“Thanks, girl.” Embry leaned in. “My point is, you fit anywhereyou want to. Undead? The Stitches would take you in a heartbeat. Bloodthirsty? The Bitches would totally be all over that. One-of-a-kind? The Glitches are frothing at the mouth. Magically inclined?”
Oakley shyly confirmed this by wiggling her fingers just enough to levitate her burger.
This made Embry grin. “Witches get that like no one else.”
Oakley nodded but seemed unsure, so Embry decided to prove that they would take care of her. Witch or not, the rare vampire should totally stick with them. Which meant Embry needed to figure out who the school thought Oakley might vibe with. “Who’s your roommate?”
Oakley scrunched her nose. “Magda… er… I don’t know her last name yet.”
“Magda Vulcovic—revenant in four oh one?” Alistair asked, his knowledge of the dorm assignments as fresh as Embry’s own. They’d been paired together in handing them out at orientation. Playing up Alistair’s status as a diviner, Embry convinced him to magically read the pairing envelopes without opening them, much to the delight of their fellow students. Alistair didn’t always have the best memory, but Embry had to agree Magda was hard to forget. He leaned in, a mischievous grin crossing his handsome face. “Buzzed hair, black clothes, gray skin. Looks like the Cure played an encore just to bring her back to life?”
“I actually haven’t met her yet. But four oh one is right.” A hopeful smile crossed her face. Oakley was rather pretty when she smiled. “Are you all on the fourth floor, too?”
Ames started giggling. “Oh no. Top floor only for these witches!”
Her hand thrust out for a high five, and Embry had to oblige.
“We were the ones handing out the assignments, and we would’ve helped out a senior in need if we’d known.” Embrygestured between herself and Alistair. “We could’ve cleaned up your living situation for you.”
Embry had, in fact, rearranged a few rooms magically before Alistair read them. And, in one case, she paired two sobbing shifters together so that one of them in particular could avoid rooming with Magda, who was a notorious loner. Apparently in doing so she’d unwittingly handed Oakley the short end of the stick. Whoops.
“You—you can do that?”
“Well, I would have.” Embry swallowed her guilt. “Why weren’t you at orientation?”
“I didn’t make it Saturday because my mother got cold feet, so to speak. Her feet are always chilly.” Oakley gave a little self-conscious shrug and laugh. “Um, so here I am. Two days late and a roommate intervention short, I guess.”
Even if she was a Woodcross, Embry probably couldn’t tamper with the roommate assignments at this late date. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t help this poor, clueless girl blossom into what she could be.
“Revenants can be a littletouchyabout vampires,” Oakley continued. “It has more to do with the constant comparisons and far less, um…”
“Social capital?” Embry guessed. Revenants were rare, but in that off-brand sort of way that didn’t amount to popularity at Raven’s Head or anywhere else. Even if she wasn’t working hard to be a loner, Magda could never compete with Oakley’s gobs of potential.
“Yes, that. Vampires are pretty big in the wider world. Revenants are not.” Her face paled even further at a new thought. “You don’t think Magda will hate me on sight, do you?”
“Don’t be offended, because Magda kind of hates everyone on sight,” Ames answered.
Embry cuffed the vampire’s shoulder gently. It was like palming a doorknob. “How about you come hang out this afternoon with us? We can do some hair masks and make a plan for our syllabi.”
The girl lit up.
“My room at three—I’ll get you sorted with the fifth-floor wards.”
CHAPTER 3
OH, THE DRAMA (ACT 1)
THAT AFTERNOON, THE SENIORWITCH CREW MET ON THE QUAD,just outside Marlow Theatre, the brick walkways leading them toward one another like a preordained collision.
Fairfax was glued to Ames, his school vest undone in a way that only he could make look cool and not sloppy. He marginally detached himself as Alistair swooped in from an adjoining walkway with a fist bump to Fairfax, a wink for Ames, and an air-kiss and arm-drape for Embry. The diviner leaned down toward her ear. “Embry Woodcross, you are the only person in the world who could’ve convinced me to take drama as a class, and I still can’t believe I’m enrolled.”
“The theater needs more dudes,” Embry exclaimed. “Plus, we all know you can sing, and this is a musical. You’re musical, and you’re a dude. This makes you the best of dudes.”
“Excuse me,” Fairfax butted in, faux indignant. “I’mthe best of dudes because I joined sophomore year when you recruited me. Elton-Bentley put you off for two whole years.”
Ames poked her boyfriend in the sternum with one very sharp nail. “If you were the best of dudes, we wouldn’t have had to recruit you. You would’ve just intuitively done it.”
Rubbing his chest, Fairfax coughed, then laughed. “Maybe I didn’t want to seem like I was stalking you before I got up the guts to ask you out.”
