"Easily," he says, grinning. "Your security is good, but I am better. Now, your options: you can come with me and fetch the gem out of its clever little hidey hole for me, or you can come with me and watch me get it myself. I promise you'll like the first one better. Fewer casualties."

"What if I don't think you can get it?" Bella asks.

"Option two it is, then. Shall we?" And he half-turns, beckoning her to follow.

Bella considers bolting. No good; she'd trip, he'd get her. She's got a better shot with the water gun; she reaches for it.

"Am I going to solve it with my scintillating personality?" she asks. She considers spells, discards them; considers lying to him that the water gun leaks, discards the idea.

"Scintillate away, just as long as you do so while walking. I can also bribe you," he adds offhandedly. "You may recall Tony Stark's infamous laser pointers, if you were following the news a year or so back. The six remaining specimens and only copy of the plans are all in my possession. Once I have the gem, of course, it's all the same to me whether someone starts making them in bulk."

"It will be more convenient to send you in after it than to arrange for its hiding place to no longer be a human living area."

"How are you planning to demonstrate that the lasers are real, or is that not part of the plan?"

"The internet rumors say they dust vampires instantly," she comments after a pause.

"The internet is, as usual, wrong. These models need about half a second shining directly on skin for the flame to catch. He was working on a wider beam, but—" He shrugs, looking away. "Didn't finish in time."

"Considering that you don't have the gem of Amara now, I'm unclear on why you didn't destroy them. And the plans, if you have those."

"They come in very handy for killing other vampires."

"The plans do?"

"The laser pointers. The plans are mostly - sentimental in value."

"...Sentimental? Seriously?"

"After the vampire alliance killed Tony and turned me, I killed what was left of them, waited for the man who let them into our house so I could kill him too, and fucked off into the night. Surely that much at least is public record. If I can manage to get the plans to someone who is capable of putting them into production, that will be a lovely little grace note to the whole business."

"I didn't follow the story very closely," Bella says, "so those details might be public but I didn't know them. And I suppose you didn't already drop the plans in the mailbox to some suitable company because you didn't want to get lasered the following month?"

"Yes indeed. Not that it might not come to that eventually, but I thought I'd try a better class of immortality first."

"But you have no vampire friends for whose well-being you are concerned. So if you get the gem you'll be perfectly content to hand them to me and see everyone old enough not to point the light at their eyes carrying one."

"Precisely."

"How did you even find me?"

Bella shivers.

"Well?"

"I'm torn between wanting to get confirmation of my guess about what happens if I decline to help you, and not wanting to give you any ideas."

"Take the deal and save yourself the trouble," he advises.

Sherlock produces a lighter and starts playing with it.

"I'm thinking," she snaps. "The house isn't going to get less flammable while I think."

"Interesting way to put it," he says, but he puts the lighter away.

"Yes. On a flash drive. No, I will not wait for you to go fetch a computer so you can have a look."

"I wasn't going to ask. Since there are multiple pointers, plus the plans, can I get one of those objects before I go in the house, and then the rest when I come out with the gem to trade you?"

He produces a small USB key and hands it over ceremoniously.

Sherlock is waiting just outside, holding her phone.

"You are a distressingly good pickpocket."

"I'll take that as a compliment," he says cheerfully. "Trade you." His other hand produces laser pointers, one two three four, with successive flourishes.

"You said you had six. Is there some way for this handoff to go that doesn't leave you with a nice big window for killing me?"

"I'm keeping two. I did say they were useful for killing vampires," he reminds her. "And no, there is not. But you could always stay in the house and toss it out to me, and I will toss you back your phone and shiny new death rays and be on my merry way."

"Or you'll walk off with them," she says.

"Or I'll walk off with them. But I have no good reason to," he says. "Whereas if I give you the lasers and your phone first, you have many excellent reasons to call emergency services or try to set me on fire."

"There's a notion," he agrees, and he does. Two of the laser pointers take watch batteries; two take pairs of AAAs.

Bella waits to be tossed her battery-free electronics, behind the threshold of the house.

He does that too.

"The same thing I've been doing all this time, but in daylight," he says. "You probably imagine I'm going to kill lots of tasty humans, but it isn't true. I was bored of murder within a week of turning and I haven't done it since."

