It's been two days since the fire and I'm still a little in shock.

I keep waking up with the smell of smoke in my nose, expecting to find out I didn't wake up fast enough this time and my bed is on fire. And I'm still sore as hell about all the stuff I lost. The life I’d lost, basically. I’d been so excited to start new in New Orleans. I’d had all these big adult human plans that are even more out the window now than they were when I got turned. It doesn’t seem fair.

But Carver's gorgeous home does a lot to ease the sting. He has a billiards room for one thing. The only people I've ever met who had their own pool table kept it in the basement, which they probably referred to as a 'man cave.' He has a whole damn room just for his, and it's all rich wooden trim and fine white embossed wall paper and gold fixtures and finicky little baroque details. The whole house is like that and it's half infuriating. It’s on a beautiful street too, lined with oak trees older than Carver, dripping in Spanish moss. Magnolias bloom in every corner, and all the houses are as old as the city and utterly beautiful. The little shops are all privately owned, exclusive boutiques full of artisan goods with dizzying price tags. With Bourbon street only a street car ride away, I can’t imagine anywhere more perfect.

I lounge in a cream-colored window seat, looking out at the hydrangeas and ferns growing in the sunny garden outside while Reina calculates and recalculates the angle of her shot.

"Stop stalling and just admit I've won," I tease, grinning at her.

"The eight is still on the table," Reina says without looking up. "You haven't won yet."

"I will as soon as you stop stalling and let me take my turn."

Reina just grumbles, chalks her pool cue for the eighth time, and finally takes her shot. Her target bounces off the edge of the pocket and knocks the cue ball in.

"Son of a bitch," she hisses, putting down her cue a little too hard.

"Get ready to pay up," I tell her as I set the cue ball back on the felt.

"You'll choke," Reina says, looking like she's willing it to happen as she stares holes in the pool table. "Or I might choke you."

I laugh, line up my shot and take it. I don't even watch as the last of the striped balls sink, turning to grin at her instead.

Reina doesn't wait for me to sink the eight, just swears loudly and digs in her pocket for my prize.

"There, happy?" she says, putting a fancy chocolate box smaller than my phone into my hand.

"Outrageously."

I tear into it immediately, groaning in satisfaction as the fine chocolate melts on my tongue. We'd gone walking around Carver's neighborhood in the Upper Garden District of New Orleans the first day and found the swankiest chocolatier I've ever seen. We spent a frankly obscene amount on two small boxes. I finished off mine in a night, but Reina had been saving hers.

"If you wanted it you shouldn't have gambled with it," I tell her in my best scolding mother tone, then offer her the box. She takes a piece and can't hold onto her sulky expression once it's in her mouth. I can't blame her for that, or for the noises she makes after. This is hands down the best chocolate I've ever had. Better than blood or sex. I take another piece for myself.

"There's an awful lot of moaning going on in here," Row comments, putting his head through the door from the library next door.

"Try this," Reina says, holding a piece out to him. Curious, he reaches for it, and Reina pulls it away, grinning playfully. He eyes her suspiciously as she holds it out again, then bends to take it from her fingers with his lips. He meant it to be sexy, but the effect is rather ruined when his eyes widen and he stands up moaning louder than either of us.

"This is amazing," he says, ignoring our laughter. "Where did you get that?"

"Chocolatier up the road," I tell him. "This neighborhood is incredible."

"Beyoncé has a house here," Reina adds, still sounding a little awed. She’s not even a fan, but the mere proximity to someone like that is inspiring.

"You don't want to know how much we paid for this," I finish.

Row laughs, shaking his head. "Sounds about right. Old vampires always end up rolling in it."

"Well, when you don't have to eat," Reina says with a shrug. "Or sleep, or worry about medical bills, or plan for retirement because you're going to live forever, and also you can just eat anyone who messes with you-"

"It does cut down on bills," Carver summarizes, entering the room behind Row. We share a smile for a sweet moment before he falls into the window seat where I'd been before. "I knew a Kresova who decided he wanted a house in the Quarter, so he threw a few hundred dollars into a savings account with a good interest rate, invested in a few low-risk long terms stocks and simply went to sleep for a few decades. Picked a mausoleum in one of the historical graveyards where he knew he wouldn't be bothered and just snoozed away the seventies in a crypt. Woke up a millionaire."

"We can do that?" I ask, a little surprised, sitting next to him and smiling at the natural way his arm settles around me. The sunlight through the window dapples his golden hair and halos it in white. "Just pass out for that long?"

"After one of Morana's parties, I once overslept by a week without even trying," Carver answers, squeezing me closer. "And everyone knows of a Baetal we call Van Winkle. Turned in the early eighteen hundreds and decided he wanted to see the future. Buried himself for two thousand years and woke up at the turn of the millennium. Apparently, he only stuck around a few decades and decided he didn't care for it. Went back to sleep to wait for a time more like his own. No one's beaten that record, as far as I know."

