"I feel dead."

"Okay, well, you kinda look dead. I know when I look like crap I usually feel like crap, too. Maybe that's part of why you feel so bad." I reached into my bag and pulled out one of her cowboy boots. "Check out what I brought you."

"Shoes cannot fix the world." This was a subject Stevie Rae and the Twins had argued about before, and her voice held a hint of the old exasperation.

"That's not what the Twins would say."

The familiar tone in her voice flattened out to expressionless and cold. "What would the Twins say if they could see me now?"

I met Stevie Rae's red eyes. "They'd say you need a bath and an attitude check, but they'd also be unbelievably happy that you're alive."

"I'm not alive. That's what I keep trying to get you to understand."

"Stevie Rae, I am not going to understand that because you're walking and talking. I don't think you're anything like dead-I think you're changed. Not like I'm Changing, as in becoming what we're used to recognizing as an adult vampyre. You've made a different kind of Change, and I think it's harder than the one that's happening to me. That's why you're going through all of this. Would you please give me a chance to help you? Can't you just try to believe everything might turn out okay?"

"I don't know how you can be so sure about that," she said. I gave her the answer I felt deep in my soul, and knew the moment I'd said it that it was the right thing to say.

"I'm sure about you being okay because I'm sure that Nyx still loves you and she let this happen for a reason." The hope that flashed in Stevie Rae's red eyes was almost painful to look at. "You really believe Nyx hasn't given up on me?"

"Nyx hasn't and I haven't." I ignored her smell and gave her a firm hug, which she didn't return, but she also didn't jerk away from me or take a bite out of my neck, so I figured we were making progress. "Come on. The place I found for you to stay is just down the street."

I started walking, believing she would follow me, which she did after only a slight hesitation. We cut around the grounds of the museum and came out on Rockford, the street that runs in front of it. Twenty-seventh, the street Aphrodite's mansion (well, it's really her crazy parents' mansion) sits off of runs right into Rockford. Feeling more than a little dreamlike, I walked down the middle of the road in the darkness, concentrating on shrouding us in silence and invisibility, with Stevie Rae following only a couple of feet behind me. It was dark and seemed preternaturally silent. I glanced up through the winter branches of the huge old trees that lined the street. I should have been able to see an almost full moon, but clouds had rolled in, obscuring all but an indistinct glow of white where the moon should be. It had turned cold, and I was glad that my changing metabolism protected me from the whipping wind. I wondered if weather changes bothered Stevie Rae, and I was going to ask her about it when she suddenly spoke.

"Neferet won't like this."

"This?"

"Me being with you instead of with the others." Stevie Rae seemed really agitated and was plucking nervously at one hand with the other.

"Relax, Neferet won't know you're with me, at least not until we're ready for her to know," I said.

"She'll know as soon as she gets back and sees that I'm not with the rest of them."

"No, she'll just know you're gone. Anything could have happened to you." Then a thought hit me that was so incredible I stopped like I'd run into a tree. "Stevie Rae! You don't have to be around adult vamps to be okay!"

"Huh?"

"It proves you've Changed! You're not coughing and dying!"

"Zoey, I've already done that."

"No no no! That's not what I mean." I grabbed her arm, ignoring the fact that she immediately pulled it from my grasp and took a step away from me. "You can exist without the vamps. Only another adult vampyre can do that. So it is just like I said. You have Changed, it's just a different kind of Change!"

"And that's a good thing?"

"Yep!" I wasn't as sure as I sounded, but I was determined to keep a positive front for Stevie Rae. Plus, she was looking not-so-good. I mean, even more not-so-good than her usual yucky look. "What's wrong with you?"

"I need blood!" She wiped a shaky hand across her dirty face. "That little bag wasn't enough. You stopped me from feeding yesterday, so I haven't fed since the day before. It-it's bad when I don't feed." She tilted her head weirdly, like she was listening to a voice in the wind. "I can hear the blood whispering through their veins."