“We’ve got some bad history between us, Bill, but you’ll always have a special place in my heart.” I cringed inside when I heard the hackneyed phrase coming from my own mouth. But sometimes clichés are true; this was the truth. “I hardly feel worthy of being cared about that strongly,” I admitted.

He managed a smile. “As to your being worthy, I don’t think falling in love has much to do with the worth of the object of love. But I’d dispute your assessment. I think you’re a fine woman, and I think you always try to be the best person you can be. No one could be . . . carefree and sunny . . . after coming as close to death as you did.”

I rose to leave. Sam had wanted me to see Bill, to understand his situation, and I’d done that. When Bill got up to see me to the door, I noticed he didn’t have the lightning speed he’d once had. “You’re going to live, right?” I asked him, suddenly frightened.

“I think so,” he said, as if it didn’t make any difference one way or another. “But just in case, give me a kiss.”

I put one arm around his neck, the arm that wasn’t burdened with the flashlight, and I let him put his lips against mine. The feeling of him, the smell of him, triggered a lot of memories. For what seemed like a very long time, we stood pressed together, but instead of growing excited, I grew calmer. I was oddly conscious of my breathing—slow and steady, almost like the respiration of someone sleeping.

I could see that Bill looked better when I stepped away. My eyebrows flew up.

“Your fairy blood helps me,” he said.

“I’m just an eighth fairy. And you didn’t take any.”

“Proximity,” he said briefly. “The touch of skin on skin.” His lips quirked up in a smile. “If we made love, I would be much closer to being healed.”

Bullshit, I thought. But I can’t say that cool voice didn’t make something leap south of my navel, in a momentary twinge of lust. “Bill, that’s not gonna happen,” I said. “But you should think about tracking down that other vampire child of Lorena’s.”

“Yes,” he said. “Maybe.” His dark eyes were curiously luminous; that might have been an effect of the poisoning, or it might have been the candlelight. I knew he wouldn’t make an effort to reach out to Lorena’s other get. Whatever spark my visit had raised in him was already dying out.