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“Where is she?” Alessandra said, lifting her brows.

“Next door, still working.” Lawrence smiled. “I asked for her lunch to be delivered and said you’d explain later.”

“Why?”

Garrett looked at her as if to ask, Who are you and what did you do with my sister? Though she’d always been fairly direct, that quality seemed to have increased exponentially since this whole thing had begun.

“You are both in danger,” Lawrence said flatly.

Oh geez, not this again.She had a feeling she knew how it would go—Lawrence would claim Kenton was out to get her, and then, presuming the old wounds between the two had ripped open for some reason, perhaps Kenton would once more warn her away from the Derricksons. “If you’re going to tell me Kenton—”

“Not from Kenton,” Laria said.

“How much does he know?” Lawrence asked.

“Some,” she hedged, earning her a glare from Garrett.

“Does he know about us?”

The jig was up. She’d intended for him to find out from Kenton, but it ultimately didn’t matter who told him the truth. He simply needed to be told. “No,” she said. “I told him about the Cheld, but not the rest.”

Even though the entire back half of the restaurant was empty, Laria lowered her voice. “We are vampires,” she said in a whisper, admirably direct and to the point.

Alessandra nearly laughed at Garrett’s expression, remembering how shocked she’d been to hear that particular revelation just a few days before. And she would have laughed, too, but for the nastygrams her brother was silently sending her.

She took a sip of water, paying special attention to the ice. Alessandra loved round ice cubes for some reason, and these were particularly round. The little holes inside them were perfect for sticking your tongue into—

“Allie.”

She forced a smile. “Yes, Garrett?”

How best to help him through this revelation? It wasn’t every day your brother learned that sometimes, when things went bump in the night, your fears may not be unfounded.

Alessandra opened her mouth to explain, but Lawrence cut her off.

“How much did Kenton tell you?” he asked her.

She thought back to their last conversation.

“He told me all about the curse.”

Lawrence appeared surprised by that.

“He did?”

Was that so remarkable?

Apparently so. The fashionable Laria looked as if she’d just swallowed one of those perfectly round ice cubes whole.

“And did he tell you of the Balance?”

“Yes, although I don’t know all of the details. He said it was another long tale in a string of long tales . . . why?”

She didn’t like the look the other pair of siblings exchanged. In fact, Alessandra didn’t like anything at all about this conversation. It felt as if she and Garrett had been left out of a very bad joke. As if there was something big—monumental, even—they were missing.

Of course, Garrett had to feel even more left out than she did. She felt a pang of remorse for not having filled him in on everything she knew sooner.

“Would you please tell us what the hell is going on?” Garrett said beside her, turning in the booth to face her. He’d clearly picked up on her unease.