Road burst into Allen's room, a large bag in her hand and Tyki following close behind.

"Hi, Allen!" she said, clambering onto the foot of his bed.

"Road!" he said, flustered. "Your shoes!"

"Sorry," she said, setting the bag down and fiddling with her laces.

"That wasn't quite what I meant," Allen said.

"Get used to it, kid," Tyki said, taking over the recliner. "That's just how she is. If she wants to be on your bed, she's going to be on your bed."

At least she didn't take up much space. "Oy, Tyki," Allen said. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"Calling an ambulance so quickly."

"No problem," Tyki said. "I also took the liberty of forgetting who threw the first punch. Am I insane, or did you do that on purpose?"

"On my first day at the Order, Komui said he'd expel anyone who triggered my ICD," Allen said, "and Kanda was in a bit of a bind."

"Ah!" Tyki said. "So you were getting Kanda off my back. Glad to help. How much damage did he do?"

"He cracked some cartilage and knocked a lead out of place."

"Ouch!" Tyki said. "You scared the shit out of him, by the way. He wouldn't let anyone touch you but the paramedics."

So it had been Kanda who caught him when he passed out.

"Is it over for him and Alma?" Road asked.

"Yes," Allen said.

"Good," she said. "That was one of the worst things the Rouvelliers ever did, and they've done a lot of bad things."

"Like we're ones to talk, all things considered," Tyki said, "but we'll get to that in a minute. I have something for you, kid" he added, pulling something out of his pocket. "Here."

Allen caught a small object the size of a pack of cards, which was what it turned out to be. They were custom-printed with an icon familiar from the poker site, a black butterfly. "Are you serious?" Allen asked, flabbergasted, but of all the people who might have been his poker stalker, Timothy Campbell was the last he would have suspected.

"Yeah," Tyki said.

"How did you know?"

"I recognized your icon when I broke into Road's phone."

Road glared at him.

"Calm down, pet, I'm apologizing! Not one of my prouder moments, I admit. When I overreacted at you in China, that's why. I already knew who you were."

"No, you didn't," Road said.

"Okay," Tyki said. "I knew he played poker."

"So do you," Road said, sticking out her tongue.

"I knew you'd say that," Tyki said.

"Because it's true."

Allen watched them, smiling, but they bickered like siblings.

"Anyway, let's just say I had a few misconceptions," Tyki said. "I'm sorry about that."

"You more than made up for it yesterday," Allen said.

"No hard feelings then?"

"None at all."

"Are you two finished?" Road asked.

Allen and Tyki looked at each other and nodded. "How's the Earl?" Allen asked.

"Fine," Road said, impatient. "Now can we get to my present?"

"Road…" Allen protested.

"Get used to it, kid," Tyki said again. "It's not worth arguing about, trust me."

"Here," Road said, pulling a beautifully-wrapped package from her bag.

"Road!" Allen said. He'd never in his life been given something like that.

"Just open it," she said, moving to sit by his knees.

He did, a bit gingerly, but it seemed too pretty to tear into. If he wasn't mistaken, the paper had been hand-painted, possibly by Road herself, and the ribbon had been woven into an intricate pattern before being tied into a surprisingly precise bow.

Inside was what looked like a large photo album. He frowned, opening it, then gasped at the face that looked back at him from the first page. It was the same face he saw in the mirror when Johnny finished with his hair and make-up in Paris. "Who is this?" he asked, looking wildly at Tyki and Road.

"His name was Cornelius Campbell," Road said softly. "They called him Nea. When I first saw you in Barcelona, I literally thought you were his ghost."

"Whaaaaa…?" Allen looked wildly at Tyki.

"Turn the page," Tyki said, fiddling with a pen.

Allen did, and this time he thought his heart would stop. Nea Campbell was in this picture, too, his arm around someone who looked for all the world like…. "Mana? Is that Mana?" Younger than Allen remembered him, and with much longer hair, but it was still Mana.

"Manning Campbell," Road said. "You knew him as Mana Walker."

