“Yet.” Jase grinned.

“Well—” I tossed him the ball, half aware of the little faces watching us through the window behind me. “Hopefully, they’ll just be cleared for adoption soon and we won’t need an institute for them. Or maybe we’ll just find that cure instead.”

“Yeah, actually, I have a few theories on that,” he said, bouncing the ball as he spoke. “I wanna test out your blue light—see exactly what kind of electricity it is, because that whole heart-starting thing has my head going round in circles.”

“Why?”

“Well, it seems to be made up of static energy, but that shouldn’t cause such a dramatic effect when shoot—”

“Ara!”

Jase stopped talking and looked up the hill. “Great,” he muttered under his breath.

I spun around to watch David approach at a fast, human pace. “Hi, David.”

“What are you doing here?”

“It’s Tuesday,” I said flatly. “I always visit the children on Tuesday.”

“How convenient.” He stood beside me, eyeing his brother. “And you both just happened to cross paths.”

Jase sighed, tossing the ball away over his shoulder. “Whatever, man.”

“I believe the title you were looking for is Your Majesty,” David called after Jason, who just shook his head, walking slowly off over the hill.

“You didn’t have to do that.” I glared up at my king. “He was here before I got here. I ran into him.”

“Like I said.” He turned away. “Convenient.”

“You really do think the worst of people, don’t you?”

“No.” He headed toward the house. “I think the worst of him.”

“He’s your brother, David.”

He turned around and walked backward. “And I love him as such. Provided he stays away from my wife.”

I imprisoned my smile, shaking my head, watching the bright sun turn to shadow over David’s brown hair as he disappeared under the eaves of the house, flicking a quick grin my way before heading inside.

How could that man irritate me so much, then blast it all away with one look? I groaned, running after him. “Would you wait up?”

He held the door open with his foot, signing both himself and me in to the logbook. “I’m just giving him a hard time, Ara. You know that, right?”

“No, you’re doing everything you can to make sure he’s afraid to even look at me.” The door closed behind me, locking into place as it shut.

“Can you blame me?”

“No,” I said, folding my arms. “But don’t try to play innocent when I accuse you of being nasty.”

“Fine. I’m being nasty. Get over it.” He handed me a visitor’s pass. “If he’d never spirit bound you, we wouldn’t have a problem.”

I groaned, rolling my eyes, then held up the badge. “What’s this for?”

“I want you to come to the restricted block—see Max.”

I lowered the pass, toying with it for a second as the image of Max on the day I first met him flashed in my mind. He was so small and so thin, and his eyes were so hollow and dark. But it wasn’t the eternal sadness of his little soul that haunted me the most. It was the way the keeper’s metal stick speared his ribs and broke his skin, the child screaming then just laying there—all instinct to fight dead inside him.

“It’s okay.” David cupped my hand and steered the badge up to my chest, pinning it to my blouse. “He doesn’t remember anything now.”

I nodded. “I heard it took several sessions with Jason.”

“Yes, but last night, Max actually slept.”

I smiled at my feet. “What about Joshua—his brother?”

David hooked a finger under my chin to roll it upward. “They’re both fine. Come see.”

When we cleared the second security gate and locked it behind us, I heard a little voice squeal my name and a flash of gold hair tied with a pink ribbon caught my eye across the room, appearing beside me a second later. “Look what I can do, Ara.”

“I’m watching, Lacey.” I stood back, folding my arms, a smile holding a certain amount of excitement and interest across my face.

“One, two, thr—” Lacey grunted on the last word, tipping herself forward as both hands came down to the ground and her feet went vertical, the cuffs of her jeans sliding up her skinny ankles a little.

I clapped. “Yay! Well done, Lacey. And did you practice with the hula hoop today?”

“Yep. I can do it for three minutes now,” she said, holding up four fingers.

“Aw, well—” I reached out and pulled her close for a hug; her tiny arms wrapped my waist, her head sitting just under my ribs. “Maybe you can show me when I come back from visiting with Max and Joshie.”

“Okay.” She pulled away and placed both hands behind her back, smiling up at me. She was the most adorable child out of this group—her blond hair and bright smile lighting my every visit.

“Ara?” David said softly, closing the security gate behind himself and a sharp-faced man with dark, receding hair—the kind of man who looked like he’d spent too long working in an office and not enough time in the sun, enjoying things, like a smile.

“Go play, Lacey,” I said softly, touching her shoulder. “I’ll come by later.”

