Chapter 13

“Ah, that’s right.” Alex reached for another section of sandwich. “You had a human mother. And she’s only just passed away. My condolences, by the way.”

Rob’s automatic reaction was to brush it off, say that it had happened long ago, and he was beyond it. The sincerity in Alex’s demeanor stopped him. Rob supposed that to someone who had lived as long as Alex, forty years felt as short as it did to Rob himself, when he thought of his mother. “Thank you,” he said simply.

“In that case,” Alex said, “you cannot be that old. You aged regularly, so to speak, until you were about twenty, yes? Then things started to slow down?”

Rob nodded. Alex looked thoughtful as he ate. Rob picked at his crust. He cleared his throat. “My mother…is that why I’ve got this disease? Because I’m half human?”