"How?" Allen demanded. "How is this possible?"

"It's a long story, kid," Tyki said.

"We have time!" Allen said.

"And we have pictures," Road said, pointing at another picture on the adjoining page. "See this girl? Her name was Aileen Walker."

"What?" Allen asked, aware that his new ICD was on the verge of an impromptu test.

"She was your mum," Road said quietly.

"My what?" He had often wondered what his mother looked like. He had never expected to find out.

"It's true," Tyki said. "You're a Campbell. On both sides. Aileen's mother was a Campbell."

"How?" Allen asked "How is this possible?"

"Because people are really bloody stupid," Tyki said, putting the pen in his mouth and chewing on it.

"He's right," Road said. "It's nothing we're proud of. We don't even talk about it anymore."

"Then where did these pictures come from?" Allen asked.

"This little monster got an itch," Tyki said, pointing the pen at Road. "No such thing as a secret around her, especially when you're the sort of family that takes lots of pictures."

"Secrets are stupid," Road said. "They get people hurt."

"Can't argue that," Tyki said. "Especially not now."

"What happened?" Allen said, aware that he was nearly shouting.

Road sighed. "Tyki?"

Tyki shifted in the recliner. "You have to remember that I was just a kid, the annoying brat who used to whine to be included even when I shouldn't have been, so that's my perspective, but I'll tell you what I can. Mana and Nea were brothers. They were something like nine months and two weeks apart, and looked so much alike that people mistook them for twins. Mana was a dancer, like the rest of us, but Nea was a musician. We have one or two every generation. Their dad and the current Earl were brothers."

"Mana was related to the Earl?" Allen asked, struggling to keep up.

"More closely than I am," Tyki said with a strangely satisfied smile. "Anyway, Aileen was also a Campbell, different branch of the family. The three of them used to play together, and between one thing and another, she and Mana fell in love. Ordinarily, that wouldn't have been a problem, since the relation was distant enough not to break any laws, but we were already a little too inbred as it was. That heart of yours? That's a Campbell thing. Winston has vitiligo, too, and so does Lulu. There's also a nasty form of anemia that pops up sometimes."

"Pernicious anemia?" Allen asked, "From an inability to make enough intrinsic factor?"

"Yep." Tyki nodded.

"I have that, too," Allen said.

"I suppose that helps one see the Earl's point of view," Tyki said. "Unfortunately for Mana and Aileen, he picked that moment to get it into his head that it was time to introduce some new blood into the line. Mind you, he was right, but he went about it all wrong. Instead of cutting us loose on the wider world and hoping for the best, he started arranging marriages, so as not to lose the dance talent. Couldn't forget the bloody Holy War, not to mention tradition and family pride and all that. Anyway, my parents' marriage worked out, so he assumed that everyone else's would work out."

"Your parents' marriage was arranged?" Allen asked.

"Yeah, but it was a sort of perfect storm," Tyki said. "My mum's a flamenco dancer. She can wrap men around her little finger with a look, and my dad's pretty chill. He likes anyone who isn't an arsehole, and mum's not an arsehole. As soon as the Earl started applying it to others, it got ugly. Remember Stephen? His mother took one look at the man chosen for her and bought a one-way ticket to America. She didn't come back until she was married and pregnant."

"That's pretty extreme," said Allen.

"I don't blame her," said Road.

"I don't blame her, either," Allen said. "It's just extreme. Arranged marriages are illegal."

"True," Tyki said, "but other things aren't. You're with the Order; you know how it works. It's illegal to buy a child and make it dance, but it's not illegal to keep someone on life support."

Allen leaned back. "Point taken. So the Earl disapproved?"

"Once he found out, yes," Tyki said, "but it took him a while because he was working on something else. He'd found a bride for my brother, and he was negotiating with the Chans to bring her to England."

"What?" Allen asked.

"Kanda wasn't the first child the Chans sold," Road said softly. "The first was my mum."

"Your mother?" Allen asked, horrified.

