "Adrian did a good job." Adrian looked over at me and smiled. I could see that Ronnie, Amy's friend, was sitting facing him, though she'd been hidden by him right when I came in. I looked around and saw Amy too, sitting in her pillow pit.

"I didn't want to look too mean," Violet went on, a little worried. "I might scare some of the littler kids if I do." Amy, Violet, and Ronnie were all getting ready for a Halloween party at a classmate's house. Halloween wasn't for another day or two, but it was Saturday night, a good night for a get together. I had a feeling this would be the kind of party where the kids would put their hands into bowls of peeled grapes and be told that they were touching eyeballs. Personally, I didn't think I'd like parties like that, but then again, I'd never really gone to any.

"You look perfect, Violet," I said, and she beamed. "You look like a very nice lion."

She let out another roar, and I had to repress the impulse to tell her to quiet down. Rick wasn't here to spoil our fun. In fact, except for a few quick phone calls to deal with the money and other legal issues, I hadn't heard from him since the night the girls and I had left North Carolina. Rick had come through with the two million dollars – he could hardly refuse, considering who he was up against – and most of it was already invested for the girls' future needs. I looked down at Violet, who was leaping around the room and roaring. I said, "That's some good roaring, Violet."

"Yes, you're turning out to be an awesome lion, Miss Purple," Adrian agreed. As I watched, he traced the outline of a butterfly wing on Ronnie's left cheek, a lovely pastel design to go along with Ronnie's fairy princess outfit.

"What do you think of my costume, Mrs. Sage-Ivashkov?" Ronnie asked.

"You look great, Ronnie," I said. The little girl was dressed in a pink sparkly dress covered in layers of tulle, and she had a tiara on, though it was a little crooked. Her wings were lying on the floor in the corner of the room.

"What about me, Mom?" Amy asked, standing up. She had on the stylized tuxedo and top-hat of a lion tamer, and I thought she looked adorable. "I don't like face paint, so I didn't get any. It think it's yucky."

"I'm the same way," I said. "And I think you look great."

"I like face paint," Ronnie breathed. "Are you doing the butterfly, Mr. Ivashkov?"

"I am," Adrian said, slowly, as he drew the other butterfly wing on, then began shading in the design faintly, in pink.

"It looks very pretty," Violet said, sitting down next to Ronnie. "Do fairies like lions?"

"Sure," Ronnie said, and Violet looked relieved. "At least, I think they do. Fairies like animals, I think, so I bet they'd like lions."

"Lion tamers definitely like lions," Amy said, advancing on Violet. "Come here, lion!"

"Rarh, no!" Violet said, jumping to her feet. "I'm not a tame lion! Raarrrrr!"

As Amy and Violet giggled and began chasing each other around the room, Adrian asked me, softly, "Was that Zoe on the phone just now?"

"Yes," I said.

"Is it... bad?"

"Yes," I said.

Adrian shook his head, then shot me a concerned look before continuing with Ronnie's face paint. "Well, you can tell me later, I guess," he said, clearly not wanting to talk about this in front of the girls, and I nodded.

My daughters continued to play their little game as Adrian finished painting Ronnie's face. I watched him working, and I found myself thinking, once again, how lucky I was to be married to someone like him – someone so patient, so creative, so fun. We'd been married now for four months, and not once had I ever had reason to regret my decision. Sure, we'd had a few spats. A few times we'd argued over dumb things, and once we actually didn't speak for a whole day. But after every little fight we'd ultimately apologized and forgiven each other. All in all, I was feeling closer to him now than I had when we'd gotten married, and I was pretty sure that we'd keep getting closer and closer as the years went on. "It's looking wonderful, Adrian," I said, settling down on the bed near Ronnie.

"Thanks, sweetheart," he said. "I figured little girl's faces would be a lot like paint canvas. I hope it's ok that I'm using tempura paint. The label doesn't say it's toxic, so..."

Ronnie, not understanding that he was joking, grew pretty anxious looking.

