They were all on the deck and soon they would reach the calmer waters near the coast. It was uncertain what they would find when they got there, and even if they found something, it would be difficult to trace.

Marcus kept his eye on Rowan all evening, and she seemed preoccupied. She often glanced at him and Alena as if she wanted to say something, but whatever occupied her, kept her quiet. She wasn't quite herself since her experience with the past.

"Rowan?" Marcus asked quietly as she came to stand near him and for a second he thought she would pretend she didn't hear his voice.

"Yes?" She finally asked, and he almost sighed with exasperation. Rowan proved stingy with her deepest, darkest secrets.

"You're hiding something," Marcus intoned as he stared into the darkness.

Rowan's night vision painted everything in an eerie green glow, and she allowed it to settle back to black. She still felt the eerie presence of the past, saw his face with the same clarity, sensed his evil with the same acute perception. She recalled the way Frederick felt when he awoke from the sway the blonde man put upon him.

When Rowan woke, she knew she needed to tell Marcus and Alena that she could help with their search, but her past made it hard for her to return to the people she would need to approach. She suspected that they might hate her, but the stakes were too high for her to consider her comfort above their lives.

All night she dreamt of the castle, the blonde man, and many people who came to her in flashes, calling her name as if they asked for her help. Her instincts told her they were dead, but why they thought she could help them, confounded her even more.

"The people he mentioned, those who watch?" She didn't need to explain. Rowan observed him watching her, and she realized he would protect her if that were at all possible, which was why she feared to share this information with him. She couldn't risk his life. The thought of his death made something inside her ache.

"The Sentinels," Marcus provided with cautious curiosity.

"Yes, I know of someone," Rowan supplied with some hesitation. The situation didn't leave her with any other choice

"A Sentinel?" He asked, noting the way she struggled to decide whether to tell him.

"Someone who might help," she corrected, and he suspected how much it took for her to admit this.

"Things have changed since our paths last crossed," Rowan warned with sincere concern, and he appreciated that it meant much more than the obvious. "He might be hard to persuade," she admitted, and her eyes turned to where the land should soon appear.

"We will try," Marcus decided, and she nodded. He observed her from the corner of his eye. A small frown marred the perfection of her brow, and her trouble gazed saw nothing of the night. Her attention turned inward, and interest made him wonder what troubled her, but he didn't ask.

Rowan revealed things when she felt ready to share. Whatever history lay between her and this sentinel, appeared deep-rooted. With Rowan it wasn't any longer a matter of trust, she trusted him and Alena, she just found it hard to open up.

Marcus wondered if he would ever truly know her. If there would always be parts of her, she kept to herself. Rowan intrigued him, and at first, he thought her a child, but that wasn't accurate.

In some ways, Rowan seemed more mature than Alena, but in other things, she possessed a naivety that charmed even Alena. In all honesty, he hated Victor for what he did to his daughters.

Victor never ranked as his favorite person, but the more they revealed of their lives, the more Marcus wished he knew this while Victor still lived, he would gladly have hastened the man's demise.

Rowan noticed how pensive Marcus became, and she wished she could tell him everything, but some things cut so deep that she dared not allow those wounds to open up. She loved him for not asking the questions that burned in his eyes.

"Then it's settled," Marcus said, and she nodded.

Rowan knew that Alena overheard every word of their conversation, despite standing so far from them. She noted the tension in Alena's manner when she mentioned the sentinels, but just like her, Alena too carried her share of secrets.

Rowan felt guilty for withholding things after they promised Marcus there would be no more secrets between them, but some things were too dark to share. She never wanted Marcus to look at her with hatred in his eyes, or disgust.

She valued the fragile bond between them. He didn't understand, and neither did Alena. They regarded her as a child, but how could they fathom the things she did to survive on her own.

They must never guess the power someone gained over her when they learned what they must not. Marcus and Alena didn't conceive of the damage inside her. Ariana did. She saws it all, but Ariana wasn't like other people. Her secrets would shake the foundations of their knowledge. Rowan sensed these things when they shared blood, but like her, Ariana had the ability to block her thoughts from any intrusion.

***

Martha arrived with the tea, and the priest invited them to seat themselves. She served them and excused herself. He watched them stir their tea and frowned when they sipped at the hot brew which proved delicious.

"She can't cook anything other than meat stew, but the tea is worth it," the priest relented, and they grinned at his wry comment.

