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applications.”
    “But we show up on camera—sort of,” Faith pointed out.
    David shook his head and clarified, “We show up in digital formats that don’t use traditional mirrors. But the picture quality is almost always poor. People have recorded her on cell phone cameras at concerts, but if they try to blow the frame up larger or improve the resolution, it getspixilated. The projector I used to fake out the Rolling Stone guy was … well, let’s just say it’s a good thing he didn’t look at the mirror more than once or twice. If I can refine the signal a little further, we’ll be able to show her on the big projection screens at larger concert venues, and I can help refine still-shot photography of vampires so she can do more photo shoots.”
    “Why?” Faith asked. “I mean, why don’t we show up on film? Do we reflect funny?”
    David smiled and gave her the rarest of answers, for him: “I honestly don’t know.”
    “You don’t?”
    “No. Novotny and I have conducted all sorts of experiments, changing different variables, and we can’t nail down exactly what it is that keeps us from reflecting in glass mirrors, water, or windows—but digital photography produces a slightly blurry image for most of us. I have no idea why. My concern right now is taking what we do know and making it work better.”
    “I heard it was because we don’t have souls,” she said softly, eyes still on the monitor where he worked.
    A shrug. “Perhaps. I don’t do mysticism.”
    Faith turned her head toward the screen where, presumably, her own image would show up eventually. “I haven’t seen my own face in a century,” Faith mused. “I barely remember what I look like, Sire.”
    He looked up at her. “Don’t worry, Second, you’re beautiful.”
    Now she did blush. Damn it.
    “Have you seen yourself?” she asked, stumbling only a little over the words. “On camera, I mean?”
    He gave her a rueful smile. “I can’t,” he said. “I’ve tried this thing on several people, and so far Miranda is the only one who’s worked well. She’s also the youngest. That’s why I wanted to try you, to see if it’s the age that matters; you fall right between the two of us.”
    “How odd.”
    “It has a sort of poetry to it,” he replied, turning a knob andentering a string of numbers. “The further we get from our humanity, the less of it you can see in images. Scientifically, however, I’m flummoxed. Now, hold still!”
    Faith obeyed, closing her eyes for a moment and trying to be patient. She had a lot to do; the Haven was in chaos with the first Pairs arriving in a few hours, and though the Haven’s staff and supplies were someone else’s department, security was very much Faith’s. She knew David was keeping himself occupied until the circus began so he wouldn’t have time to fret, but that was the luxury of being in charge.
    “Almost … got it … there!”
    Faith’s eyes flicked open, and she looked at the screen.
    Her breath caught hard in her chest, and she covered her mouth with her hand for a few seconds while she took in what she was seeing.
    She was staring at her own face.
    It wasn’t crystal clear, and the edges were definitely pixilated, but she recognized herself as the girl who had stumbled bleeding through the streets of Gion, so very long ago … but her face had changed. It was pale, yes, but also harder, colder. The wide innocence of her eyes was gone … her eyes were old.
    “That’s me,” she said softly.
    She heard David rise from his chair and come over to join her; a blur moved across the screen to her side, but it barely even registered as a visual anomaly. When he stood still beside her, however, he took on a more concrete shape, its edges a moonlit silver. He was, essentially, a living shadow.
    “As I said,” David told her with a smile. “Beautiful.”
    Faith stared at herself for a long time, trying to make sense of her face, and finally the picture began to lose its