"I don't know," he says dryly. "Would you like to try it and see? It seems to me that in that situation each outcome is the opposite of how you'd like it: a murderous vampire will set the building on fire and get the ring, and a nice friendly one will wait patiently for a few hours and then go away and leave you to the mercy of the next fellow."

"You explain how you found me by way of asserting that the name is not a gimmick, and then you seem so sure that some other vampire, not named Sherlock Holmes, would inevitably also find me," Bella observes.

"Being Sherlock Holmes is how I found you first. I don't claim that I am the only vampire on this entire planet smart enough to make the same connections. Although I might be. Regardless, the other vampire is mostly rhetorical; the point is still that by staying inside you are arranging things so that I will get the Gem of Amara if and only if I shouldn't."

"I can't think of any," he admits. "I suspect you will not be swayed by the fact that I would find it slightly inconvenient if you did, and you have no reason to believe that I will not be using it to kill anyone."

"And I don't have any way to check up on you, not unless you take up permanent residence here and we continue not to have vampire-related deaths," she mutters.

He laughs. "I could do that."

"...Are you serious?"

"Should I not be? I don't have a better destination in mind," he says. "There's a certain appeal to the nomadic unlife, but mostly what I'm looking for is something interesting enough to keep me away from sunrises. You're reasonably interesting. And the deer in these parts are very tasty."

"Your sunrise-related behavior will be irrelevant with this thing." She holds up the ring. And with her other hand she pinches the bridge of her nose. "So I give you this, you leave, I take my batteries and go home, and I keep my mouth shut as long as I see you around too routinely for you to be nipping off to Port Angeles for snacks and Forks goes on with its lovely safety record. Yes?"

"It's a deal."

"Scramming," he says, and he gives her a wave and more or less vanishes instantly.

The next day, the school is abuzz: there is a new student. His name is John Escott and he was orphaned by vampires; he believes one or both of his parents might have turned, and he wants to live somewhere safe and out of the way where they won't think to look for him and couldn't get in if they did.

He tolerates being the focus of everyone's attention reasonably well, although it is clearly wearing on him. Yes, he is from England. London specifically. Yes, his parents were murdered by vampires, thank you for fucking well reminding him, he had almost forgotten, don't you have a class to pretend to pay attention to?

"Hello, Bella. I'm John, as you may have heard."

"I have heard that." Well, she has. She passes him yesterday's class notes, meticulous and interspersed with bits of Angela's handwriting; this notebook is school stuff exclusively. "My lab partner is sick today, but she'll be back."

"I wonder what they'll do with me then," he says dryly.

"No idea." She starts setting up the slides for the observations.

'John' assists as much as is reasonable.

Class proceeds. She needs to lay eyes on him regularly to be confident he's not eating people. She doesn't have to talk to him.

At some point during the lesson - it's hard to tell exactly when - a certain water gun appears among Bella's belongings.

Her lab partner smiles slightly.

Bella sits at another table, not with Angela as usual but with some more casual friends. She's mildly entertained by the complaints; that's one way to handle it.

Apple juice and misanthropy for lunch it is! Two great tastes that taste great together.

"Hello again." She leans to touch the toes on one outstretched leg.

"Here I am in tragic exile until such time as I obtain gym clothes," he agrees. "I suppose I'll have to get a job. Won't that be exciting."

"Potentially. The USADI outpost is always hiring but I might die of irony."

He giggles. "You wouldn't be the only one. Besides, I'm sure they do more than wave a cross."

"I imagine so. How did you get into town?"

"Oh, how most people do, of course. They waved crosses. I didn't flinch."

Bella peers at the crucifix around her own neck. Everyone wears one. The worldwide adherence to Catholicism just about tripled over the course of the few years it took for vampires to be truly common knowledge, but the crosses and holy water work for everyone. "How'd you do that?"

"It is possible to train yourself out of the habit."

"It must be staggeringly difficult, for the tests to be so reliable regardless."

"I have often been accused of excessive stubbornness."

"Ah."

"Now I know, and knowing is half the battle."

He giggles again.

Stretch, stretch, stretch. The other students are filing out of the locker rooms now to collect their hockey sticks.

"How are you handling your magic addiction?" he asks idly.

"I take extremely careful notes on how I'm feeling about it, and when I don't like what I see I take a few days off, when I don't need to be in a good mood or accomplish anything. Is it obvious?"

