The people who fell in her shadow would find, quickly, that they’d have preferred the old-fashioned kind of vampire. In some ways, opera gloves and lacy peignoirs were less terrible than scalpels and tubing and spotless operating theaters. At least the first felt somewhat personal.

“All right,” said Eleanor. She focused on Alexis. “You and Jack are both welcome here, for as long as you’d care to stay. I can arrange a room, board, everything, only let me know what you need.”

Alexis’s hands flashed.

“‘It’s kind of you to offer, but we can’t stay,’” said Sumi. Her voice was calm, uncharacteristically level; in it, Kade could hear the echo of the girl she’d been before Confection, the one he’d seen in her permanent file, the one whose life had been measured and metered and entirely mapped out for her. She would have been a devastating woman, that solemn, mannered, well-educated daughter of privilege and plenty: she would have ruled a corporate empire with an unyielding fist, and her rivals would have trembled at her name.

That future had been sidelined when young Sumi found a door that wasn’t supposed to exist; that version of her would never come to pass. Kade watched her translating for Alexis, and couldn’t help but be oddly grateful.

Alexis continued to sign: Sumi continued to speak. “‘The longer Jill has possession of Jack’s body, the harder it’ll be to take it back. More importantly, it will also be harder for Jack to adjust. Every minute is another minute when Jill could be touching anything with Jack’s unprotected hands, wading barefoot in mud just because she knows it would cause her sister emotional distress—even killing people. Jack is more delicate than anyone knows she is. Jill is the only person she’s ever killed, and she did it both to save her friends and with the full knowledge that Jill could and would be resurrected.’”

“Couldn’t Jack learn to be happy in the body she has?” asked Eleanor. “They’re identical, or they were, before their choices caused them to diverge. Jack could make those choices again. She could make herself over in her own image, without needing to put herself in danger.”

Alexis started to sign. Sumi shook her head, and she stopped, as Sumi rounded on Eleanor.