A Kiss So Deadly (Ivymoore Vampires Book 1) by Sylvie Wrightman (3)

 

Jack smirked back. “Mere mortal.”

 

I shifted uncomfortably. This was clearly a normal interaction for the brothers, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was witnessing something private—not meant for me.

 

“Do you have any other siblings?” I asked. “Anyone else who lives with you?”

 

“Just the two of us,” said Jack. “Marrow mead, yeah?”

 

My stomach grumbled, as though on cue.

 

“I’ll get it,” said Nelson. He pointed at Jack. “You, entertain your guest, or whatever.”

 

Nelson sauntered out of the sitting room and through a narrow doorway that I assumed led to the kitchen. Meanwhile, Jack took a seat in an armchair across from me. I noticed that the upholstery had been ripped away on the left arm of the chair, and stuffing was spilling out. In place of a coffee table, there was a stacked set of wooden pallets, covered in a thin film of dust. Boxes, knick-knacks, books, and papers were scattered about the room.

 

Jack followed my gaze, and a new shade of pink bloomed in his cheeks.

 

“I’m sorry about the mess,” he said. “If I had known you were coming, I would’ve. . . . I just mean, you know, two guys living alone, it’s bound to get a little. . . . What I mean is that I’m absolute rot at housework, and I just don’t want you to think that—”

 

“I’ve been horrible to you,” I interrupted. “Then I ask to stay over at your place because I’m out of my mind and have nowhere else to go, and you're apologizing to me that your house is messy?”

 

Jack folded his arms across his chest. “Yeah, well, if you put it that way, you kind of sound like a bitch.”

 

“Guess so.”

 

Jack stared at me with wide eyes. “George was right. Something is wrong with you.”

 

At that, the tears started flowing freely.

 

“Whoa!” Jack stood up, panicked. “Whoa, I didn’t mean to—”

 

I waved him away and rubbed under my eyes with the backs of my wrists. “I am so fucked, Jack,” I whimpered. “I am so monumentally fucked. And you are the only human being on the planet who I knew would just—just listen and be nice to me.”

 

“I’m not really that—”

 

I shook my head violently. “No! You are. Like that time at Mahogany Coffin. I’d been so mean to you, and I puked on your supper. And you held my hair back in the toilet so I could puke some more. Not even Clarissa would’ve done that, and you barely knew me, and—and I’d called you really terrible things.”

 

Cautiously, Jack took a seat beside me on the couch. “I don’t take insults personally,” he said. “That’s all.”

 

“But they were personal!” I nearly shrieked. “I was awful!”

 

At that moment, Nelson walked into the room with two cups of hot marrow mead in hand. He took one look at the tableau we’d created, set the cups down on the pallet-table, and backed off.

 

“Uh, I’ll just leave you two to it then,” he muttered before dashing up the stairs.

 

I was blubbering too hard to care. With one snotty sob, I buried my face into Jack’s shoulder. At first, his frame was stiff beneath me. Then, slowly, his shoulder relaxed, and I felt strong, warm arms wrap around my back.

 

“Ada,” he said softly, “I think you need some rest.”

 

I sniffled. “Why? Because I wouldn’t normally say these things if I was in my right mind?”

 

“Well . . . yeah, actually.”

 

“I’m not crazy.”

 

“I know you’re not,” Jack said reassuringly. “But it sounds like you’re sleep deprived and that you’ve been through hell the past few days. I think the best thing you can do for yourself is rest.”

 

“Jack?”

 

“Yes?”

 

I pushed myself upright so that I could actually get a good look at his eyes.

 

“I missed you,” I whispered. I let out a broken, snot-ridden laugh. “Isn’t that silly? It’s only been a few days since I saw you at Ivymoore, but . . . I really missed you.”

 

Jack’s expression was unreadable, but his eyes seemed so much darker than I remembered them.

 

“I think,” he said, “that you really need to get to bed."

 

 

 

 

 

15

Wafers & Gelatin

 

Like the rest of the house, Jack’s room was small and cramped. A single bed was pressed against one wall, and a chest of drawers was wedged right beside it. There was little space for anything else. In fact, I was fairly certain that my walk-in closet at Onyx House was bigger than the entire bedroom.

 

Jack showed me in with the same red-faced, abashed expression that he had worn when he'd apologized for the messiness of the sitting room. It was an expression I wasn’t used to seeing him wear; he seemed almost . . . nervous. Did I really make him feel that uncomfortable?

 

While I looked on, Jack made up his bed using two thick quilts and a stiff pillow. He’d hurriedly explained the layout of the house: The top floor consisted of two bedrooms—his and his brother’s—and a bathroom. The lower floor was nothing more than the sitting room and the kitchen. I hadn’t realized that the house was that small.

 

Jack handed over the mug of marrow mead and a clean, poorly folded towel. He then proceeded to ramble for about a minute. The gist of the ramble, it seemed, was that I should make myself at home and call him if I needed anything. Then, red-faced as ever, Jack had made a quick exit from the room.

 

The moment he was gone, I downed the marrow mead in a most unladylike fashion, desperate to satisfy my gnawing hunger. Then, even though I had convinced myself that I wasn’t tired in the slightest, I promptly fell asleep.

 

When I woke, peach-colored rays of sun were pouring through the windowpane. Groggily, I pushed myself up out of my nest of quilts and looked around the room.

 

Was it dusk already? I made a clumsy claw at Jack’s alarm clock.

 

Not dusk. Dawn.

 

My eyes widened.

 

Jack, it seemed, had been right: I really had needed the rest. He and his brother must’ve thought that I was some sort of sloth, sleeping nearly a whole day away.

 

I pushed back the quilts from the bed, and immediately the cold enveloped me. Of course there wasn’t a fireplace in this closet of a room, but surely mortals had some way of heating their houses better than this. I might as well have fallen into a snowdrift for the amount of chill settling in my bones.

 

I tugged out a dress from my satchel, tsking at the wrinkles but resolving to make due. Then I pulled out my makeup bag. There wasn’t a mirror in Jack’s room to double-check my work, but when it was all through, I trusted that I looked presentable. At least ten years of routine beauty work had lent me some finesse.

 

As I packed my things neatly back into my bag, I looked around Jack’s room. It was sparse, certainly, as far as furniture went, but the walls were decorated with the warm colors of an Ivymoore banner, two posters of the Dublin Hawks nightspeed team, and tacked-up photographs of Jack with grinning friends. On the wall opposite his bed was a messy montage of mortal rock band posters.

 

I studied those in quiet bemusement, mouthing the names of each one: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Three Dog Night.

 

Of course, I did not recognize a single name. Even if my mother had allowed me to listen to mortal music, she wouldn’t have allowed me to tack posters on my wall.

 

Mother.

 

A pang stabbed through my chest, and I quickly thought of something else.

 

Blood. That was a good topic. I was phenomenally hungry. What was I supposed to do about that? Poke my head out of this bedroom and call for Jack to come wait on me like a house servant? That wouldn’t do. Though Nelson was clearly mortal, surely there had to be a blood supply for Jack in the kitchen. And Jack had told me to treat his house like my own. The trouble was that I didn't even frequent my own kitchen at Onyx House. I’d never had to trouble myself with cooking my own meals; that’s what our wait staff was for. I would have to scavenge something that didn’t require preparation. So, just cold, unseasoned blood?

 

It wasn’t appetizing, but I recognized that beggars couldn’t be choosers.

 

I opened the bedroom door and peered out. No one was in the hallway. I crept down the stairs to the first floor. No one was in the sitting room, either. I passed a draft leaking through the sooty windows and walked on, toward the kitchen. I had just set my hand on the swinging door when it swung out toward me, sending me reeling back with a surprised yelp.

 

Nelson stood on the other side. It looked like he was suppressing a snicker.

 

“G’morning, sunshine,” he said pleasantly.

 

I nodded mutely, still recovering from the adrenaline rush.

 

“I knew you’d have to emerge sooner or later,” he said, motioning me into the kitchen. “Girl’s gotta eat, right? Even if she is a vamp.”

 

I said nothing in reply. I just followed Nelson into the kitchen and watched as he opened the icebox and pulled out a plate covered in wax paper.

 

“Jack left you something before he went out,” he said, eyeing the plate in distaste. “Who the fuck knows what. Apparently it’s my responsibility to feed his pets now.”

 

I tipped my chin regally. It was only instinct. “I am most certainly not his—”

 

But my words were drowned by Nelson’s chortling. He set the plate down at a two-seater table, shaking his head in amusement.

 

“That was a joke,” he said. “Sorry. Jack is always saying my jokes aren’t in good taste.”

 

Nelson smiled at me. I gave him a dirty look back. Then I remembered that this was Nelson’s house, too—and probably more so than Jack’s. It was in my best interest to be nice to him.

 

“Go on,” he said, motioning toward the chair closest to me. “Take a seat. Tuck in. What’ll you have to drink? Milk’s turned, but we’ve a bit of juice left. Orange, I think. That, or magnificently old pear juice. . . .”

 

“Just water, please,” I said, trying to sound politer. “Anything else will turn my stomach.”

 

Anything mortal, I meant to say. But that word, I knew, would sound to derisive on my tongue.

 

I took the chair Nelson had offered me. Then, carefully, I peeled off the wax paper from the cold plate to reveal a neat stack of five blood wafers and a Vamp Treats (TM) gelatin cup.

 

“Gave you the last of his wafers,” Nelson observed. “Impressive. Must hold you in high esteem to forego that from his own dinner. In fact”—Nelson frowned as he checked a bare refrigerator—“I think that’s the last of all his blood supply.”

 

“I can’t eat mortal food,” I said softly. “Not like he can.”

 

“Really?” Nelson raised his brows. “That’s new information. That mean you’re one of those hoity toity bluebloods?”

 

I resisted the urge to give Nelson my best condescending glare. He was talking about bluebloods as though we were the outliers in the vampire community. As though we were the freaks.

 

“Yes,” was all I said. “Yes, I’m a blueblood.”

 

Nelson carried on as though he hadn’t been the least bit offensive. “Well, I’ll fix myself a little mortal breakfast,” he said. “Keep you company. Till the work bell rings, as it were.”

 

I was still staring at my plate. “Do you have—cutlery?”

 

Nelson looked dumbly over at me. “Oh. Erm. Yeaaah?”

 

He tried at one of the kitchen drawers. Then another. And a third. At last, on the fourth try, his face lit up in satisfaction; he grabbed a fork and spoon and slid them across the table to me. They were spotted with rust, but I tried to kindly ignore that fact and use them to the best of my ability.

 

Wafers and gelatin. It was an odd breakfast, but it was blood, and I had a sneaking suspicion that it was the best that the Sargent brothers had to offer. And so I ate without complaint, taking care to leave behind one wafer for Nelson, no matter how much my appetite desire it. Even though Jack was mortal-made and could get along for months without blood, it wouldn’t be a pleasant experience; he still needed blood to feel his best, and I couldn’t leave him with no supply.

 

“Where is Jack, then?" I asked. "Christmas shopping?”

 

Nelson looked over his shoulder, from where he stood at the kitchen counter, placing two slices of bread into a strange metal contraption He laughed a low, private sort of laugh.

 

“Not quite,” he said. “Night shift.”

 

I blinked. Had Nelson just spoken a foreign language? Did mortal qualify as a foreign language?

 

He caught on soon enough to my confused expression.

 

“Jack works,” he elaborated “during the holidays. Full-time in the summer, but he picks up some extra shifts around Christmas to help out. Bills get steeper this time of year. You don’t have to look so mournful, though. He’ll be back soon.”

 

My fork still hung halfway between my plate and my mouth. “He works?”

 

“Yeah, he works. At the spring factory five blocks down. It’s something of a family trade. The boss is a bit indebted to us after our father's accident, you know. Pays extra well these days.”

 

“Oh,” I said distantly. “Of course.”

 

Jack spent his summer holidays working in a mortal spring factory? How many countless summer days had I complained of having nothing to do at Onyx House but read and sew and go on walks?

 

“Well, this toast is on the toasty side.” Without warning Nelson flipped a piece of thoroughly burnt toast across the kitchen. It landed squarely on the table, right in front of the empty chair, and Nelson let out a whoop of victory.

 

“Did you see that? Now you know where Jack gets his athletic coordination and prowess.”