"Her name was Emi," Road said. "She was half Japanese and half something else, probably southeast Asian. Her mother never told her. Her mother tried to raise her, but she couldn't, so she gave her to the Chans. Mum danced until she broke her ankle, but of course she was still useful for other things."

"I'm so sorry!" Allen said, but Road's mother had been little more to her family than a brood mare.

"Well, they brought Emi over, and Aileen took her under her wing," Tyki said. "So did Mum. She thought the whole thing was bollocks, but she didn't want to make it harder on Emi than it already was, so she did her best to make her feel at home."

"That's good," Allen said. At least someone had cared.

"Maybe not, as it turned out," Tyki said, "because Emi was hanging out with Nea, Mana and Aileen, while her intended, Sherrill—that's my brother—was off talking law and other stuffy things with Mason. What's more fun, law or a rock band?"

"A rock band?" Allen asked.

"Sort of," Tyki said. "A band, anyway. The four of them had this whole music thing going, since Nea was also a composer. That song you danced to, it was recorded in our basement. That was Nea on keyboard and piano, Emi on vocals, Aileen on winds, and Mana in the control room, with Felix on violin. Felix about lost his shit when he heard that, by the way."

"Mana was an engineer?" Allen asked, his eyes swimming with tears, but suddenly a space in himself that had stood empty all his life was filling much faster than he could handle.

"Yes. He was also passable pianist, although not as good as Nea."

"I know. He played when I was a kid. How did Cross get that recording?" Allen asked. "That's who gave it to me. It was Cross."

"The three Campbells and Cross went to the same school," Tyki said, "a boarding school for the arts. Apparently, Cross made a play for Aileen, and took it in stride when she turned him down."

"That sounds like him," Allen said, making a face. The only way Cross ever started a conversation with a woman was by hitting on her.

"They all became fast friends after that," Tyki said, "at least as far as I can tell. They must have gotten a big kick out of the fact that they were Campbells and Cross was Order. They could easily have given Cross copies of some of those recordings."

"That doesn't sound so bad," Allen said, looking at the photographs. These people looked happy. Even Road's mother, small and obviously shy, was smiling.

"You forgot about the arranged marriages bit," Tyki said. "Instead of growing apart as they got older, Aileen and Mana grew closer together, and then Emi fell for Nea. Naturally, he fell right back."

"Uh oh!" Allen said.

"Exactly," Tyki said. "Mana, like an idiot, did the honorable thing and talked to the Earl—and got his ear chewed off for his pains. Nea had better sense than to even try."

Tyki shifted position. "Here's where things get dicey, but they got secretive before they left. They had to. They were running away. So I don't know what happened except that one day they were gone, Mana, Aileen and Nea. Emi stayed behind, but she didn't come out of her room for days, not even to eat, and it was weeks before she stopped crying randomly."

"Why didn't she go?" Allen asked.

"Honor, I think. She didn't love Sherrill, but she liked him too much to disrespect him that way, and she and Mum had gotten close, but she was never the same after that. She married Sherrill and had Road, but then the orphanage burned. She knew most of those kids. She'd grown up with them, taken care of the littler ones, so she was devastated. And..." Tyki hesitated. "I think she knew that Nea was dead. I don't know how, but I can't help thinking that she knew, and she just couldn't take any more."

"Road?" Allen asked. "Are you all right?"

Road wiped her eyes. "Paris was the first time I've heard her voice since she died. I thought I'd forgotten what she sounded like, but as soon as I heard, I remembered."

"Road, I'm sorry!" Allen said, but he could only imagine what that must have felt like.

"She takes it personally," Tyki said. "We keep telling her not to, but that never stops her."

Allen could see Road's point. He'd always known that his parents hadn't meant to abandon him, but Road's mother had deserted her in the most brutal way possible. It made sense that she would put everything she had into trying to understand.

"It wasn't all her fault," Road said. "People kept hurting her."

"I know," Tyki said. "Believe me, pet, I know."

"How did Nea die?" Allen asked.