"He's kidding," I said, patting her hand. "That's special paint just for faces."

Adrian, noticing her discomfort, tapped her nose with his finger. "I was just joking, Ronnie," he said.

She relaxed visibly. "Ok, thanks, Mr. Ivashkov."

"I told you that you could call me Adrian," he said.

Her eyes widened and she shook her head faintly. Adrian shrugged and went back to his design. He had sketched a large stylized butterfly over her entire face so that the "body" went down over her nose and one wing covered each cheek. It looked elegant somehow, the way he'd done it. When he was done, Amy helped Ronnie into her wings, and I fixed her tiara a little.

I was just sticking in the last bobby-pin when the doorbell rang. Violet raced to get it, roaring her way down the hallway. I heard her open the door with another roar, and then heard Tina, Ronnie's mother, laughing and asking if Amy and Ronnie were ready to go. Amy replaced her top-hat, Adrian wiped the last of the paint off of his hands, and we all went out to greet Tina.

"Hi, everyone," Tina said. "Oh, wow, Ronnie, your face looks great! Adrian, did you do that?"

"I did," he said. "Don't ever wash it off, Ronnie. It's an Adrian Ivashkov original."

Ronnie regarded him with big eyes and nodded.

"He's just joking, honey," Tina said, patting her daughter's shoulder. "Well, are you girls ready to go?"

"Yes," Amy and Ronnie said, while Violet let out another roar.

"What time should I pick them up?" I asked.

"I think the party's over at about 7:30," Tina said. "Thanks again for suggesting the car pool idea – saves us each a trip."

"Oh, no problem," I said. "Works out better for both of us."

"Mo-om," Ronnie whined. "Come on!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Tina said, good-naturedly. "Come on, Lion Tamer. Come on, Lion."

Violet roared again, and the three girls followed Tina out of the door as we all said goodbye.

I closed the door behind them and turned around to see Adrian smiling, shaking his head as if in disbelief. "Can you get over Miss Purple?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"When I met her, she rarely spoke above a whisper," he said. "Look at her now!"

I thought about it. The change in my younger daughter had been so subtle and gradual that I had hardly noticed it. But over the last eight months, Violet seemed to have grown in so many ways. "You're right," I said. "I can't imagine Violet roaring at people a year ago. Not that she does a lot of roaring these days, but... you know."

"Yeah," Adrian said. "I wonder if it's the karate that's doing it? They say it's supposed to make kids more confident."

"It could be the karate," I said. "But it probably has more to do with the fact that she's living in a house where she can be whatever she wants to be." I had meant that in the sense of choosing a Halloween costume, but the moments the words escaped my lips I realized that the comment could apply in other ways, too.

"As opposed to last year," Adrian said, clearly thinking about Halloween. "Although you did sort of work that out. Do you have pictures of their costumes from last year?" He put an arm around me and guided me towards the couch to sit down. "I remember that Violet was the president, and Amy was her Secret Service agent, but I never saw any pictures."

I smiled. "I think I have a few," I said, settling down on the cushions. "Do you know, you saved last Halloween for us with your suggestion?"

"I didn't do anything," Adrian said. "I just helped you talk it out."

"Maybe," I said. I leaned my head on his shoulder, trying not to be obvious about the fact that I was taking a sniff of him. I loved his scent. Even during my first trimester when nearly everything had either made me nauseated or given me a headache, the scent of his cologne on his skin seemed to soothe me.

"How are you feeling?" he asked now, running an affectionate hand over my belly. "Is the baby kicking a lot?"

"He or she likes to kick," I said. "Just like Violet." I laughed. "She never really grew out of that, come to think of it."

Adrian smiled, remembering the few times over the past several months when Violet had come to our bed in the night, wanting comfort after a nightmare. Each time, she'd almost kicked us out of bed in her sleep. "I guess it's not just a dhampir thing," he said.

As if on cue, the baby kicked again. I winced a little, and Adrian sighed in amazement. "I felt it that time," he said. He'd felt it a few times, but every time he was almost awe-struck. "This baby's got strong legs!"

