Eve’s steps were muffled here by a rich old-looking rug, all swirls and colors, that ran down the center of the polished wood floor. There were six doors up here on the landing. As they passed them, Eve pointed and named. “Shane’s.” The first door. “Michael’s.” The second door. “He’s got that one, too—it’s a double-sized room.” Third door. “Main bathroom.” Fourth. “The second bathroom’s downstairs—that’s kind of the emergency backup bathroom when Shane’s in there moussing his hair for like an hour or something….”

“Bite me!” Shane yelled from behind the closed door. Eve pounded a fist on the door and led Claire to the last two on the row. “This one’s mine. Yours is on the end.”

When she swung it open, Claire—prepared for disappointment—actually gasped. For one thing, it was huge. Three times the size of her dorm room. For another, it was on a corner, with three—three!—windows, all currently shaded by blinds and curtains. The bed wasn’t some dorm-sized miniature; it was a full-sized mattress and box spring with massive wooden columns at the corners, dark and solid. There was a dresser along one wall big enough to hold, well, four or five times the clothes that Claire had ever owned. Plus a closet. Plus…

“Is that a TV?” she asked in a faint voice.

“Yeah. Satellite cable. You’d pitch in, though, unless you want to take it out of the room. Oh, and there’s Internet, too. Broadband, over there. I should probably warn you, they monitor Internet traffic around here, though. You have to be careful what you say in messages and stuff.” Eve put the backpack on top of the dresser. “You don’t have to decide right now. You probably ought to rest first. Here, here’s your ice pack.” She followed Claire to the bed and helped her pull back the covers, and once Claire had pulled off her shoes and settled, she tucked her in, like a mother, and put the ice pack on her head. “When you get up, Michael’ll probably be awake. I have to get back to work, but it’ll be okay. Really.”

Claire smiled at her, a little fuzzily; the painkillers were starting to take effect. She got another chill. “Thank you, Eve,” she said. “This is—wow.”

“Yeah, well, you look like you could use a little wow today.” Eve shrugged, and gave her a stunning smile back. “Sleep well. And don’t worry, the vampires won’t come in here. This house has Protection, even if we don’t.”

Claire turned that over in her mind for a few seconds as Eve left the room and shut the door, and then her mind wandered off in happy clouds of noticing the softness of the pillow and how good the bed felt, and how crisp the sheets were….