Chapter 17
When I get back to my room, Delia’s waiting for me on my bed, playing with the ends of her perfect silvery hair, looking anxious. Knowing what I now know, it hurts to look at her.
“Hey, Ro.” She peeks up at me with her wide cocoa eyes. I stiffen, head to my desk, drop my bag on the surface. I don’t look at her as I grab a messy stack of lit notes, pretend to straighten them.
“Let me guess,” I say. “You came up with that nickname for me during Prohibition. Or, what? Were we, like, closer than sisters during the war?”
“Depends. Which one?”
“Oh my god.” I drop the papers to cover my eyes.
I can hear them scatter across my desk, fall to the ground.
“God, I…I meant everything I said to you, Delia. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.
Only friend. And this whole time, you’ve just been playing Babysit the Dumb Human, lying to me to keep my dumb mortal brain quiet. ”
A faint, violet-scented swoosh brushes my face. I open my eyes to find all my lit notes picked up off the floor and stacked neatly on my desk, my bag hung on the little rack by my bed. I wonder if that will ever get old.
Delia’s chin slides over my shoulder, her arms wrapping around me in a tight hug. I try and hide my sniffle.
“I’m so, so sorry, Rose,” she says softly. “It was all to keep you safe. Besides…it wasn’t all a lie.”
I disentangle myself from her to sit on my bed. “Like what?” I say, feeling petulant.
“This is the first time I’ve given you a nickname,” she admits.
I meet her eyes, surprised. “In fact, this is the closest we’ve ever gotten.
I…” Delia looks down at the loose piece of thread she winds around her finger.
“He used to say you made him feel more human. I never got it.” She looks up at me.
My heart softens at the flash of vulnerability in her eyes. “Now I do.”
This feels like a rare thing for a vampire to admit. “That…seems like a big deal,” I concede. Delia snorts, crossing her arms.
“Yeah. Yeah, you could say that.” Her eyes dance with amusement for a moment before she sighs and plops on the bed beside me. I swallow hard, fiddling with the sleeve of my sweater.
“When you say he…you mean Hayden? How…What’s the deal with you two?”
Delia exhales, claps me on the thigh. “I’ll answer all your questions. But over a pot of tea and plate of vanilla scones. Come on, my treat.”
—
The Alchemist’s Study is quiet today. We ask for a table tucked far into the corner, by a large window with a perfect view of a copse of oaks and maples. The trees are nearly bare now. I watch the last few shriveled leaves tremble on the skeletal branches twisting in the cold mist.
Our waitress brings us a steaming pot of Irish breakfast and a plate of four blueberry-vanilla scones. Delia grabs one and takes a large, lusty bite.
“It doesn’t hurt you to eat human food?” I ask, bewildered. Delia snorts, spraying me with crumbs.
“No. It doesn’t do anything, though. No nourishment, no energy. If I were locked in a vault for a million years with fruits and vegetables but no animals to drink from, I’d starve till I was a dormant husk.”
“Then why do it?” I watch her grab another. “I’ve seen you destroy a stack of cookies at the dining hall.”
“Why do you think? I have a devastating sweet tooth. Sugar was a luxury good when I was a human, so I eat my fill now.”
I have a burning, slightly mortifying question. But I have to ask it.
“Where does all that food go?” I squint an eye at Delia. “Do, um, vampires…use the bathroom?”
Delia stops chewing, shoots me a withering look. After a thick swallow, she takes a breath.
“Just watch,” she says, rolling her eyes. She leans close to the cold window and blows gently. A wide patch of fog spreads where her breath touches the glass.
“Oh!” I say, understanding dawning. “The food just turns into heat. Inside of you? How?”
Delia shrugs. “The way I’ve always figured is, we’re sustained by the living.
Everything else is dust to our bodies. So, anything else I ingest sort of just…
does that. Breaks down to ash, the energy released as heat.
” She shakes her head. “But I’m guessing here.
There’s no vampire anatomy class. No one’s running studies.
Like, how have I been alive for four hundred years?
Why am I able to manipulate the weather, but Hayden isn’t?
Why are giraffes the sexiest beasts in the entire animal kingdom?
Is it the neck? Their spots? Legs?” Delia stops abruptly, blinks.
“Actually, it’s the tongues. Obviously the tongues.
Mystery solved. My point is, sometimes we know why something is, and other times, it’s just a mystery of the universe not even immortals understand.
So, long story short, Rose, no.” Delia takes a dainty sip of her tea. “Vampires do not poop.”
“I…” I set down my cup. “I’m a little more stuck on the fact that you can control the weather. Has all this fog been you?”