"Mother baked the most delicious pastries, and she sold them throughout our town from the butchery to the home of our master, but she couldn't cook water without burning it. Father used to cook, and he made meat stew from the rabbits or small antelopes he caught in the forest," Marcus reciprocated, and the priest seemed taken aback when he realized that Marcus was once human.

"I grew up in the kitchen of our landowner, and for a while when I was younger, I was chubby, curious, and quite adventurous, which meant I always broke things," he smiled, and it changed his whole face. His eyes remained wary, but he became less tense.

"If my mother weren't the best cook in all of our fair county, Baron Ulrich would probably have murdered me. Fortunately, he was a kindly man, and since my father died when I was a babe, he felt responsible for me. I took a while to realize he had an eye on my mother. She was as plain as I am, but she had a beautiful soul. He was a lonely man, and far too aware of his station to act on his love for her, but he treated her well until the day she died," when he said those words they saw the grief, in his eyes.

"She barely turned thirty-four, and I remember her joking with her assistant over some small thing. She took a pan out of the fire and just keeled over. Blood trickled from her nose, and that was that. I was twelve years old, and I had no one. The baker, a bitter, jealous woman, grabbed me by my arm, looked down at me, and I would never forget her words. 'That's that then. She got struck down for sleeping with the master like some whore.' I almost struck her, but it would have dishonored the memory of my mother if I did," he hesitated with a tinge of anger in his manner that he conquered with ease.

"My mother never gave into her infatuation with the Baron. She wasn't the type. He kept me around. When I turned sixteen, the Baron departed in his sleep at forty-four, and to this day I believe he died from a broken heart. He kept the last cookie she baked in a drawer in his desk, and he left me just enough money to see me through seminary school where he secured me a place," his fondness of the Baron showed clearly as the man was the only father figure he ever had.

"Do you often think of your parents?" The priest asked of Marcus with a directness that forced an answer.

"Every day," Marcus admitted.

"Did you kill them?" He asked, and Marcus frowned.

"No, the people in our village did that after they found out what I was. I returned when the turn passed because I just wanted to say goodbye, but someone saw me hunting in the forest. I visited them twice, and for that, the villagers slaughtered and burned them," Marcus admitted. He never even told Rowan and Alena this.

"Why didn't you kill them for what they did?" The priest asked.

"Because I knew them. They were good people that did in fear what they would not otherwise do," Marcus admitted, and the priest frowned as he stacked his fingers under his chin, seemingly out of habit.

"You say you didn't kill them, but you believe that you did. You realized you shouldn't have gone back, but your humanity compelled you to do just that," the priest summarized.

"I thought we would discuss a different monster," Marcus tried to cut the conversation short that careened into areas where he never intended it to go.

"So you see yourself as a monster?" The priest asked, and Marcus became still as he wondered where the man was heading with this conversation.

"You didn't kill your parents. Your neighbors acted out of instinct, only armed with the knowledge placed there by the worst of your kind. They murdered innocent friends out of fear and hatred. You could no more have stayed away from them: than you could have prevented what you became. I always wondered how much of your humanity remained inside your kind," the priest murmured, and Marcus frowned, while the girls tried to keep their expressions neutral as their visit turned into a therapy session.

"I'm sorry. I am always first a priest, and then a man," he apologized without really meaning his apology.

"They were right to fear. Even we fear made creatures, and the council rarely extends permission to turn a mortal. Marcus fell victim to an attack, and the turn forced upon him. If we found the one who made him, we would have killed her," Alena explained, and the priest listened to her with real interest.

"Most turned humans rarely gain back their self-control, and some of them are too volatile, unstable or unpredictable for us to allow them to live. Those like Marcus, who survive the turn and keep their lives, develop immense self-control, but they never quite lose their humanity. Pure vampires, especially after a few generations, are unsympathetic, arrogant, callous and cruel," Alena admitted, and he nodded as if he suspected as much.

"You two are sisters. I would say you share the same father, but not the same mother. You are pure, but she seems somehow different," his perception seemed uncanny, Alena realized, and the others suspected much the same thing.

"Yes, my father had me with his wife Carla, but he had a relationship out of wedlock with Rowan's mother, a human. She was born a Damphir, but she has become a vampire," Alena allowed, carefully choosing her words.

"So day walkers are real, but she isn't one anymore?" He asked. How had he picked up on the subjects most tender to each of their hearts? Marcus's guilt over his family and the way they died. Arlene's issues with her father's infidelity and Rowan who lost her ability to walk in the sun.