“The World Market is fun. You can get stuff from all over the world there. And Shreveport was the capitol of the Confederacy for a while.” Geez Louise, I needed to do better than that. “If you go to the Municipal Auditorium, you can see Elvis’s dressing room,” I said brightly. I wondered if Bubba ever visited there to see his old stomping grounds.

“I had a very good teenager last night,” Alexei said, matching my cheerful tone. As though he’d said he’d run a red light.

I opened my mouth and nothing came out. If I said the wrong thing, I might be dead right then and there. “Alexei,” I said, sounding much calmer than I felt, “you have to watch it. That’s against the law here. Your maker and Eric could both suffer for it.”

“When I was with my human family, I could do anything I wanted,” Alexei said. I really couldn’t read his voice at all. “I was so sick, they indulged me.”

Eric twitched.

“I can sure understand that,” I said. “Any family would be tempted to do that with a sick child. But since you’re well now, and you’ve had lots of years to mature, I know you understand that doing exactly what you want to do is not a good plan.” I thought of at least twenty other things I could have said, but I stopped right there. And that was a good thing. Appius Livius looked directly into my eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly.

“I don’t look grown up,” Alexei said.

Again, too many options on what I could say. The boy—the old, old, boy—definitely expected me to answer. “No, and it’s an awful pity what happened to you and your family. But—”

And Alexei reached over, took my hand, and showed me what had happened to him and his family. I saw the cellar, the royal family, the doctor, the maid, facing the men who had come to kill them, and I heard the guns fire, and the bullets found their marks; or in the case of the women, they didn’t, since the royal women had sewn jewels into their clothes for the escape that never came about. The jewels saved their lives for all of a few seconds, until the soldiers killed each groaning and bleeding and screaming individual. His mother, his father, his sisters, his doctor, his mother’s maid, the cook, his father’s valet . . . and his dog. And after the shooting, the soldiers went around with bayonets.

I thought I was going to throw up. I swayed where I sat, and Eric’s cold arm went around me. Alexei had let go, and I was never gladder of anything in my life. I would not have touched the child again for anything.

“You see,” Alexei said triumphantly. “You see! I should be free to go my own way.”