 

He sent the second piece of toast flying. It had a less kind fate and landed on the floor, at my feet.

 

“Meh,” said Nelson, scooping it up. “Bad luck.”

 

Then he bit down on the toast and munched happily away.

 

“Waste not, want not,” he said, taking the seat across from me.

 

I tried not to feel to ill. Mortals weren’t taught proper etiquette as I had been taught, I reminded myself.

 

“Dressed awful early for the party, aren’t we?” said Nelson, nodding at my dress.

 

“Oh!” I said. “Oh no, this isn’t for—” I stopped short. “Beg your pardon, but . . . party?”

 

“Jack didn’t tell you?" Nelson snorted. "Typical. Well, it's a get-together, more like. A few friends coming over, Christmas Eve tradition.”

 

“You’re holding a party here?”

 

The words were out before I realized how judgmental they sounded. I might as well have asked, You’re holding a party in this dirty, run-down hovel?

 

Nelson just smiled a little wider. “Don’t ask me how we all fit. Every year, it’s a true Christmas miracle.”

 

A clock chimed from the sitting room in a thin, tinselly succession of seven clangs.

 

“That’s my cue,” said Nelson, leaping from his chair. “Best be off. Make yourself at home and all that. What’s ours is yours, et cetera. See you for the party—uh, Anastasia?”

 

“Adaline.”

 

“Right. You lot have the funniest names.”

 

With that, Nelson clambered out of the kitchen, and a moment later, I heard the front door slam shut.

 

It had been, without a doubt, the most curious breakfast I had ever experienced. And now Nelson had left me. Alone. Did he and Jack really trust me enough to leave me there, to my own devices? I could go snooping about, poking through their things and casting all sorts of dark charms this way and that! Not that I would, of course, but still—they had welcomed me into their home without the least bit of hesitation. Nelson had eaten breakfast with me without once inquiring why I was imposing upon them. Like Jack, he had been kind to me. Just kind, no questions asked, despite the inconvenience I had caused.

 

I wondered if such guileless hospitality was usual for all mortals, or if it was peculiar to the Sargents.

 

I sat at the kitchen table for several minutes more, finishing my odd combination of gelatin and wafers. The blood gelatin was . . . not so good. We didn’t own a scrap of brand food in Onyx House, and my palette wasn’t accustomed to the processed taste. I tried to eat as much as I could, but in the end I disposed of a third of the gelatin still in the cup, hiding it in the rubbish, beneath a discarded egg carton. Even as I did so, I felt a sting of guilt, remembering Nelson’s words: Waste not, want not.

 

At Ivymoore, I had suspected that Jack was poor. His ties looked threadbare and pre-used, his shoes outdated and scuffed. There were a dozen little tells about a person that clued you in immediately to their income and status; My mother had taught me that. A first impression of Jack Sargent left little to the imagination. Ill-bred and poor. Those were the words that had popped into my mind all those months ago, when Jack had spoken to me on the Pale Maiden.

 

The truth of the matter, though, was that I had never taken the time to imagine what poor really looked like. Poor was two meager pieces of burnt toast for breakfast. Poor was a bedroom the size of a king-sized bed. It was drafty windows and chilly mornings. It was awful. How had Jack lived like this for over twenty years? Why would he ever want to come home for the holidays?

 

Because he loves his brother, whispered a gentle voice in my brain, just like you love Clarissa.

 

Clarissa.

 

Surely by now the family had sent word to my younger sister about my disappearance. She would be distraught, and I hated myself for that. I ‘d never wanted to worry Clarissa or upset her perfect holiday with Vance. But if Clarissa had seen how Aunt Judith had behaved, surely she would understand why I had run away. I just needed a chance to explain myself, that was all.

 

Still, the anxiety that had plagued me yesterday plagued me still. If I were to place a call to Clarissa, I had no doubt that she would insist on meeting me—or worse yet, tell my parents where I was. She would only do it because she thought it was for the best, but she would do it all the same. And I didn’t want to be found. Not yet, anyway. Not before I’d devised a plan to escape the horror I had left behind at Ironweld Place.

 

But I didn’t want to devise that plan yet, either. It was too painful, too fresh a thing to think about. Soon, the very prospect had me stooped over at the kitchen sink, heaving in dry sobs.

 

I couldn’t think about it. Not yet. I couldn’t think about the horrible look on my Aunt Judith’s face right before she cast that compulsion charm, couldn’t think of the way my mother had stood idly by and watched. I couldn’t think of Lenora’s fingers around my neck, couldn’t think of my father’s disappointment.

 

Not now.

 

Instead, I made my way back up to Jack’s bedroom and tugged my Charmwork textbook from my satchel. I may have forgotten gloves in my haste to leave Ironweld Place, but I hadn’t forgotten the cause of my greatest scholastic anxiety. Of all my end-of-year exams, charmwork made me the most nervous. I wasn’t weak in any of my subjects, really, but charms was certainly the weakest of my strengths. I believed it to be since charmwork was so theoretical. We vampires didn’t use charms in our everyday life; we usually only employed them in dire circumstances. We practiced them in the safety of our classroom.

 

That was the way charms were supposed to work, anyway. And dark charms were utterly illegal—compulsion the most capital crime on the list.

 

That was charmwork in theory. 

 

I attempted to study. I did a poor job of it. Words blended and mushed in my mind, a meaningless jumble no matter how many times I read and reread the dense, tedious passages. Two hours in, I gave up completely and tossed the book to the floor.

 

I couldn’t concentrate. Every time I tried to focus on the most prosaic of sentences, my mind wrenched me far away from the topic at hand and flung me back into memories from the past two days.

 

I couldn’t shake the sound of Lenora’s voice, uttering, “Quiet!”

 

I couldn’t unhear Aunt Judith’s order: “Obey.”

 

In the end, I laced up my boots and threw on my coat, deciding that I might benefit from some fresh air. Also, considering I was in a particularly unsophisticated part of mortal London, I felt far less paranoid than I had on Coffin Street. Perhaps, I speculated, all I needed was a good, long walk to clear my head.

 

I clattered down the rickety staircase, preparing myself for the force of the harsh winter wind. What I wasn’t prepared for when I opened the front door was for Jack to be on the other side of it.

 

“Azazel!” I yelped. “What, is it a family talent to—?”

 

I stopped short. Jack stood on the front stoop with a wet, sudsy sponge in his hand and a look of mild surprise on his face.

 

“What on earth are you doing?” I said. Then, without waiting for an answer, I stomped out onto the porch and grabbed the sponge from his hand. “Your fingers are liable to freeze off. Anyway, I told you that I don’t care about the cleanliness of—oh.”

 

During my tirade, I had turned around to face the front door.

 

Over the cheery green paint, a single word was scrawled in bright, blood-red paint:

 

Fanger.

 

“It’s nothing,” said Jack, grabbing the sponge back.

 

“Who did this?” I whispered.

 

Jack shrugged. “There’s no need to look so scandalized. Babbins does it every year. He lives in town. He and his mates think it’s hilarious.”

 

“Babbins,” I said. “Captain of Halthorpe’s nightspeed team Babbins?”

 

“The very same,” said Jack, pulling the door closed and setting his sponge to the dripping words. He glanced back as he scrubbed, giving me a once-over. “Were you headed somewhere?”

 

I ignored the question. “He does this every year?”

 

“Bit of a sore loser,” said Jack. “I suppose he thought of it as a scare tactic the first year. Nowadays, it’s tradition. Bit of friendly rivalry, that’s all.”

 

“Friendly rivalry?” I pressed. “It’s vandalism. It’s unruly, unsophisticated behavior.”

 

Jack just scrubbed harder. “It’s nightspeed, Ada. We’re not exactly the height of sophistication. Anyway, I don’t know why you, of all people, sound offended. Isn’t this your term of endearment for me?” He faced me with an impish smile. “Well? Aren’t I your favorite fanger?”

 

“Stop that!”

 

I wrenched the sponge back from Jack and threw it down the front steps. For once, he looked genuinely startled.

 

“Don’t use that word,” I ordered hotly. “It sounds all wrong when you say it. Now step aside.”

 

Jack looked confused, but he took an obedient step away from the door. I glanced down one end of the street, then the other. Not a mortal in sight.

 

Maybe it was just because charms were so present on my mind, or because I’d just been reflecting on how useless they were in everyday circumstances. But I had an idea. Charms were to be used on living creatures, not inanimate objects, but was that exactly a rule?

 

I faced the door full-on. Then, after clearing my throat, I said, crystal clear, “No evil.”

 

Then, with a quick, harsh flick of my wrist, I cast the charm.

 

I watched, and I waited, unsure of what would come of this. No evil was a charm used to ward off any dark charms on yourself or another person. A charm that could’ve saved me from Aunt Judith’s compulsion, had I known it was coming.

 

Now, I was using it on splintered wood, my mind set on a different kind of protection.

 

For a moment, the door remained unaltered. I heard Jack shift and cough beside me.

 

Then something happened. The ugly red epithet began to bleed away. Just as I’d wanted to. However, so did the green paint, and within ten seconds, the door had turned a pure, ashy white.

 

I swallowed once, then turned to Jack. “How’s that?” I asked.

 

“Nelson isn’t going to like it,” he deadpanned. “He’s partial to green.”

 

“I think it’s an improvement,” I replied.

 

“You just. . . .” Jack turned to me fully. “You used a charm on a door.”

 

“Well it worked, didn’t it?”

 

I gave my handiwork one last look-over. Then I wrenched the door open, giddily trying to hide my pride.

 

Once we were both back inside, without losing a beat, I grabbed Jack’s wet, cold hand—the one that had been holding the sponge—and dried it in the folds of my coat.

 

“Cleaning it off by hand,” I sniffed, “in this weather. Of all the stupid notions. Please don’t tell me that, too, has become a tradition.”

 

When Jack didn’t reply, I looked up and found him staring down at me with a strange expression. I realized that I was still holding his hand. Quickly, as though bitten, I let go.

 

“What?”

 

Jack still said nothing. He scratched at the back of his messy hair, his eyes flitting past me to focus intently on the sitting room’s mantelpiece.

 

“Why’re you acting weird?” I demanded.

 

“Am I acting weird?”

 

I narrowed my eyes. “Yes, you are. Ever since I arrived. You’ve been acting . . . different around me. It’s rude.”

 

Jack smirked. “That sounds more like your old self.”

 

I bit my lip. Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut for once? I’d just done a marvelous job of insulting a man who, without any good reason whatsoever, had let me sleep under his roof.

 

“I didn’t mean that,” I said, growing flustered.

 

Jack slumped onto the sitting room couch and began to untie his brown work boots. “I think you meant it more than anything you said yesterday.”

 

I crinkled my nose. What had I said yesterday?

 

Oh.

 

Oh, yes.

 

The sobbing. The hysterical crying. I’d apologized to him, hadn’t I? And I had . . . Azazel, I had told him that I’d missed him. My cold insides almost warmed at the thought.

 

Cautiously, I took a seat on the opposite edge of the couch. “I was a little bit . . . distraught.”

 

Jack tugged off one boot and started on the next, his fingers working deftly at the laces. “Yeah. I noticed.”

 

“You know,” I said. “About everything that had happened?”

 

“I imagine so.”

 

I glared over at him in frustration. Was he purposefully being dense?

 

“Well?” I said, impatiently. “Don’t you want to know why I ran away? You still haven’t asked me once why I’m here.”

 

Jack tugged off the other boot and sat upright. “It’s not really my business is it?” he said. “You don’t owe me an explanation.”

 

“Yes, I do!” I insisted. “I’m sleeping in your bed, for Azazel’s sake.”

 

Jack looked up sharply. “I’m very well aware of that fact.”

 

I didn’t know why, but I found myself flustered all over again.

 

“Still,” said Jack, “it doesn’t mean you owe me anything.”

 

“W-w-well,” I stammered. “I want to tell you. I got some sleep, like you asked me to. Now I want to talk.”

 

“And you always get what you want, don’t you?”

 

“Not always.”

 

Silence filled the room, and I studied my knees. I could hear Jack’s breaths coming in and out. They weren’t even.

 

“I just need to tell someone,” I whispered. “Someone who will actually listen. I need someone to tell me that I’m not crazy.”

 

Jack hesitated. Then, slowly, he said, “Okay.”