"'Obvious' is a word that rapidly begins to lose meaning around me," he says. "It's obvious to me, but then it's also obvious to me that Eric Yorkie fancies himself your secret admirer. People attempting to be casual around things that inspire strong reactions in them is - like flashing neon. You can't miss it. Well, I can't miss it. You see?"

"Eric?" says Bella. "I knew about Mike, but Eric?"

"Yes. Eric. I suppose you needn't believe me if you don't feel like it."

"I'd buy it, but I hadn't noticed."

"Yes, I believe that's exactly my point."

"Huh." Stretch, shift, lean, stretch. "I don't suppose you can teach people to do that? Or would be so inclined?"

"...I'm not sure," he says thoughtfully. "I taught it to myself, but that's hardly the same."

"Of course."

He shrugs. "Still, I wouldn't mind trying."

"Really."

"Yes, really. Why not?"

"At the risk of jinxing my prospective lessons, I wouldn't characterize us as friends."

"Yes, and? It might be interesting," he says. "Best reason in the world to do anything, as far as I'm concerned."

"All right then. Let me know when you settle into a schedule, if you still find the notion interesting," shrugs Bella.

"Will do."

Stretch, stretch. "Did you find a place to live?"

"Not yet. I have hope, though, now that I'm everyone's favourite tragic orphan."

"You're everyone's favorite antisocial tragic orphan who complains about the cafeteria food. If anyone starts making noise about sending you home with me because we're managing to have a civil conversation right now you'd better find a way to put them off before I blurt out to my parents that they mustn't invite you into our house."

"It's easier to keep up the cover if I'm not trying to mimic a fundamentally alien personality, and I assure you, if I had just lost my parents in a vampire attack two weeks ago I would be reasonably likely to punch the second person who asked me to tell them all about it. There have been five."

"Oh, I'm not saying it's a preposterous thing for you to be doing, I'm just not confident that it'll lead to a welcoming berth somewhere."

He shrugs. "We'll see."

"Hello," says the new boy. "I'm John, in case you are the one person in town who hasn't heard. I still don't have anything to take notes in, so you'll have to apply to Bella for those, but I have a pretty good memory so I think we can scrape by."

"Someone mentioned your name but I wasn't sure if I'd heard it right. Bella takes wonderful notes," says Angela.

"She does. I was very impressed."

"She practices a lot," laughs Angela, and she sets about meticulous lab setup. It's a very lab-heavy biology course. Angela is unusual in wearing not only the ubiquitous cross necklace, but also earrings and a bracelet; she could loan out half her vampire-repelling jewelry and be no less protected.

Lab ensues. Angela is quiet, not pensive or unfriendly, just - a quiet person.

Angela brings her lunch, and without Bella around she picks an empty table to sit at and eat her leftover rice salad and fruit cup.

"Lucky you," he says, gesturing to her lunch with his freshly acquired bottle of orange juice. "I'd've brought one myself, but I ran into the slight logistical issue of not having a kitchen to cook it in."

"Oh no, that's terrible. No permanent residence yet?" Angela, who will now be narrated as Angie, asks sympathetically.

"Not yet, no."

"Do you want help?" asks Angie.

"It would be much appreciated."

"My family actually lives right within walking distance of the school, next door to the church around the corner," says Angie, "and we have a spare room - I'll need to ask, but it might work out." She mentions the church with the gentleness of someone who has been made aware that her new classmate might have a particular fear of vampires but doesn't want to poke at it directly.

"That," says Sherlock, "would be very kind of you."

"You aren't wearing a cross," observes Angie. "Do you want one of mine?" She touches the one at her throat. "I have a lot."

"I noticed," he says with a quirk of a smile. "I - yes. Thank you."

She unclasps her necklace and offers it to him. Between it and her bracelet, it's the plainer, more plausibly unisex item. "You're welcome."

He takes it and puts it on with a sigh of apparent relief.

Angie pats his hand, once, not too familiar, and smiles, and spears one of her peach slices.

He smiles back and drinks his juice.

Lunch will continue to pass in companionable silence unless he chooses to say something.

Companionable silence it is.

"That seems more than fair. Thank you."

"You're welcome!" says Angie, smiling.

'John' smiles tentatively back.

Biology ensues. This is a lecture class. Angie does her level best to take Bella-quality notes so that she can bring them to Bella later. She has a copy of Bella's notes from the day she herself missed on hand.

Lacking a notebook, John just pays attention.

"Do you have stuff you'll need to move in?" Angie asks Sherlock, between bio and lunch.