"I guess it's a Sage thing," I said, and Adrian smiled, his gaze going down to my legs. The apartment was warm, and I was wearing a pair of running shorts that was loose enough to fit over my belly, along with an old sweatshirt of Adrian's that was so big it hung to one side, leaving one of my shoulders bare.

"And speaking of Sage things," Adrian said. "Want to tell me what Zoe said on the phone before that upset you so much?"

I paused. It was so awful that my brain had been actively trying not to think about it. I wanted to keep talking about the girls, and the baby, and other things like that. But now wasn't the time. "It's bad," I said, flatly. "Zoe knows about our marriage."

"And?"

"And she disapproves. To put it mildly."

Adrian patted his lap, and I angled my body so that my legs rested perpendicular to his, my bare legs resting over his denim-covered ones. "What is she going to do with the information?" Adrian asked.

"She's blackmailing me," I said.

"Blackmailing you?" Adrian repeated, surprised.

I told him what Zoe had said, and as he listened, he began to massage my sore feet. When I was done with my recital, he was quiet for a minute, then said, "So, what are you thinking?"

"I don't know," I said. "The only thing I can think of to do is play along. Then, the night before we're supposed to go, we fake some sort of illness or injury that would make it impossible."

Adrian considered that. "Do you think she'd buy it?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," I said. "She might. But she knows I don't want to go and there's a good chance she'd think it was suspicious."

"And if she thought it was suspicious, would she rat you out?"

"Maybe," I said, softly.

"Man," Adrian said, his fingers gently digging into the balls of my feet. "I don't get it. When I knew her back in Palm Springs, Zoe was a spoilsport and kinda immature, sure. But not spiteful. I don't understand why she'd be doing this."

"She's hardened over the years," I said. "Everything that happened back in Palm Springs seemed to have had the opposite effect on her than it did on me. I grew more comfortable with all of you. As the years went by, she seemed to regret any bits of friendship she forged back there and just... went way the other way."

"It's too bad," Adrian said. "I'd expect better from Sage women, you know? Carly is ok. Actually, I like her a lot. She was a lot of fun at the wedding, and she's really sweet to the girls, even knowing that Amy's a dhampir."

"She did freak out at first," I pointed out. "But yeah, she got over it pretty fast."

"And your mom," Adrian went on. "From what you told me, she was pretty cool, too."

"She was a coward when it came to certain things," I said, without malice. It was just true. She could have stood up to my father a million times, but she never did.

"I guess we all are, sometimes," Adrian said, as his hands moved up on my leg to massage my ankles.

"Yeah," I said. "Out of necessity. Case in point: right now on the phone. I didn't stand up to Zoe because I was too scared of what she'd do."

"So let's look at the situation," Adrian said. "You can't go out there because they'll see how pregnant you are. You can't not go out there because Zoe will freak out if you don't."

"Maybe..." I said, thinking out loud. "Maybe I could go with the girls, and then claim that I'm sick once I get there. Carly can come pick up the girls and bring them over to Dad's house, but I can stay back at the hotel."

"Do you really think Zoe and your dad would just let you hide in the hotel room for the whole two days of the visit?" Adrian asked.

"Probably not," I said. I sighed. "There's just no way I can disguise the fact that I'm pregnant, though..."

Adrian perked up at the mention of the word 'disguise.' "Maybe you can," he said, thoughtfully.

"How?" I asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Remember that trick that Lissa and I used a few times, the disguise rings? The rings charged with compulsion to make people see things not quite as they are?"

"Yes, but that couldn't possibly work here, could it?"

"Why not?" Adrian said, with a slow smile. "We once used rings to make a dhampir and a Moroi look human... Why not make a pregnant woman look... you know... like, un-pregnant?"

I paused to consider that. "Do you think it would work?"