 

I opened my mouth to speak, but before any words came out, Jack cut back in.

 

“If this is about Prescott . . . I heard what happened.”

 

My skin prickled. “You did?”

 

“It was sort of all over the ferry,” he said lowly. “About him and Georgiana. About you breaking up with him.”

 

"Apparently," I said, "it’s common knowledge that all boyfriends cheat on their girlfriends. That they’re just sexual creatures with needs, you know? And if a girl wants to get married, she can’t be picky.”

 

I looked up. Jack’s eyes were burning, his jaw set. His hands were clenched into the couch upholstery.

 

“I think,” he said, “we both know that’s bullshit.”

 

“Is it?” I laughed weakly. “Not according to my family. I was the one who’d done something wrong. I was the one who’d brought shame on our name. My aunt performed a compulsion charm on me, Jack. They care more about my bloody marital status than they do about me.”

 

There. It was out. I had said the horrific truth out loud, to another person. I had practically condemned Judith Aldridge, my own flesh and blood, and I’d condemned her to a mortal-made.

 

And I felt the most tremendous freedom.

 

The room had gone very still. I chanced another look at Jack, but to my shock he was no longer sitting on the edge of the couch where he had been.

 

“Ja—?”

 

I didn’t get the chance to finish the word. I had been enveloped by warmth. It was all around me, seeping into my frigid skin and through my hair and down to my toes. Jack was holding me. He was embracing me entirely, his arms wound around my back, his face lowered into the crook of my neck.

 

I said nothing. He said nothing. We stayed that way for a full thirty seconds at least, in pure silence.

 

Then, I felt something hot and liquid trickle down my collarbone. I froze.

 

“Jack,” I whispered. “Are you—?”

 

I pushed out of our embrace and caught him by the chin, despite Jack’s efforts to turn his head away.

 

“Your hair got in my eyes,” he said hoarsely. “I must be allergic to your shampoo.”

 

I gave him an incredulous look.

 

“Fine,” he said. “I’m upset. I’m bloody angry that your family can’t see how fucking incredible you are.”

 

I looked at him, incredulous. What the hell was he talking about?  “Jack, I’m not—”

 

“You’re not crazy,” he said, wiping roughly at his eyes. “They’re sadistic bullies. You’re independent, and you’re strong, and they hate that, because it means they can’t control you. That’s all it’s about, Ada: control. I think you know that. I think you’ve known that for a long time.”

 

I couldn’t think straight. I wasn’t even sure if my ice cold circulation was circulating properly. Was Jack really crying about me?

 

“Jack—”

 

“You’re not wrong,” he said. “You’re not insane. Don’t let them convince you otherwise. And I know I’m not a reliable source when it comes to Desmond Prescott, that I’m entirely biased, but—”

 

“Jack, just shut up for a minute!”

 

Jack shut up.

 

Then I frowned, processing all he’d said. “What do you mean, you’re biased?”

 

Jack blinked once. His eyes had looked so dark a moment before. Now, as though by magic, they had lightened to an unimpressive brown.

 

“What? Nothing. I just meant Prescott is a bastard, that’s all.”

 

“Oh,” I said, unsure of why I felt disappointed.

 

“Look, you don’t need me to tell you that you’re right,” he said. “That’s what’s so marvelous about you. You don’t need anyone else to coddle you or to pamper or reassure you. You just believe what you believe. You know that you’re right, even if you’re wrong.”

 

“Like you,” I said softly.

 

Jack stopped short. A look of confusion flitted across his face. “What?”

 

“Like you,” I said, more forcefully. “I thought I was right about you, but I’m beginning to think that. . . .”

 

I trailed off, unsure of what conclusion I was trying to reach. Jack cleared his throat once. Then, he rose from the couch.

 

“I’m sorry I hugged you,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean to, you know, contaminate you or whatever. It just looked like you’d had plenty of good cries and absolutely no good hugs.”

 

I looked up in surprise. “You. . . . I mean, I—”

 

"Have you even eaten? I told Nelson to leave you a note if he didn’t—”

 

“He took care of everything,” I said quickly. “Thank you for the, um, wafers and gelatin.”

 

Jack nodded distractedly. “Oh! Shit. I completely forgot to tell you—”

 

“About the party? Nelson let me know.”

 

“It’s just a few close friends,” he said. “But if you don’t, you know, feel comfortable. . . .”

 

Jack motioned at me as though I knew what he was trying to say. I didn’t.

 

“You know,” he tried again. “How you feel about being around mortals. Like, whatever your code is? If it’s beneath your dignity, or—”

 

My eyes widened in realization.

 

Of course. Jack thought that I considered myself too good for his guests. And was he wrong? I had made it a point my entire life to never associate with warmbloods, let alone pure mortals. In fact, I’d never had a full conversation with one until this morning’s breakfast with Nelson.

 

I’ve already run away from home, I thought bleakly. What’s breaking a few more rules?

 

“It’s fine,” I said. “Really. They’re your friends, so I’m sure they’re nice.”

 

Jack didn’t look entirely convinced. “Well, uh, good. I mean, it’s not going to be an actual party. No fancy chandeliers or caviar or live harpists or whatever it is you’re used to, so apologies ahead of time.”

 

“Jack. It’s fine.”

 

“Right. Well, I should probably shower and try to get some shuteye beforehand, so I hope you don’t mind if I just. . . .”

 

Jack had backed away toward the staircase as he spoke. Then, with a broken sentence and a smile that looked forced, he bounded up the stairs and out of sight, leaving a bewildered me behind.

 

What had just happened?

 

I’d broken down and told Jack everything, and he’d hugged me, and then he’d apologized for it immediately afterward. I grimaced. Did he really think of himself as a contamination?

 

Is that all he thought he was to me?

 

What I knew for certain was this: I’d asked Jack to listen, and he had. I’d asked for reassurance that I wasn’t crazy, and he’d given it to me. More than given it to me, he’d called me incredible.

 

So if the act of mortal-made Jack Sargent enfolding me in a safe, warm embrace was an act of contamination, then it was the sweetest contamination that I had ever known.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“With mortals themselves there ought not be any engagement. Though the longstanding agreement between vampirekind and the mortal realm holds strong, it does so because of minimal mingling between the two. Mortals may be pitied, to be sure. They have not been graced with long life and the powers of charmwork and entrancement as we have been. But for this very reason, mortals will forever be jealous of our superior species. There can therefore be no healthy interaction between our kind and theirs.”

 

- The Silent Scourge: On the Dangers and Depravity of Mortal-Mades

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

16

Christmas Party

 

“You mean Jack hasn’t told you about the time he cut his own hair?”

 

“I think I’ve got a photograph of it somewhere.”

 

“Tufts, Adaline. It was in tufts! And there was this one long, straggly bit of a rat’s tail that he missed in the back. Brennan and I convinced him to play beauty shop afterward, but he still looked terrible.”

 

I was surrounded by so much laughter that I couldn't help but giggle along. I sat across from three of the Sargent brothers’ Christmas Eve guests, each of them red in the face from snickering too hard at embarrassing stories—most of which had been about Jack.

 

Roisin and Brennan were sisters, both somewhere in their mid-twenties. Brennan lived with her husband, William, the third guest present, in a townhouse down the street. Roisin was currently dating Nelson. All three guests were childhood friends of the brothers, and they were currently dredging out an impressive amount of dirt from the boys’ childhoods.

 

Nelson sauntered back into the sitting room from the kitchen, two mismatched mugs of punch in hand. He handed one to Roisin before placing an affectionate kiss on her head. She swatted him with a playful grin and motioned for him to take a seat by her feet.

 

“Just in time,” she said. “We’re doing impressive damage to Jack’s reputation.”

 

“Excellent!” said Nelson, crossing his legs with the enthusiasm of a toddler. “That means I get to tell the story about the paper clips.”

 

My eyes drifted from the present company to Jack, who was in the corner, talking to an older, gray-bearded man. I had been introduced to him at the start of the get-together as Mr. Harris, a friend of the late Mr. Sargent. After the older man’s introduction, he’d pulled Jack aside to the corner of the sitting room and had been talking in hushed murmurs ever since. Not that I had been paying too much attention. The rest of the Christmas guests had kept me more than occupied.

 

Nelson had been right: This really was a small, informal get-together. Only four guests total, and the refreshments consisted only of punch, a small fig and chocolate cake, and a bowl of almonds. Brennan and William had brought with them a small, sickly evergreen tree that they seemed to think was a hilarious joke. They’d placed it in the center of the sitting room and announced that it was The Best Sargent Tree In the History of Sargent Trees!, which was met by a resounding cheer from Nelson, Jack, and Roisin.

 

At the beginning, I had watched all of this with reserved curiosity, hanging back by the fireplace. (For the first time since I’d arrived, a fire was actually lit—though with only one log to feed it, I imagined that its life would be tragically short.)

 

Then Roisin had spotted me, and it had all been over. Roisin was a tall, lithe girl with a smattering of freckles and blindingly red hair. She was also, I realized at once, a veritable force of nature. She had come sprinting toward me with a high-pitched squeal, and as soon as she’d reached me, she’d grabbed my hands in her hot ones and swung them merrily as though the two of us were lifelong friends.

 

“Oh my god, you are a vision,” Roisin had cooed. “Jack tells me you’re his friend from school?”

 

Roisin had said the word “friend” like it meant “steamy, forbidden lover.” I hadn’t known quite how to answer. Luckily, Roisin hadn’t required a response. She’d just dragged me down into an armchair, plunked herself on the couch opposite, and proceeded to gush for a minute straight about how gorgeous my dress was. I didn’t have the heart to tell the girl that it was not, in fact, a party dress, but one of the oldest and most sensible frocks in my entire wardrobe, worn only on days when I wasn’t meeting anyone special.

 

Brennan and William had then joined Roisin on the couch and made a much calmer introduction of themselves. Brennan was Roisin’s older sister, but there the similarities ended. She was plump and dark-haired, and she spoke in a calm, alto register. She was, I learned, a nurse at a local mortal hospital, and William—her curly-haired, bespectacled husband—worked as a librarian. They had been married only a month earlier and, according to Roisin, acted like sick lovebirds all the time. Brennan and William had been too busy whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ears to notice Roisin perched on the arm of the couch, making faces at them.

 

I had felt a jab of pain at that. I was reminded, unwillingly, of Clarissa and Vance. I wondered how they were spending their Christmas Eve, and I hoped that none of Clarissa’s time was wasted worrying about me.

 

“So then,” Nelson was saying, “Jack comes downstairs and says, all serious-like, ‘Pop. I believe I’ve got ten paper clips in my nose that won’t seem to come out.’”

 

Roisin burst into a delighted round of snorts. “Ugh,” she said. “that kid. So calm under pressure.”

 

William’s eyes were watering from laughing so hard. He turned to Brennan with his finger on his nose, imitating Nelson’s rather gruesome account of a six-year-old Jack’s plight.

 

“I can’t leave you alone for a minute.”

 

I turned to see that Jack had finally emerged from the corner, a cautious smile notching up his lips as he interrupted Nelson’s story.

 

“Oh, it’s only good things, Jackie,” said Roisin. “Just about what an adorable little kid you were.” She turned to me with a wicked wink. “I’m sure he’s an adorable man, too, though I wouldn’t have firsthand experience of that like Adal—ow!”

 

Brennan had given her sister a firm kick in the shin. Then she cast me an apologetic look. I just kept my eyes fixed on my mug—clandestinely filled with marrow mead—willing my face to cool back down again. Roisin really did need to learn not to talk so much. It was one thing for her to make her silly comments about Jack while he was absent, but now she was making things awkward.

 

Nelson looked around and frowned. “Jack. Did you frighten off Harris?”

 

“He had a train to catch,” Jack replied. “Visiting his grandchildren in Richmond.”

 

“He’s the cutest old man,” sighed Roisin. “If I had a grandfather, I’d want him to look just like that.”

 

“Roisin,” said Brennan, “we do have a grandfather.”

 

Roisin made a face. “Yes, but Gramps is bald and smells like vodka and tuna.”

 

“Glad that isn’t a family trait,” said Nelson, tilting his head to up to kiss Roisin’s knee. She winked down at him and patted his messy blond hair.