"Not much of it," he says. "What I'm wearing, and a backpack."

Angela nods. "You can just walk home with me after school, then, and I can show you the room and introduce you to everyone."

"All right. Thank you again."

"You're welcome!" They sit down to lunch. "Do you want some of my sandwich?"

"Oh, I couldn't," he says. "You've been so kind to me already. If I'm going to eat your food at least let me be the one to cook it."

"If you're sure," says Angie. She is apparently a unique soul who can say those words without implying that she is being less than perfectly literal with them.

"Yes. Thank you."

"It's no trouble," she assures him, and she sets about eating her lunch.

And her companion drinks today's symbolic beverage.

After school, Angela locates "John" to show him to her house. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yes," he says, swinging the aforementioned backpack onto his shoulders.

"Hello, Mrs. Webber. Hello, Isaac. Hello, Joshua."

"Hello, John," says Mrs. Webber. "You can come have a look at our spare room right now if you like." She shuts the door to the family minivan behind her and shoos the boys towards the house.

"Thank you so much," he says, following hesitantly. "I can't express how much this means to me."

"It's no trouble. We moved to the bigger house when we had the twins, but it turns out they won't stand for separate rooms," says Mrs. Webber lightly. The twins in question have already gone inside.

"That's sweet," he says, with a little more of a smile.

"Isn't it just? Now, we aren't going to ask you for rent - goodness knows no one needs to be sent a bill after what I've heard happened to you, poor thing - but we can always use another pair of hands if you don't mind and it doesn't interfere with your schoolwork. Do you know how to drive? I know you're from England and won't have a local license, but if you know how I imagine you could figure out how to drive on the right side of the road quick enough."

"I do know how, yes."

"If you'd be so kind, when you pick up a local license, let me know, and we can talk about errands. In the meantime, Angie says you cook?"

"I cook," he confirms, smiling again. "Tolerably well, at that."

"You can have as long as you need to settle in and familiarize yourself with the place, but if you do cook, please make enough to share. You can add things to the grocery list, of course," says Mrs. Webber. "Be specific about things like brand and amounts if you're not going to pick them up yourself - and what are we still standing on the porch for, it's chilly." She goes in.

He hesitates on the threshold, because bouncing off it would be a problem, but apparently her earlier invitation to come in and look at the room was valid. In he goes.

It's a cute little house, lousy with crosses; if Sherlock cannot determine by decor alone that Angela's father is a priest he would do better to adopt "John Escott" as a permanent name. Mrs. Webber shows him each room on the ground floor, and then up to the spare room at the end of the hall on the second. It is painted pastel green and smells like potpourri.

"Charming," he murmurs, setting his backpack down carefully next to the bed.

"You can redecorate as you like within reason, of course," says Mrs. Webber. "I'll leave you be now unless you've got any questions?"

"No. Thank you again."

Bella is back at school the next day. On her second sick day she finally got someone from someplace's engineering department to take a look at the laser plans; she is pleased with herself.

Angela walks "John" to school.

John waves cheerfully.

"Hi. Angie, what's going on here?"

"We're letting John stay in our spare room," says Angie. "He needed a place to stay. And he makes really good pancakes!"

"Pancakes."

"They were extremely well received," says John. "I'm an abominable snacker when I'm cooking, so I didn't quite manage to sit down and eat with everyone, but I've been assured that it's the thought that counts."

"I doubt she'd take it well. If she took it poorly enough, goodbye to John Escott. I'd have to leave. And of course you might have noticed there are no dead or missing people since I arrived. The fact of the matter is, there is nothing to warn her about."

"I have noticed the lack of missing or dead people; you've presumably noticed the corresponding lack of a USADI team assaulting you. And now if you decide to alter anything about the status quo you have as a readily available hostage my best friend from since we were five."

"But then who would I make pancakes for?"

"...Are you making fun of me? I can't tell."

"I am making fun of you," he confirms. "But I mock with the truth. I've missed cooking. This bizarre experiment, going to high school, pretending to be human - it suits me."

"It took you a week to get bored of murder, a far more popular pastime among your species. How long do you imagine this one will last?"

"You'd have a better chance at understanding me if you forgot my species completely. Heaven knows I try to."

"And what makes you so special?"

"D'you know what," he says, "you may take that as your first assignment in observation and deduction."