Tyki gave him a puzzled look. "That plane."

"What?"

Tyki blinked. "The one you were on. They didn't put you on a plane by yourself as an infant. You were all on it."

"Hang on," Allen said. "What?"

"You didn't know?" Tyki asked.

"How could I? I didn't even know Mana was my real...he was, right? That's what you're telling me. If Aileen was my mother, Mana was my father."

"Mana was your father," Road said.

"Holy sh...!" Allen began, and then, mindful of the company, stopped himself.

"Don't worry," Tyki said. "You can say what you like in front of Road. She has a mouth like a sailor when she's angry."

"Thanks, Tyki," Road said.

"It's true," Tyki said.

"Wait," Allen said. "All Mana told me was that he was in an accident. I thought he meant a car, but he was...he was on that plane? With me?"

"And your mum and uncle," Tyki said. "The only thing I can figure is that they were trying to make a clean break of it, go to Canada and start over. Keep in mind that we didn't find out until years later, but Mana did something a bit tricky. Instead of Aileen taking his name when they married, he took hers. It screwed up the paper trail, because of course it's not as simple as just putting down the bride's name. He had to change his name beforehand, and he changed it to something common. There are a lot of Walkers in England. Hold up, if you and Mana stayed together, how did you not know all this? Even if Mana forgot, someone else could have told you."

"Mana and I didn't stay together," Allen said. "What they told me was that I had no papers they could find, and no one claimed me even after they put me on television."

Tyki whistled. "Mana must have been in bad shape then."

"He was," Allen said. "Years later, he had a terrible time forming and retaining memories. I hate to think what he was like right after."

"How did you two find each other then?" Tyki asked.

"We didn't," Allen said, remembering the piece of paper the police had shown him. "Cross found us. He adopted me and put me into Mana's care."

"And then took you after Mana died," Tyki said. "I'll be damned! Say what you like about the man, he was a good friend."

Was he? Allen thought. He'd never met anyone Cross could call a friend, just a large web of acquaintances, but he'd never considered the possibility that Cross's friends were dead. "Now I understand why he bothered. I could never figure it out."

"So that's what happened!" Road said. "You were really confusing me. I couldn't understand why you referred to Mana as your foster father when he was really your birth father. At first, I thought maybe there was another Mana out there, but then you sent me that picture."

"We'd have taken you if we'd known," Tyki said, "but I didn't even know you existed until about four years ago, and then I thought you were dead."

"What happened four years ago?" Allen asked, but he had an ugly feeling, because something had happened just a bit under four years ago.

Road moved the photo album and crawled onto his lap, leaning against him.

"Ow!" he said, flinching back as she jostled his arm, which in turn pulled at his chest.

"Sorry," she said, but she didn't back off very much.

Allen left her there, but he didn't want to stop the conversation to argue with her.

Tyki let out a long breath. "The Earl found you and Mana. I don't know how. I also don't know if he tried approaching Mana or what." He paused.

"He might have," Allen said, "but Mana probably wouldn't have remembered the Earl."

"Or he did remember and wanted nothing to do with him," Tyki said, "because the next step was an attempted kidnapping. The Earl sent people to take you, and it went wrong."

"Oh my God!" Allen said as Road's arms wrapped carefully around his neck. He could never understand why someone would break into Mana's flat. Mana had nothing worth stealing, certainly nothing worth killing over. He had never given any thought to the possibility that someone might want to steal him.

"We're so sorry!" Road said. "We really are."

Mana was the gentlest human being Allen had ever met, but that night he fought until they threw him down the stairs. The sound of Mana's neck snapping had haunted Allen's dreams ever since, even more than the sensation of the knife slicing through his own eye, but he'd cared more about Mana than himself, and he'd thrown himself at them, screaming with rage, no other thought in his mind except inflicting as much damage as he possibly could.

"I told you he wouldn't take it well," Tyki said.

"He knows now, so he'll be all right," Road said. "Allen? It's all right now. It's all right."

It wasn't, but it was finally over, and he let his head fall to her shoulder, let his tears soak her blouse.

