9. SIX ENVELOPES
SIX ENVELOPES
IN THE ENSUING WEEKS, EMbrY DID NOT SET UP JONESY WITH Merle. Not because she thought that would be meddlesome—Rye was dead wrong about that—but because despite Merle’s continued grumpiness, senior year was as busy as it was totally rad.
Because, yes, of course she was cast as the Witch in Into the Woods.
Unfortunately, though that role came with top billing—sorry, Oakley—it also came with a costume gown that was as marvelous as it was hideous, with its heart-shaped neckline, poofy sleeves, and tulle the color of fresh bubble gum.
All Embry’s friends were in costume, actually, waiting their turn in various stages of dress as Polaroids were snapped and quiet griping among the costume crew, Jonesy, and Rye went on behind racks of stale clothing in the dressing room.
The first costume check went to the shifter boys in the cast, because they were nearly all pulling double duty in both the play and on Heston’s football team, which practiced in the afternoons.
Honestly, Jonesy’s ability to do air traffic control on the schedules of her athletes in a way that wouldn’t make Heston’s life hellacious was exceedingly kind in Embry’s estimation.
Therefore, left waiting in the hall that afternoon was Embry’s upgraded coven of senior Witches.
Ames was cast as Little Red Riding Hood, and she’d already spent an inordinate amount of time magically refurbishing a crimson cloak as old as the school itself.
Fairfax was Rapunzel’s Prince and Balthazar Cinderella’s Prince, therefore both rocked breeches and ruffled shirts.
Balthazar had made a valiant, dimple-winking run at the Baker role, but because Jonesy understood Embry’s vision—and maybe her empathy brain also smelled the matchmaking Embry was scheming—Alistair had indeed been cast as the Baker, and Oakley as the Baker’s Wife.
Therefore, they were looking adorably couple-ish while currently bedecked in garb that had the effect of making them appear as if they were about to crowd surf the nearest Oktoberfest.
In the past five minutes, while propped up against her charming new sorcerer friend’s sturdy shoulder, Embry had been low-key admiring the swell of his bicep through his pirate shirt, which meant she wasn’t completely paying attention when a commotion arrived at the door.
A flapping, screeching commotion.
Embry’s head snapped up just in time to see a red-tailed hawk enter the hallway. In Merlin’s talons, a clutch of enchanted envelopes.
“Homecoming court nominations? Already?” Embry squealed even though she was more than aware that the court was announced ten days before the dance, which meant today.
As one predictably fell from Merlin’s talons straight into her outstretched hands, a laugh floated from behind a rack of clothes and Rye’s head popped out. “Woodcross, don’t pretend you haven’t walked past the voting table every day for the past week, because we all have.”
“You’re not even a student!” Embry made a grand shooing motion. “Go away!”
With a scoff Rye did, vanishing back into the dressing room, as Merlin dropped the rest of his load: six envelopes. Six of them. They’d all made the seniors-only homecoming court—which consisted of ten names up for the two who would be named the royal pair.
This was somewhat of a surprise, given how new both Oakley and Balthazar were to Raven’s Head, but Embry supposed their inclusion was truly a feather in her cap. The company they kept—or that kept them?—had made up for three years of absence.
Balthazar was the first to open his, igniting the headmaster’s voice. “Mr. Balthazar Hale, you have been nominated to the homecoming court. Well done and congratulations.”
After that, they all opened their cards.
“Oh, I can’t wait to find the right dress for when I win,” Oakley mused.
Even though she was probably kidding, this was something Embry could make special very easily. “There’s the best custom dress shop downtown—Atelier Aradia. It’s witch-owned, which means magical perfection in silk.”
“Allegra and her team will make you feel like royalty, guaranteed,” Ames agreed.
“Oh, I won’t just feel like it. I’ll be royalty,” Oakley insisted, with a set, fangy grin that made Embry consider that perhaps she wasn’t joking when she’d mentioned winning two seconds ago.
Like, she was serious. Totally serious. “Turns out people really do love an amalgamation. If you’re a little bit of everything, everyone identifies with you. ”
Embry schooled her face not to react to how utterly preposterous this was.
And, well, Oakley’s tone was kind of… snotty?