 

I couldn’t help but reflect that I was surrounded by some rather affectionate couples. Between the honeymooners and the gooey-eyed Roisin and Nelson, I had begun to feel like I might be trapped in one of Clarissa’s gothic romance novels. I smiled over at Jack, and he smiled weakly back, shrugging his shoulders as if to say, What can you do?

 

Jack took a seat on the floor, beside his brother, and the six of us fell into conversation, punctuated by trips to the kitchen and shouts to look outside at a fresh snowfall and, as the night progressed, increasingly slurred anecdotes and overloud giggling due to the spiked punch. I had never seem so many red faces in all my life.

 

At some point during the conversation, the focus turned to me.

 

“Are you in lots of classes with Jack, then?” asked Brennan.

 

“Yeah,” said William, “what’s Jack like up there? We were sad to lose him to a high-bred vampire university, but a scholarship’s a scholarship.”

 

I cast a sidelong glance at Jack. He’d won a scholarship to Ivymoore? I hadn’t known that. Of course I’d received a scholarship, but that was to be expected. I had honestly never once considered that a warmblood would be capable of such a feat.

 

“He’s . . . Jack,” I said, stupidly, at a loss for words.

 

“And you all. . . . Um.” The good-tempered William suddenly looked uneasy. “I mean, vampires like you—the ones who have been around a long time—all of you just hang out together?”

 

I wasn’t sure how to answer such a naïve question as that. The way William had worded it, though, I was pretty certain he already knew the answer.

 

“Well, they must be okay with us, William,” said Brennan. “She’s sitting here with us, isn’t she?”

 

I didn’t like the way this conversation was heading. The fact that I was a full-blooded vampire suddenly seemed a very prominent one. Did they think they were in any danger of me latching on to one of their mortal necks? It just didn’t work that way. Then again, there was plenty of misinformation about vampires in the mortal world. Even though we all lived together peaceably, us vampires consuming legally harvested animal blood products, we sometimes got a bad rap from the criminals and rogues who didn’t abide by the code of the High Vampiric Council.

 

I wanted to prove that to the rest of them. I wanted these mortals to know they weren’t in the least bit of danger. But then, would telling them so make me a hypocrite? Maybe I didn’t want to drain them of blood, but I had been raised to believe that they were the scum of the earth. The only thing worse than a warmblood, after all, was a mere mortal.

 

“How exactly do you know Jack?” Roisin asked cheerfully, breaking the increasingly awkward silence.

 

“We’re in a class together,” I said, relieved. “We didn’t see much of each other until this year.”

 

“So what’re you doing here?” asked Roisin. “You and Jack must be really good friends for you to be staying over for the holidays. None of his school friends have stayed here before. Usually he’s over in Kensington with that posh friend of his, George Vander-Something.”

 

“Vanderpool,” Jack corrected. “And Roisin, really, stop asking her so many questions.”

 

“What?” demanded Roisin. “I’m only curious!”

 

“It’s all right,” I said, waving off a clearly irritated Jack. “I don’t mind. I needed some space from my family, that’s all, and Jack was kind enough to let me stay over.”

 

Roisin grimaced. “I’m sorry. I know how that goes. Mum and Dad split when Brennan and I were in our teens. It was hell. I would’ve given anything to be out of the house during one of their rows.”

 

“Roisin,” Brennan chided in a low voice. “Honestly. I think you’ve had too much punch.”

 

Roisin shrugged. “Enough about unpleasant stuff,” she said. “Let’s talk politics!”

 

It wasn’t until much later into the conversation, when the clock on the mantelpiece struck one in the morning, that Brennan roused herself from the couch, dragging William up with her.

 

“C’mon, love,” she said. “We’ve overstayed our welcome.”

 

Despite Nelson’s impassioned plea that they stay, the husband and wife tugged on their coats and scarves and made for the front door.

 

“You make a convincing case,” William said, clapping Nelson on the shoulder, “but you can’t argue us out of heading home. We live right next door, remember.”

 

“Pfrsh!” Nelson snorted. “Five doors down. You know what could happen in the course of five doors?! You could slip and break your neck! You could fall into a snow bank! No! Roisin, tell them—!”

 

Roisin just giggled and buttoned up her coat. “Sorry, love,” she said. “You and I both know that the beds are comfier at their place. I’ll see you tomorrow, hm?”

 

Then Roisin turned to me and—before I knew what was happening—wrapped me in a sudden, unexpected hug.

 

“Oh gosh!” she cried, then giggled. “You really are cold.” Then, in a liquor-laced drawl, she added, “It was soooo nice meeting you.”

 

Brennan and William, too, said their goodbyes to me, though not in quite so close a manner. Then they headed for the door, Nelson trailing them like a whining puppy.

 

I collected my empty mead mug from the makeshift coffee table and walked it back to the kitchen, where Jack had already set to work filling the sink with warm, sudsy water.

 

“Nelson finally lost the argument,” I informed him, placing the mug in the sink. “They’re leaving.”

 

“That’s a record,” said Jack. “It usually takes at least another hour until they even think about getting off the couch.”

 

He turned off the tap and hastily wiped his wet hands on his jeans. Then he and I both headed back to the sitting room to make our last goodbyes.

 

That was the intention, at least, until Roisin’s screech stopped us both dead in our tracks, under the kitchen doorway.

 

“Look who’s under the mistletoe!” she cooed, pointing.

 

My stomach dropped. I looked up, though I already knew exactly what I would find: a sprig of fresh, red-ribboned mistletoe hung over the kitchen lintel.

 

Roisin giggled guiltily, thus solving the mystery of who was responsible for this sudden addition to the Christmas décor.

 

Nelson hooted. “Oi, bro. You gotta kiss her now.”

 

“It’s tradition!” chirped Brennan.

 

“I’m—I’m sure that’s not necessary,” I mumbled. If my face could flood with color, the way theirs did, I would’ve been holly red.

 

“C’mon, mate,” said William. “Kiss her!”

 

“Look,” squealed Roisin. “They’re both blushing. It’s meant to beee!”

 

I finally worked up the courage to look at Jack. It was tradition. Surely it wouldn’t be so bad. All it would take was a quick peck, and then the others would stop badgering us to—

 

My thoughts crashed to a halt when Jack’s gaze met mine. The look in his eyes was unmistakable: It was pure horror.

 

Nelson gave another impatient yell. “John Sargent, I swear, if you don’t snog her right now—”

 

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

 

Everyone hushed immediately, startled into silence. Jack turned from me to face them, his jaw clenched. “All of you, just shut up. Don’t be so utterly ridiculous.”

 

He barreled across the sitting room, pushed roughly past the others, and threw open the front door. Then, without bothering to don coat or a scarf, he walked out into the night.

 

I wasn’t quite sure what happened next. I only knew that Roisin was hugging my neck and Brennan, too, was at my side.

 

“I’m sorry,” Roisin snuffled, sounding truly repentant. “That was cruel of me. I didn’t think it’d be so uncomfortable. I mean, I just assumed you two—”

 

“Come on, Roisin,” Brennan said in a low voice. “We should go. Everyone’s tired.”

 

Roisin nodded doggedly and followed Brennan to the door, where Nelson and William were doing a fine job of not making eye contact with anyone else. Quiet goodbyes were exchanged, and Nelson closed the door on the others with a soft click.

 

Finally, he turned toward me.

 

“Don’t worry about him,” he said, though he looked worried himself. “He’ll be back, the stupid prick.”

 

I nodded mutely and hugged my elbows close to my chest. Now that the company was gone and the fire had burned out, a harsh chill had settled back into the house.

 

I didn’t want to talk to Nelson. I just wanted to retreat to the bedroom and lock the door and wrap myself deep in quilts.

 

And that’s precisely what I proceeded to do.

 

❧

 

What had happened down there? I couldn’t make sense of it.

 

Everything had been fine. More than fine. I had met three exceptionally nice, friendly mortals who weren’t anything like the bumbling Neanderthals I’d been taught to expect. They had jobs. They had families they cared about, and lovers too. They lived normal lives. I’d spent a night laughing and conversing and drinking mead; I had, however temporarily, forgotten about the greater troubles in life—namely that I’d estranged myself from my entire family and had nowhere to stay but the house of a no-name warmblood. I had been having a surprisingly, miraculously pleasant evening.

 

How had a little sprig of mistletoe turned everything sour?

 

There was a knock at the bedroom door. I started from where I sat in bed, gripping the quilt to my chest.

 

Please don’t be Jack. Please don’t be Jack.

 

But please . . . do.

 

“Adaline?”

 

It was Nelson.

 

“Y-yes?” I said hoarsely.

 

“Just me,” came the voice from the other side of the door. “Turning in for the night. You, uh . . . you all right?”

 

I nodded, then realized that Nelson obviously couldn’t see me.

 

“Fine, thanks,” I called back.

 

Footsteps clomped away from the door and down the hallway.

 

What had Jack meant by treating me like that? Had he really been so repelled by the thought of kissing me that he’d considered it better to humiliate me in front of everyone else? I away a shallow pool of tears collecting on my nose.

 

Why was I so upset? Clearly I hadn’t wanted to kiss Jack. The thought alone was so completely preposterous! To kiss a mortal-made. . . . There were all sorts of rumors about what happened to good blueblooded girls who went kissing boys like Jack Sargent. You could contract a nasty case of vampox, you could go blind, your forehead could be branded overnight with the word fang whore.

 

How can you believe that nonsense anymore? hissed a voice from the back of my mind. You know those are all a bunch of hateful lies meant to frighten little kids from ever talking to a mortal-made. Anyway, you’re not upset because he almost kissed you.

 

You’re upset because he didn’t.

 

“So what if I am?” I demanded aloud. “I saw the way he looked at me. He looked horrified, like—like he’d been asked to kiss a toad. He thought the whole idea was ridiculous. He said so.”

 

Fine, said the voice. Go ahead and feel sorry for yourself. Spend another night moping and deflecting instead of doing something. You’ve always been the girl with a plan, Adaline. What’s your plan?

 

I clutched at my pillow. What plan could I possibly formulate now? Should I go back to Ironweld Place? I didn’t even want to think about the retribution that awaited me there. I had a feeling that my parents were less worried about me than they were enraged.

 

Over a few days, however, perhaps their anger would die down, and they would be the ones to realize that they had erred. It was possible, wasn’t it? Because in the end, I simply had to reconcile with my family. Without them, I had no home, no name, no reputation, no inheritance.

 

But why couldn’t I have those things without becoming Desmond Prescott’s wife?

 

I thought back to that blank look on my mother’s face as Aunt Judith yelled at me. How could my parents have let this happen to me? Why were they making me choose between freedom and comfort? Weren’t they supposed to provide me with both?

 

I was lost in my thoughts for an interminably long time before I heard a door creak open downstairs. The front door.

 

I stiffened beneath the quilts, my ears straining to pick up more sound:

 

The door closing.

 

The latch clicking shut.

 

Footsteps.

 

Then silence.

 

I hitched my breath. If I didn’t make a move now, I would lose all nerve.

 

So I pushed out of my haven of quilts. I grabbed a velvet jacket to wear over my less than proper silk nightgown before padding down the hallway and downstairs to the sitting room.

 

There was no sign of Jack. Or at least, there was no immediate sign of him. But as I walked farther into the dimly lit room, I saw a dark outline stretched against the sofa.

 

He was sleeping on the couch. Why hadn’t I realized that before? Of course, where else could Jack possibly be sleeping? He’d given his own bed to me.

 

“Jack,” I whispered.

 

The figure on the couch stirred. Then Jack sat up completely, and the moonlit spilling through the window caught in his hair. I stared. Just over his right ear was a shock of silver.

 

“What do you want?”

 

His voice was clipped and hard. I had never heard Jack speak that way before.

 

“What do you think I want?” I said, defensive. “I’d like an explanation for what happened earlier.”

 

Jack made a strange, gurgled noise that sounded like a laugh.

 

“God, it really is only about you.”

 

Anger, white-cold and violent, flashed through my veins. I crossed over to the couch and reached for the first thing I could grip—which happened to be Jack’s shoulder.

 

“Why would you humiliate me like that?” I demanded.

 

I could see Jack’s eyes in the dim light, now that I had drawn closer. They were a strange shade—no longer brown, but a dull, grayish sort of color. Or perhaps that was only a trick of the light. . . .

 

“I thought,” he said, “that I was doing you a favor.”