Adrian nodded thoughtfully, his hands kneading my calves gently. "I can do it," he said. "For sure. I mean, if people hug you, they'll notice, most likely, but I guess you can kind of lean your body back. Maybe I can put in a compulsion to ignore what they feel when they touch you."

"Then all we'd have to do is teach the girls not to talk about you, or the baby," I said, thinking out loud. I hated the idea of teaching the girls to lie, but what else could I do?

"And, of course, get you out there and back safely," Adrian said. "Is it safe to fly that late into a pregnancy?"

"Yes, though some individual carriers might refuse me," I said. "It's not ideal, but it's safe enough..."

"A private jet would be more comfortable, if a little slower," Adrian said, softly massaging the backs of my knees.

"I guess so," I said. I didn't like to waste that much money, but I knew that it would be tough to fly in a commercial airplane one week away from my due date.

"Then that's what we'll do," Adrian said, in a confident tone. It was as if we were deciding who was going to pick the girls up from a playdate or something. "Easy enough. We'll fly out all together on Wednesday night. You'll wear the disguise ring to Thanksgiving dinner, put in an appearance, let everyone see you and the girls. Then you three can come back to the hotel and we can all leave in the morning on Friday. You only have to deal with your sister and father for five, maybe six hours, then you can come right back. That'll satisfy Zoe, right? She didn't say you had to stay overnight, did she?"

"No," I said, thinking about it. "Do you really think this will work?"

"Only time will tell," Adrian said, with a casual shrug. I knew by now that he wasn't quite as casual as he seemed. He just wasn't the type to want to fret about something over which he had no control. "I think it'll be fine," he added. "Hey, when do we have to go pick the girls up from the party?"

"In about two hours," I said.

"Hmm," Adrian said, as he began massaging my thighs.

"My thighs aren't sore," I said.

"Not yet," he said, and grinned.

Later on, when we were done, Adrian went down to the pool for a swim, and I read for a bit before it was time to go pick up the girls from the party. When they climbed into the car, they were all smiles, so full of sugar that without their seat-belts they might have bounced right up through the roof. I drove us home, then we dropped Ronnie off at her apartment and went back home.

Adrian was waiting for us, and gave each of us a bear hug as if he hadn't seen us in weeks. The girls regaled us with stories of the party. At one point, Violet started to tell us a story that made her giggle so much she had to stop talking. Amy chimed in, trying to help, but she soon collapsed in a pile of giggles as well. Finally, we got the story out of them – one of the other kids at the party had been dressed as a vampire, and apparently had been telling everyone at the party all sorts of "facts" about vampires.

"Like... like... they hate garlic..." Violet gasped, between laughs.

"And... they sleep in coffins..." Amy said.

Adrian and I ended up joining in with the laughter, and we joked around for a little while before Violet slipped away down the hall to her room. She usually needed some alone time after a big social event like this and I didn't give her any hassle about it. Amy was still full of stories, and she told Adrian and me every detail of the bowl full of eyeballs and the bowl of worms. Then she and Adrian played a game on the Holo-Wii while I sat with them reading the paper.

By the time they were done, it was almost time for bed, so I helped Violet clean the paint off of her face, then sat reading with her for a little while. We were reading Danny The Champion of the World, an underrated classic by Roald Dahl. When we finished the chapter, Violet took my hand and squeezed it.

"Mom," she asked. "Can I wear my lion costume to school on Tuesday? That's real Halloween."

"If your school says it's ok," I said. "It's a good costume."

"It's my favorite costume," she said, and then her eyes swept over to the wooden box in the corner. Her birthday present from my father, the one that had taken so long to reach us and had been the subject of so much discussion, had turned out to be a box of dress up clothes. I had thought Violet would be too old for stuff like that, but they were really good quality outfits, made from actual cloth, with real embroidered accents, making them quite different from the cheap, tacky plastic that most dress-up clothes were made of. Violet liked to sit in her room, reading, while dressed as a princess, a doctor, or a superhero, often matching the outfit to the theme of the book. Now she looked a little guilty, as if she were being disloyal to prefer the lion costume to the others, and she said, "I still like the ones Grampa got me."

