It was cool.Very cool.As far as Embry knew, Oakley might be the first vampire ever to attend Raven’s Head. They were a very small, very secretive magical sect. The only one Embry had ever heard of was the old guy who represented them on the Table—and he’d been in that seat for two hundred years at least, without a single vampiric apprentice or aide. Now the homeschooling totally made sense, even if the sudden attendance at boarding school didn’t.
When Oakley began to blush, Ames cuffed the vampire’s wrist and leaned in, suddenly horrified. “I know you have to be secretive out there—we all do—but the school’s protective wards are top-notch, and everyone here takes magical secrecy very seriously. We would never out you and not just because of the oath of silence.”
“Oh, no, I mean, I know. The headmaster made me take the oath, too. And even if she didn’t, this school is the best and most discreet on the East Coast. It’s just…”
“It’s what?” Ames prodded.
“It’s just that whenever I tell people what I am they make a face.”
“This face?” Ames asked, pointing to her own concerned expression.
“No, the one you had before…” Oakley’s gaze scanned the dining area. “Oh, that one.”
She nodded to someone over Fairfax’s shoulder. Actually,multiple someones—an entire table of Stitches, falling to literal pieces, everyone either openly staring at Oakley, mouths agape, or whispering the wordvampireamong themselves.
“Don’t worry,” Oakley assured Ames, and then, well, the rest of the table. “Your surprised look was way more subtle. But it’s that reaction that keeps me from being super candid about being a vampire until I absolutely have to. People are weird about blood.”
Ames’s face dropped. “Oakley, did we just offer you an entire lunch tray you can’t eat? Do you need blood? I’m sure the kitchen will do blood. We can take care—”
“Oh, no, not necessary. I eat,” Oakley answered, flushed-to-embarrassed over her bread-and-tomato salad. “Just usually not, er, vegetables…”
Her dark eyes skipped mournfully across the table, where Fairfax was savoring a huge bite of his big, juicy burger. Oh. Vampires were carnivores. Embry elbowed Alistair.
“Ow, what—”
Embry nodded meaningfully to his pristine sandwich. Though a diviner, sometimes Alistair wasn’t the best spontaneous mind reader, but Ames was just as attuned to what Oakley didn’t say as Embry was.
“Fairfax, give the girl your burger.”
Fairfax’s eyes widened over the top of the bun. Which was exactly when Alistair caught on and nudged his tray toward the vampire. “No. Oakley, I haven’t touched mine.”
“I couldn’t—”
“Please, I insist.” Alistair flashed his most handsome smile. “It’s no trouble at all.”
Oakley still hesitated, and so Embry took it upon herself to make the first move for them both, switching the trays with ease. “There we go.”
Ames waved her hands. “Wait, but you’re young. I thoughtturning vampires under the age of consenting adulthood was outlawed by the Table.”
Oakley blushed and pushed a few strands of that fried hair behind her ear. She did know “living dead” didn’t have to apply to her locks, right? Embry itched to cure it with a cuticle-sealing spell. “It’s illegal to turn someone under eighteen. But it is possible to produce a vampire child. I grow at the normal rate of a human until maturity and then I’m an adult for three hundred years.”
Though she thought herself very well-educated on matters of magical people, this was news to Embry, and apparently everyone else. Ames and Alistair were nodding like twin bobbleheads over their matching plates of panzanella. Fairfax made it look as if he were in the know, of course, but he was wielding his brightest grin, which was always used as a sparkly deflection. The harder he smiled, the less he knew.
Oakley continued. “And in my family? I’m it as far as non-turned offspring. Just me, my parents, and a dozen really, really nosy aunts and uncles. I needed some fresh air.”
Well, now boarding school made sense.
“You know what that means?” Embry asked.
That hesitant quirk tugged at Oakley’s lips. “That I literally can never pee without fourteen people knowing?”
“No, silly. You’re very rare and extremely culturally relevant!” As far as the internal hierarchy of Raven’s Head went, this girl was sitting on a pile of gold bars and had no idea. “Which means you get your pick of clique.”
Oakley was incredulous. “I thought cliques picked you… not the other way around.”
“That’s just because that’s what most people would face. But you? You’re an amalgamation.”
“Total amalgamation,” Ames parroted proudly. “Good word, Em.”
