The ache in my hand, the way colors screamed in the sunlight, the strange smells . . . after a century of certainty, I was unprepared for the barrage of new and unfamiliar. I would never admit it to Reg, but it was all a little overwhelming.

“I just feel like we’re trapped inside a kaleidoscope and I need something . . .”

“Black?” Reg held up the leather skirt.

“How can you be so calm?”

I vastly preferred this familiar, unflappable version of my brother to the rattled stranger I’d seen on our first night, but could he at least be a little disturbed by all this?

Reg waved a hand. “I’ve given it some thought, and I suspect this whole thing may be a bit of a ruse . . . a show of force, to ensure we learn our lesson. When the Elders decide we’ve been in time-out long enough, they’ll come back for us.”

And how long is a time-out to an Elder? A year? A decade?

A shiver ran through me. A century?

Reg interrupted my thoughts before I could consider the full weight of that possibility.

“Perhaps when we’re of age.”

“We’re over a hundred.”

“In human years,” he said. “Likely only a year or two away.”

It may as well have been a century.

I shuddered as I realized Reg might be right. Laws had changed since we were first made vampire, and it was no longer legal to turn children, thanks to the Treaty of Annis. According to the treaty, humans could not be given immortal life until they reached adulthood. The decision was validated over the years by scientific advancements and studies of the human brain and hormones. Not that the Elders needed validating. They only had to look at stories of the Ancients—some of them just small children when they were turned. Ten thousand years of temper tantrums were enough to prove the point.

Did the treaty rules apply to us now?

Reg caught the distress in my face and sighed. “Look, there’s nothing we can do about it right now, so we might as well enjoy ourselves.”

“You make it sound like a vacation,” I said.

“It is, in a way.”

“In that case, I want a refund.”

“Bah. Brooding is boring,” he said with a sparkle in his brown eyes.

Yes, definitely brown now.

I gasped and leaned in. “What’s happening to your eyes? They’re not black anymore.”

“Oh. Yes, they’re changing,” he said. “Same as yours.”

“Mine?”

“Of course. You don’t know? Charlie, haven’t you looked in a mirror?”

“No.”

What for? It’s not like my reflection was anything new. Vampires could see themselves in mirrors just fine, but the only reflection I’d ever needed was in the eyes of my victims . . . er, admirers.

Reg stood and held out a hand to help me up. “Come on. There’s a mirror in the washroom.”