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Technically, I suppose that last group included me.
We found a spot on the edge of the room and made camp. That's where I began Ethan's education. I pointed out some of Chicago's old-money families - the O'Briens, the Porters, and the Johnsons, who'd made their money in commodities trading, pianos and beef, respectively. The room was also sprinkled with new money - celebs, music magnates who made their home in the Windy City, Board of Trade members, and sports team presidents.
Some guests Ethan knew, some he asked questions about - their connections, their neighborhoods, the manner in which they'd made their fortunes. For the families he knew, I asked about their take on the supernatural: Did they have ties to our communities? Sons and daughters in the Houses? He was, unsurprisingly, well-informed, given his penchant for connections and strategies. Really, the entire conversation could have walked itself out of a Jane Austen novel, both of us rating and evaluating the matriarchs and patriarchs of Chicago's social elite.
Noticeably absent from the party was the remainder of the Breckenridge clan - Nicholas and his brothers and Michael Breckenridge, Sr., who was known in friendly circles as Papa Breck. I'm not saying I was thrilled at the idea of jumping into another Nick encounter, but if I wanted to learn more about this Nick/Jamie business, I would at least need to be in the same room with him again. The no-show thing was going to put the kibosh on my investigation.
I also saw neither hide nor hair of my father. Not that I looked too hard.
I did see a cluster of people my age, a knot of twenty something's in cocktail dresses and sharp suits, a couple of the guys with scarves draped around their collars. These, I supposed, were the people I would have been friends with had I chosen my siblings' paths.
"What do you think I'd have been like?" I asked him.
Ethan plucked two delicate flutes of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter and handed one to me. "At what?"
I sipped the champagne, which was cold and crisp and tasted like apples, then gestured to the crowd around us. "At this. If I'd skipped school in New York or Stanford, stayed in Illinois, met a boy, joined the auxiliary with my mother."
"You wouldn't be a Cadogan vampire," he said darkly.
"And you'd be missing out on my sparkling personality." I made eye contact with another tuxedoed waiter, this one bearing food, and beckoned him closer with a crooked finger. I knew from the handful of galas I'd peeked into as a kid that the fare at charity events tended a little toward the weird side - foams of this and canapes of that. But what they lacked in homespun comfort they more than made up for in quantity.
The waiter reached us, watery blue eyes in the midst of a bored expression, and extended his tray and a handful of "B"- engraved cocktail napkins.
I reviewed the arrangement of hors d'oeuvres, which rested artistically on a bed of rock salt. One involved tiny pale cubes of something soaking in an endive cup. Another formed a cone of various pink layers. But for the endive, I had no clue what they were.
I looked up at the waiter, brows raised, seeking help.
"A napoleon of prawn and prawn mousse," he said, nodding down at the pink columns,"and tuna ceviche in endive."
Both weird seafood combinations, I thought, but, ever brave when it came to matters of gastronomie, I picked up one of each.
"You and food," Ethan muttered, with what I thought was amusement.
I bit into the endive. I was a little weirded out by the ceviche treatment, but I was accommodating a vampire-sized hunger that wasn't nearly as picky as I was. I raised my gaze from the appetizer as I noshed, pausing midbite at the realization that the cluster of twenty something's across the room was staring at me. They talked among themselves and, some decision apparently made, one of them began walking toward us.
I finished my bite, then scarfed the shrimp napoleon, which was good but a little exotic for my junk-food-ruined palate. "Sharks, two o'clock."
Brows raised, Ethan cast a glance at the away team, then smiled at me, with teeth.
"Humans, two o'clock," he corrected. "Time to do a little acting, Sentinel."
I sipped at my champagne, erasing the taste of whipped shellfish. "Is that a challenge, Sullivan?"
"If that's what it takes, Sentinel, then yes."
The brunette leader of the ensemble, her petite figure tucked into a sequined silver dress, approached, her entourage watching from across the room.
"Hi," she said, politely. "You're Merit, right?"
I nodded at her.
"I don't know if you remember me, but we were in the same cotillion class. I'm Jennifer Mortimer."
I picked back through my memories and tried to place her face. She looked vaguely familiar, but I'd spent most of my cotillion being humiliated by the fact that I'd been trussed up and stuffed into a billowing white gown in order to be paraded before Chicago's wealthy like a cow on parade. I hadn't paid much attention to the people around me.
But I faked it. "It's nice to see you again, Jennifer."
"Nick Breck was your escort, wasn't he? I mean, at our cotillion?"
Well, I had paid attention to him, so I nodded, then used my champagne glass to gesture at Ethan, whose expression had flattened at Jennifer's announcement. I guess I hadn't mentioned that part of our history. "Ethan Sullivan," I offered.
"A pleasure," Ethan said.
"Can I..." She half smiled, looked away uncomfortably, then twisted a ring on her right hand. "Could I... ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"I noticed earlier... with the appetizers..."
"We eat food," Ethan smoothly answered. He'd realized what she'd wanted to know before I did, which was funny, because that was one of the first questions I'd asked as a new vampire.
Jennifer blushed, but nodded. "Okay, sure. It's just, the blood thing, obviously, but we weren't sure about the rest, and, God, was that really rude of me?" She pressed a hand to her chest, grimaced. "Am I completely gauche?"
"It's no problem," I said. "Better to ask a question than assume the worst."
Her face brightened. "Okay, okay, great. Listen, one more thing."
I'm not sure what I expected - another question, sure, but not her next move. She slipped a thin business card from her bodice, and with manicured fingers that somehow worked under the weight of a gigantic marquis-cut diamond engagement ring, handed it to me.
This time when she spoke, her voice was all smooth confidence. "I know this is a little forward, but I did want to give you my card. I think you could benefit from representation."