"Give me that, Tyki" Road said.

There was rustling sound, then Road presented Allen with a handful of tissues, which he took gratefully.

"I'm so sorry," she said again.

'It wasn't your fault," Allen said, his voice unsteady, "although I'm not sure I'm in any rush to meet the Earl." It had been a long time since Allen had really hated anyone new, but that was because no one had ever held a candle in his mind to the men who murdered Mana. Now he knew who was responsible, and the anger flared fresh and bright.

"I'm not sure he can handle meeting you," Tyki said. "He has the Campbell heart, and it almost gave out on him when he saw you with your hair dark. Why did you do that? You've never colored your hair before."

"That was Road's idea," Allen said, wiping his face.

"That was overkill, pet. The song was enough."

"I didn't know about that," Road said. "He got the song from Cross, not me."

Cross. The one person who knew everything, and he was dead. "What were they like, my parents?" Allen asked. The tears were starting to slow down, but he had a feeling it would be a long time before they really stopped.

"A lot of fun." Tyki smiled. "Mana and Nea were inseparable. They did everything together, dance, music, getting into trouble. They covered for each other so often that they were punished more for the other's misbehavior than for their own. Aileen was a fireball, so she fit right in. Mana loved that in her. He was always egging her on."

"Here," Road said, leafing through the photo album to a picture of Mana in tights and a t-shirt, balancing on Aileen's shoulders, supported by her hands. Both were grinning.

"I knew he was good," Allen said. "I could never figure out why no one ever looked for him."

"We didn't know to at first," Tyki said. "I'm sure we must have heard about the plane crash from the news, but we had no way to know you were on it. I think the Earl thought they'd come crawling back after a while, but he should have known better. Those three would do a lot of things, but crawling wasn't one of them. I think it took five years just to figure out that something had gone wrong, and then they had to find out what and track you down."

Allen leafed quickly through the album. Road had chosen pictures that went all the way back to childhood. She'd even included several of her mother with Nea, and he wondered how she'd felt working with proof that her mother had never really loved her father.

"You knew right away," he said to her.

"Yes," she said. "I mean, once I figured out that you were real, but not only did I know you looked just like Nea, I knew you had the ICD and vitiligo. You could only be a Campbell, and once I knew that, I knew who you had to be. The problem was, we'd been told you were gone, by which I thought they meant dead. I just had to find out how you'd survived."

Suddenly, Allen found it still possible to smile, remembering her hug and her hands in his hair. "You actually checked, didn't you. You were messing with my hair because wanted to know what color my roots were."

Tyki laughed. "What did she do, just walk up and maul you?"

"Pretty much," Allen said.

"I had to be sure," Road said. "When I felt the ICD, I was absolutely sure."

"Welcome to the family, kid," Tyki said. "I mean, we're not a very good family. Actually, from your point of view, we really, really suck, but maybe there's something to this whole blood calls thing, you know?" He pointed to Road. "She likes you, so I'm afraid you're stuck with her at least."

Allen found that he didn't mind that, but in her own, weird way, she was the best friend he'd made out of this mess. "It's a little more complicated than that," he said.

"How so?" Tyki asked.

"Well, you know how Cross adopted me?"

They nodded.

"Cross was adopted, too," he said. "By Hevlaska Rouvellier."

He watched their faces as they put it together, puzzlement to incredulity to astonishment. Then they both burst out laughing. "You're a Rouvellier?" Tyki gasped.

"Technically, yes," Allen said.

"Bloody fucking shit!" Tyki said. "That's the best joke I've heard in my life. Do they know you're a Campbell?"

"I don't know," Allen said. "Hevlaska might." She was, after all, the closest thing Cross had to a mother.

"Old Malcolm's going to go completely spare when he finds out," Tyki said.

"If they don't know, they're stupid," Road said. "No one who knows the Campbells could look at his medical records and not know that he's one of us."

"That's true," Tyki said, "You managed a genetic hat trick."

