There was another long silence, but it was more comfortable now. Celia had been listening with wide-eyed curiosity, but now she leaned her head on Aidan's shoulder, and closed her eyes, looking tired.

It was still night, and Aidan was still wide awake. And somewhat hungry, but he found that easier to ignore than it had been in the past. Amazing how much of what the body feels is the result of the mind, he thought. He leaned back against the wall and sighed. "I am getting very sick of this room," he said softly, mostly to himself.

"Heh. You don't know the half of it," said his twin, with a bitter tone to his voice. "And I really don't know how you can be so calm and happy looking sitting here. We might well just be left to rot forever. Flame might actually get bored with us and just leave us. Or more likely she'll decide to play with us, since she can't play with the cleric's people any more, and that will be even worse."

Aidan shrugged. "I am calm and happy looking, as you put it, for two reasons. One is that I trust my Flame Song. She will come for me. She always has before. It may take her a while, or she may be here tonight, but eventually she will come. The other reason is because..." He considered how to say it. "Because I've had an epiphany of sorts, I guess you might say. I guess there's a reason monks live in cells. When there's nothing to do but think you can get some pretty good thinking done."

"An epiphany?" He raised one eyebrow again, and Aidan chuckled.

"Yes. Or something like it. Your Flame Song... she tried to break me. She hasn't, but I guess she managed to bend me a little. I did something I regret very greatly. After, that was when I started thinking. And what I was thinking about was, well... How can I explain this?" He paused. "Have you ever promised yourself that you'll never do something, and then next thing you know you've gone and done it anyhow? Even though you were so sure you wouldn't?"

His double let out a little, bitter laugh. "A thousand times."

"Do you know the reason why it's so easy to give in?"

The other shook his head. "Because I'm a fool, I suspect."

"It's because when you promise, you leave a loophole. I know, I've done it myself. You say 'never again' but what you actually mean is 'never again unless I have no choice, never again unless it's impossible to resist.' They call it 'extenuating circumstances.' You have an excuse. You were never going to do it, but this or that happened, and you just didn't have any other choice, you had to! That's the one reason. The other is the one you already know about, the single tiny step that ends up leaving you miles down the road. You say you're not going to do it at all, but somewhere in the back of your head is the idea that even if 'it', whatever it is, is very bad, just a little tiny bit of it isn't bad. You can do that one little thing, and it's so small it can't possibly be a real wrong. You tell yourself those excuses, and if you repeat them enough they sound true. But once you've done one little thing, you've moved a step, and from where you stand now the darkness is that much closer.

"My epiphany was to realize that there are no extenuating circumstances. There are no excuses. And the things I do are nobody's fault but my own. I could blame your wife for what she tempted me into, but that wouldn't do away with my regret or my guilt, because somewhere in me I would know that it was only an excuse. Yes she tempted me, but I'm the one who gave in to it. I could blame my hunger, say that I had to, that I had no other choice, but I had a choice, there is always a choice, even if the choice is to die. And when it comes right down to it, there are some promises it's worth dying to keep. I have made myself a new promise, and it's not 'never again unless I have to,' it's 'never again even if I have to.' I will die first. Knowing that, knowing that I really could do that if it came right down to it... it makes everything else seem unimportant. It doesn't matter what your Flame Song does to me. She can hurt me, but she can't bend me any further. Never again."

"How can you say that? How can you say you'd rather die than do one tiny wrong?"

Aidan smiled. "It's a matter of priorities. My family is what matters the most to me. They are more important than anything."

"But surely they'd rather you were alive, having given in, than dead! Can it really be worth it? What if it was something really small? How could that be worse than dying?"

"Let me relate it to something a bit more immediate, and maybe you'll see. I have promised Celia here that I will not harm her." He smiled at the sleeping girl. "Now from your point of view you probably think of taking a little bit of her blood, a sip perhaps, as a tiny thing, certainly not worth dying over. But tell me, I assume you took from my wife, yes? That is what prompted you to begin to regret?" At his twin's nod he continued "There is no difference between what you did to her, and what I would be doing to this girl if I took so much as a drop from her, because once I'd taken a drop, that's where it would end up, one way or another. The little sip seems so innocent, but once you've started, could you stop? If you stopped this time, what about next time? You broke your word this one time, and the world didn't end, surely breaking it once more if you really need to isn't that bad. Nothing bad happened last time, after all. And before you know it you've gone too far and killed her. Suddenly this tiny thing that was not worth your life has become something that's claimed someone else's life. Is her life worth less than yours? Is her life worth less than your comfort? I don't think a vampire can die of starvation, though I'm not sure, but if it's a matter of being hungry, or being a murderer, I'll take being hungry, no matter how bad it gets, even if it does end up costing my life."