"We are going to have to do something about this," Kyrie sighed.

"Agreed." Nero stared down at the crib. The toddlers were sleeping side-by-side as usual, but they were squeezed awkwardly in a space that had grown far too small for them over the past week. By Kyrie's estimation they were now approaching the size and weight of four-year-olds, and they needed proper beds.

"I'll let them nap on our bed today," Kyrie went on. "I'd use the playpen, but I caught both of them out of it yesterday. I'm going to have to start locking the bedroom door to keep them upstairs."

"I figured that would happen eventually, but I didn't think it would be so soon." Nero rummaged through his drawer to find a shirt he didn't mind risking. For all that fighting demons was a rugged and dangerous business, he'd damaged more clothing on crate splinters and loose nails in the two weeks he'd been working at the docks than he had in the past several months of devil hunting. "What if we put them in my old bedroom? There are already two beds in there, and at the rate they're growing, they'll need separate beds soon enough."

Kyrie frowned. "But then where will Flavia sleep?"

He measured the crib with his hands. "She's so small, I bet she'd fit on this mattress."

"Yes, but where? It would be awkward to put her in the boys' room, when she's the only girl."

"What about up here? The crib fits. All we'd need is a cot frame for her." Nero wasn't keen on the idea of having any child older than a baby sharing their bedroom, as it meant he and Kyrie had virtually no privacy, but the twins were already nearing the age when that was going to become a problem.

Kyrie shook her head. "Flavia still needs to use the bathroom during the night sometimes, and I don't want her trying to go up and down the stairs in the dark."

Nero pressed his fingertips against his eyes, feeling as though he were trying to squeeze seven rounds into a six-shot revolver. "What if we move Scipio into Flavia's room? Siblings share bedrooms all the time, especially at that age."

"That still leaves us one bed short."

"We swap out Flavia's mattress for this little one, and we put her big bed in the boys' room. That gives us two beds for Rosso and Zaffiro."

"I'm not sure we can fit another full-sized bed in the boys' room."

Nero groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face. "I don't know, then. We'll have to work something out. I've gotta get moving, though; otherwise I'll be late to work."

Kyrie glanced at the clock beside their bed. "Do you have time for breakfast?"

"I'll grab something on the way out." He gave her a quick kiss. "See you tonight."

Nero's stomach growled as he hurried downstairs, but he restricted himself to a slice of bread and a handful of grapes—just enough to pretend he wasn't heading to a full day of hard physical labor on an empty stomach. Of all of them, he reasoned, he could best afford to skip meals, since a portion of his strength came from his devil powers. Every meal he skimped on was one that they didn't have to pay for, and he was determined to save every penny he could, especially since he knew he'd be footing at least part of the bill for the van's new tires, wheels, and window glass, which had been on order for the last two weeks. Vehicle repairs were slow and costly on Fortuna, but there was no hope of getting the van to a mainland garage in its current condition.

Since the day they had investigated the customs house, they'd made no progress tracking down either the rival hunter or the mysterious person who had summoned the demons. Business remained slow: Nico had received only a handful of calls—one of which they'd been unable to take on because it was too far to travel on foot—and none of their clients had been able to pay more than a pittance. Still, Nero was grateful for any hunting work. Any paying work at all, if he were honest, including the mind-numbing labor at the docks. At least it was a reliable income, if a small one.

He jogged up to the cluster of laborers just as Joe Panni waved them aboard a ship to start unloading cargo. Nero ducked into the back of the group, hoping the boss didn't notice his late arrival, but Panni hooked Nero's arm just as he was about to set foot on the gangway. "C'mere a minute," Panni said, pulling Nero aside.

Nero braced himself for a reprimand for being late, but Panni had a distracted air, and scarcely glanced in Nero's direction. "You and Tonio are pals, aren't you?"

"I guess." They'd had a lot more in common back when they were both teenagers in danger of failing Italian, and they hadn't said much to each other since that first day, but Nero didn't harbor any ill will toward him. "We went to school together."

"You heard from him lately?"

Nero shook his head. "This is the only place I ever see him. Why?"

"He didn't show for work yesterday, and he missed poker night before that. I called his place a few times, but there's no answer. His landlady says she hasn't seen him around, either."

