Chapter 15
The woman in grey lays the dress on the bed like I have no choice in what I’m wearing tonight.
She runs this house. We haven't exchanged names. She hasn't offered and I haven't asked.
"Mr. Vassard's car will be ready at seven," she says, from the doorway.
"Right."
She doesn't leave. Looks at the dress, then at me.
I short-circuit, realizing she was sent up here to dress me exactly how Leopold desired and she’s probably just as much as his mercy as I am. "Uh, give me ten minutes," I say.
She nods, pulls the door almost-closed. I hear her in the hall giving quiet instructions to someone.
A minute later a second attendant appears with a velvet case—earrings, dark green—sets it on the vanity without eye contact, disappears.
A third brings shoes. They move in and out like they've done this before, doted on a Vassard guest.
Something about that makes me want to hurl. But I put on the dress, and the earrings, and the shoes like a dutiful little captive.
The mirror shows me someone who looks like she belongs here. Everything in this wardrobe fits… and look good. Everything does exactly what it's meant to do–dress me up like royalty so that I’m endeared by the glitz and glamour and forget what the fuck Leopold’s problem is.
When I’m satisfied with my appearance, and no more accessories have been dropped off for me to borrow, I step out of my room and head downstairs.
Leopold is at the foot of the stairs. One hand in his pocket, the other finishing his cuff. He looks at me and his light eyebrows lift, his eyes starting with mine and then traveling down my body until he’s taken me all in.
"Green," he says. "Good choice."
I didn't choose it. He knows that.
His driver is already at the curb and I don’t ask any questions as we drive off campus.
The restaurant we arrive at doesn't have a sign.
It’s a door on a narrow street in the Quarter, black lacquered, no visible handle. Leopold's driver parks. Leopold gets out first, comes around, opens my door. The street is quiet. Old-quiet.
Inside it's candlelit, low-ceilinged, tables spaced further apart than they need to be. A ma?tre d' appears from nowhere, takes our coats, and leads us through before I've said a word.
Leopold offers his arm at the entrance.
I look at it and then at him.
"There are people watching," he says, pleasantly.
"I'm aware."
He nods his head. "Then you understand."
I take his arm. He covers my hand with his briefly—one pat, like I'm a child who's done something right—and I resist the urge to step on his foot as we cross the room.
I count heads as we pass.
Vampires. All of them, near enough—one fae couple near the back, the rest old money from the posture alone.
The nearest table clocks me before I've taken three steps. Then the next one. Heads lifting, nostrils barely flaring, the particular quality of attention that has nothing to do with my dress or my face. I’m a witch in a room full of predators.
I keep my chin up and my pulse even and let Leopold steer.
"Blood service," I say once we're seated. On the menu, below the charcuterie, plain as anything. I should have known he would take me to a place like this.
"Primarily a vampire establishment," Leopold says. "I hope that isn't a problem."
I shake my head, pretending I’m not rattled by potentially sharing a table with someone drinking blood across from me. I suppose I have to get used to it, being at a place like Devenir, living in the Vassard mansion.
I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it.
He picks up his menu. I pick up mine.
The waiter arrives. I order the most expensive plate on the menu–because why not? Leopold sets his menu down says something quiet to the waiter that I don't catch, and the waiter nods and leaves. When he comes back a moment later, he sets a glass of dark liquid at Leopold's elbow.
Leopold picks it up. Doesn't look at me while he does it.
I roll my neck and find something to look at across the quiet hum of the restaurant.
"Go ahead and look," he says.
"I'm not staring."
"You want to, but it's fine." He takes a sip, unhurried, sets it back down. "It's natural. Don't perform tolerance on my behalf."
"I'm not—" I stop. Pick up my water glass. "Does it bother you? Doing that in front of someone who isn't."
"Isn't what?"
"A vampire.”
He considers it like it's a real question. "No. Should it?"
"Most people would find it at least a little strange. Sitting across from someone while they drink—" I gesture at the glass.
"Most people I socialize with would partake along with me." He tilts his head. "Does it bother you?"
"I'm trying to decide."
That earns a small smile. "Let me know when you have."
I avoid talking to him as he sips, savoring the dark liquid like it really is wine. Tasting the depth of flavor. Can he taste the blood type? The gender of the human it was drawn from?
Does he have… preferences?
