I stepped to the side and revealed Sydney, carrying Declan asleep in his car seat.
My mom stared at the baby in confusion, then looked at Sydney, and then turned to me wide-eyed. “Adrian,” she exclaimed. “That’s not—I mean, how is it possible—”
“He’s not mine,” I said wearily. “His name is Declan, and I’m taking care of him for a friend. I might need your help watching him while we go after Jill, though. There’s no one else I can trust.”
As though he knew his name, Declan opened his eyes and regarded us solemnly. I honestly wasn’t sure how my mother was going to respond to this request. Dhampirs had always been in subservient roles to her, and she’d freaked out when I’d brought Rose home on a date. After she’d accepted my marriage with Sydney, I’d once commented to her that she’d have to accept the idea of dhampir grandchildren. My mom had shrugged off the topic, saying, yes, of course she understood that, but I’d wondered if she’d been pushing that off for another day’s worries. How would she react now to caring for a dhampir child?
I carefully lifted Declan out of the seat and was astonished when my mother snatched him away. “Look at you,” she crooned, swaying him in his arms. “Such a handsome little boy. The handsomest little boy.”
I remember when you used to be her handsomest little boy, remarked Aunt Tatiana.
My mom dragged her gaze from him. “You should change him into some lighter clothes,” she told me. “Those pajamas are too heavy for this climate.”
“Um, those are all we have,” I said. I pointed to a grocery bag Rose had set down. “Really, his worldly possessions are all in there.”
“Where’s he going to sleep?” my mother asked.
“He’s just been using the car seat.”
She sighed loudly. “Oh, Adrian. This is just like the time you brought home a neighbor’s puppy and seemed surprised when you found out you’d have to feed it every day.”
“Hey,” I retorted. “We’ve fed this little guy plenty of times.”
“Sydney, dear,” my mother added, “I expected more sense from you, if not Adrian. Surely you know that a baby needs all sorts of things.”
Sydney was momentarily stunned, and I couldn’t blame her. I was pretty sure my mother had never called her “dear” before, and I think Sydney was at a loss as to whether to feel flattered by the endearment or chastised for her lack of “sense.”
“Yes, Mrs. Ivashkov,” said Sydney at last. “That’s why we wanted you out here while we got things settled. We know you’ll get him all he needs.”
“You’re Mrs. Ivashkov now,” corrected my mom. “Call me Daniella.”
That was another surprise to Sydney, and she was saved from her shock by her phone ringing. “It’s Ms. Terwilliger,” she said, answering it and walking out of the room. She returned a few minutes later, face excited.
“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.