"Was going to be a blue cat, but I was hanging out with my friend Lily at the time and she thought I should be a red cat, and she was pretty convincing."

"What'd she threaten you with?"

"She used to bite people. She has since outgrown the habit."

He giggles again.

"She's the Emperor's sister," adds Kerron. "His adoptive parents' biological kid. Technically the Princess's aunt. But adoptive vampire relationships get kind of weird and Lily'd be the first to tell you so."

"What's weird about 'em?"

"So, when Her Imperial Majesty Elspeth's Mom started learning about the exciting undead underworld," says Kerron, "the Emperor, and two other guys and two girls all about his visible age, were all passing for the adopted children of this other vampire couple, Lily's parents, who look a little older and were pretending a bigger age gap. But they're not actually related, any pair of them. The 'parents' didn't turn them all. Two sets of them are mates. The parents-and-children thing was a front for the humans - other times the Emperor was pretending to be his 'mom's' brother, or a subset of them would splinter off and do its own thing for a while and the cover story wouldn't include the whole family. The thing they actually are all together is a 'coven', but they're used to using parent and sibling relationships for each other. The Princess calls them aunt and uncle and grandma and grandpa as appropriate. But Lily thinks it's nonsense and won't hear 'Aunt' out of her mouth."

"Huh," he says. "Sounds complicated."

"Very much. More now the Emperor's biological mom's back from the dead."

"It's still weird that that happens."

"I'd say you get used to it, but I probably don't have a great perspective on that. Both my parents have died without it making a lick of difference to me. Maybe it'll be weird for you."

"If my mom dies, I won't notice," he says.

"Well, if you want to be informed, I bet Jane could do it," says Kerron. "But my point wasn't about parents in general, it's that I grew up such that someone could die one day and play how-high-into-the-air-can-Kerron-be-flung the next."

"Depends on whether Mum's throwing me or Dad and whether magic's involved. I think the record is six stories up. This is when I was yea high, though." His hand hovers considerably lower than his current height.

He snorts. "Did you hit the ground when you came down?"

"Nah, Dad caught me. I would've been fine if he hadn't, though, half-vampires are pretty durable, like two steps up from a pet rock. Feed once daily, do not psychologically scar."

"Nice," he says, giggling.

"It's a pretty good deal. Also, I don't need magic to avoid wanting to go for your jugular, which is an advantage we have over vampires."

This notion cracks him right up.

"And we pass for human better and we sleep - not everybody agrees on whether that's a plus - but we have to breathe and we're slower and weaker and so on compared to full vamps. All kindsa tradeoffs."

"I think sleeping is a plus."

"I agree with you, some of my friends don't. There's magic going around for it now if they don't want to do it, though."

"Is there anybody who doesn't sleep and magics so they do?"

"If anybody does they haven't told me about it."