Okay. Majorly snotty. Embry appreciated a girl who understood her own fabulousness—that was one of her own nonnegotiables, of course—but there was something to be said about recognizing your own fabulousness without being a non-Bitch bitch about it.
The vampire was skating perilously close to the type of bravado that would sour her to her fellow competitors—of which they all were.
Perhaps it was true that Oakley had gone out of her way the past few weeks to show off all sides of her magical abilities—turning into a bat to skirt curfew with some Stitches, openly slurping blood at any opportunity, showing off superhuman speed in Heston’s gym class, etc.
But at least one half of that royal pair had been guaranteed to Embry since she set foot on campus, which meant the vampire was competing with eight other highly qualified competitors for that other crown.
The odds were not in Oakley’s favor, no matter how many books she levitated behind Miss Persephone’s back during English class. That was just how it was.
Alistair sighed. “So, I guess this means there’s no getting out of the dance.”
The court was presented at the football game on Friday, but the winners were crowned halfway through the dance Saturday, per a tradition set long before the magical school decided to actually field a football team.
“Getting out of the dance?” Oakley asked. “Why would you want to miss it?”
“Because he thinks it’s beneath him,” Fairfax answered, a little smile tipping his lips. “Alistair always finds something very posh to do with his moms that weekend. Skiing or antiquing or whatever white people do in the country when they’re not there to farm.”
“Skiing? In October?” Balthazar scoffed. “Come on, polo and bocce were right there.”
“The point is,” Embry started, turning the ship back around, “there’s no missing this year, Alistair. Your presence is required. If you try to skip, I’ll drag you out of your room myself.”
Ames side-eyed Alistair and shook her head. “She will. Don’t test her, Elton-Bentley.”
The diviner scrubbed his handsome walnut curls off his face. “I’m not asking for a test. I’m simply saying if you want me to go, you should just come with me.”
Embry’s lips twitched.
Did Alistair Elton-Bentley just ask her to the dance?
Or was he making a statement? She couldn’t tell from his expression, which was guarded in its aristocratic way.
If Embry interpreted it as a request for her to be his date, he’d accept that.
If she misread his intent, the wording protected either one from something very awkward and very public.
Alistair’s phrasing hung there, waiting for her choice.
Their friends seemed frozen around them, watching.
A smile broke across Embry’s face, and she nudged Alistair’s shoe. “Of course, we should go all together. You think I’m going to pass up this opportunity to color-coordinate?”
“Well, we’re wearing pink,” Ames announced, snuggling Fairfax while rushing in to bail Embry out because she was the literal best. “And before you can joke about me borrowing that hideous costume of yours, Em, I’m thinking a rose pink, not Pepto.”
“Thank the Goddess,” Fairfax mused. “I prefer not to match my ties to over-the-counter diarrhea medicine.”
“Laugh it up, I’ll be a very memorable Witch on stage,” Embry shot back, smoothing the tulle skirt draped over her legs. “It got your attention, did it not?”
Before either Ames or Fairfax could drum up a suitable quip, Alistair drilled Embry with his attention yet again. “If they’re wearing pink, what are we wearing?”
Now, that could not be misconstrued.
Oakley narrowed her eyes. Balthazar stiffened. Alistair didn’t drop his gaze from Embry’s face. Ames watched Fairfax as he rubbed a hand across his jaw and half laughed, half scoffed. “Are we really doing this right now, my dude? After all these years?”
Doing “this”? What did—
“When I first met you guys you said you weren’t a thing,” Oakley whispered, narrowed eyes scanning from Embry to Alistair.
“But you are.” The vampire wrenched herself away from the diviner’s side, so she could more easily inspect Alistair’s expression.
He did not waver from watching Embry. “You’re asking her to the dance to make it official. ”
“No, that’s not it,” Embry barged in, her words smushed into a single syllable as her mouth automatically formed an apologetic smile. One arm flailed at Alistair. “He’s simply—”
“I’m simply asking if you’d be my date to the homecoming dance,” Alistair cut in coolly. “I would be honored if you were on my arm, Embry.”
“This is even better than I thought it would be,” Fairfax stage-whispered to Ames.
“She’s processing,” Ames whispered back. “This is gonna be good.”