"Great," Allen said.

"You got a good thing, too," Road pointed out. "You got the dance talent."

"She has a point," Tyki said. "I guess this means you have two psychotically dysfunctional families, not one."

Who was worse, Allen wondered, Malcolm Rouvellier or the Earl Campbell?

"Here's the thing," Tyki said. "If you want to embrace your Campbell side, not everyone supported the Earl about Mana and Aileen, so there are people who would be really happy to see you. You even have grandparents. Mana and Nea's father is dead, but their mother is alive, and so are Aileen's parents. Mana's mother moved to Wales and Aileen's parents don't come to the house anymore, but they're still around. If by some freak chance you want to meet them, you could have your family's entire wing to yourself. It has a separate entrance, and the house is big enough so that you don't have to see anyone you don't want to."

"A wing?" Allen said, startled.

"The house is a great, crumbling rock pile," Tyki said. "Used to hold a few generations and branches of the family at a time, not to mention servants' quarters and such."

"What about the Earl?" Allen asked. He had no desire whatsoever to share a roof with the Earl.

"He wouldn't even have to know," Tyki said. "He's not young, and he's not well, and no one would tell him but Winston, who usually lives in London. As things stand now, my brother inherits, so he's the one you'd have to clear things with. Unless you want it," he added.

"What?" Allen asked.

"You're more closely related to the Earl's father than we are," Road said. "Mana's father was the oldest male in the direct line, but he died of cancer. Ordinarily, Mana would have been next and then Nea, but when they disappeared, the estate went to the current Earl. He has no children, so it skipped over to my granddad. He's unwell and lives in Portugal, so now it's set to go to my dad, who's already managing it."

"And then to you?" Allen asked.

"No," Tyki said, "to me, unless Road here gets a little brother. We're horribly sexist, still doing the whole primogeniture thing. Keeping the estate together is the only way to keep the place from going bankrupt."

"Do you want it?" Allen asked Road.

"I might," she said. "Nobody's ever asked me before."

"And I wish he hadn't asked you now," Tyki said. "I shudder to think what you'd do with it."

"Turn it into a candy factory," Road said happily.

"That's why I wish he'd kept his mouth shut," Tyki said good-naturedly. "You have any more questions, kid?"

"Not right now," Allen said. It would take him a while before he'd sorted through what he'd just been told.

"Then we'll leave you for now." He turned to Road. "Let's go, pet. He still has other visitors."

"I do?" Allen asked.

"Yes," Road said, hopping off the bed and grabbing her shoes. "Hevlaska's here, but that's okay. Now that everyone knows we're family, we can talk whenever we like."

"Does everyone know?" Allen asked.

"On our side, yes," Tyki said. "You're going to have to break it to the Order yourself."

That was going to be interesting, Allen thought, and then he remembered the album. "If these are family photos," he said, "shouldn't you keep them?"

"They're copies," Tyki assured him. "Right, pet?"

"Yep!" Road said. "I made an album for the family, too, and I put pictures of you in it." She turned to Allen. "Video stills, and the one you sent me of you and Mana. If you have any others, I would love to add them."

She was, he realized, his cousin, perhaps once removed or some such, but still blood, and as soon as she figured it out, she had treated him accordingly, without a second of hesitation. "Yeah," he said, wiping his eyes. "I might have something."

Her face lit up. "Good! I can't wait!"

"Thanks," Allen said to them, then he realized that it might sound a little sarcastic. "I mean it. Thank you. For all of this."

"Thank her," Tyki said, nodding at Road. "I hate to admit it, but she was right. Knowing's better than not knowing. I'm going to go out now and get pissed out of my gourd, but I'm glad something of them survived. They were good people, and what happened to them was a travesty."

Road leaned over the rail and kissed Allen's cheek. "Later!" she said, then she and Tyki left the room, Road's arm around Tyki's waist as if she was supporting him.

Maybe she was, but when Allen turned back to the album, he saw Tyki in some of the pictures, a little boy tagging along with his older, cooler cousins.