"I know you do, Violet," I said, and kissed her on the forehead. "He would be glad that you have another costume you like. I liked your lion costume a lot."

"I think I'll be a lion again next year," she said, and then her expression darkened. "Will we still be here with Adrian-Daddy next year?" She reached out to grip my hand tightly.

"We'll still be with him," I said. "Things will be almost the same, except you'll have a little brother or sister."

"Promise?" she asked, looking at me closely.

"I can't promise," I said. "Sometimes things happen that we can't predict. But I will do everything I can to make sure we stay together, the four of us – well, the five of us."

Violet considered that for a moment, then nodded and let go of my hand. "Ok," she said, and snuggled back down into her covers. "Maybe, next year, we can dress the baby up as a lion cub," she suggested, and yawned. "They make costumes for babies, don't they?"

"They do," I said.

There was a knock on the door, and then Adrian stepped into the room. "Are you two done reading?" he asked.

"For tonight," I said.

"For a week," Adrian said, triumphantly. "It's my turn starting tomorrow." Now that Amy had outgrown being read to, Adrian and I had to fight over the chance to read to Violet, and both of us hoped she'd take her time outgrowing the nightly ritual.

Violet held up the book we'd been reading. "Want to borrow it, Daddy?" she asked. "So you can get up to the part where I am?"

"Ok," Adrian said, as he came over to her bed. "Guess I have a little homework."

I stood up to give him room to sit down. "Ok, you two can visit a little," I said. "I'll say goodnight now." I leaned down to give her a hug and a kiss, and then slipped out of the room to go to Amy's room.

I found my older daughter propped up in bed reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle. "Oh, that's a good one," I said, as I sat down with her.

She nodded and put her bookmark into the book. "They were just at the part where they go two-dimensional," she said. "That part is so creepy."

"Well, you can finish the chapter if you want," I said. "Just don't stay up too late, ok?" I had gotten a bit more relaxed about forcing Amy go to bed early. She legitimately didn't need as much sleep as humans did, and it wasn't fair to force her to lie in bed when she wasn't tired.

"Okayyyyy," she said, heavily, but smiled at me.

"Everything going ok?" I asked. "It sounds like the party was fun."

"It was," she said. "Everyone complimented Ronnie on her face paint, and I told them all it was my Dad who did it. Now everyone wants Dad to do their faces."

I laughed. "Don't tell him that," I said. "You'll make his head get even bigger."

She smiled. "Too late," she said. "He came in just before to say goodnight and I already told him."

"Fine," I said, with another laugh. "Maybe it's impossible to make his head any bigger, anyway."

Amy nodded. "Hey, Mom, I meant to ask you, can I have a sleepover with Margot sometime? Or, I mean, something like that? Since she couldn't come to my birthday party, I mean."

Amy had turned eleven the previous month, and we'd had a big sleepover party with most of her friends from her grade. We weren't able to invite Margot, since it just wasn't feasible to have a Moroi around that many humans. Her sleeping schedule was different, for starters, and her appearance might have raised some eyebrows. To top it off, she and Ronnie really didn't get along, for some reason. In fact, Margot often didn't get along with most other children. There were times that I wondered what Amy saw in Margot as a friend, but it was clear that to Amy, at least, Margot was considerate, friendly, and fun. I wasn't sure what to make of it.

"I can try to set something up," I said. "Maybe you two could do something fun like see a late-night showing of a movie with Adrian."

"Oooh," she breathed. "That'd be so much fun."

"Ok," I said. "I'll do what I can."

"Cool," she said. "Oh, also, I wanted to ask you: what was Aunt Zoe calling about, before?"

"She just was... inviting us to go out to your grandfather's house for Thanksgiving," I said.

"But that's when the baby's coming," she said, looking concerned. "Are we going?"

"We... probably are," I said. "But if you do, you can't tell your grandfather anything about Adrian, or the baby, ok?"

She laughed. "Um, Mom, like, I think he'll notice the baby."