"You think he's sick or something?"

Panni shrugged. "Landlady let herself in with the master key and said he wasn't home. So if he's sick, he's bein' sick somewhere else."

"Huh. When was the last time anybody saw him?"

"What are you, a detective now?" Panni scowled, but answered the question. "I talked to him on the phone Monday afternoon. He didn't work that day, but he said he was going to come in later to make some deliveries before poker."

"Deliveries?"

"Yeah, sometimes people can't be bothered to pick up their shipments down here, or don't have any way to transport 'em, so if it's somethin' small, we take it to 'em for a fee." Panni shrugged. "It's easy money. Tonio can handle the truck, so he makes most of the deliveries. And before you ask, mister detective, I checked the manifest, and everybody scheduled for a delivery received their cargo that night. The truck was parked back here when I came in the next morning. So he didn't run off with it."

"Well, if he didn't take anything from home, he probably didn't skip town. Fortuna's not that big. He's bound to turn up."

"I hope so. It's gonna be hard to replace him." Panni smiled grimly. "He usually lost at poker."

After that Panni dismissed him to the ship, and Nero started in on the relatively mindless task of moving cargo to the warehouse. As he worked, he turned Tonio's disappearance over in his mind. Fortuna really wasn't that big, and much of its community was still close-knit and helpful; if Tonio had become lost or injured, someone likely would have found him by now and gotten in touch with his place of employment. That left only the option that Tonio hadn't wanted to be found, and that was unsettling. The economic hardships and general loss of faith had led to an epidemic of depression in the island's residents, which in the first years after the fall of the Order had resulted in tragic outcomes for a few hopeless souls. But while Tonio had seemed bitter, even belligerent, he'd always been a fighter. There was nothing in his attitude that made Nero think he was at risk for giving up on life.

Still, he hadn't spent much time with Tonio since they'd been in school, and he knew it was impossible to know what was going on inside another person's head, no matter how stable or confident they seemed. He could only hope that Tonio had just gone on a bender or shacked up with someone, and would stagger back to work in a few days with a story to tell.

Kyrie had the twins with her in the kitchen when Nero arrived at the house that afternoon. "You're home early!" she exclaimed, leaning away from her latest culinary creation-in-progress to give him a kiss.

"I worked through lunch so I could get out a little sooner."

"You worked through lunch?" Kyrie frowned. "Did you have a chance to eat?"

"Yeah, I grabbed a snack on my break." It wasn't completely untrue, Nero reasoned, though the "snack" had been a cup of coffee cut by half with milk he'd sneaked out of Panni's mini refrigerator.

Kyrie's brow furrowed, but she said nothing more.

To distract himself from the food smells that were making his empty stomach rumble, Nero turned to watch Rosso and Zaffiro, who were coloring at the kitchen table. "How have the trouble twins been today?"

"Perfect angels, as long as I didn't try to put them in the playpen."

He chuckled. "Not sure 'angels' is quite the right word, all things considered." He leaned over to watch Rosso scribbling. "Whatcha drawing there, kid?"

"House," Rosso replied, diligently filling a large shape with uneven gray circles. The picture was little more than a long rectangle topped with several cockeyed triangles, and it looked nothing like their home—but then, Nero wasn't sure if the twins had even seen the outside of this house. He was likely just imitating something he'd seen in a picture book.

Zaffiro was producing something more recognizable: a row of vaguely humanoid figures, two tall and two short. The head of one of the taller figures was framed with two squiggles of yellow, while the other three were crowned with the waxy sheen left by heavy scribbling with a white crayon. "Family portrait, huh?" Nero asked. Zaffiro nodded, and warmth spread through Nero's chest as he examined the white-haired figure that must represent himself. He supposed it was only logical that the twins would see Nero and Kyrie as their parents, but it was still nice to be considered family. Some day, he'd have to tell them the truth, but for now they could all enjoy the endearing illusion.

Kyrie leaned over to look at the drawing. "Oh, that's very good!" She stroked a hand over Zaffiro's fine white hair. "You've both made such lovely drawings. We should put them on the refrigerator when you're finished."