"Figure out in what way I am different from other vampires, and why. For extra credit, figure out in what way I was different from other humans. Your available research material is the entire observable universe. There is no deadline."

Bella snickers. "All right. I'll see what I can do."

Sherlock grins.

"I'm actually a little surprised people aren't finding you more recognizable."

"People see what they expect to, on the whole. No one expects me to be who I am."

Bella nods. "Any tips, or is your style more 'immediate unguided field assignment' than 'tutoring'?"

"I already know the answer," he points out. "It makes it somewhat harder to investigate from a position of ignorance. But to get a little more abstract - I'm sure you can tell for yourself which are the things about me that don't fit. Those are always a good place to start."

"All right. D'you want my findings double-spaced?" Bella inquires lightly.

"A verbal report will do," he laughs.

"It'll probably be easier to submit it written, even if I don't bother to type it up. I think on paper."

"Oh, as you please, then."

"What's it like living with Angie?"

"Unobjectionable. I don't mind the chores, I like to cook for them, and the rest of the time I can sit in my room with a book and no one gives me trouble."

"Cooking is an. Interesting hobby."

"For a vampire, you mean? I had it before."

"I didn't think hobbies usually carried over. So I guess this will go in my report."

"See how informative the universe can be?"

"I'm so informed," says Bella dryly. "I'll have you all figured out any minute now."

He laughs.

"What else have you picked up, besides my little problem with magic, and the thing with Eric?"

"Plenty. Name a person and I will tell you if there is anything interesting about them."

She shrugs. "Angie. You've had plenty of chance to observe her."

"She's exactly as nice as she seems, which is a rare quality. No discernible secrets."

"How about me, then?"

"Besides the hidden magic addiction? If I had to describe your most interesting quality in as few words as possible, I would call you unusually effective."

Bella likes that. "What are you picking up on there?"

"You conjured the Gem of Amara out of a cave," he reminds her. "You have a magic addiction which you keep under control for the sake of what magic can get you. You are uncommonly skilled at applying resources to situations to achieve the desired effect."

"I figure out what I want. And then I get it."

Dryly, "I noticed."

"Yes. Yes you did."

He giggles.

"The Gem wasn't hard to find. I'm not a particularly good witch yet or I would have found a way to kill you with a spell when you asked after it."

"Which would've been a shame."

"Did you already know I wasn't a good enough witch to kill you with a spell, at the time?"

"I suspected."

"What gave me away?"

"It'd take a damn good witch to cast a spell faster than I could notice and stop you."

"Unless they were very good at force-of-will, but I guess if you were tracking my ingredients you knew I didn't use that for the Gem."

"Even force-of-will isn't fast, comparatively. But yes."

"Isn't it? Are you faster than most vampires?"

"Yes."

"Is that also part of my assignment to figure out or are you going to explain why that would be?"

"I've already given you a hint."

"Hmm."

"I'm not confident your standards for hints are such that I'll recognize them as such while I'm in the 101 class," Bella says after a minute's thought. "I can think of things that are similar to hints, but nothing that's - obvious in retrospect when armed with the conclusion, like hints typically are."

"I beat up vampires while I was still human. There could be several explanations for that, but the one that's true is that I was better at fighting than they were, and one of the specific things I was better at was analyzing and responding to situations quickly." He shrugs. "And now I am a vampire who is as much better at that than most vampires as I used to be better than most humans."

"Very likely."

"I remain open to the possibility that you're running some kind of prolonged con, but I cannot for the life of me determine why you'd want to."

"Pure boredom?" he suggests, and laughs.

"Pure boredom motivating you to attend high school, yes, highly plausible."

Sherlock giggles helplessly.

He grins at her.

"Go ahead."

"Most interestingly," Bella says, "I think you are either a rapid-grown clone or some form of magical construct. Magical construct would explain more by itself - it explains almost too much; if you can make one at all you can make one with nearly arbitrary properties - but clone is more plausible given who you appeared attached to, and your characteristics aren't necessarily inexplicable even if there is not magic in operation to explain them."

"Interesting theory. What's your evidence?"

"Tony's birth announcement is about ninety percent of it. There's no motive to hide a twin, no motive to do it for fourteen years, no realistic chance of successfully doing it for fourteen years with such a high-profile family, and then when you showed up in public you behaved eccentrically, neither you nor Tony explained where you came from, and while there are plenty of theories about that you were only able to appear in the same place at the same time via sophisticated holograms I don't buy it, in large part because he left a body and you're talking to me. I don't have enough information to determine when you were either cloned or conjured up, though."