 

I blinked uncomprehendingly. “What are you talking about?”

 

Jack shook my hand off. “Oh, come on, Ada. I know what you think of me. I’m a mutant. A fluke, right?”

 

My throat went papery. “I—I—”

 

“To you, I’m nothing short of a plague rat. I get it. Believe me, I didn’t know Roisin was going to try anything like that, or I would’ve stopped her. I was trying to spare you the horror of swapping spit with a filthy fanger, but now it looks like I can’t win for losing, because I’ve inadvertently—what was it? Humiliated you. Fuck’s sake, Ada, cut me some slack.”

 

I stared wordlessly. Jack’s eyes shone up at me, angry and wet and that strange hue of gray. He hadn’t been trying to hurt me. He’d been trying to save me from—contamination.

 

“I d-didn’t—” I stammered. “I didn’t think about that.”

 

“Really.” Jack’s voice was flat. “I would’ve thought that was all you could think about.”

 

“Stop it!” I cried suddenly, my voice echoing against the bare walls of the room. “Stop talking like that. You don’t sound like yourself at all, and you’re making me feel terrible.”

 

“I’m only repeating your own words,” countered Jack. “What’s so terrible about that?”

 

“You’re making me sound like some vicious monster, and I’m not! You make it sound like I think you’re the scum of the earth, some sort of inhuman thing—and I don’t think that, either.”

 

“You still didn’t want to kiss me.”

 

“Perhaps I did!”

 

Thick silence seized the room. Jack was staring at me as though I were liable to burst into flames at any moment. And maybe I was; I felt like I might.

 

“Perhaps I did,” I repeated in a threadbare whisper, backing away from the couch. “It doesn’t matter now. You ruined everything.”

 

“Ada.”

 

His voice was low. I couldn’t look at him when he said my name that way. I could barely stay upright. I took another step backward and tripped over a loose floorboard, stumbling back onto the makeshift coffee table.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered, but when I felt the heat of his hand on my arm—that strange and wonderful warmblooded heat—I didn’t shrink away.

 

I felt the graze of his thumb against my forearm, sending a thrill of goosebumps up my skin. Still, I didn’t move. I felt his fingers curl gently into the crook of my elbow, and my eyes fluttered shut.

 

I didn’t move.

 

I didn’t dare.

 

Then, I felt his hand tugging me closer, gently, softly, so slowly, and this time I did move—toward him, toward the warmth of his touch, toward his staggered breaths.

 

“Please—” Jack began, but then his voice tightened. His hand grew stiff. His breaths stopped entirely.

 

My eyes shot open in time to see Jack’s own go wide with panic. Then, slowly, he slumped away from me, against the couch. His hand clutched at his side, his face went ashen, and he released a low, ragged whimper.

 

“Jack?” I whispered. “What’s wrong?”

 

He shook his head and tried to push away from the couch, onto his feet. His knees buckled, though, and he stumbled to the floor with a strangled cry.

 

I dropped to his side, truly panicked now, my eyes searching his body for some sign of blood, of injury . . . anything at all. “Jack, what is it? Are you hurt?”

 

I placed my hand on his shoulder, then retracted it immediately. His skin was hot—abnormally hot, even for a warmblood—and his shirt was drenched through with sweat. My heart rate picked up.

 

Azazel, what was wrong with him? This wasn't a commonplace injury. I knew magic when I touched it.

 

“I can’t—can’t—” Jack heaved in a phlegm-edged breath and shook his head. Then he tried again. “Cabinet. T-t-top drawer.”

 

His arm trembled violently, and I realized that he was pointing to something behind me—a small, pinewood cabinet.

 

“Top drawer,” I repeated, nodding.

 

Quickly, I got to my feet, following his orders and tugging open the top drawer of the cabinet. It stuck on its tracking, and cursing, I gave it another forceful tug. This time, the drawer screeched open to reveal a small, pewter box. Frantically, I flipped open the box’s lid.

 

I inhaled sharply at what I found there.

 

Syringes. The box was full of them—a dozen at least. They were short and narrow and filled with a glowing amber liquid.

 

Instinct took over; I grabbed a single syringe and hurried back to Jack’s side.

 

“What do I do?” I asked, though I was terrified that I already knew the answer.

 

“H-h-here,” Jack stammered, clumsily pressing his hand slightly left of his sternum.

 

“What?”

 

Jack couldn’t be asking me to stab a syringe into his heart.

 

“Jack,” I began, my voice wavering, “I c-c-c-can’t. I don’t think—”

 

It happened then. Jack released an ear-splitting, agonized scream. He doubled over and clutched at my knee, his touch burning hot.

 

“Oh god,” I cried. “Oh god, Jack, I’m sorry! Okay, just hang on—”

 

“What in the blazing daylights is going on down here?”

 

Harsh, fluorescent light flooded the room. Nelson stood on the stairs, disheveled and groggy-eyed.

 

“I swear, if you two are in the throes of makeup sex, I’m gonna—”

 

Nelson’s words caught in a choked sound of realization. Then, suddenly, I felt rough, strong hands on my shoulders, pulling me away from Jack.

 

“What happened?” Nelson’s voice had changed from blithe to urgent in an instant. He noticed the syringe clutched in my hand. “Give me that. Then go upstairs.”

 

I released my hold on the syringe, but my eyes stayed fixed on Jack. He was so pale. His eyes had taken on an unnatural, silvery sheen, and sweat dripped from the messy fringe of his hair. He looked so vulnerable.

 

So . . . mortal.

 

“Adaline!” Nelson shouted, startling me back to attention. “I said, get out of here. Now. You’ll only be a distraction to him.”

 

“But I can’t leave him like—”

 

“Ada,” Jack wheezed, and for just a moment, his glazed eyes met mine. “Please. Leave.”

 

I swallowed hard. “Fine,” I whispered.

 

I turned away, just as I saw Nelson poise the syringe above Jack’s heart, and hurried back up the stairs, but not in time to escape more of Jack’s strangled screams. At the top step, I tripped, and pain sliced into the arch of my foot. Blindly, I stumbled back to my feet, limped to the bedroom, and slammed the door shut against the terrible sounds from downstairs.

 

But the thin, chinked wood did little to drown them out.

 

I slunk against the door, tears spilling down my cheeks.

 

“Just be okay,” I whispered out loud. “Please, just be okay.”

 

I had been so utterly useless down there. I couldn’t think straight enough to even cast a soothing charm. Jack could be dying of some bizarre, horrific malady, and I hadn’t had the courage to pierce a needle through his skin.

 

Carefully, I eased up the underside of my left foot and picked at the splinter lodged there. My hand was shaking. I botched the job. The splinter came out, but so did a gush of blood. I cried out, tears rolling fast from my eyes. But the tears weren’t for myself and my inconsequential pain.

 

For the first time in a very long time, I wasn’t thinking about myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

17

Answers

 

I woke in an icy chill. I had fallen asleep with my back to the bedroom door, clothed only in my thin satin nightgown. At first, my fingers were too stiff to even curl into a fist. My neck ached from having been propped so unnaturally against the hard wall. Morning sunlight tickled into my vision.

 

Then the memories rushed back in.

 

Jack.

 

I was racing down the stairs in an instant, though my stiff legs made clumsy work of it. I lost my balance on the second to last step and stumbled into the sitting room, promptly colliding with a floor lamp. I cursed under my breath and hobbled away from the sight of the collision, toward the sofa where I had last seen Jack.

 

“Steady on, Adaline!” cried a bright voice. “Can’t have you turning invalid, too.”

 

Jack and Nelson were both staring at me. Jack was propped against a pillow on the sofa. Nelson sat in the ratty armchair across from him. He’d pulled the chair close to Jack’s side, and from the state of his wrinkled clothes, I guessed that he’d spent the night sleeping there.

 

Nelson offered me a cautious smile to back up his greeting, but my gaze was fixed solely on Jack.

 

He looked awful. His eyes were bloodshot and bleary, his skin unnaturally pale, his hair a complete disaster.

 

His hair. The silver above his ear was no longer just a streak. His hair, all of it, had turned completely silver. And this wasn’t the silver of old age; it was an unnatural shade that bespoke magic and only magic.

 

Stop staring, hissed the voice in my mind. His hair could be any color under the sun, and it wouldn’t matter. What matters is that he’s alive.

 

“You’re alive,” I said, idiotically.

 

Jack blinked back at me. The strange glaze I had seen in his eyes the night before was gone. His irises had returned to their normal brown hue.

 

“Sorry about the scare,” Nelson piped in. “I thought you knew about Jack’s—um, condition.”

 

“No,” I said, my voice paper thin. I hadn’t taken my eyes off Jack. “No, I don’t know anything about it.”

 

“Hm.” Nelson swallowed and looked from Jack to me and back to Jack again. “Well, that makes things awkward.”

 

“Yes.”

 

I said nothing more. My mind was still caught in a circular loop around the one thought: Jack is all right.

 

“Um. OH! Happy Christmas!” Nelson’s face brightened. “Did you see the snow outside? Still hasn’t stopped. At this rate, we’ll all be iced up to our necks. You’ll never be able to get back to your family.”

 

I attempted to smile. I was sure that Nelson was trying to make me feel better, diffuse the obvious tension in the room . . . however botched the execution.

 

“Happy Christmas,” I said. “Will you be spending the day with Roisin, then?”

 

Nelson cast a nervous glance between me and Jack again. “Uh,” he said. “That was the plan. Jack was invited to join, of course, but now . . . well, he really shouldn’t move.”

 

“I’m fine,” Jack muttered. “Really.”

 

“That’s not what Dr. Bon Bon said!”

 

“Dr. Bellevue.”

 

“Bellevue. Whatever.”

 

“Dr. Bellevue?” I repeated, my interest now piqued enough to look to Nelson. “What did she say?”

 

I could feel Jack shift his gaze to me, eyes burning. I calmly ignored him. If Jack wasn’t going to tell me about this mysterious “condition,” I had no shame in prying information from his brother.

 

“He shouldn’t stir for at least a day after one of his fits,” Nelson said. “Dr. Bellevue says it’s very bad for his nervous system. He’s supposed to stay put until all the side effects subside.” Nelson then pointed accusatorially at Jack’s head of silver hair. “And that, mate, is a definite side effect that has not subsided. So is the fact that, oh!, you can’t walk.”

 

“I’ve had worse,” Jack said through gritted teeth. “I’m fine, Nelson. You needn’t sit by my bedside like I’m dying of consumption.”

 

Nelson tsked. “Ungrateful wretch. You scared us shitless last night. I think I’ve a right to play Mother Hen.” He turned back to me. “Anyway, you and Jack were both invited to join us for Christmas festivities, only Roisin and the others can’t see Jack like this. You know, because . . . they don’t know anything about . . . uh, that world.”

 

I nodded. “Of course.”

 

Rational thought was slowly but surely leaking back into my mind. I spoke up again.

 

“You can still go to Roisin’s,” I said. “Why don’t you let me stay here with Jack?”

 

I felt Jack’s gaze on me again, but still I didn’t meet it. I folded my arms with quiet resolve.

 

“Really?” Nelson said, hopeful. “That’d be brilliant. Roisin’s already royally upset with me for working late the past week. It’d be nice if we could actually, you know, spend Christmas together.”

 

“Then it’s settled,” I said. “Please, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s the least I can do to repay you two for putting me up.”

 

Jack cleared his throat. Loudly. “I’m sitting right here. Don’t I get some say in my holiday plans? You’re both talking as though I were glued to this cushion.”

 

Nelson smirked. “But youu are. Possibly even literally. Oh, the things I could’ve done while you slumbered. . . .” He got to his feet and pinched Jack’s cheek. “Do whatever you want, Jackie. But if you want Adaline here to play nurse, you’ve got to teach her the rules. Capice?”

 

Nelson didn’t give his brother a chance to answer. He made for the stairs in long strides. “I’m going to get dapper. You two, sort it out.”

 

He left me and Jack alone in thick silence.

 

And at last, our eyes met.

 

Jack spoke first.

 

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he murmured. “If I did scare you.”

 

“Of course you did,” I said indignantly, sinking into the armchair that Nelson had vacated. “Azazel, Jack, I thought you were dying.”

 

Jack looked so uncomfortable on the sofa. He was far too tall to sleep comfortably there, and his legs peeked out from under the quilt from the shins down, limp and motionless.

