“The local witches are going to start searching tomorrow at dawn,” she told us once she’d disconnected. “I’ve got the location to meet. Eddie and N-Neil will join us. Until then, we’ll just lay low.”
She tripped a bit over Neil’s name, her eyes falling on Declan as she spoke. I understood how she felt. At some point, once things were stable, Neil was going to have to find out he was a father. The concept still made me reel. You’d think after everything I’d come to terms with—Strigoi being restored, the dead brought back to life—that I could take two dhampirs creating a baby in stride. But I couldn’t. It was still too strange, too beyond how I’d centered my world.
My mother surprised me then by handing Declan back to me. “If you two are stuck inside and nothing else is happening this evening, then I need to do some shopping before everything closes so that he can be properly taken care of.”
I took a little offense at the words. I honestly thought we’d done a pretty decent job of taking care of him in the last twenty-four hours. Maybe he only had one outfit, but it was mostly clean, and I was putting his diapers on correctly now. Plus, he was always fed as soon as he showed any signs of hunger. For someone who’d spent most of his adult life fearful of getting girls pregnant, I thought my unexpected paternal trial was turning out reasonably well.
But I knew what she meant, and part of the reason I’d wanted her to come was for her insight. After all, she’d raised a baby to adulthood, and I hadn’t. “Not much left in my account,” I told her. Both of us had been cut off by my dad. “But I’ll give you my debit card, and you can use it as far as it’ll go.”
“Perhaps I may be of assistance,” offered Clarence, getting to his feet. With the help of his snake-headed cane, he hobbled over to an ornate wooden box on a shelf in the wall. I’d seen that box a hundred times while I’d been in his home. What I hadn’t seen was him ever open it, and my jaw nearly hit the floor when he lifted the lid and revealed stacks of one-hundred-dollar bills. He handed what had to be at least a thousand dollars to my mom. “Will this be enough for the young master, Lady Ivashkov?”
My mother actually had the audacity to deliberate. “It’s a start,” she declared magnanimously. She turned to Rose and Dimitri. “Now. Which one of you is going to drive me?”
Surprisingly, Rose volunteered. Although still uneasy around Declan and babies in general, she seemed kind of excited about shopping for one. Sydney looked disappointed at not being able to join them but made no arguments. With Alicia and the Alchemists on the loose, Sydney couldn’t leave a secure location like this without good reason. She contented herself by holing up in a guest room and prepping some spells that would be of use in the search for Alicia tomorrow. That left Dimitri and me to babysit, which seemed like the setup for some sort of wacky sitcom.
“They really are amazing, aren’t they?” he mused, admiring Declan as he slept in my arms. “Someone so small . . . who will have such enormous potential. Good, evil. Great acts, small acts. What will it be? What will he become?”
I wouldn’t have known the answer for anyone, let alone for a child born because of the incredible magic used to restore his mother from an undead state. As Dimitri spoke, I was surprised to see a deep, heartfelt longing in his eyes. He and Rose might have teased each other about babies, yet underneath it all, he seriously and desperately would love a child of his own, I realized. With a few words, I knew I could change his entire world if I told him the truth about Declan, that Dimitri might very well be able to have a son or daughter of his own. It might only have been the result of lucky timing that he and Rose hadn’t conceived yet. That the possibility was out there was something they needed to know.
He would be indebted to you, Aunt Tatiana murmured. Since you’ve known him, you’ve always chased him, always been second to him. With Rose. With great deeds. But if you told him he could have a child with her, he would get down on his knees and weep at your feet.
The power was in my hands, and the temptation to tell him nearly overwhelming . . . but I bit my lip. I couldn’t. Not until Neil knew.
When my mom and Rose returned, I was astonished to see they’d become fast friends. I was also amazed at the quantity of merchandise they’d managed to buy in so short a time. A bassinet, a gazillion clothes, toys, and a whole bunch of products for babies I hadn’t even known existed. Sydney looked it over with a critical eye and immediately began double-checking product reviews on her phone.
“This will get him by for now,” my mother announced. “But of course he’ll eventually need a full-size crib, once he’s bigger. And although that car seat is adequate for now, we saw several that would be much more suitable.”
“We saw some with cup holders and sunshades,” added Rose.