Nero tugged lightly on a lock of Kyrie's auburn hair. "Didn't quite nail this, though," he murmured.

Kyrie laughed. "Let's call it creative license. I've never really wanted to go blonde."

"Good. I like your hair as it is." He brushed a few loose strands back over her shoulder. "Anything I can do to help in here?"

She shook her head. "I'm just getting an early start on dinner." She hesitated and glanced up at him. "Would you like something to eat now, since you missed lunch?"

Nero's stomach awoke at the thought of food, but he steeled his resolve. "Nah, dinner's in a couple hours. I'll just wait. Are the kids at the orphanage?"

"Yes. They're having a special sports day today, so they'll be late."

"Right. I forgot that was today." Nero watched the boys coloring for a moment longer—Zaffiro was now filling in the shape of the taller white-haired body with a purple crayon, which baffled Nero; he didn't think he'd ever worn anything purple in his life—then recalled the current conundrum facing their household. "I'm gonna go take a look at the bed situation, see if I can't figure out some place to fit everyone."

"All right. Call if you need help."

Even after years of sleeping upstairs, Nero couldn't help the wave of nostalgia that struck him as he stepped into the smallest of the old house's bedrooms. Decades before, it had been Credo's room; when Kyrie was a baby, the larger of the downstairs bedrooms had served as combination home office, sewing room and nursery. After their parents had died and Credo and Kyrie invited Nero to move in with them, Credo insisted that Kyrie move into the bedroom upstairs, while he installed himself in the larger downstairs bedroom. Credo had claimed the change was because he needed the office space to manage his paperwork for the Order, but Nero had always suspected the real reason was to avoid leaving his sister and her male best friend in adjacent rooms, unchaperoned. After all, Nero and Kyrie had never made any secret of their affection for each other; everyone had known a romantic relationship was inevitable.

When Nero had first moved here after a childhood spent in the orphanage, the compact bedroom had seemed the pinnacle of luxury. It was the first private room Nero had ever slept in, and even the slanting ceiling where the staircase cut a corner off the room's height added to, rather than diminished, its charm. Even now, with two beds and a low bureau crammed into a space that had scarcely contained one teenage boy, the room felt more cozy than claustrophobic.

But no matter how warm and welcoming, the space here was undoubtedly limited. The low, angled ceiling ruled out bunk beds, and even replacing one of the beds with the smaller crib mattress would reclaim only a negligible area of floor. Nero moved to the next room, which had only marginally more floor space as it was now occupied by dual bunk beds and all the children's books and toys. Kyrie was right; there was no room for an additional bed in here, at least without removing some of the existing furniture. But perhaps, if they pulled out the bookshelves and toy chests… Nero measured with his hands. It would be a tight fit, but he thought they could just squeeze another bed frame in against the wall.

Nero moved to the narrow utility room sandwiched between the kitchen and bathroom. The only space here was above the linen shelves, which were far too high to be of use to the children. That left only the garage, and Nero had no intention of moving anyone's living space to an area where he and Nico routinely tested new weapons or dragged hell-knows-what back with them on the van tires.

He wandered into the living room and stared at the corner where they had corralled Rosso and Zaffiro inside a ring of book boxes—some of which remained stacked behind the sofa, even now. There was a little space against the wall where he could move the kids' bookshelf, if Kyrie would let him shuffle the seating area around a little. That only left the toys to be moved. "Hey, Kyrie. You got a second?"

"Be right there," she called back. The oven door rattled, and a moment later she poked her head around the corner. "Yes?"

"What do you think about making a reading nook for the kids out here? Put all the books on that wall, maybe get a couple little chairs or something?"

She squinted, envisioning it. "It would be a tight fit, but I think it's doable. Would that make enough space for another bed in their room?"

"Possibly. Depends on the frame. Does the orphanage have anything we can borrow that would fit that crib mattress?"

"You mean besides the crib it's in? I'm not sure. I don't know how we'd move anything bigger than that, though. Nico transported the crib for me, but as long as the van is out of commission, we'll have to hand-carry anything we want to borrow. That's a long walk with a bed frame."

"We'll deal with that when we have to. I bet I could get one or two of the guys at the dock to help out in exchange for dinner, or something."