My food arrives by the time I’ve worked myself out of an appetite but I force myself to eat anyways.
It's extraordinary, which I resent. I eat for a minute in silence, trying to work out my angle. I need to get him to talk and keep him talking. I told Kage I would put my listening skills to good use, try to find out as much as I could. I can’t do that if we both sit here in silence.
"So," I say. "What is this actually for?"
"Dinner."
"Leopold."
His eyes come back to me, amused. “You may call me Leo if you prefer.”
I breathe in deep. "You don't strike me as someone who does things without a reason."
"I don't." He picks up the glass again. "And yet here we are, and you're eating what I hope is the best meal you've had in some time, and I'm enjoying your company. Sometimes the reason is that simple."
"Nothing about you is that simple, Leopold."
"What a flattering thing to say." He doesn't look flattered. He looks pleased, which is different and more dangerous. "You want to know what I'm after."
"I want to know why the dinner. Why the—" I stop myself just short of saying date and he catches it, the slight shift at the corner of his mouth.
"Why the date?" he offers.
"That's not what I said."
"It's what you almost said."
Heat crawls up my throat. I take a bite of food and chew and absolutely do not look at him. "I want to understand what you want from me. Beyond the obvious."
"And what's the obvious?"
"The magic. The optics. The—" I gesture between us, at the room, at whatever performance this is meant to be.
"All true," he says. "And also not the whole picture." He sets the glass down. "I find you interesting, Calypso. That isn't strategic. I'm simply old enough not to waste time pretending otherwise."
I look at the glass. The dark residue at the rim. If I pretend it’s beet juice, I can almost ignore it.
"Can I ask you something?"
"You've been asking me things for the last ten minutes."
"What does it taste like?" I nod at the glass, keep my voice light, like it's idle. Like I'm not asking because some small awful part of me wants to know and would rather die than say so. "Humor me."
He looks at me for a moment like he's deciding something. Then he lifts the glass and holds it out across the table.
I stare at it.
"I'm not going to—"
"You asked."
"I asked what it tastes like. I didn't ask to—" My stomach does something complicated. "No. Thank you."
He sets it back down without comment, but there's something in his expression I can't quite name. Not amusement. Something warmer.
"It tastes different depending on the source," he says. "The emotion. The diet. Whether the person is afraid." He looks at me steadily. "Yours, I imagine, would be extraordinary."
I put my fork down. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Whatever you're about to say next."
"I was simply going to say that I look forward to finding out."
I blink. "That will never happen."
"No?" He doesn't say it like a challenge. He says it like someone noting the weather.
"I am not—you don't get to treat me like—" I stop. Take a breath. "I am not something you feed from. That is not what I'm here for."
Leopold looks at me across the table. The warmth in his expression doesn't shift, doesn't flicker, doesn't do anything to help me.
"Calypso," he says. "You are currently living in my house, wearing a dress I chose, at a table I reserved, in an establishment that knows my name." A pause. "I'm not certain you're in a position to define what you're here for."
The words land like something cold and precise.
I pick my fork back up. Eat. Stare at my plate and breathe through my nose and give him absolutely nothing to read on my face, which takes more effort than it should because he is right. I’m at a disadvantage.
The only good thing is that my magic seems to be on its best behavior tonight.
I clear my throat. "The food was good," I say finally.
"I know." He signals the waiter without lifting his hand more than an inch. "I did mean it, though. About your company."
"You mean my blood."
"I mean your company. The blood was a separate compliment." He stands, comes around, pulls out my chair before the waiter can reach it. "You'll learn to tell my meanings apart. It's one of the more useful things about spending time with me."
"Can't wait," I say, and stand, and let him settle my coat over my shoulders because there are still seven vampires pretending not to watch and I've learned that much about how this works.
"There she is," he says, low, close to my ear. "You're getting better at this."
I don't dignify it.
We walk out the way we came, his hand at the small of my back. I count the heads that follow us to the door.
We get in the car and leave the restaurant and finally the tension in my body eases. I did it. That wasn’t too painful was it?
But when the car turns the wrong direction, I twist to the window, my eyes narrowing to watch the buzzing ward that protects Devenir Academy from prying eyes fade into the distance.
My magic shifts under my sternum. So much for behaving.
"This isn't the way back," I say. “Where are we going?”