 

“I didn’t want to assume,” said Jack. “I dunno, I thought you might be . . . happy." 

 

I balked. “Excuse me?”

 

Jack shrugged. “You said it would’ve been better if I’d never been born. It’s not like it would’ve been a huge loss to you. But in any event, I’m not dead, so it’s not worth talking about, is it?”

 

I stared in disbelief.

 

But why are you surprised? asked the voice inside. You did tell him that, didn’t you? That he was a mutant, a fluke. That it would be better for him to never have been born. What else would Jack expect from you?

 

I sputtered a few incoherent syllables, but Jack was already speaking again, in earnest.

 

“Really,” he said. “I'm sorry you had to see that. I never wanted you to. . . . It’s nothing, really.”

 

“It’s nothing?” I shook my head. “Jack, you were screaming in agony a few hours ago. You couldn’t move, couldn’t speak properly. Your hair is the color of a twenty pence, and you can’t walk. It’s obviously something.”

 

Jack was beginning to look increasingly ill at ease. “It’s nothing I can’t handle,” he said stiffly.

 

“This is what landed you in the hospital wing,” I said. “It’s why you disappeared on the assembly room balcony. I asked for an answer once. I want you to actually give me one this time. Tell me what’s wrong.”

 

Jack shrugged. “Indigestion.”

 

I glared viciously, and Jack lost his smile.

 

“Did it ever occur to you,” he said, at length, “that I don’t want to tell you? That it’s none of your business? You act like you’re entitled to an explanation. You’re not. And anyway, you would be the worst person to tell.”

 

I frowned at him. “What do you mean by that?”

 

Jack sighed, rubbing at his eyelids. “Is it still snowing outside?”

 

“Stop trying to change the subject,” I said. “Why would I be the worst person to tell about your . . . your condition? I thought we could tell each other things. You know, in the South Wing tur—”

 

“Yeah, I know,” Jack broke in, his voice unnaturally harsh. “We could talk there. That doesn’t mean anything had changed for you, that you thought about me any differently. You already think I’m a freak. I know you do. So why would I tell you something that would just confirm all your accusations that I’m a mutant, all wrong inside?”

 

“I didn’t. . . . I mean, I don’t—”

 

“You do. I’m not blind, Ada. I see the way you look at me.”

 

I tried to swallow an unswallowable lump in my throat. “H-how do I look at you?”

 

“Like I’m less than human.”

 

I remained quiet, staring hard at the clasped hands in my lap.

 

Less than human.

 

Wasn’t that what I’d been taught to believe my whole life? Wasn’t that the very premise of The Silent Scourge? And I’d been so sure of how right I was before.

 

Now, Jack was ruining all of that.

 

“Though,” Jack went on, “when I put it like that, I guess there’s nothing to lose by telling you the truth. It’s not like your opinion of me could sink any lower.”

 

I wanted to speak. I wanted to tell Jack that he was wrong, that I had changed, and that above all else, I was confused. But Jack seemed so close to giving me an explanation, and I didn’t want him to stop.

 

He didn’t stop.

 

“I’m the reason my mum died, you know,” he said softly, his eyes fixed on the dirty living room rug. “It was a complicated pregnancy. I was premature. And when I was I born? My hair was this color.” He gestured toward his unnaturally silver locks. “This color, exactly. The doctors didn’t know what to make of it. They thought it was some sort of . . . mutation.” Here, he smirked at me. “But then, a couple days later, it changed to jet black. And a few days after that, it seemed to settle on blond. Lucky me, eh?”

 

I remained silent.

 

“Of course, Dad had too much to deal with. He was grieving Mum’s death, he was working overtime at the factory to make ends meet, and all the while he had a four-year-old and an infant to take of. Sounds like the plot of a Dickens novel, doesn't it?”

 

I had no idea who “Dickens” was, but still I didn’t say a word.

 

“My gram came to live with us. She raised us, really. Meantime, my changing hair color wasn’t really a priority on the family’s to-do list. We were busy trying to make rent, to just get by. I don’t blame Gram or Dad for what happened to me—the attack. They couldn’t have stopped it. I mean, I know it probably wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t been living in a bad neighborhood and the two of them hadn’t been distracted, trying to make ends meet. But it wasn’t their fault. I never thought it was.” 

 

A knot formed at the base of my throat, making it hard to breathe. I knew what was coming: Jack was telling me the story of how he had been turned. There were no stories like this to circulate blueblood circles—only legends and old wives tales. The very thought of being turned in the past few centuries was distasteful in proper aristo circles. It wasn’t polite conversation. That’s why I had never once asked Jack about his own turning.

 

That, and because I was clearly a selfish bitch. I saw now, in the depths of Jack’s eyes, how much this story meant to him. How much a part of him it was. How could it not be? The day he’d been turned was the day his mortal life had changed forever. His blood had slowed and sludged, cooling, and all his system had changed its makeup. A bloodlust was planted in his gut, always afterward in need of being quenched. And his family was no doubt thrown into communication with representatives of the High Vampiric Council.

 

That day, he’d become a mortal-made.

 

I waited with baited breath, feeling as though I stood on the edge of a cliff, looking down at an endless spiral of darkness below.

 

Then came the shove.

 

“I was three,” Jack said. “I don’t even remember it, believe it or not. The story goes that I went toddling off after a ball down the alley by our place. The vamp got me then. Didn’t come close to draining me, so the HVC officials who came by afterward reasoned it was probably an intentional turning. As one of them said, ‘Some monsters like to watch the world burn.’ And that was that. The world was burning, and I was the fire. This random stranger came into my life and changed me forever. It’s strange to think that he or she could still be out there, turning other mortals.”

 

I wondered if I would ever be capable of speech again.

 

“Anyway,” Jack continued, “I was a pretty frightened kid. Understandably, I guess. I knew I was different from the start. Had to go to mortal school all the way through secondary, and . . . well, I never really fit in. But the happiest day of my life was when I got my acceptance letter from Ivymoore. It was like I suddenly wasn’t so different after all. I finally belonged somewhere.”

 

And then, I thought, you met people like me, who called you ‘mutant’ and ‘freak.’

 

“Before then,” Jack continued, “I assumed—stupidly, I guess—that lots of vampires dealt with changing hair color, different eye shades. It wasn’t until I arrived that Professor Whitman, my first year Entrancement instructor, pulled me aside and explained what I was. He said that vampiric shapeshifters were extremely rare, and that I was a particularly strange case because I couldn’t control the changes I went through. Normally, a shapeshifter can change at will. He thought the problem was that I just didn’t rein in the energy soon enough as a kid. I’d never tried to, because I’d never known that I could. Maybe it would have been different if I were raised in a vampiric family. I’ll never know.

 

“After I arrived at Ivymoore, though, things grew worse. Whenever I got emotional, parts of me changed. Little things, like strands of hair, an extra freckle or two. Then I started getting symptoms—chest pains, paralysis. It was a pretty brutal second year, especially with nightspeed demands. By then, Professor Whitman had left the school, but Dr. Bellevue was really helpful. Nelson couldn’t afford to send me to the London Vampiric Hospital, and of course no mortal doctor could help me. Dr. Bellevue understood that. Who knows how long she spent researching my condition. She had a cousin in Germany—a doctor whose wife had a similar problem. He’d never discovered an end-all cure, but he’d developed a serum to keep the condition under control.”

 

The box of syringes. The glowing amber liquid. I understood now.

 

Jack shrugged. “At least now I can change at will, if I want. I taught myself how. But there are other times I can’t control it—flare ups, I guess you’d call them. Like now. It’s no use willing my hair to be blond again. My system is just . . . too tired.” Jack produced a helpless sort of smile. “I don’t know, it’s hard to explain to people who don’t have it. Which is everyone I know.”

 

“That night,” I whispered, “on the balcony?”

 

“It had something to do with this, yeah.”

 

“But,” I said, “you knew that leaving me there was going to hurt. You knew there would be side effects. You were paralyzed afterward, Jack.”

 

He shrugged again. “Dr. Bellevue took care of me like she always does. Anyway, I told you, it was worth it. You kept your reputation intact. So there you have it: confirmation that I am, in fact, a mutant. And yes, it would’ve been better if I’d never been born. Then Dad would’ve had a wife and Nelson would’ve had a mum, and neither of them would have had to put up with a freakish, vampire kid like me.”

 

I stared at my knees, trying to make sense of things.

 

“This isn’t me wallowing in self-pity,” Jack added. “Seriously. I’m used to it. It’s simply the truth. You couldn’t have known when you said that stuff on the balcony, but it struck a nerve. Actually, I was afraid for a moment that you were a clairvoyant. That you’d seen straight through me.”

 

“No,” I whispered. “I was just whining about my precious reputation. I said all those horrible things to you, and . . . you made yourself practically incapacitated for me.”

 

“How heroic,” said Jack. “You make me sound like a bloody savior.”

 

“It was heroic,” I said, vehemently. “But I want to know the how of it. You didn’t just get an extra freckle, Jack. You disappeared. How did you do that?”

 

“I told you,” Jack said, “I didn’t disappear. I was there with you the whole time.”

 

“So,” I said, thinking, “you changed. You changed . . . into something invisible?”

 

Jack shook his head.

 

Fine. If he was going to be enigmatic, I would play his guessing game. Only I was going to win this time.

 

“Something small, then,” I said. “You changed into something so small that I couldn’t see you anymore. You were there, I just didn’t notice.”

 

Jack had stopped shaking his head. So I was right.

 

“An animal?” I guessed.

 

Jack nodded.

 

I swallowed. Then I did something that, a month ago, I would’ve considered outlandish, unthinkable, absolutely impossible.

 

I leaned forward, my eyes never leaving Jack’s, and I placed my hand at the hem of his t-shirt. He started at my touch, surprised, but he didn’t stop me. Slowly, I tugged up the fabric until I saw the beginnings of the black ink tendrils. His tattoo.

 

I raised the shirt higher, past his navel and up to his chest, where the profile of a small bird peaked out from over his heart. Then my hand jerked away, as though I’d been suddenly burned.

 

“You’re the linnet,” I said, my voice embarrassingly unstable. “I’ve dreamt about you.”

 

“You’ve dreamt about me?” Despite everything, a smile was tugging at Jack’s lips.

 

“I-I mean,” I stammered, “I’ve had dreams with you in them. Nightmares, really.”

 

Jack’s eyes darkened. “Nightmares?”

 

“They weren’t nightmares because of you,” I quickly clarified. “In fact, you were usually the only nice thing about them. At least . . . the bird was. The linnet? That’s what you have tattooed there, on your heart, isn’t it?”

 

“Yeah. A linnet.” Jack was giving me that strange look again.

 

“And its feathers were the color of. . . .” I trailed off, shaking my head, overcome by my most stunning realization yet. I placed a hand to my lips, trying to bite down the shock. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it earlier. I never thought you would have anything to do with my dreams.”

 

“Fair enough,” said Jack. “I wouldn’t think so, either.”

 

“So, what does that mean?” I pressed. “Does that also make you a . .  . familiar? I thought it was nearly impossible to become one of those.”

 

I didn’t just think so; I knew it. Familiars were exceptionally rare vampires who could transform, at will, into an animal version of themselves. Azazel had been the first of the familiars, and his animal form had been that of a black bat. Hence the mortal populace’s general misconception that we vampires could turn to winged creatures at the drop of the hat. Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

But in Jack’s case, he really did have the rare gift. He was shapeshifter and a familiar.

 

And a warmblooded one at that.

 

“It’s a lot easier for shapeshifters to be familiars, actually,” Jack said. “We already have the—um, inclination, as it were. It was Prof Whitman who first suggested that I try to transform into animal form. He thought that learning a new, fresh way to transform myself might help me hone the abilities I already had, just couldn’t control. And he was right. Partly, anyway.”

 

“But you still get the side effects.”

 

“Yeah,” said Jack. “And I never know how bad they’re going to be. Sometimes, it gets really bad. Sometimes I’ll have a fit, like last night.”

 

“Hence the supply of magical injections.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

I sighed. “Jack, you know how risky that is, don’t you? Transforming on a whim? What could happen to you, what happened last night, was”—I shook my head—“Azazel, it was horrible.”