"Really? That's a lot of work for one meal."

"Not for one of your meals, it isn't. I'd carry a bed twice that far to eat your cooking."

"I see." She arched her eyebrows, trying and entirely failing to suppress a smile. "So that's why you've stuck around here for so long."

"Among other reasons." He leaned in to steal a kiss. "You know, I'm gonna be really glad when we can have our bedroom back to ourselves."

Her reply was lost in the sound of chipper young voices as the front door swung open. "Kyrie! Nero!" Carlo called, stumbling through the tangle of children trying to squeeze into the house simultaneously. "Guess what?"

"Guess? Okay. Let's see…" Nero made a show of thinking. "You saw an elephant riding a bicycle."

"That's silly," Kyle declared, but only after he'd laughed.

"There's a new baby at the orphanage!" Carlo went on, unable to contain his news any longer. "A real little one!"

Kyrie exchanged a surprised glance with Nero. There hadn't been many new children in the past year, and usually the orphanage staff had an inkling that a child was being surrendered at least a few days before it arrived—especially in the case of infants, due to the extra care and preparation required. "Oh? Do you know where it came from?"

Carlo shook his head, but Julio spoke up. "A man brought him in this afternoon. I heard him talking to Sister Benedicta. He said he found the baby in a collapsed building down by the waterfront. He said nobody was around, and it didn't look like anybody was living there. Sister Benedicta thought somebody must have just left him there, because he looked real sick. The baby, I mean, not the man." Julio looked more worried than excited about the new resident. "She said she had to call the doctor right away."

The concern showed on Kyrie's face then, too, and Nero knew why: Illness of any kind was a threat to the orphanage, considering how closely quartered all the children were. "Well, I'm sure she'll let us know more about it later," she said. "Now, why don't you children go—"

There was a squeal of surprise from the direction of the kitchen, and Nero and Kyrie bolted toward the sound. They found Flavia standing in the door to the kitchen, exchanging wide-eyed looks with Rosso and Zaffiro, who were still seated at the table amid a sea of crayons and paper.

Nero laughed to conceal his panic. The other children hadn't seen the twins since a few weeks ago, when they'd looked like infants. "Hey, looks like we forgot who was downstairs!"

Julio, taller than the other children, was best able to see around the bodies blocking the door. Surprise was plain in his voice. "Nero, who's that?"

Kyrie hurried into the kitchen to defuse the tricky situation. "Children, you can't have forgotten Rosso and Zaffiro already."

The younger children merely looked puzzled, but Julio shot Nero a frown. "But Rosso and Zaffiro aren't that old."

Nero appreciated that Julio wasn't making a bigger scene, but he didn't have an easy answer. "Roll with it," he pleaded in a low voice. For the benefit of the other children, he said more loudly, "I mean, you probably don't recognize them because they have so much more hair! They grow so fast at this age, don't they?"

"They really do!" Kyrie smiled and smoothed Rosso's hair. "But it's almost time for the boys to go back upstairs, isn't it, Nero?"

Zaffiro let out a sound that Nero knew from experience would soon ramp into a roar of discontent. The twins knew exactly what "upstairs" meant, and they were never in favor—but a tantrum here, in front of the other kids, would be disastrous. "It sure is." Nero scrambled to think of what would keep Zaffiro calm. Books! Zaffiro liked books. "And guess what? I have a surprise for you two. I'm gonna tell you a really exciting story when we get up there." He hastily tucked one child under each arm, waded through the sea of children in the doorway, and fled to the stairs.

Behind him, he heard Kyle complaining to Kyrie. "But Nero never tells us stories!"

"Oh! Well, would you like him to read you one tonight?" Kyrie covered his retreat. "I'm sure he'd be happy to."

By the time they reached the bedroom, Zaffiro was in full pout. "I want to read on my own," the boy declared. He'd proved to have a surprising aptitude for language. A couple of weeks ago, Kyrie had started the twins on alphabet games, in part to give them something to focus on other than escaping the bedroom. Within a few days, Zaffiro had been able to pick out words on the page. By the following week, he had begun reading books on his own.

Rosso's reading skills weren't quite so advanced yet. He scowled at his brother, then up at Nero. "I wanna story!"

