LET THEM FLY

When we returned, dusty and victorious, to the House, Ethan thanked me with steak and chocolate. The healthy members of the Greenwich Presidium thanked us with effusive praise and their promise they'd note the House's courageous actions toward the GP.

I guess only near-death experiences were sufficient to prove to the GP that we weren't common criminals.

Regardless, a bit of postcrisis praise wasn't enough to make me feel better about the GP. Although we'd made a pretty large bang, rescuing Darius and Lakshmi wasn't the first good deed we'd done as a House, and the GP had ignored the others.

Besides, Darius was still recuperating from his injuries; it remained to be seen whether his opinion of us had truly changed.

But those were worries for another night. Tonight, when we were clean once again, we raided the kitchen before returning to the bedroom - and the bed.

"You're all right?" I asked him.

"I am angry at myself for what I missed. That I didn't see who Michael Donovan was. But there's little to be done about that now."

"Would you feel better if I slugged you in the arm?"

He gave me an arched eyebrow. Classic Sullivan. "How would that make me feel better?"

I shrugged. "It would make me feel better, which would make you feel better."

My only warning was the narrowing of his eyes . . . and then he pounced. I squealed as he pushed me back onto the mattress, but not because I was in pain.

"You know," I said, "we're still going to have to deal with McKetrick."

"And his mayoral dispensation? Yes, I know. It's unfortunate our primary witness to McKetrick's wrongdoings made a very bad decision in the vicinity of an angry shifter."

Not that Michael would have come out any better in the hands of the Rogue or Navarre House vampires who would have liked to get a piece of him.

I frowned up at Ethan. "Will there be a time when things are normal? When vampires are loved or hated just like everyone else? When we live simpler lives?"

Ethan settled himself on an elbow, and pushed a lock of hair from my eyes with his free hand. "I'm not sure you were cut out for a simple life, Merit. You don't seem a suburban type of girl."

I understood his point, but the comment made me suddenly melancholic. "I would have liked children someday," I confessed. But it wasn't in the cards for me; no vampire had ever successfully borne children.

His expression fell. "I didn't know. You hadn't mentioned - "

I tried to smile a little. "I know it can't happen. And it's nothing I'm actively thinking about. But I do wonder what it would be like to be a parent. To experience the world again alongside a little person who's only just beginning to understand it. To learn with them all the things that make life worthwhile."

Ethan's eyes, green and fathomless, seemed to grow larger.

I thought, just for a moment, of a prophecy Gabriel had once made. Of the pair of green eyes he'd seen in my future - eyes that looked "everything and nothing" like Ethan's. Children were impossible, but that begged the question: Whom had he seen?

Ethan caressed my cheek. "You are a remarkable woman, Caroline Evelyn Merit."

"I try. But it's exhausting."

"I am your Master and your servant. Just tell me how to please you."

"Just hold me," I said, moving closer to him.

He stilled. "That's not entirely what I had in mind."

"Long night, tired Sentinel."

Ethan wrapped his arms around me and nestled his chin atop my head. "In that case," he said, "try to stop me."

Those were the last words I heard before dawn closed my eyes.

* * *

The next evening, Ethan asked us to assemble on the lawn at the fire pit. He'd refreshed the stack of wood the GP had used for its ceremony, and the flame there now glowed with a wonderful warmth.

Ethan turned toward us, his face lit by the fire. "We have made a decision no vampires before us have made. We have chosen liberty and self-respect. Darius and the GP have undertaken the rituals they believe in. It is, in my estimation, important that we have our own rituals, as well. Rituals that remind us who we are, and why we make difficult decisions instead of letting others justify their ignorance and decide for us.

"Helen," Ethan called out, and she stepped forward, a square of white gossamer paper in her hands. She extended it to Ethan.

"Centuries ago," Ethan said, "we were visited by a samurai, Miura, who taught us the way of the sword. The way of honor. He also told us of the tradition of the sky balloon."

Helen and Ethan gently pulled the opposite sides of the paper, and it opened into a squarish shape like a paper party lantern.

While Ethan held the lantern by a small loop on the top, Helen dipped a long matchstick into the fire and pulled it back, its end now alight.

"The lantern is symbolic," Ethan said.

Helen carefully touched the flame to a wick in the center of the lantern. The flame filled the air inside the lantern and gently expanded the walls. It glowed with a pale white luminescence, and bobbed in the breeze, clearly eager to be free, even as Ethan held it firm.

"We place our worries and our concerns inside this lantern," Ethan said. "We give it the weight of our fears . . . and we set it adrift."

He released his grip, and the lantern floated into the air, rising slowly above the House like a star taking flight from earth.

It was such a simple thing, such a simple act, but filled with hope and promise and beauty. I brushed away a tear, and heard sniffles in the crowd behind me. I hadn't been the only one moved, which had undoubtedly been Ethan's intent.

We watched the lantern drift higher and higher into the sky, the star rising as the winter breeze drew it farther from Ethan's still-outstretched fingers. And then it disappeared, the wick extinguished by a sudden burst of chilling wind.

"Our fears fly," Ethan said into the quiet that had fallen. "We face them and then we set them aloft until they are extinguished."

He looked back at us again. "Tonight, my Novitiates, we embark on a new journey. We decide the manner of vampires - the manner of House - we are to be. And we make that decision for ourselves, without the political interference of the GP. We do this with honest intention and without fear, for we have already set our fears adrift, and the world owns them now. Good night, my brothers and sisters, and may the falling of the sun again bring us peace and prosperity."

It wasn't a prayer, not exactly.

It was a promise.