"Wolves do it differently. They work like humans till they activate, when they're about your age - and then they take less than six months to look twenty-five. Is that more or less strange? Same amount of strange?"

"No, that's weirder."

"And then there's vampires, who are humans for however long and then they stop right where they are. Turning humans who aren't your age bare minimum is extremely not allowed."

"Why's that?"

"Psychological development. Little kids who get turned - stay little kids. For centuries. Nowadays if somebody turned a kid anyway, you could fix that with magic or torching or whatever, but the dead vampire children who've been resurrected had a hell of an adjustment period getting used to being human again with childlike emotional processing. Grownups can swap between species without too much of an issue, not so much seven-year-olds."

"Sucks for them, I guess."

"Yeah. Not a particularly happy chapter in supernatural history."

Felicity shrugs.

"Stop me if I start sounding too much like a textbook."

"Never had a textbook about vampires."

"There are some! Mostly they're for puppy schools - half-vampires mostly get away without formal education, we grow too fast and remember enough that we can do without - but they exist. Elspeth wrote a lot of them."

"I still never had one."

"Well, you could probably download one," says Kerron, gesturing at Felicity's computer. "I'll conjure you one if you prefer paper."

"Nah."

"Okay. Not such a history buff, I take it."

He shrugs. "Guess not."

"I've never been to this island before," Kerron says after a pause. "Feel like showing me the place?"

Kerron follows his uncloid. "Very tropical," he remarks.

"Ooh, somebody's been playing with architecture. These are neat."

"They were fun," he says.

"There's a sand sculpture contest in Safesun every August."

Felicity laughs. "You gonna steal my ideas?"

"Maybe, maybe not. Certainly not if you show up to check up on me."