"Auggie said you were too sentimental for your own good sometimes."

Out loud he said, "Perhaps, but you have taught me that sentiment is not always a bad thing."

I stared up at that impossibly beautiful face, and felt love swell up inside me like a physical force. It filled my body, swelling upward until it made my chest ache, my throat tighten, and my eyes burn. It sounded so stupid. But I loved him. Loved all of him, but loved him more because loving me had made him better. That he would say that I had taught him about being sentimental made me want to cry. Richard reminded me at every turn that I was bloodthirsty and cold. If that were true, then I couldn't have taught Jean-Claude about sentimentality. You can't learn, if you don't have it to teach.

He kissed me. He kissed me softly, with one hand lost in the hair to the side of my face. He drew back and whispered, "I never thought to see that look upon your face, not for me."

"I love you," I said, and touched his hand where it lay against my face.

"I know that, but there are different kinds of love, ma petite, they are equally real, but. . ." He smiled, and said, "Such soft tenderness I thought you had reserved for others."

"What others?" I asked, because I couldn't leave it alone.

He gave me a chiding look, as if I knew the answer to the question, and I guess I did. I knew Richard was almost desperately jealous of Micah and Nathaniel, but for the first time I realized Jean-Claude was jealous, too. And jealousy always hurts. I was sorry I ever made him doubt how much I loved him. He would never hold my hand in a delivery room, or vacuum a floor, but within the parameters of his life, I could ask anything of him.

"I don't mean to interrupt this little lovefest," London said, in a tone of voice that said clearly he did want to interrupt, and maybe be cruel on top of it, "but could you try to free Requiem? Or did you not mean to free him, and it was all just talk?"

"London," Elinore said, with a warning in that single word.

"I am allowed my cynicism, Elinore. I have been disappointed too many times in too many different masters."

"Haven't we all," Wicked said.

Truth just nodded.

I frowned at all of them, and suddenly even cuddling with Jean-Claude wasn't quite as comforting. "Thanks guys, no performance anxiety here."

"We do not mean to make things more difficult for you," Truth said, "but like most vampires who have not spent their entire existence with one master, we have been ridden hard, and cruelly, by those who were supposed to take care of us."