 

“I told you,” said Jack, “sometimes I can control it, sometimes I can’t. Sometimes the side effects are bad, sometimes they’re minimal. So it’s a risk. That doesn’t mean I should live my life in fear, that I shouldn’t take advantage of what I’ve got.”

 

But I was too busy thinking of something else to pay much attention to Jack’s speech. “You said there were triggers. You said that when you get emotional, things get worse?”

 

Jack frowned. “Sometimes.”

 

“So, last night. When you and I. . . .”

 

How did I finish that? When you and I were quite possibly on the verge of making out? When you and I were turning into a pool of hormonal goo?

 

Luckily, I didn’t have to complete the sentence. Jack understood my meaning. I knew because he’d gone a weird purplish color in the face, and I was fairly certain that the tint had nothing to do with the fact that he was a shapeshifter.

 

“What?” he said. “No. No, of course that wasn’t it. When I stormed out of the house, I transformed. I spent a couple hours flying around the city. When I’m in my familiar form, things are . . . simpler. It's hard to explain, but I have fewer worries, less anxiety. I needed to clear my head. I just paid the price a little later. It wasn’t anything you did.”

 

“Okay, good,” I mumbled, feeling supremely awkward.

 

“Good gosh,” snorted Jack. “If I had a fit every time I wanted to—”

 

“What?”

 

Jack sniffed. A blank look crossed his face, as though he’d completely forgotten his train of thought. “Hm?”

 

“What—what were you going to say?”

 

“HAPPY CHRISTMAS, BABY.”

 

Nelson appeared at the top of the stairs, beaming. He was wearing a blindingly colorful Christmas sweater, all golds and reds and greens. I had a feeling that Roisin probably loved the thing. Or had knitted it herself.

 

Nelson nodded at Jack, then me. Then he squinted.

 

“Did I interrupt something?”

 

I shook my head.

 

Nelson looked between the two of us. He squinted again.

 

“Uh huh,” he said—very suspiciously. Then, turning to Jack, “My Christmas gift to you this year is keeping you alive. You’re welcome.”

 

Jack snorted.

 

Nelson turned to me with the air of an injured party. “Are you listening to this asshole? You witnessed my phenomenal paramedic skills last night. Shouldn’t he be grateful?”

 

“Yes,” I said, glancing at Jack. “Yes, he should.”

 

I couldn’t understand how Jack and Nelson could possibly be making light of the fact that, just a few hours ago, Jack’s life seemed to have hung in the balance. They were acting like this happened all the time.

 

Maybe it does.

 

I wondered who of Jack’s Ivymoore friends knew his secret, who gave him his shots back at school. George Vanderpool, perhaps? If so, no wonder he had been so extra-protective of Jack. . . .

 

“Right-o,” Nelson said, clomping down the stairs. “So, what’s the situation? You two going to hole up here, or do I need to hire a nanny?”

 

“We’ll be fine,” I said firmly. “I’ll be sure he’s taken care of until he can walk again.”

 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Nelson sighed. “He gets moody after his fits. I don’t like leaving him alone when he’s like this.”

 

“I’m fine,” Jack muttered. “Give my best to the others, huh?”

 

“Sure.” Nelson headed to the door, a set of poorly wrapped presents tucked under his arm. “As you were, kiddos.”

 

Then he was gone.

 

I folded my hands in my lap. Unfolded them. Exhaled. My eyes flickered up to Jack’s.

 

“So,” I said.

 

“So.”

 

“Have you had breakfast?”

 

“Not yet.”

 

“Well,” I said, grasping at that vital piece of information. “Um. Um. Well, then I’ll whip something up, shall I?”

 

I rose to my feet. Jack laughed softly.

 

“What?” I asked. “What’s funny?”

 

Jack shook his head. “Ada, have you ever ‘whipped something up’ in your entire life?”

 

I glared down at him.

 

“I’m not helpless,” I said. “I know how to do . . . things.”

 

“God, I know you’re not helpless,” Jack said. “I just mean, I wouldn’t think you’re accustomed to slaving away in the kitchen.”

 

I crossed my arms and towed the dirty sitting room rug.

 

“That’s something Vivi does,” I admitted. “Our resident cook? So no. I’m not exactly accustomed to cooking. But I’m not stupid.”

 

“I didn’t say you were stupid,” Jack said placidly. “I’m well aware that you’re, like, ten times starter than I am. But I’m afraid that even if you were a master chef, you wouldn’t have much luck in our kitchen. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re a little low on groceries.”

 

I remembered. The gelatin cup. The five blood wafers that Jack had set aside just for me. Their kitchen really was bare.

 

“That’s all right,” I said. “What do you have?”

 

“Uh. Leftover cake from the party? The dregs of some marrow mead?”

 

I waited for Jack to list off other items. He didn’t. I breathed deeply and nodded.

 

“Very well,” I said. “Then you’ll have cake. And blood tea. You do have tea, don’t you?”

 

Jack rolled his eyes. “Of course we have tea. We’re not that poor.”

 

“Right. Just wait here, then, okay?”

 

I strode swiftly out of the room and into the kitchen, where I spied the plate of fig and chocolate cake, wrapped tightly in a dishtowel. I uncovered it and eyed the remaining slice warily. I wasn’t accustomed to eating mortal food, of course, but what was on that plate hardly looked like enough to fill a grown man’s stomach. But, for now at least, it would have to do.

 

I found the teakettle resting on the stovetop, and I filled it to the top with water from the tap. Then I took down two mismatched tea cups, generously ignoring the fact that they had no accompanying saucers.

 

I opened a cabinet. Bare. Then another. This one bare, too. A third. And here I found a small, dented cardboard box marked Exsanguinate Herbal. I removed two scarlet-colored tea bags, placed them in cups, and then poured the boiling water over them. After piling all the dishes haphazardly into my arms, I traipsed back into the sitting room.

 

“There!” I said triumphantly, setting the cups down on the coffee table.

 

Jack frowned at the spread.

 

“What?” I asked, tentatively. “W-what’s wrong?”

 

“That’s only tea for you, Ada,” he said. “You can’t live on tea alone.”

 

“I’m fine,” I said. “Not hungry.”

 

“If you look in the side table there, I’ve got some extra change. You can go out, there’s a Vamp Mart just down—”

 

“Azazel, shut up and eat the cake!” I surprised myself with my ferocity. Then I winced, my stomach turning. For a moment, I’d sounded just like Lenora.

 

Jack, chastised into submission, said nothing in reply and proceeded to nibble off a piece of the cold, hard cake in silence.

 

“You don’t have to do this, you know.”

 

I glanced up. Jack was looking at me strangely, the same strange way I’d caught him looking at me the past few days.

 

I shook my head. “I want to. I meant what I said to Nelson: This can be my way of paying you back. For letting me stay.”

 

“Oh.” The look in Jack’s eyes faded. “Right. So this is your equivalent of paying rent. It’s, what, a business transaction?"

 

“What?” My teacup wobbled in my grip, and I hastily set it aside on the table. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. I want to do it because you’re hurt and because I—I care that you’re hurt.”

 

He frowned silently at me. And though I felt a tight, desperate feeling winding in my gut, I rambled on.

 

“And I feel awful. I feel so absolutely guilty about all those things I said to you. The way I treated you. What I said to you was severely fucked up, and you’re right: I did think of you as less than human. I was so cruel to you.”

 

Jack’s frown had only deepened. “So, you’re doing it because you feel . . . guilty?”

 

I gave an irritated groan. “No. I mean, yes, perhaps a little, but I also—” I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Last night, I was so useless to you. I couldn’t even give you your medicine. I just fell apart. And you could have died.”

 

“That’s pure conjecture,” said Jack. “It’s never happened before.”

 

I shot him a burning glare. “Dammit, Sargent! You’re impossible.”

 

I got to my feet, arms crossed, hands shaking. I paced away from the sofa to the fireplace and glared at the dead, black embers in the hearth.

 

“Last night,” I whispered, unsure of where the words were leading me. “Last night was. . . . The things I said, they were—”

 

“Yeah, I know.”

 

I whipped around to face Jack. He looked so small from where he sat, propped against the sofa.

 

“You—you do?”

 

“You were tired,” said Jack. “We were both exhausted. We weren’t thinking properly. We said stupid things. I know. It’s fine. Just forget it, okay?”

 

I opened my mouth. I squeezed my hands into fists. Then I relaxed them. Closed my mouth. Searched for something to say. But I didn’t get the chance.

 

There was a sharp cracking sound, just feet away from me.

 

George Vanderpool stood in the middle of the living room, shaking off a haze of a foggy, black substance. Fresh from duskstriding.

 

He stared at me, big-eyed. Then he turned to face his friend.

 

Jack looked genuinely terrified by the appearance.

 

“George,” he said, “listen, mate, I—”

 

“No, YOU listen, mate.” George stalked across the room, closing in on Jack. “What the fuckity fuck is this? You know for a fact that you are the only good thing that happens to me all holiday. The only thing that makes things even semi-endurable. And you can’t come tonight because you’re—what was it?—indisposed?”

 

Jack motioned down the length of his quilt-covered body. “I am indisposed. I had another—”

 

“WHY?”

 

“Look, sometimes it’s—“

 

“YOU DID IT AGAIN.”

 

“So what? It’s my choice!”

 

“You are so selfish,” George growled. “You are so unbelievably selfish, you know that?”

 

“I wasn’t planning on having a fi—“

 

“YOU TRANSFORMED,” shouted George. “That’s generally what happens when you TRANSFORM.”

 

“Not always.”

 

“Oh my god.” George put his hands to his face. “Oh my god, I can’t believe you right now.”

 

Suddenly, George’s back tensed, and he turned back toward me, flinging out an accusatory finger.

 

“YOU. You’re behind this, aren’t you? Have you been messing with him? What did you say to him?”

 

I just stared at George. I had been watching his conversation with Jack so anxiously, so intently, that I couldn’t even comprehend what he was asking.

 

“Leave her alone, George,” said Jack. “She has nothing to do with it.”

 

“Uh, she has something to do with it, clearly,” said George, casting me an unspeakably nasty look. “She’s here. With you. In your house. You’re spending your Christmas with her? And you leave me a stupid voicemail saying that you’re indisposed? Since when did I become chopped liver?”

 

“I don’t understand.” At last, I found my voice and drew nearer to the quarreling friends. “What’s this all about?”

 

George said nothing. He merely glared out the window, tapping his foot.

 

Jack sighed. “I usually go over to George’s Christmas night,” he said. “Stay at his place for a few days while his relatives are in town. I rang him this morning to say I couldn’t make it. You know, considering that I'm paralyzed from the waist down.”

 

“That’s your own damn fault, isn’t it?” said George. “I seriously can’t believe you did this. You promised. You swore a fucking blood oath to me that you wouldn’t.”

 

“It wasn't a blood oath,” Jack said, rubbing tiredly at his eyes.

 

“Good as,” said George. “Well, tough luck, sweetcakes. You made me a promise, and now you’re gonna follow through.”

 

Slowly, Jack lowered his hand from his eyes. He looked at George warily.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“It means,” said George, “that I am dragging you to my place whether you like it or not."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

18

Mistake

 

“You shouldn’t have moved him. Nelson said that Dr. Bellevue—”

 

“Honestly, princess, could you stop talking for a half second? God, you’re, like, The Thing That Wouldn’t Shut Up.”

 

I glared indignantly at George Vanderpool. How on earth could someone as kind and good as Jack Sargent be friends with this uncouth, blabbering asshole?

 

More importantly, how could that uncouth, blabbering asshole be as unthinkably wealthy as George Vanderpool?

 

Because he was, without a doubt, wealthy.

 

I had been born and bred into privilege. I could smell money from miles away.

 

George Vanderpool’s house reeked of it.

 

His bedroom was on the third floor of a five-story townhouse in West Kensington—a pristine, white-columned beauty with perfectly manicured shrubberies and a freshly-polished house number. George’s bedroom may have been a messy disaster of discarded comic books, band posters, crumb-filled plates, and dirty clothes, but underneath the rubbish I could still tell. I noticed the expensive crown moldings, the mahogany doors, the polished silver grating around a marble fireplace. A chandelier hung over his bed, more majestic than the chandelier that graced the dining room of Onyx House.

 

George Vanderpool wasn’t just rich; I had begun to suspect that he might be richer than I was.

