As odd as it may sound, our townhouse in Palo Alto was so quiet with Grace gone to college in Arizona and Emmy in New York that I had a hard time sleeping. I found myself waking up in the middle of the night, then realizing that I hadn’t heard a noise at all- there was nothing to hear.

On the plus side, I was able to really devote my time to last minute cramming for my finals, even though I was doing O.K. in all my classes and the final grades didn’t matter much at all. I’d already been accepted to UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, and that wasn’t going to change if my grades tanked after the acceptance was a done deal. Still, I’d maintained decent grades throughout my four years at Stanford, and it was important to me to keep doing well. It’s not as if I had ever made it to any Dean’s List and nobody was going to ask me to speak at the graduation ceremony, but it was a point of personal pride nonetheless.

I slipped easily back into my old schedule of working out with Ruben before the gym officially opened in the mornings, leaving the whole day to study. Emmy and I talked every day, too- even if it was about nothing in particular.

In a turnabout from the way it had been before, though, I was having dinner with either Sana, Donny and Aaron or with Michael and Jassie every night. It was nice not having to cook, but even more, it was great having the company so I didn’t feel too lonely.

On my second night back home I brought one of the bottles of wine from the cellar in New York to give to Sana and Donny.

“There’s a funny story to go along with this,” I said as I handed the bottle to Sana. “The place we bought in New York had a hidden wine cellar that nobody knew about, with almost twelve hundred bottles of wine down there.”

“Is that a Bordeaux?” Asked Donny, glancing at the bottle. “I really don’t know anything about French wines,” he admitted. “Sana and I, you know, we’ve done some wine tasting tours up in Napa, and my folks like Oregon pinots, but I’m not sure I’ve ever actually had any French wine in my life.”

“Well, you’re in for a treat,” I said. “Well, at least, I hope so. 1970 Château Latour is supposed to be pretty good.”

“How much did this cost?” Donny asked, examining the bottle.

“Almost eleven million dollars,” I replied. “But it came with a free house.”

Laughing, Donny said “Well, O.K., fair enough. But if you were to buy this from a wine shop, how much would it be? It has to be pretty expensive.”

“Luisa, that’s our new house manager there, found that similar bottles have been selling at auctions for around four hundred and fifty dollars.”

“Four hundred and fifty dollars?” Sana gasped. “For a bottle of wine?”

“The other night we drank a bottle that would have sold for almost two thousand bucks,” I said with a shrug. “But seriously, as far as I’m concerned, all this wine was free. Just a little, I don’t know, bonus, in a way.”

“Yeah, I guess I get that,” Donny said. “But it seems sort of ridiculous to bring a bottle of wine twice as old as any of us, that costs four hundred dollars, to have with a dinner of pot roast and grilled brussels sprouts. Maybe we should save it for a special occasion.”

“You can if you want,” I said. “But I’d think a nice hearty Bordeaux would go well with pot roast.”

At dinner we talked about the new house, and I told them that if they ever wanted to get away to New York for a vacation, they were welcome to stay at the townhouse.

“Now, when you say ‘townhouse’, Leah, I kind of imagine your place here in Palo Alto, but it isn’t like that at all, is it?” Donny asked while Sana fed Aaron, who watched us all with those big, attentive eyes of his. Emmy had explained that Night Children babies rarely made any noise, but I still found it amazing how quiet Sana and Donny’s little six-month old could be.

“Yeah, it’s a seven story tall brownstone. Except it isn’t actually brown or stone- it has a brick front. And it’s really nine stories, if you count the basement and sub-basement,” I said, pulling out my phone to show them pictures.

“It used to be owned by the great aunt of the king of Jordan who bought the house in 1952 from the family that built it, so we’re only the third owners of the house, even though it’s over a hundred years old,” I explained as they looked though the pictures. Showing the pics of the wine cellar, I said “Our builder thinks the wine cellar might have been a sort of private speakeasy during prohibition, and that’s why the stairs leading to the cellar were hidden behind a cabinet door in a storage room by the kitchen.”

“O.K., that is freaking cool,” Donny said.

“Anyway, I’m serious. If you guys need to get out of Seattle for a week, take a break and stay at our place in Manhattan. Or, if you need sun, come down and visit us in L.A. once we get moved. Mis casas son tus casas.”

“Thanks, Leah,” Sana said, burping the baby. “We may take you up on it.”