She toddled off and sat in the art corner beside her little friend.

“This is Ross Johnson,” David announced, and Ross offered his hand. “He’s come by to assess Charles.”

“Great.” I shook his hand and dropped it quickly, fighting the urge to wipe it on my jeans. “I’m sorry we had to call you in, but we can’t really send our head psychologist in with Charles, because she’s Lilithian.”

“Yes, I’ve been made aware of the basics of the case. Now, I understand this is the second group of children to come through the House?” He motioned around the room.

“Yes,” I said, taking a half step away from the other children in the hopes Mr Johnson might follow. This wasn’t really the place to discuss this. “Over there we have Lacey and Harry, and the other two from this group were Charles and a three-year-old girl we’ve named Sophie—both in the secure wing.”

“And what of the first group? Where are they now?”

“Four kids have been adopted out to loving Lilithian and vampire families, and it seems they’re all doing remarkably well. The other two are in observation.”

“Right.” Ross typed something on his tablet, nodding as he did. “Max and Josh, correct?”

“Yes,” I said, remembering back to the first day I came to the Damned House and saw Max playing in the sunbeams by the window. “We’d held high hopes for Max. But, at night, when we had no control over the sunlight, he’d become monstrous and hard to handle.”

“Yes, we had to restrain him after he tore the hair from a little girl’s scalp on his first night,” David said. “He was just too traumatised, and it seemed the dark only aggravated his torment.”

“Right,” Mr Johnson said. “And Katy, your head psychologist, mentioned that Charles and Sophie showed signs of dissociative personality disorders.”

“Yes, which may actually have been present before they were turned.”

He wrote something else down, and I checked over my shoulder to see if Lacey and Harry were listening.

“Why don’t we take this discussion into the secure section?” David suggested, winking at me.

“Yes, of course.” Mr Johnson looked up then at Harry and Lacey, realising finally that we weren’t alone.

“Ara?” Harry called, holding up a large rectangle page. “Look what I did.”

I left David and Mr Johnson by the security door and wandered over to the art corner, my eyes going wider when I got a closer look at Harry’s picture. “I love this, Harry.” I squatted down and pointed to the house sitting under a sunny sky. “You’re using so many colours now. And, can you tell me—” I aimed my finger to the red apples in the tree. “What colour is this?”

“Um.” He considered the apple for a moment, scratching just beside his nose. “Purple?”

I looked over at David. His smile grew.

“Very close,” I said. “But we call that one red.”

“Argh!” Harry folded over his page, slapping his brow. “Stupid! Stupid! Stu—”

“Hey,” David said gently, appearing suddenly beside Harry, gently taking both his hands. “Do you want to know something, Harry?”

Harry looked at David. He idolised his king and wanted to be just like King David when he grew up, which saddened my heart immensely, knowing the Damned might never actually grow up. But his love for David had allowed them a certain connection neither had with anyone else at the House, and David could always get through to him.

“When I was a little boy,” David started, “I always got the colour red and purple mixed up. They look exactly the same, don’t they?” His eyes slowly drifted onto mine, sparkling with a grin, asking me to play along.

“I’m never gonna get this right,” Harry said, dropping his head between his hands.

“You will.” David lifted his face again. “Because all you have to remember is that the colour red—” He pointed to the apple, “—is the same colour as blood.”

Harry sat up straight.

“And you like blood, don’t you, Harry?” David finished.

Harry nodded.

“Okay.” David stood up, tousling Harry’s orange curls. “And if you keep getting the colours wrong, guess what?”

“What?” Harry said.

“It’s okay. No one’s going to hurt you, son. We like it when someone makes a mistake around here because it means they’ve got another chance to learn. And what do we get when we learn something?”

Harry’s eyes lit up. “Chocolate!”

“Right.” David reached into his pocket and pulled out a Hershey’s. “Here you go, buddy. You learned that blood is red today, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then you can have this.”

“Thank you, King David.” He jumped up and threw his arms around my husband. And my eyes watered. I loved seeing the children happy. It was just so easy to make them smile. All they wanted was a little love, a little encouragement, and when given anything—didn’t matter if it was a flower from outside, a pin from my hair that one of them liked, or a new pack of pencils—they were just so grateful it was heartbreaking.

David patted Harry’s hair, holding back his own tears.

“Okay, see if you can draw me a picture of a puppy, and I’ll come back after I’ve taken Queen Ara to see Max and Joshie, okay?”