"He might not," I said. "Let's not worry about it for right now, ok?"

"Fine," Amy said. She stretched and yawned. "Maybe I'll just go to sleep now. Tomorrow Dad and I are going to that Canopy Tour thing and I want to be wide awake."

There was a place in the Poconos, a few hours outside of Philadelphia, where you could get attached to a special harness and transverse an obstacle course set up in the treetops. Amy had been dying to go, but the rest of us had no particular interest, so Adrian decided to take her for "Daddy day." He was planning to cheer her on from the ground below, of course.

"That's a good idea," I said. "If you're going to turn out the light now, do you want me to turn on your star thing for you?"

"Oh, yeah, that'd be great. Thanks, Mom."

My father had insisted on sending a gift to Amy for her birthday, so I had given him my work address and he'd sent the gift there. It had turned out to be a small device that, when turned on in a dark room, projected a detailed, accurate night sky. It could even display the moon and stars as they would have appeared on any particular date. It had a built in white-noise feature, which was useful for helping Amy sleep. I turned the device on, then turned the room light off, so that the stars could be seen. Then I gave Amy a hug and a kiss goodnight, and turned to leave the room.

"Hey, Mom?"

"Yes?"

"I heard what you were telling Violet before. About us staying here with Dad. You meant it, right?"

"We're staying with him," I said.

"Good," she said. "I like things the way they are."

"They're going to change when the baby gets here," I said. "Are you ready for that?"

She shrugged. "It'll be ok," she said. "The baby will be cool. I just know it."

I smiled, then blew her another kiss and wished her one more "goodnight." Then I went out to the living room to wait for Adrian to come out of Violet's room, which he did a few minutes later.

"Hey, gorgeous," he said, sitting down next to me on the couch. "What are you thinking? Movie? Or do you want to go to bed early?"

"Movie," I said.

He nodded. "I'll get you some tea," he said. He puttered around in the kitchen for a few minutes while I picked out a movie to watch, then sat down with a mug of mint tea for me. I had developed a fondness for it during my first trimester, when I used it to settle my stomach, and now I liked a cup at night before bed. I thanked him, and then we cuddled up together to watch the movie. When I was done with my tea, I put my head down on his shoulder and relaxed.

The next thing I knew, Adrian was putting me down in bed and crawling in with me. I made a confused sort of noise and Adrian said, "You fell asleep, sweetie." He laughed a little, low in his throat. "You were snoring a little. Don't worry, it was cute."

"It's the baby's fault," I said, sleepily. "I don't have enough room for my lungs with this thing inside me."

"I'll remind you of that after the baby's born and you're still snoring," he said, affectionately. He lay down next to me, cuddling up to me, his chest against my back.

"Hmm," I said. I didn't have the energy to say anything else, and my eyes felt like lead.

Wasn't there something... something I'd been worried about today? No, I told myself. Something had happened and Adrian and I had come up with a plan to deal with it, like we dealt with everything. And everything would be ok.

But as I drifted off to sleep, a part of me began to wonder.

A/N:

I got a question about this and realized I should add an author's note for my out-of-the-country readers. :)

Halloween is October 31st. In case you don't know, in America the tradition is to dress up in funny costumes and eat candy, for some reason. I think they do that in other countries too, but I'm not sure.

Thanksgiving in America is the fourth Thursday in November, so it can be anywhere from the 22nd to the 28th of November. Really... it's weird. Most people take Friday off from work and school, as well. Families gather and eat a dinner of turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and a dessert of pumpkin pie (which might sound gross but I promise is DELICIOUS and not at all healthy!). The idea is supposed to be to give thanks for what we have, but usually it's just an excuse to eat too much and sometimes watch sports on TV. (If you're curious, Thanksgiving in Canada is in mid October.)

So, in the story, it's late October, and Thanksgiving is falling early that year, so they have about three weeks to figure out what to do about the trip to Utah. :) Hope that clarifies a little for anyone curious. :)