 

But of course, I would never have heard the Vanderpool surname so much as whispered in my social circles. George was a warmblood, and no amount of wealth could make up for that.

 

I watched as George propped Jack up against his bed. I had to give George credit that, unlike I’d anticipated, he was actually very capable at joint duskstriding. He hadn’t darktorn so much as a fingernail off of me or Jack on the way to his house. I was, I supposed, willing to concede that the guy wasn’t as untalented of a vampire as I’d initially thought.

 

Still, it didn’t mean that I was happy with him for duskstriding a bedridden Jack.

 

“Jack?” I whispered, kneeling at the bedside. “How are you feeling?”

 

George shot me a weird look. I ignored it.

 

Jack blinked blearily up at me, then at George. The effort of duskstriding had clearly taken a toll on him. He seemed to be fighting hard against the enticing pull of sleep.

 

“You two have to play nice,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t want to wake up and find one of you dead.”

 

Then his eyes fluttered shut, and George gave an exasperated sigh.

 

“It’s his own fucking fault,” he muttered. “He can be such an idiot. Come on, let’s give him some space.”

 

I rose from the bedside, turning on George with a vicious glare. I said nothing until we were in a tall-ceilinged, wood-paneled hallway and George had shut the bedroom door behind them.

 

“What kind of friend are you?” I asked. “I still can’t believe you whipped him out of his own house like that. He was recovering.”

 

“He’s fine,” said George, pushing past me and heading down the hallway. “He’s dealt with worse shit than this. And he made me a promise. Also, I don’t think you have the right to be making judgment calls about my friendship with Jack. You’ve known him, like, what . . . a month? You should be thanking me that I even let you come along, princess.”

 

“Stop calling me that.”

 

“What?” George stopped, turned around. “Princess?”

 

I glowered. Seriously, how could Jack stand this guy?

 

The hallway had widened up into the massive landing of a spiral staircase, and ahead was a balcony that looked down three stories into the atrium below. Begrudgingly, I had to admit to myself that it was a beautifully constructed house. I was still having a hard time believing that George—sloppily dressed and nose-pierced and lacking in all social graces—belonged in it.

 

“He hasn’t been eating well, has he?” George asked, starting down the stairs.

 

Quickly, I followed. “Well, no. He and his brother don’t seem to have much food around. Is that normal?”

 

George nodded, his eyes dimming. “He’s so damn stubborn. He would literally starve before asking for a little help." 

 

In that moment, something struck me. George looked . . . upset. Concerned. I wondered for the first time if his little duskstriding stunt was as selfish as he’d made it out to be.

 

“But he’ll eat well while he’s staying with you, won't he?” I guessed.

 

George stopped, mid-step down the stairs. He turned slowly toward me.

 

“Yeah,” he said. “He’ll recover quicker, too. He knows that, the little twerp. He's just so damn stubborn. If you’ve got loaded friends, you should juice them for what they're worth, right? Of course, he wouldn’t be Jack if he did.”

 

George started back down the stairs, and I was fairly certain that I heard him mutter the words "so damn stubborn" one more time.

 

“Where are we going?” I called after him.

 

George didn’t answer. He kept shuffling down the winding staircase, and I had no choice but to follow.

 

The atrium of the house was a towering, circular room of finely wallpapered walls and checkered marble floors. Expensive vases hosted even more expensive, exotic plants. Under normal circumstances, I was at ease around luxury. Here, however, I felt in danger of knocking over something valuable if I breathed a little too hard.

 

George and I had just passed out of the atrium and into another hallway when a woman's voice stopped us in our tracks.

 

“George, darling! You had me so worried. The snow is picking up out there, and you left without so much as a—”

 

The voice stopped short as I turned toward it. A woman stood at a doorway in the hallway. She was tall and tan, and she wore a long, silk dressing gown. In one hand, she held a dangling cigarette. Her hair was done up in curlers and a paisley scarf, and she clearly was not wearing a dab of makeup. Even so, she was absolutely stunning.

 

“Hullo, Mum.” George sounded exceedingly bored.

 

Mrs. Vanderpool, however, was no longer paying attention to her son. Her eyes had fixed on me and bulged in surprise.

 

“George, who is this?” she demanded. “Your new girlfriend? Oh, she’s adorable.”

 

I stared blankly at Mrs. Vanderpool. “I’m not his—”

 

George cut in. “She’s one of Jack’s friends, Mum.”

 

Mrs. Vanderpool’s eyes bulged even wider. “JOHN IS HERE?”

 

“Yeah, but he’s sleeping,” George said. “He’s not feeling all that peachy. You know, the condition.”

 

“Oh, that poor, precious child.” Mrs. Vanderpool pressed a hand to her heart. “So then, this is John Sargent's girl?"

 

My cheeks were scalding. “I—”

 

Suddenly, I found myself wrapped in Mrs. Vanderpool’s tight, silken embrace. “Don’t ever let that boy go. He is a treasure. I love him to pieces.”

 

I gasped for air as Mrs. Vanderpool released me and turned her attention back to her son.

 

“But Georgie, darling, I thought you said John wasn’t going to make it?”

 

“Yeah,” said George. “Well, I got him to change his mind.”

 

“Excellent,” said Mrs. Vanderpool, clapping her hands. “Yes, excellent. I’ll get Florrie to cook up something delicious for him. Have it delivered straight to bed. Oh, and how about you, dear? How do you feel about duck?”

 

It took me a startled moment to realize that Mrs. Vanderpool was talking to me again.

 

“Oh! Um, yes?”

 

George smirked at me. Then back at his mother. “She’s a blueblood, Mum. Duck’s an . . . impossibility.”

 

“Oh!” Mrs. Vanderpool twittered, pressing her hands to her face. “Yes, of course. I thought she was awfully cold-skinned.” Then to me, “Sorry, dear. But Florrie has an excellent blood pudding recipe. She’ll whip that right up.”

 

All I could was nod.

 

“Marvelous! George, I can’t say how happy you’ve made me. What a Christmas treat!” Mrs. Vanderpool turned confidentially to me once more. “John is my favorite. My absolute favorite. Such a doll. Face worthy of a magazine. And look at you, sweetheart. No wonder he fancies you, you little charmer.”

 

George looked as though he was fighting the urge to vomit.

 

“Mum,” he said, “this means I’ll have to miss the big family dinner tonight. You know, I’ll be busy nursing Jack back to health.”

 

Mrs. Vanderpool blinked. “Oh. Oh! Yes of course, dear. Of course. Anything you need to do to help our John get in fighting form again. Mm. Well then, I’d love to stay and chat, especially to this little peach of a girl, but Maurice is only halfway done with my facial, and I’ve a luncheon in less than an hour. It promises to be a dreadfully boring affair, but it’s for charity, so what can one do? All the same, I’ll pass along the word to Florrie before I leave, and you can expect some piping hot food within the hour, hm?”

 

Then, in as flurried of a frenzy as she had appeared on the scene, Mrs. Vanderpool disappeared into a room off the hallway, slamming the door shut with gusto.

 

I turned to George, who looked as though he was enduring a waking nightmare. He dragged a hand across his poorly shaven jaw. Then he narrowed his eyes at me.

 

“I’m only related to her by blood,” he said.

 

My head was still reeling from Mrs. Vanderpool’s deluge of adjectives and exclamations. She had spoken in a dripping, upper class drawl that sounded perpetually lazy around the edges. Clearly, at least one of George’s parents had been born into their privileged lifestyle.

 

At the end of the hallway, George pushed open a set of tall French doors and stepped out onto a stone patio. I followed him out into the biting winter wind. My feet sank into crisp, packed snow. It was snowing still, and flakes caught on my velvet jacket. I watched as George fumbled out a cigarette from one pocket and a lighter from the other. Leaning against one of the patio’s columns, he lit up.

 

I wrinkled my nose in distaste. “Did you come all the way down here just to smoke?”

 

George took a long drag before smirking over at me. “Didn’t ask you to follow me, did I?”

 

“Smoking is a nasty habit.”

 

“Tell that to my mother.”

 

I glanced back inside. “She seems rather, um, fond of Jack.”

 

“You mean John?” George said in an uncanny impersonation of his mother’s husky, melodramatic tone. “You mean, infatuated? Yeah, she’s taken him on as a charity project ever since the two of us were kids. Fancies him as our personal Oliver Twist. It’s pretty messed up, but socialites need something to keep them busy, right? And considering Jack gets me out of all unpleasant social obligations ever, I’m not complaining.”

 

I crossed the snow-laden patio to where George stood, calmly inhaling and exhaling his smoke.

 

“Christmas dinner is a ‘social obligation’?” I asked.

 

George snorted. “You have no idea. For some reason, she and Father think it’s an excellent idea to get both sides of the family together. Mortals and vampires, all crammed together at one table. Completely different politics. Loud-mouths. Imbeciles. It’s a nightmare every year. And of course, Mum’s mortal side keeps telling me I need to go into law like my grandfather, and Dad’s vampiric side rags on me to get a good High Council position. I swear, I’d chop a limb off before exposing myself to that sort of torture again.”

 

“So,” I said, putting the pieces together, “Jack is your out?”

 

George shrugged. “Maybe that does make me a terrible friend. But yeah, he is. Even if he wasn’t feeling poorly, I’d pretend he was to avoid dinner.”

 

I remained quiet for a long moment. “I think,” I whispered, “that I understand. If I could have an out back home, I’d take it, too.”

 

George’s gaze flickered up.

 

“Oh yeah?” he said. “You got Daddy issues or something?”

 

“I ran away from home.”

 

It sounded so wrong, so ugly when I put it that way. But that was exactly what I had done, wasn’t it? And for some odd reason, it felt good to have confessed as much to a stranger.

 

George was staring at me. “Shit, princess. Seriously?”

 

I nodded.

 

“What, did they disown you or something?”

 

“I—I don’t even know,” I whispered. “I haven’t heard anything from them since. I haven’t really had much of a chance to think about it.”

 

I haven’t let myself think about it.

 

“So that’s what the whole, ‘I gotta talk to Jack, ‘cos it’s super secret and urgent’ shit was about?”

 

How was it that George made everything sound more uncouth than it really was?

 

“Yes,” I said tightly. “That’s what it was about.”

 

George nodded slowly. He tossed his cigarette to the ground and squashed it under his shoe, burying it in the snow. Then he squinted out at the winking streetlights in the distance, beyond another row of pristine white houses.

 

“He must like you a whole fucking lot,” he muttered.

 

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

 

“It’s just, Jack’s really focused, you know? On nightspeed? Getting a career and shit and helping out his brother. And then, what with his condition—I just mean, he doesn’t really do the whole romance thing. He blows off girls like they’re exhaust fumes. All nice-like, of course, ‘cos he’s Jack. But still. I’ve never seen him go weak in the knees before.”

 

I was having difficulty breathing. The lingering smell of smoke was much too pungent in the air. I backed away toward the French doors.

 

“What?” George called, following me back to the house. “Did I make that awkward? You know he fancies you, right?”

 

I choked in a staggered breath. My chest felt tight and coiled, like something had gone all wrong beneath my ribcage. I stumbled into the warmth of the hallway. George Vanderpool was not the person I wanted to be talking to at this moment.

 

"He doesn't like me that way,” I said, watching in horror as George closed up the doors, close on my heels. “Why would you think that?”

 

George snorted. “Uhh. Well, let’s see. First, ‘cos he let you sleep over at his house, and it took him a good four years before he ever let me visit. Second, he insisted that I bring your stupid ass along today. Third, have you seen the way he looks at you?”

 

I bristled. “He doesn’t look at me in any particular way. He looks at me like—like he’s Jack and—and I’m Adaline.”

 

“Uh huh. Okay. And if by that you mean like he wants to rip all your clothes off and make little warmblooded spawn with you, then sure.”

 

“You’re absolutely disgusting,” I said through trembling lips. “I don’t know what Jack sees in you.”

 

“The feeling’s mutual, princess." George took a step closer. “Now listen. It’s not my business who Jack moons over. It’s not my business if you fancy him back. But that threat of mine? It still stands. You hurt him, and I will make you rue the day you waltzed into his life. We clear on that?”

 

I studied George’s face. His warmblooded cheeks were the faintest pink from the cold, his eyes watery but intent. I wasn’t sure how, but I saw something there that I recognized. That I admired.