Author's Note: Dear Readers, if you have gotten this far, congratulations! You haven't been bored to death by our writing! As an experiment, comment your favorite character at the bottom. We might follow you. Who knows. (Honestly we probably will) We're not that great at keeping our promises, but we try. Have fun..... Fight us, haters. Our egos are steel.

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The bedsprings creaked under Knotrium as she shifted her attention to Kukipici. "Anything?"

He titlted his computer screen back to show her a blank display. "Silent as a grave. Not that that means they're not using the web. Knowing the coven, they probably have five of me concentrated on thwarting the algorithm." He used the corner of his sleeve to dust the laptop. "I'll keep looking."

Knotrium shrugged. "Eh. If they haven't released anything by now, the probably won't." She flopped back onto the pillows which let up a plume of dust. Her lungs spasmed and Knotrium began to hack.

Kukipici laughed at her expression and raised his eyebrows.

She sent a play glare in his direction. "Oh don't mind me, I'm just developing chronic bronchitis thanks to Edward's allergy to vacumes."

"Knotrium. You're a vampire. You can't develop chronic bronchitis."

"Don't tell me what I can and can't do, K! I can develop lung problems of I want! Nevermind that that's slightly pathologic."

Kukipici rolled his eyes and raised his hands in surrender. The zippers of his leather jacket clinked together with the movement. "Never said you couldn't."

"Thank you." Knotrium closed her eyes. "Urgh I need a fucking drink. Forget blood, just give me a shot of vodka."

"Sure. I'll tell Caesarion to pour you some out of his stash once he's finished with his usal afternoon drinking." K replied, keeping his time completely deadpan.

She shot up, pulling strands of blond hair that were creepying from her french braid down her neck. "Wait, Caesarion has a liquor supply? Where the fuck did he get that?"

K burried his head in his hands and groaned. "He does not have an alcohol supply." He slid the laptop from his lap. "Knotrium, you need to go relax. Cuddle with Alexei or something."

She slid down next to him, on the floor. Her lavander skirt worked like a feather duster, scraping up layers of dirt. Her fingers trailed, tracing the pattern of a lily into the grime. "How are they taking it?"

Her thrall shrugged. He fingered the cuff of his jacket and pulled a pen from his pocket. After clicking it a few times, he looked back at her and set the pen down. "As well as they can. We're used to it by now. Caesarion's already picking a fight with our host, you know how Alexei is, Meallan's fine, Gavriil's...as good as he ever is, Sergio's raring to go, and Edmund's with Edward. We've been through this before. You know how it is."

"That bad?"

"It could be better."

"Fuck." She reached her hands up to massage the back of her neck. Her fingers found a knot, and she winced. Sleeping on an airplane then not sleeping on a van and being forcibly knocked out by lack of magic and tied up by a british king that was supposed to have died hundreds of years ago did wonders in terms of tightening her muscles.

K pulled the laptop back to him and clicked a few keys. "It's nothing we haven't done before." He hit enter, and the screen flashed green.

"Still nothing?"

"Nothing."

"Any messages?"

"Sergio's family? Not a word." He paused, and seeing Knotrium's face, amended his sentence. "But then again, they know better than to contact us after a move."

Knotrium scratched another lily into the dust, on to cross the first. "Do you miss yours?"

Kukipici drummed his finers against the top of his computer. "300 years, and you start to forget their faces."

"I wish I could do that."

"I miss my home more than anything. The sense of belonging, or identifying to one culture." His face darkened. "If I went back, there'd be nothing left. My people would no longer accept me."

"Culpa mea est, alius non est." Fault of my own, no other.

"Either English or Ute please."

Knotrium smiled, a bitter, poisonous thing. Her native tongue rolled from her lips more easily than English. Latin was, and still remained among the ancient souls who used it, a lovely, delicate language. No one close to her but Caesarion spoke it well enough to hear her inner thoughts, and, being the paralance of younger, more naive days, it wrapped around her like warm bath water. A security blanket, and a shield.

"I asked about Meallan." He probably knew she was lying, but unless he confronted her, it would remain buried. "Five year anniversary coming up?"

K smiled, one that unlike the gritty grimace playing around Knotrium's lips, brought warmth and sunlight into the dusty, curtain darkened room. "I wanted to take him out to dinner. Probably The Hollar."

"There are plenty of good reasurants in London. Anyway," She stood. "You have no idea how much I ship you two."

He rolled his eyes. "I think you've given us a pretty good idea."

Knotrium waved his comment away. "Have you thought about room assignments?"

K made a face and shook his head.

She flicked a cockroach off the bed corner. Her head flopped back. The pillow, now limp from her head's first encounter with its dustorm crackled. The vampire wrinked her nose. "Yuck."

The boy nodded his agreement. He smushed the cockroach under the sole of his boot. Both winced at the noise. Knotrium fished a tissue out of her pocket and tossed it to him. With two fingers, Kukipici scraped off the dead bug residue.

"Overlooking that highly disturbing incident," Knotrium continued, "Two of us can fit in the twin, three of us can fit in each queen if we squeeze."

"Caesarion's going to love that."

"Caesarion can kiss my ass."

"He'd love to, I'm sure."

"Fuck you." The vampire launched an pillow at her thrall's head. He caught it and tossed it back. A cloud of dust expaned between them.

"I can take the twin with Meallan." K offered. "You, Edmund, and Alexei can take one of the others, Gavriil and Sergio can be idiots and try to build a pillow wall, and Caesarion can sleep on the floor."

Knotrium snorted. "Good plan. I vote not to be the one to tell them."

"Too bad." He stretched out, opening another window on his computer. "I have to monitor Octavian's chatter."

She flipped him of as she headed for the door.