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Dylan's doctor was a bear of a man, with a full bushy beard and a tilted lumbering gait. Dress him in a red suit and send him down the chimney, Bliss thought, not quite trusting to put her faith in the awkward human, even though he was a very prominent hematologist and came from an old Red Blood family of trusted Conduits.

"My secretary tells me you are friends of Dylan Ward. I know you've been trying to get in touch with me. I apologize for the delay in responding. It's been a very busy week. Someone snuck a familiar into one of the dorms, and it was almost a bloodbath." He winced. "But not to worry, everything's under control for now." The doctor smiled.Advertisement

"Right." Bliss nodded and took a seat across from his desk. "We're his friends. Thank you for seeing us."

"I'm not a friend. I'm here to find out what's going on with him for the Conclave," Mimi snapped. "I'm a Warden."

He raised his eyebrow. "You look young for your age."

Mimi smirked. "When you think about it, we all do."

"I mean, for someone in your position," he said nervously, coughing and shuffling papers on his desk.

"Get to the point, doctor. I didn't come here to debate the policies of the Conclave. What's going on with that basket case?"

Dr. Andrews opened the file in front of him and grimaced. "Dylan appears to be suffering from a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. We've enrolled him in several regression therapies to help recover his memories. But so far he hasn't made any real connection to anything. He remembers neither what happened to him a hundred years ago nor what happened to him a month ago."

It was just as Bliss feared. Dylan was like an unmoored boat, anchored to nothing and no one. "So he'll just have amnesia like that...forever?"

"Hard to say," the doctor said hesitantly. "We don't like to foster false hopes."

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"But why," Bliss said, feeling extremely agitated, "why did it happen?"

"The mind does that sometimes; it blanks out everything in order to function. To blunt the force of a recent trauma."

"He's been through a lot," Bliss whispered.

"Silver Blood attack and all." Mimi nodded.

The doctor consulted his chart again. "That's the interesting thing. Like I told Senator Llewellyn, as far as we can determine, there are no signs of Silver Blood corruption in his blood. He has been attacked, yes, and badly tortured, but we are skeptical that he has actually performed the Caerimonia on a fellow vampire. He hasn't completed the process. Or let me make it clear: he hasn't even begun it."

Bliss started. "But..."

"That's ridiculous," Mimi said flatly. "We all know Dylan killed Aggie. She was fully drained. And he was the only suspect. He even confessed to Bliss."

"He did," Bliss agreed.

Dr. Andrews shook his head. "Perhaps he'd been deluded, or manipulated into thinking he was one of them. Our findings are quite conclusive."

"Forsyth knew this? That Dylan was innocent?" Mimi asked sharply.

The doctor nodded. "I called him as soon as the tests came in."

Mimi laughed a sharp, sarcastic laugh. "If Dylan's not a Silver Blood and he didn't take Aggie, that means he probably wasn't lying when he told me he doesn't know where the jeans she'd borrowed from me are."

"What are you talking about?" Bliss asked, her mind awhirl.

"Never mind." Mimi shrugged. She stood up, and Bliss followed her lead. "Thanks very much for meeting us, doctor. You've been a great help."

Bliss couldn't concentrate. Her fingers shook as she buttoned her coat. She bumped her knee into the table and almost tripped.

Dylan was innocent.

He was not a Silver Blood nor about to become one.

He was a victim.

For months, everyone in the community had believed in Dylan's guilt in the murder of Aggie Carondolet. That he had dispatched the other victims, attacked Schuyler, and mortally wounded Cordelia. He'd told Bliss himself that he'd done those things. And she'd believed him.

But what if he'd just been covering up for someone else? What if he'd just been made to think he had been infected?

And if it hadn't been Dylan who'd done all these things, then who had? pqdm.com