“I’m not sure.” He shrugged. “Given what you are, I guess I assumed she’d seem more like someone inclined to traffic with demonic forces. No offense—I know you said it wasn’t her fault. She seems really nice, that’s all.”

“She is nice,” I said firmly. “She’s the best person I know. And the, um, trafficking was an accident.”

The band returned to the stage, expending a tremendous amount of energy endeavoring to invoke a zoot-suit riot. The sun sank in the west, gilding the dome of the gazebo. Soft violet twilight hovered, and the white fairy lights lacing the gazebo’s latticework twinkled to life. The steam-wheeler replica Pride of Pemkowet returned from its sunset excursion to Lake Michigan, its paddle wheel churning the river’s murky waters.

“Hey, sistah! I still owe you.” Sinclair bumped me, nudging my shoulder with his. “Maybe I could buy you dinner sometime?”

Cody glanced over at us, a hint of phosphorescent green flashing behind his eyes. Jealousy, maybe? Interesting. But it wasn’t like I hadn’t laid my cards on the table and given him every opportunity. Maybe a little jealousy wouldn’t be such a bad thing. And although I didn’t know him well, from what I did know, I genuinely liked Sinclair. Maybe that was worth exploring on its own merits.

“You sure about that?” I asked Sinclair. “I mean, given what I am and all?”

He nodded. “I’m sure.”

I looked into his clear brown eyes with their steady pupils. “I’d like that,” I said honestly. “It would be nice.”

“Nice,” he echoed. “All right, then. I’ll call you.”

Nice.

It shouldn’t be a laden word, but in a way it was. Nice could be a consolation prize, like Cody’s hug in the driveway of the Locksley place. Nice could be taking the easy way out, like accepting an ordinary date with Sinclair while avoiding Stefan, who offered something that tempted and scared me.

But nice didn’t necessarily mean making the safe choice, either.

My mother’s niceness was clean and pure and good, and she made a hard choice because of it.

Knowing what I was, having conceived me against her will, she chose to have me anyway.

When I was thirteen or fourteen, some kids at school, Stacey Brooks and her friends, started calling me Rosemary’s Baby. I’m sure they got it from their parents, since the movie was, like, twenty years old before any of us were born, and that was right around the time a group of parents unsuccessfully petitioned the school board to kick me out on the grounds that I made the other kids uncomfortable.

Anyway.