“No, not ‘may’,” I said. “You ‘will’ take me up on it.”

“If you insist,” she said, laughing. I liked how her English accent got stronger when she was more relaxed.

In the end, Donny did open the Bordeaux, and it did go really well with the pot roast he’d made. It was really nice, and to be honest, just relaxing to be around the two of them (and little Aaron, of course). For four years Donny had been my best friend, and we’d seen each other almost every single day, even if it was just for coffee in the mornings. It was going to be tough to leave everything that I’d gotten used to in the South Bay, but even more, tough to leave the people behind.

Of course, Donny was going to go to the medical school at U Dub in Seattle, which would have taken him away even if Emmy and I were staying. It isn’t as if I could complain, though- Donny had his own life to lead, and I was super happy for him and Sana in this next step in their lives.

I’d brought up the idea of buying them a place near Donny’s parents, but he’d seemed horrified at the idea.

“We want to be sort of close, but not too close,” Donny had explained. “I grew up in Ballard, so I like it and all, but one, it’s too far from school, and two, it needs to be far enough away from my parents that they don’t just pop in all the time. I love ’em both, but sometimes a little distance is a good thing.”

Eventually we’d settled on me buying a small eleven-unit apartment building a few blocks from campus which Sana would manage in exchange for rent for the duration. It was a good investment for my property management company, it gave them a place to live, and would seem to Donny’s parents as if he and Sana were making it on their own. Donny had avoided telling them about the economic support that Emmy and I had given him over the years, or the work that he’d done for us, and he wasn’t in any hurry to tell them about any of it.

Of course, they’d met and really liked Sana, but had accepted the ‘really small ethnic group’ story and not pushed too hard. Donny just didn’t want them to know about any of the drama around the Night Children, and I was O.K. with keeping them in the dark. If that meant keeping our economic support on the QT as far as his parents were concerned, well, that was fine.

Donny was planning on going into fertility medicine, with an eye to figuring out the low birth rates among the Night Children, and if he could do that it was worth any amount of money.

After a nice evening’s visit I made my way home to the empty townhouse, climbed into my empty bed, and eventually fell asleep. When I awoke at my usual early hour I couldn't really remember my dreams from the night before, just that Emmy, and oddly, Stephanie were featured in them.

I went in to work that day, even though I should have spent the time studying for finals. I really didn’t even get much accomplished in the office, but it had been over a week and getting some face time was a good thing. I had a long meeting with my key VPs and came to the realization that I was going to have to spend some time in the San Jose office even once Emmy and I moved to Los Angeles. I’d built up a thriving business there, and even though my various VPs had a good handle on things they still wanted my hands on the reins.

The flight time between LA and San Jose was less than an hour and a half, so it wasn’t unrealistic to plan on two or three days every other week to take care of whatever needed my physical presence.

“Leah, Jackie and I have been talking,” Nash said after our meeting. “You know she’s originally from Orange County, right? Well, her folks are getting older, and she’s thinking that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to be closer, you know, to be able to spend more time with them, and the kids are all out of the house, too…”

“Nash, I’d love to transfer you to the Santa Monica office, if that’s what you and Jackie want. Heck, I’ll even buy your house here at fair market if you want to sell, and you know we’d be happy to manage it if you want to rent it out. Whatever I can do to make your life easier, just let me know.”

“Well, if we do move it wouldn't be until fall,” Nash replied, looking relieved. “We just have too much to do, you know?”

“Sure, but I have a suggestion. Come down to LA one day a week, starting when I move down there. Get your feet wet, learn the local market, so when you do make the move you’ll already be up to speed. Of course, make sure your replacement here is ready to take over. I’m not abandoning this market.”

“Of course, of course,” Nash said. “Um, I think that Sandy might want to move to LA, too.”

“Anybody else?” I asked, rolling my eyes.

“No, I think just me and Sandy,” Nash said. “Oh, and…” he said and I could tell from his smirk he was pulling my leg.

“All right. I’ll talk to Sandy, too,” I said. “But seriously, this office is going to stay just as important and busy as it has ever been, you guys know that, right? Just because I’m moving my physical location doesn’t mean that anything else has to change.”

“Yeah, I get that, and I think Sandy just wants to move because he wants a change, but everybody else is going to keep working same as ever.”

