Lilith paused and wiped away a tear. Violin placed her hand on her mother’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze, and Lilith reached up and briefly clasped her daughter’s hand. I was clearly missing something here, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it was.

“For a long while the Upierczi tried another tactic. They kept the women who bore Upierczi children and forced them to produce child after child. This was not ultimately successful, so they tried another tactic. When a dhampyr was born, if it was female, she was kept and raised, and when she was old enough, she was raped and impregnated and forced to bear a child. This nearly always resulted in an Upierczi birth. For a while this seemed like the solution to their problems … but the vampires and their Red Order masters did not understand the nature of genetics. Not then, at least. Generation after generation of forced inbreeding did not expand the Upierczi—it nearly destroyed them. Children were born who were Upierczi, but who were mongoloid and severely retarded. Freakish births, a sharp rise in stillbirths. Lunacy, madness, a drop in physical abilities, reduced intelligence.” She took a steadying breath. “For a while it seemed as if their own attempt to breed a master race was going to result in the death of the entire species.”

“I met one of the knights,” I said. “There was nothing genetically weak about him. What changed? What happened?”

“The science of genetics happened,” said Mr. Church.

I looked at him.

“Gene therapy, artificial insemination, gene splicing. Rebreeding techniques. Science caught up to the needs of the Upierczi.” He turned to Lilith. “Am I right?”