“I don’t guess you’re actually an Olympic gymnast,” I joked, uneasily.

“Aw, damn, my secret life is out.”

“Thought I saw you on a Wheaties box one time.”

“Seriously, I’m in shape, but there is no way in hell I ought to be able to do this. And coming back down should hurt, but”—Lucas curled downward, dropped, and landed solidly on his feet—“it’s not a problem.”

“I can do that, too,” I confided, “but only right after I’ve eaten. My parents could do stuff like that anytime.”

“So you’re saying this is vampire power.” Lucas didn’t like the sound of that, I could tell. “That I’m stronger than a human—maybe even stronger than you now—even though I’m not a vampire.”

“It doesn’t make sense to me either, but—maybe.”

As January turned into February, we made other discoveries about the changes in Lucas. We would run together through the countryside, and I didn’t hold back. We ran faster than any human could, sometimes for hours. It tired us both out, but we could do it. At nighttime, we slipped out onto the grounds or onto the roof, and I quizzed Lucas on what he could hear. He could pick up the hooting of an owl half a mile away or the snapping of a twig. His hearing wasn’t quite as acute as mine, and neither of us felt anything as vividly as we had right after I’d drunk his blood, but it was still superhuman.

We didn’t make another trip up to the room at the top of the north tower. Although I wanted to be with Lucas as badly as ever, and I knew he felt the same way, we were both cautious. We had enough trouble controlling my hunger for blood as it was; if something had changed deep within Lucas, there might be other dangers if we started kissing and got too carried away. So you can guess how much I wanted to finally get some answers.

One evening, I decided we ought to try the ultimate test.

I met Lucas at the gazebo with a thermos in my hands. “What’s that?” he asked, obviously unsuspecting.

“Blood.”

“Oh.” His expression was strange. “If you’re hungry, just—you know, don’t mind me.” As he shifted from foot to foot, Lucas avoided meeting my eyes. Apparently Lucas still wasn’t comfortable with the idea that I drank blood, which didn’t bode well for the experiment I was about to try.

“It’s not for me,” I began. “It’s for you.”

Appalled, he retorted, “No way.”

“Lucas, let’s face it. When I bit you the second time, something changed, down deep, maybe forever. If I’ve made you part vampire, or a vampire-to-be like me, then we have to know.”

He looked pale and drew his long coat more snugly about him. “You really think that’s what happened? Because—Bianca, I can’t face turning into a vampire. Not ever.”

His blunt rejection of the idea hurt; I’d already begun to dream about us going through the centuries together, vampires forever young and beautiful and head over heels for each other, just like my mother and father. Lucas obviously hadn’t gotten that far yet. It was disappointing, but I remained focused on the test. I wore fingerless gray gloves, so I was able to unscrew the lid on the thermos easily. “We have to find out how you react to blood. You know it’s true. Just take a drink and get it over with.”

“This isn’t, like, from a person, right?”

“No! It’s cow blood. Superfresh.”

Lucas looked like he would rather have stripped na**d in the freezing night air. But he took a deep breath, accepted the cup, and managed not to make too much of a face as I poured a rivulet of blood. I only gave him a sip; that would be enough to tell. With a grimace, Lucas lifted the cup to his mouth, slowly tilted it back, and drank—

—and then spat blood all over the ground. “Ugh! Jesus Christ, that’s disgusting!”

“That answers that.” Grimly I screwed the thermos cap back on. I’d heated the blood and sampled it myself, so I knew it was delicious. If Lucas didn’t like that, then he still had no appetite for blood at all. “You’re not what I am. You’re something else.”

“How are we supposed to figure that out?” Lucas was busily wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, trying to remove every last trace of the blood. “We don’t have reference works; and it’s not something either of us has ever run into before. And before you ask, no, they don’t have anything on this on Wikipedia. I got so desperate, I checked. Nothing. There’s just…nothing.”

I wished Lucas would stop talking like he knew something about vampires; it was sort of annoying. Still, he’d just tasted something really gross, so I figured I’d let him off this time. “I have a suggestion. You won’t like it, but I think that if you consider it, you’ll realize it’s the best thing to do.”

“Okay, tell me this suggestion I won’t like.”

“Let’s ask my parents.”

“You were right about my not liking it.” Lucas ran his hands through his hair, like he wanted to rip it from its roots in frustration. “Just…tell them? Tell the vampires what’s wrong with me?”

“Stop thinking of them as ‘vampires’ and think of them as my parents.” I knew it would take Lucas a while to make this transition, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to push. He’d learned to see me for myself, given time. Eventually he could do the same for Mom and Dad. “They’ll hear you out, and if they can help, they will.” Lucas shook his head. “If they’re going to be mad at someone, that’s going to be me. I’m the one who bit you again and started all this.”