I had dinner that night with Michael and Jassie at their condo in Sunnyvale. During dinner Michael mostly wanted to talk about the possibilities of expanding our reach among the Night Children of New York and then the rest of the East Coast, while Jassie spent most of her time texting her friends.

“She has a boy that has been interested in her,” Michael confided.

“Well, she’s getting to be that age,” I agreed. “Her fifteenth birthday is coming up real soon.”

“Yes,” agreed Michael. “But that doesn't mean I have to like it,” he said, but I could tell he was mainly performing for his daughter.

“Dad! You know you’ll always be number one!” Jassie said, glancing up from her phone. “And besides, I don’t know if Bryce even actually likes me likes me, anyhow.”

“Have you met this Bryce?” I asked Michael.

“No, not yet,” Michael admitted. “I’ve told Jassie that he has to come by for a meet and greet before the two of them can go out together, but since neither is old enough to drive yet, they only socialize with other kids so far.”

“God, I remember those days,” I said with a groan. “Frustrating, right?” I asked, looking at Jassie.

“Very,” she agreed, not even looking up from her phone.

After eating, Michael mixed us a couple of drinks and we went out on the back patio to talk.

“Leah, I know you and Emmy have to move, that your time is done here, but it’s going to be tough without you around,” Michael said, sipping his paloma. “Don’t get me wrong- everything is running reasonably smoothly and I don’t really foresee any issues with the Children already in the fold, and little by little some of the others that stayed away at first are joining us, but without you and Emmy’s presence, it’s going to be harder to recruit.”

“Honestly, Michael, I don’t see how I make any difference on that. I mean, I’m not any sort of Night Child myself, so I don’t see how I have any kind of legitimacy in any of this,” I said, voicing a concern I’d had for a while.

“Well…” said Michael, thinking about his response. “Obviously, Emmy is old blood. Really, really old, and everybody knows that. She's the product of two well-known royal lines that date back to at least pre-Christian times, so there is undisputed claim to rule on her side, right?”

“Well, sure, of course,” I agreed, but really, I hadn’t quite known the Lascaux family was that old.

“So simply by being her wife, you’re automatically elevated to royal status, but here’s the thing. The rumor among the Night Children is that you’re actually one of us, too, from some unknown but undoubtedly noble family.”

“You’re kidding,” I said, rolling my eyes at Michael. “Look at me. There’s no way I could ever pass for a Night Child.”

“The prevailing theory is that you’re an illegitimate daughter of a noble Night Child father and a daywalker mother, and your parentage has been kept secret.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” I said, leaning back in my chair.

“Emmy’s mother has a bodyguard- he’s blond, like you, right?” Michael asked.

“Yeah, his name’s Edouard,” I said.

“He’s Emmy’s cousin,” Michael said. “He’s the son of Emmy’s father’s older brother.”

“Seriously?”

“Absolutely,” Michael confirmed. “Since his mother was a daywalker, he never got the blessing of night. His children will all be daywalkers, too, unless, of course, his wife is a Night Child.”

“I get it. So the story about me is something like that- I’m a first-generation daywalker? Why do people think that?”

“I don’t know who started the rumor, but it’s actually pretty easy to believe. You act like Night Child royalty, you’re comfortable around Night Children and have never once acted as if we were any different than anybody else you know. You use the word ‘we’ when talking about your people, too. Don’t think these things go unnoticed.”

Chuckling at the absurdity of it all, I said “Let me guess. You and Emmy have never done anything to put a stop to these stories?”

“I’ve never met your father,” Michael said, sipping his drink. “He certainly might well have been a Night Child, for all I know,” he added, a smile on his jet-black face.

“Well, I don’t want to lie, but if people thinking I’m a first-gen daywalker helps keep everybody happy, then I guess there’s no harm, right?”

“That has been the principle that Emmy and I have been working from ever since we first heard the rumors,” agreed Michael. “In fact, the rumor has spread beyond our people and is now a fairly widely known fact amongst all the new Children I talk to.”

“Oh, jeeze,” I groaned. “I wonder if Emmy’s parents have heard it?”

“I’m certain they must have by now,” Michael agreed.

When Emmy called the next morning I asked her about it.

“Yes, many of our people believe that about you,” Emmy confirmed.

“And you haven't told them otherwise, have you?”

“No, I have not,” Emmy admitted. “It is a useful fiction, so why would I?”

