You are healed." Allegra nodded. "You are no longer a Silver Blood." She paused. "But you are no longer a vampire either." Bliss started. No longer a vampire-but what did that mean? Did it mean she was just human?

He kissed her, and their souls melted into each other in a melody older than time.

Every Valentine's Day, the student council sponsered a holiday fundraiser by selling roses that would be delievered in class. The roses came in four colors:white, yellow, red, pink, and the subtleties of thier meaning were parsed and analyzed by the female population to no end. Mimi had always understood it thus:white for love, yellow for friendship, red for passion, and pink for a secret crush.

Bonds are made to be broken," he said. "Just like rules.

No one was ever good enough for anybody's precious sons. No one ever called daughters precious, and why was that? Things had not changed very much. In the end women like Emily and Ingrid and Freya and Joanna only had one another to lean on. The men were wonderful when they were around, but their fires burned too bright, they lived too close to the sun - look what happened to her boy, and to her man. Gone. Women only had one another in the end.

Remember all fairy tales end at some point.

Kingsley did the same, except he also removed his T-shirt, showing off his broad chest, tan and smooth. When had Kingsley had time to work on his tan? Mimi wondered.