"Yeah, no thanks," I say with a grimace. "Remind me to always set an alarm from now on. I'll be waking you up too, just so you know."

I point a finger at Carver in warning and he just smiles.

"Well, ideally," he said, taking my hand and kissing the back of my knuckles. "I'll be sleeping close by enough that your alarm will wake me up too."

I blush at the implication but I can't help smiling. It’s a future I’m looking forward to, and totally worth losing the one I’d been planning.

"I don't know, sleeping for a week sounds like exactly what I need," Reina says with a sigh, sitting on the edge of the pool table. "Right after finals I would have payed blood to be able to do that. On second thought, I guess I did."

"Oh man, me too," I say, remembering finals. "And February. I could sleep through February every year. Worst month ever."

"Ooh, and when you find out Netflix isn't releasing the next season of the show you're binging till next year?"

"Or when you order something online but you're too cheap to get the fast shipping so it's going to take like two months."

"Or when someone you really don't like is having a birthday and expects you to show up and you're just like 'oh, sorry, I slept through that whole month actually!'"

"I'm pretty sure you've done that one before," I say, laughing loudly.

A tap on the door interrupts the four of us continuing to list the pettiest reasons to sleep for a month. I recognize James, a friend of Row's who's been helping us, as he looks in cautiously. He's a cute guy, a little awkward in that clumsy puppy way, broad and shy and a bit dumb, with curly dark hair and blue eyes.

"Sorry to interrupt," he says with a sheepish grin. "Lucian sent you a message through the secure channel. I thought you'd want to hear it."

I feel a squirm of guilty discomfort twist in my gut at the mention of Lucian. I'd been avoiding thinking about him since I'd found out about his fiancé. Which was ironic considering I couldn't stop thinking about him at first. And I had it on good authority he'd been similarly fixated. That was the heart of the problem really. We both knew what we were probably destined to be to one another, but the fact that he was already engaged made the situation painfully uncomfortable.

I made my peace pretty easily with the idea of loving three people at once. It had been a bit overwhelming when the oracle had first told me. I sometimes had difficulty believing I was good enough for anyone, let alone three guys, let alone three guys as amazing as Carver and Lucian and whoever else were. But once I had time to think about it, it felt right. Not just like it was something I was destined for, but like I would have chosen it eventually regardless. Looking back, a lot of the feelings and fantasies I'd had when I was younger made a lot more sense.

But I would never force that on someone who didn't want it, destined or not. And Lucian's fiancé would almost certainly not be okay with her future husband being part of my harem. And I couldn't make Lucian leave someone he presumably loves, for me. Either destiny had messed up somewhere or we were destined. Whichever it was, it made thinking about Lucian a landmine of uncomfortable feelings.

"Of course," Carver answers James instead of me. "Is something wrong?"

"No, everything's fine," James says, holding his hands up. "He just heard about the girls being, uh, displaced, and wanted to let them know they were free to stay with him if they wanted. Uh, he attached an address."

He hands a scrap of paper to Carver, who reads it over quickly before handing it to me. I stuff it in my pocket, wondering if I should burn it to protect Lucian's location.

"We'll reply tomorrow," Carver tells James after a glance at me to make sure that's what I want. "There's no rush, and it's time for dinner. I just put the last of the food on the table."

"You cooked?" I asked, surprised.

"I am French," Carver says, feigning offense. "Did you doubt I could cook?"

"He ordered take out," Row says, and laughs as Carver glares at him.

"It's the finest take out money can buy, thank you," Carver says, leading us towards the dining room.

We're about to sit down when a knock at the front door sounds through the fine house.

"I'll take care of it," Carver says, waving me towards my seat. "Please, go ahead and start without me."

I watch him go, uneasy, and Reina and Row ignore their food as well, waiting for Carver to return. Someone coming to the door here is strange. No one should know we're here. Even Carver is supposed to be somewhere else.

He returns a minute later, holding a letter in one hand and the envelope it came from in the other. He's pale, his expression grim. My eyes jump to the envelope, bearing a big red wax seal stamped with the letter K.

"What is it?" I ask, my voice thin, already fairly certain I know what it is.

"It's a letter from Morana," Carver replies, meeting my gaze, fear for me in his eyes. I hear Reina's breath catch, and the table creaks under Row's grip. "She knows we're here."

"How?" I ask, my voice breaking.

"I must not have been careful enough," Carver says, guilt on his face. "I knew she was aware of this house, but I didn't think she was watching it. Of course she was watching it." He curses in French under his breath.

"Fuck, she could have killed us in our sleep," Reina whispers.

"What does she want?" I ask, fighting to maintain composure.

"She politely requests our presence at court," Carver says, looking down at the letter like he thinks it might bite him. "To meet the other royal families."

He folds the letter, his face gray with worry.

"She expects us there in three days."