“Because it’s not true,” I said. “That seems like a good reason.”

“I have not lied and told anyone that you are descended from Night Children,” Emmy said, defending herself.

“But you also haven’t put a stop to the story you know is false that's been spreading around, either. That’s walking a thin line,” I said.

“It would not matter if I did at this point, Leah,” Emmy said. “If I denied it, that would only confirm to people that it was true and was being intentionally hidden.”

“Yeah, well…” I said, realizing that she was right. “I don’t like lying, or even, in this case, letting a falsehood perpetuate, but I guess it does no harm.”

“Quite the opposite, actually,” Emmy said. “Instead of an outsider, you are one of us. This matters to people.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” I admitted, grumbling. “But I don’t like it.”

Then, changing the subject, I asked “How are things there in New York?”

“Very good,” Emmy said, happy to talk about something that didn’t make me upset. “Erich came by yesterday with the sketches for the work to be done, and it seems we will get our secret stairway after all. He brought some moulding samples for the restoration work and it all looked very good.”

“That’s excellent. When will he get started on the work?”

“He has other work right now, and the earliest he will be able to get his men here will be next month. He will have some things that need to be ordered in advance that he will need your approval for, like the new heating unit, for example.”

“Tell him to email me with anything he needs me to look at,” I said, wishing Emmy would just sign off on it herself.

“Thomas is going to start on the studio next week, though,” Emmy said. “He has his own crew to do the work.”

“That’s cool. Do they need any money to get started?”

“Yes, he will send you an invoice when he has it ready,” Emmy confirmed.

“O.K.,” I said, again wishing Emmy would deal with this herself.

“Luisa and Wally have been learning self defense from Grant,” Emmy said. “He has been training them every day for almost half the day. Yesterday they went walking around the city, simply evaluating potential threats as they went. Luisa told me it was the most eye-opening thing she’d ever experienced on the streets of Manhattan.”

“How so?” I asked, curious.

“She said that Grant was seeing people, picking them out of a crowd, identifying them as potentially dangerous from hundred feet away. Pointing out how this guy was looking around too nervously, that guy was following a woman and she didn’t even know, that sort of thing. Luisa said that just seeing like that, seeing who was up to no good, was amazing to her.”

“How did Wally take it?”

“He was quiet about it, but I could see that the experience had him thinking.”

“Yeah, it’s a lot to take in,” I agreed. “How was Mia with all of that?”

“She did not go with them,” Emmy said. “She worked on getting some of the storerooms cleaned out, separating what was to be given away and what was to be kept.”

“Oh, man,” I groaned. “She’s a brave woman.”

“It is indeed a labor worthy of Hercules,” Emmy agreed.

“On a different note, when do Stephanie and the boys get there?”

“This afternoon,” Emmy said.

“Have you figured out where everybody is going to stay?”

“It is more complicated than we had thought,” Emmy said with a sigh. “In addition to Stephanie and the four in the band, they have two roadies as well.”

“Well, that’s awkward,” I said.

“Yes, it is,” Emmy agreed. “Grant cleared out of the room he was using and will be staying with Mia in her apartment for the next few days, so that opens up a room. One of the smaller bedrooms on the fifth floor has bunk beds, so that means we have six available beds for the seven of them,” Emmy explained.

Then, in a different tone of voice, Emmy said “Leah, Stephanie is the only woman in the whole crew.”

“And?” I asked.

“Would it be acceptable to you if I offered to let her stay in the master bedroom with me?” Emmy asked in a soft voice.

“Hey now,” I said in a stern voice. “You aren’t planning on putting the moves on my old girlfriend, are you?”

“No!” Emmy said in a panic. “That is not what-”

“I’m just kidding,” I said, my voice normal again. “If you want to offer and she takes you up on it, I’m fine with it. I trust both of you guys.”

“I have not said anything to her about it yet,” Emmy said, the relief in her voice very obvious. “I did not know how you would react.”

“Like I said, I trust both of you. You can have her talk to me if she’s nervous about accepting. It’s no problem.”

Then, in a low, husky voice, I said “In fact, I think I’m going to go take a shower and think about the two of you in the same bed as soon as we get off the phone.”

“You are encourage-able!” Emmy exclaimed.

“You mean ‘incorrigible’,” I said, correcting her English.

“No, that is not what I meant,” Emmy replied with a laugh.