"The answer is cloned."

"I would have been very embarrassed if I'd been mistaken," says Bella lightly.

"I think," she says, "that what I know about you is consistent with you being, perhaps not one of those legendary vampires with souls, but one who is atypically motivated even given vampiric sociopathy. I'm not clear on what does motivate you, but I have no significant evidence against it being the avoidance of inconvenience and boredom plus some other features to round you out that I don't have information on."

"As far as I can tell, I don't have a soul," he confirms. "But the lack of it doesn't seem to be slowing me down. As you've observed."

"Yes, 'slowed down' isn't the word I'd use."

"The lack of soul doesn't seem to... control you. I don't know to what extent this holds, but you have more impulse control than the average vampire or Angie would have been dead before I learned she was in any danger.'

"I have excellent impulse control," he says. "And very few impulses to kill people."

"Most people have their souls driving. I've occasionally speculated about what I'd wind up like if I were turned, and I'm not sure, but the statistics don't look good. I still don't know why you're different."

"I invite you to speculate."

"I could guess at near random. I don't think I have the data to produce anything I'd dignify with the label 'speculation'."

"Don't you? Review the facts, then."

"I could attempt to correlate your irregularities with each other. But I don't know how you were cloned, why you present yourself as Sherlock Holmes when you are not disguised as John Escott, or what led you to kill the vampires who turned you - I could tell myself a story about the last, but only at the risk of anthropomorphizing you more than I'm confident about doing."

"You know that I present myself as Sherlock Holmes, that I seem more or less able to back it up, and that I probably didn't come by any of that naturally," he says. "What does that tell you?"

"That I would need to know something about your unconventional and not-public-record upbringing to complete the puzzle," says Bella. "I gather that your education was accelerated and abnormally effective at rendering you able to act like you're sixteen when you're actually however old you are; I surmise that you were secluded until you caught up with Tony, or maybe only went out places you wouldn't be recognized; none of this spells 'fictional British detective' to me. Haven't you ever heard of the illusion of transparency? You obviously have an above-average ability to piece together clues about the world around you, but do note that you've never had to, in complete ignorance, figure out the history of your own life."

"I chose the name Sherlock Holmes and everything that went with it, and then I learned it all. My personal hypothesis - and granted I have only the one case to study - is that my identity survived the turning process so well because I built it myself from scratch. Not completely, of course, but nearly so."

"Interesting choice. Why?"

"I didn't have a name to start with, and we run spectacular in my family."

"He was twelve," says Sherlock. "He cloned himself because he was bored and lonely and wanted to see if he could. And then he defaulted to the reflex that afflicts so many geniuses - when confronted with a problem whose solution is not immediately obvious, give up completely." He shrugs.

"Lonely children who content themselves with stuffed animals manage to name them, if not necessarily with care or creativity. I would be disappointed but not appalled if he had decided to call you 'Cloney'. Calling you nothing at all is a step beyond that."

"I'm actually quite glad, on balance, that he didn't name me the way he would a stuffed animal."

"Yes, I suppose that's reasonable."

He shrugs.

"Well. My anthropomorphizing notions take a bit of a hit on learning this tidbit about your relationship with your - whatever."

"Our relationship improved in subsequent years."

"Could it have possibly done otherwise?"

"Oh, I'm sure it could. He did like me, even if he hadn't the faintest idea what to do with me."

"Ah. And then eventually you got along well enough to appear together in public."

"Eventually yes. And to appear together in private, for that matter," he says dryly.

Bella snorts.

Sherlock laughs.

"Did his parents even know about you?"

"No."

"I'm failing to come up with a mental picture here." She's been neglecting to do her crunches for too long; she starts up again before Ms. Finch comes over to investigate. "One person knew about your existence, did not manage to name you, and yet presumably however fast you grew you spent some time roughly child-sized and some possibly different amount of time child-competent and this means he managed to keep you, at minimum fed. And you randomly have a British accent, which could be a later affectation, I guess, and I'm not an expert at identifying fake accents, but my first guess wouldn't be that you developed it watching television. My next attempt at deduction is that he had some kind of help."

"Before he created me, he wrote a fully functional artificial intelligence program, whom he named Jarvis. Jarvis spoke with an English accent, although not precisely the same one I use, and he was my main companion for most of my accelerated childhood."

