“It is also how I feel about Sebastian,” he says uncertainly. “It is important that you know that.”
“Good. I’m glad,” I say, and he looks at me in surprise. “Your comments in Vegas about how you don’t feel anything for most of your charges concerned me,” I add.
“Oh,” he pauses now, taking that in.
“I wish you had told me about him before he turned up in New York. He is such a huge part of your life and I never even knew,” I say cautiously.
He peers at me warily and I sigh. As much as he has changed, he is still the same cagey tiger he has always been.
“He is hurting,” he says quietly.
“Why?”
“Because of his secret. He is hurting and I can’t do anything to help him.”
“Oh.” I see now where this is going. I have a mild sense of not déjà vu, but something else. Like I was expecting it. Like somehow, I knew it was coming.
I start to shake my head at him as he says, “But you can.”
“No, CK, no.”
“Liv, please.” I start at the use of Liv. “He needs you to help him. I need you to help him.”
“No. I said that when we were in the past, you should just try and find someone you trust to help him.”
“Don’t you think we have tried that? Hundreds of times over the last two thousand, seven hundred and sixty years, and it always ends the same. In betrayal and certain death.”
“That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?” I ask with a frown. “Just throw some money at someone to keep their trap shut.”
“Aefre, I don’t think you really get the enormity of this.” He sighs.
“I do. I get that his blood is the cure for our limitations.”
“Yes. For all of us,” he presses.
I nod. “Yes, I know.”
“All of us, Aefre. Not just the top four, but everyone.”
“What? I tho
ught anything below a Lesser Immortal couldn’t withstand sunlight even with the Faerie Silver?”
“Not if they drink from Sebastian,” he snaps at me, getting irritated with my apparent denseness. “And it isn’t a cure if they drink from him, it’s temporary without the Silver and the spell. Do you get it now? If they knew, he would be used as a Feeder for the weak. Imprisoned and used.”
I gulp. “Oh,” I say, realization dawning that it would be a hideous fate to endure. “I see now.”
“Very well. So, you see the problem we face? Even if we threw money at someone, as you so succinctly put it, what is to stop them from using him to make even more money by charging for feeding?”
That is a massive reality check mixed in with a big old dose of disgust.
“Fine. I get it. But what about Jess? They are married in the future. Why not clue her in? I’m sure we could trust her, with her being so close and all.”
“They are married in the future?” he asks incredulously. “She drinks from him?”
“Well, no,” I admit. “He said he spelled her to not bite him.” I am getting very confused here so I ask, “Why can’t he just spell someone to forget after they’ve fed from him? And furthermore, if someone does drink from him, how do they even know what he is? What his blood can do?”
He looks at me like I am thick, and I wonder if perhaps I am, as I just don’t get it.