2. WITCHES, BITCHES, STITCHES, GLITCHES… AND OAKLEY RIDDLE #2
“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 word vampire among 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 thought turning 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.”
“Thanks, girl.” Embry leaned in. “My point is, you fit anywhere you 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.” Embry gestured 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 little touchy about 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.”