"Did Jarvis have the wherewithal to feed you when you were little, or did he just remind Tony?"

"By the time I was old enough to form lasting memories, Tony did not need much reminding. Although I learned to cook as soon as possible after that, because he was consistently terrible at it."

"That explains that, I guess, not that having learned how to cook needs particularly much explaining."

"It does explain how I got in enough practice to be so popular with my new hosts."

"Angie swooned to me over your carbonara."

"And she was right to do so."

"She keeps telling me that I should come over some night for dinner. Perhaps I should take her up on it."

"I think you should."

"What's on the menu this evening?"

"I haven't made specific plans."

"Perhaps I'll drop by anyway. I'm omnivorous."

"If only I could say the same."

"Yes, it's a pity there isn't a Gem of Carbonara."

"Now that I would kill for," he laughs.

"Would you not have killed for the one you've got on your toe?"

"Oh, is that where I put it?" he says airily. "I might have set the house on fire. I probably wouldn't have killed you."

"Of course it's where you put it, although I hope you don't expect me to figure out which toe. Why wouldn't you have killed me?"

"Well, first of all, I wouldn't expect it to help."

"Help with what?"

"Getting the Gem."

"Well, no, I couldn't have been coerced into getting through the wards for you if I were dead," she acknowledges, "but, alive, I had - continue to have - the ability to tell on you."

"And yet, I got the Gem."

"Yes. Via the aforementioned coercion. It was very unpleasant."

"I'd say I was sorry, but I'd be lying."

She sighs. "Of course."

He shrugs.

"It's really a pity that your charming personality has the little problem of being attached to a sociopath. At any rate, I don't think you could have torched the building and not risked killing me. You had me very frightened and if I'd decided to inconvenience you I might have expected a fate worse than incineration."

"Such as?"

"I have a vivid imagination."

"If you've been imagining me as vindictive, you can stop. I am, but not for anything as trivial as interfering with my quest for immortality."

"The fact that you have such a quest but do not consider it particularly important is bizarre to me. What things rate higher?"

"All my strong priorities were murdered by vampires."

"This is where I was going to anthropomorphize," says Bella. "You're saying that when you woke up Tony and - I'm presuming Jarvis? - remained strong priorities?"

"Killing everyone responsible for their deaths was definitely a strong priority, and stayed that way until I'd done it."

"Because of their deaths," clarifies Bella, "and not because those people had done anything directly to you."

"They did also turn me against my will. It was an unpleasant experience. But yes, mostly for my family's sake."

"I had been led to believe that the relationship between sire and childe was usually not an antagonistic one, regardless of the original relationship between vampire and victim."

"Perhaps the relationship was diluted, because there were twelve of them."

"Possibly. I don't know how it works. Why did they turn you instead of killing you too?"

"My best guess is some combination of the following: I'd temporarily or permanently incapacitated eight of them already and they wanted me on their side; and they knew I wouldn't like it. I can't imagine why none of them thought about how those two things might interact unfavourably."

"It doesn't sound like a winning combination for them, no."

"It didn't turn out to be."

"Why did it matter to them that you wouldn't like it? What had you done to them? Tony was inventing the lasers; I didn't think you were involved."

"Sadism? Spite? Revenge for fallen comrades? I didn't ask."

"I suppose it wouldn't have come up in the ensuing exchange, no."

"Exactly so."

"Can I," says Bella suddenly, "ask you a favor? I have no realistic expectation that you feel like doing me favors, but you've surprised me before."

"Go on."

"In the event that I ever turn into a vampire - I don't think it's too likely, but you got in, I might eventually get caught doing magic by somebody from USADI and drafted, maybe Forks will get overrun, I don't know - you would notice, whereas I could probably fool a lot of my friends and family, and you could stop me from hurting anybody. If you were so inclined."

"Interesting," he says. "I might."

"Thank you." She shrugs. "Depending on what survived the process I might be relatively innocuous. I don't know."

"I'm not especially eager to find out. Vampirism seems to make people boring oftener than it does anything else."

"And I'm fascinating as-is, apparently."

"Of course you are."

"I fascinate myself. I'm not accustomed to fascinating other people."

"Well, now you fascinate one more person."

"Why?"

"Because I can tell you actually use your brain for something."

"Everyone uses their brain for something."

"You use yours for interesting things."