Nero groaned and slumped to the floor. "You two have never agreed on anything in your entire lives, have you?"

Rosso climbed into Nero's lap. "Tell a story," he insisted.

Zaffiro retrieved a picture book from the stack beneath the crib and plopped down beside Nero, determined to show how immune he was to the lure of being told a story by someone else. "I'm reading."

Nero sighed. "Fine. Zaffiro, you can read if you want, but I'm gonna tell Rosso a story." Of course, that required him to think of a story. What did you tell kids of this age? He hadn't read much as a small child, and he'd never paid much attention to fairy tales…

Well. There was one story he knew forwards and backwards, though the trick would be sanitizing it for not-quite-four-year-olds.

"Once upon a time," he began, "there were two kingdoms. One kingdom was full of people, while in the other kingdom lived… big, scary monsters. Monsters who liked to eat people." Rosso giggled at that, and Nero felt a surge of relief. Of course they wouldn't be easily frightened. Whose kids were they, after all? "One day, the, uh, king of the monster kingdom decided that he wanted to invade the human kingdom and eat up all of the people." He moved his fingers toward Rosso in a chomping motion, and the boy squirmed away, laughing. "The monster king got his army together and said, 'Humans are tasty! Let's go across the sea and have a big old roast-human feast!' But then one of the monster king's knights got up and said, 'Hey, king, maybe we shouldn't. Humans are kinda cool, you know? They invented things like rock 'n' roll, and hamburgers, and…" He glanced around the room for inspiration, and his eyes fell on a toy truck in the playpen. "…and hot rods, and race cars! Let's not eat them.' But the monster king said, 'Nope, I want humans for breakfast, we're definitely invading!' So the knight said, 'Well, fine, then. I'm gonna fight you and protect the humans and all their awesome stuff.'"

As he spoke, Nero cast a sideways glance at Zaffiro. The boy's eyes remained fixed on the book in his lap, but he hadn't turned a page since Nero had begun speaking. As Nero described a great battle, embellishing it with a handful of exciting details from some of his own fights, Zaffiro tensed at all the same places that Rosso did.

"And so," Nero finished after he'd run out of child-safe anecdotes, "After a full night of fighting, the sun rose, and all the monsters that were left ran away from the legendary knight and swam back across the sea to their own kingdom. The human king was so happy to be saved that he told the knight that he could stay and live with the rest of the people there, even though he was a monster himself. And then a beautiful princess fell in love with the knight, and they got married and settled down to raise a family. Soon, the princess had twin boys with white hair, and… and everyone was very happy. The end."

Rosso's hands went to his own white hair, and he grinned at his brother. "Us!"

Zaffiro said nothing, but finally turned a page in his book.

"So, what do you think? Was that a good story?" Nero tapped Rosso on the nose.

"Yes!" Rosso cheered. "Good story."

Nero glanced at Zaffiro. "How about you? Did you like it?"

Zaffiro turned another page. "I was reading."

Nero stared at him for a few seconds. "You know, in forty years, you are still going to be the same stubborn S.O.B. you are right now, and it will be even less cute."

Rosso cocked his head at Nero. "What's ess-oh-bee?"

Damn it, there was the kid's profanity detector again. "It means… Stuck On Books. Someone who reads a lot instead of listening to what other people are saying." Nero scooped up both boys as he stood, depositing them on his own bed. "Okay, time for some rest. You don't have to sleep if you don't want to. You just have to stay on the bed. Deal?"

Zaffiro clearly interpreted this as a negotiation. "I want to read."

"As long as you stay on the bed. Capisce?"

Zaffiro nodded. "Capisco."

Nero's brain stuttered to a halt, and he stared for a moment. "Since when do you speak Italian?"

The boy merely cocked his head, looking as surprised as Nero.

No, that was absurd. There was no way Zaffiro could have learned a foreign language; he wasn't even in school yet. He'd probably just heard Kyrie use the word at some point, and parroted it back. "Go to sleep," he said. "Or don't. Just… stay put."

Nero locked the bedroom door behind him and descended into the excited chatter of the rest of the household, wondering—not for the first time—how long he could keep so many balls in the air before they all came crashing down on his head.