Delia shakes her head dismissively. “Nah, that’s just New England and good old-fashioned climate change.” She flips her hand. “Not worth the energy cost. Kinda nice that it’s overcast a lot, though. Obvi, you’ve seen that day-walking doesn’t kill us, but my powers do get weaker in sunlight.”
“You have powers?” I say, thrilled and a little frightened at the idea. “Does Hayden have powers?”
“He’s strong. Fast. Even for a vampire.” Delia smiles with a sort of wicked pride. “But he can’t do what I do.”
“Like control the weather?”
“Among other things,” she says, her eyes glinting.
“Like…?”
Delia lifts her teacup with both hands, taking a leisurely sip. I feel a little tickle on my index finger and look down. A glossy-winged ladybug is walking along my knuckle. I lift my finger, peering at its tiny beetle face.
“You’re doing this?” I look up at her, eyes wide. Delia watches the ladybug flutter its wings.
“We need all the luck we can get,” she muses.
“Don’t we?” I can’t believe it when the ladybug’s pin-size head bobs up and down.
Delia and I wordlessly watch it twitch its antennae, take off, and fly in the direction of the front door.
“It was nearby. Just the simpler creatures,” she explains.
“Like, for example, I can’t really control cats.
Too willful. However, rats, bats, other little animals…
” Delia lifts an eyebrow. “Persuasion, though. I can persuade anyone.”
“What do you mean, persuade?”
Delia threads her fingers, her espresso eyes sparkling. “Easier to show you.” I realize she’s asking for permission. I nod. Her gaze sparks, and I feel a tickle in the back of my brain.
Hand me a packet of stevia, Rose.
Involuntarily, my hand twitches closer to the glass cup full of yellow, white, and green sweetener packets. I shake my head, the inside of my skull tingling. It’s not necessarily unpleasant.
Go on, grab it. So close. Please, Rose?
When I blink, I’m already placing a little green packet in Delia’s palm. She smiles at me, and I withdraw my hand.
“That was…whoa.” I set my elbows on the table, leaning heavily. “What happens if I didn’t want to hand you the stevia?”
“I’d just give your brain an extra little massage. You’d forget why you didn’t want to hand it to me. And if it had been nighttime? Forget it. You would have given me an entire stevia factory before I’d finished my first glamour.”
I swallow hard, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. I grab my glass of water, draining it. I shake the dregs of ice into my mouth, crunching wildly. Delia’s expression softens into understanding.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you,” she says gently.
“You didn’t,” I say tightly. “It’s just a lot.”
“And creepy. And icky. I’ve literally never gotten to show off, and…I sort of love when you look at me like I hung the moon.” That catches me off guard.
She cares what I think?
My heartbeat slows, and when I look up, Delia’s big eyes are trained on mine, contrite.
“I promise that I only use it under dire circumstances.” She rubs her arm.
“Okay, like, I did use it to persuade your old shitty roommate to transfer. But Remy was so awful! I really only try and nudge people if they’re on the edge of indecision, and she was already—”
“Dee.” She blinks at the nickname. “It’s okay, I get it. I’m not afraid of you.”
Delia gives me her first real smile since I walked into our room this morning.
“Okay,” she says quietly. “Good.”
I do have one burning, uncomfortable question now. “Can Hayden…um…” I swallow hard, shifting in my seat, bracing myself.
“Compel humans? No. But you’ve never needed persuasion when it comes to him, anyway.
” Delia smiles wryly. “Truth is, I don’t know why some of us have abilities and some of us don’t.
Best anyone can guess is it has to do with age mostly.
The older the vamp, the more powerful they are.
But I’ve also wondered if maybe a touch of our human lives carry over.
For example, as a child, I loved snow and adored my pet birds and mice.
There’s another aspect too. Our strength comes from our nourishment.
” She hesitates before meeting my eyes. “The better the blood we drink, the stronger we are. Since I’ve known him, Hayden mostly only feeds off animals. ”
“Mostly?” I say.
“Yeah. He drinks from animals. And over the years, sometimes, when you were together…he’d drink from you.
” I feel a flush travel down my neck. She mistakes my shudder for fear.
“Actually, it feels good for humans. Our saliva’s got something to keep blood from clotting and something to keep you happy.
Huge endorphin rush. And if you actually like your vamp?
” Delia snorts. “Let’s just say, you do not mind when Hay drinks from you. ”
My cheeks flare. I fidget with my tiny brass spoon on the table. “Why doesn’t he drink from humans now?” I say when the heat in my face has gone down.