Nancy looked vaguely horrified.

True to form, Cruz did not take the bait. That was the thing about Cruz Sweetwater, Lyra thought. He never lost his cool. He was probably just as controlled in bed. Not that she was likely to find out.

Cruz was all about control. She was no para-shrink, but she had a strong suspicion that powerful self-mastery was a direct result of the psychic side of his nature. He had never confided the truth about his psi senses to her—one of the many secrets he had kept three months ago—but she would had to have been incredibly dim not to have realized that he possessed a lot of raw power.

Anyone endowed with a high degree of talent required an equally high degree of control. Those who wound up with the former but not the latter generally spent most of their lives in nice, quiet parapsych wards knitting scarves and taking little pills.

"I was out of town at the time," Nancy said, trying to paper over the awkward moment. "I always close the gallery for a couple of weeks in early summer. Mandatory family gathering at the lake house." She made a face. "You know how it is with family."

"Yes," Cruz said. He looked amused. "I do know how it is with family."

The two of them exchanged a smile of mutual understanding. If there was one thing most people could bond over, it was the subject of family. After the Curtain had closed, stranding the colonists, the First Generation settlers had understood that their very survival depended on the strength of the family unit, the basic building block of any society. They had set out to shore up family ties with every legal, social, and moral tool at their command.

The Founders had achieved their goal. Family was all on Harmony—except when you did not have one of your own.

Lyra took another sip of champagne and made no comment, her customary response whenever the subject of family ties arose. Her grandfather, who had raised her after her parents had been killed in a mining accident, had died four years earlier, leaving her alone in the world.