Actually, Embry wasn’t processing.
There was nothing to be processed. Absolutely none of this was real.
Which was good because she really did not want nosy Rye overhearing from the next room, because he would most definitely not let this go.
If it were real, of course. But it couldn’t be real because there’d never been anything romantic between them. Like, ever.
That reflexive smile was back. It was nearly a grimace now. “You don’t mean that.” She looked to Oakley. To Balthazar. “He doesn’t mean that—”
“I do mean it. Every word.”
Why was she suddenly so hot? Sweat pricked on Embry’s skin, at the roots of her hair, inside her eyeballs. She shook her head emphatically. “No.”
“Yes, Embry, he does,” Fairfax insisted with a little chuckle that felt as if it were at her expense.
“Put me under oath, I can solemnly swear as a dude-bro confidant, that if pining were an actual physical act like, I don’t know, mining, my guy Alistair would’ve dug himself a tunnel to his mothers’ beach house on the French Riviera and back by the time senior year started. ”
Alistair didn’t deny it. Ames nodded her head. Embry couldn’t look at Oakley or Balthazar for some reason.
Embry couldn’t believe this. She wouldn’t believe this.
But she did believe this.
Flashes of their past few weeks together swirled in her brain, recent examples.
Alistair’s joke about making out while heading into drama class that first day.
His joke about how they looked extremely good together when Oakley wondered aloud if they were an item.
And then his follow-up joke about how Embry was the queen bee and “as unobtainable as possible”—
Wait.
Those weren’t jokes. She’d treated them like jokes. Now, in her mind’s eye, Embry saw that every time she’d thought she was doing them both a friendly solid by backing away from the awkwardness of it all, what she’d actually done was slam the door on real feelings he had for her.
Was she the clueless one?
How had she not realized? For three years she’d not known. Three years. And if Embry didn’t recognize Alistair’s apparently obvious feelings… what else hadn’t she seen?
“Em?” Ames tapped Embry’s tulle-covered knee with the toe of her boot. “Are you going to answer Alistair? Or are we all going to collectively pass out from holding our breath?”
Embry blinked up at Ames, who was again nodding as if she were trying to give her a pass. To shout, It’s okay to drop the studious virginal princess act and say yes to the poor guy.
But… she couldn’t say yes.
If Alistair really liked her like that—like he was really, truly, finally shooting his shot—wouldn’t giving him false hope be the meanest thing she could do?
Wouldn’t it be more painful to lead him on with a yes, knowing that her heart wouldn’t change with a corsage and a few slow dances?
Wouldn’t it be better to say no now and give him a chance to reconfigure his attentions to someone more willing? Like, say, the sad-eyed vampire sitting at his side in that very moment?
She loved Alistair Elton-Bentley as a friend. She thought he was kind and funny and handsome as a friend. But only as a friend.
“That’s really sweet,” Embry started, as all that collective breath holding seemed to expire with yet another mass inhalation, “but I’m committed to making sure we all have fun in a group.”
“We can still go together and in a group,” Alistair replied. “Look at Ames and Fairfax; they’re a couple and part of the—”
“NO!” Embry snapped, loud enough that an echo seemed to bounce around in the empty space, followed by such a silence that one could hear a pin drop. So loud, in fact, that the door to the dressing room unlatched and Rye’s head popped out.
“Is everyone okay?”
“Yes! We’re fine! Thanks!” Embry unconvincingly trilled, waving a shooing hand in the direction of the assistant director/eavesdropper.
“Are you sure? We heard—”
“You heard nothing. Go. Football practice starts in five minutes. You need to finish up.”
Rye took Embry’s multiple hints and disappeared into the room.
When the door closed again, Embry drew in a deep breath and stated, more calmly but firmly, “No, we’re going as a group.
The girls will take full advantage of our fashion opportunities as a group and let you boys know about the group theme. Yes? Yes.”
Then, as that heat in her body seemed to collect firmly in her cheeks, neck, ears, and upper chest, Embry whipped out her phone and began furiously thumb typing, doing everything she could to avoid the obvious hurt in Alistair’s hazel gaze.
“I’ll set up our appointment with Allegra at Atelier Aradia right now while I’m thinking about it. ”