should have called the police right away-”
“Of course they should have,” I said. “But her high-and-mightiness ‘the Lady Saffron’ got deliberately vague, started talking about the Gentry, about keeping an arm’s length between factions. I gather vampire politics are involved.”
“Jesus. Vampire politics are always involved,” Rand said. “Thanks for passing on the message, Dakota, we’ll handle it. Good luck to you guys today.”
“Thanks.” I hung up and glanced at Cinnamon. “Are you going to be all right?”
Cinnamon nodded, swallowed, just staring.
Clairmont Academy was a modernist structure, nestled into a hillside so cunningly Frank Lloyd Wright would have been proud. The main offices were long straight jet of glass and slate erupting from a stand of magnolias. Classrooms climbed the hill behind the offices in an arc of terraced wedges: the overall effect was of a wave curling over a surfboard. Oh so chic.
I pulled into the visitor spaces angled off the dropoff lane. “Just… try to be nice?”
Cinnamon nodded again, then pulled down the vanity mirror, trying to fix her hair. Then she slipped out a tiny vial of her distinctive cinnamon oil perfume, which I now knew she used to hide her tiger musk, and dabbed it behind her ears and whiskers.
“Just relax,” I said. “You look fine. Better than I do, in fact, my little schoolgirl.”
Cinnamon hissed and swatted. “OK, DaKOta,” she said, fwapping the mirror back up. “But remember, this getup is just to impress the squares that runs the schools. I’m not gonna change on my days off, and don’t you goes all Laura Ashley on me either.”
“How do you know about Laura Ashley?” I asked. “You were, what, two years old?”
“Thrift stores are your friend,” Cinnamon said. “Not that I’d buy one-”
“Hey, don’t go dissing her. I have a Laura Ashley,” I said with a grin. “A big old floral tent feeding the moths back home in Dad’s house in Stratton, South Carolina.”
Cinnamon grinned and unbuckled her seat belt. I did so as well, resisting the urge to check myself in the mirror: she was finally relaxing, and I didn’t want to make her nervous again. Saffron had let me clean the blood off in her bathroom, after insisting that I clean the sink and flush the wipes. I looked as good as I was going to get, and that would have to be good enough.
We got out of the car and walked to the front door, a huge glass slab. In it I could see our distinctive outlines: tall, coated, and deathhawked, hand resting on short, skirted and cat-eared. The door slid smoothly aside on its own, replacing our reflections with a small, mousy brunette, in circa 1980s ecru wool crepe jacket and navy floral dress, who was staring at us in horror.
After a few awkward moments, I broke the ice.
“Dakota Frost,” I said, extending my hand.
“Catherine Fremont,” the woman replied, eyes taking me in from ankles to earrings. Then she seemed to notice my hand and took it gladly, like a lifeline-and I found her tiny hand surprisingly strong in mine. “Catherine Fremont, admissions.”
“And this must be Cinnamon,” I supplied, as she kept pumping my hand.
“What? Oh! Yes. I’m sorry,” Fremont said, letting go of my hand awkwardly as she did a similar double-take at Cinnamon. She pulled a pair of half-rimmed glasses out of her hair and peered at Cinnamon, as if never taught it’s not polite to stare. “And this must be Cinnamon.”
And then her mouth quirked in a skeptical grin, and she raised the glasses to look at me. “Is her name really ‘Cinnamon Frost’?”
“ Yes,” Cinnamon hissed, but I squeezed her shoulder.
“And no,” I said. “Her birth name is-unfortunate. We don’t use it anymore.”
“And so why did you pick Cinnamon?” Fremont said, frowning. “You wanted your daughter to be the butt of jokes?”
“Believe it or not,” I said, “it was a complete accident. I didn’t know I was adopting her when I suggested her name. Actually, I didn’t even know I was suggesting her name-I just called attention to her perfume and it… stuck.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Fremont said. “Well… shall we get started?”
She gestured, then followed her own gesture back into the lobby, clearly expecting us to follow. Cinnamon and I stared at each other a moment, weighing the unspoken question: should we bail? But neither of us made that first move away, so we followed.
Catherine Fremont was tiny, no taller than Cinnamon, but she carried herself well, the navy dress flaring out widely as she turned the corner. I could now see her outfit was brand new, with retro classic touches; still, there was something familiar about it… and eventually I got it.
“Laura Ashley?” I asked, with a smirk.
“Bramble Brooch,” she replied, with a toss of her long, straight hair. I caught a bit of a smile in her cheek as she leaned her head back at me. “Basically Laura Ashley, remixed.”
Her high-heeled Victorian boots clicked against the slate tile, drawing my attention. Nice. Just then Fremont pulled out a keyfob and clicked it, and what I thought was a glass wall slid aside to open on her office. Fremont’s office had a huge plate window overlooking the courtyard and classrooms. It looked like it could slide open the same way the hallway glass had. Fremont sat behind a dark wood desk and mouse-woke an old-school, blueberry iMac.
“Speaking of dress,” Fremont said, lowering her glasses again, “I appreciate Cinnamon’s efforts to conform to our dress code, but it also extends to makeup and accessories. The henna will have to go-as will the cat ears, I’m afraid.”
Cinnamon flattened her ears, mortified, and I frowned. “Cinnamon’s ears and tail are not ‘accessories,’” I said coldly, sitting and motioning for Cinnamon to do so as well. “They’re a part of her. I thought I was clear that she was an extraordinary needs child.”
Fremont looked up sharply, then seemed to jump. “Oh my goodness,” she said, staring at Cinnamon’s head so hard I thought her gaze would knock it off. Then she sat up a little to get a glimpse of her tail. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize she was a… a compulsory were-cat-”
“Were tiger,” I said, even more coldly, as Cinnamon squirmed, “and I thought you said Clairmont Academy was equipped to deal with extraordinary needs children.”
“I-I’m so sorry,” Fremont said, embarrassed, putting her hand over her mouth. “I-I mean, yes, we are, but I personally have never seen a werekin, that is, one who couldn’t change back.”
“How large is your extraordinary needs program if a lifer weretiger is a surprise?”
“We don’t use the term lifer, and as it turns out, we don’t have a compulsory,” Fremont said. “We do have, though, a variety of extraordinary individuals. For privacy reasons I can’t go into specifics, but we have, um… werewolves, and, and… a dhampyr, I mean, dhampyrs-”
“Meaning one of each,” I said. “For a total extraordinary enrollment of, what, two?”
I considered getting up and walking out, but Fremont seemed to gather herself. “I may be new here, Miss Frost, but I assure you that this is not new to the Academy,” she said quietly. “We have a dozen individuals on staff who have experience with extraordinary needs children, of whom we have several. I’m sorry that I was insensitive towards Cinnamon’s condition. It was a misunderstanding. My comment about the henna tiger stripes still stands, however.”
“They’re not henna, they’re tattoos,” I said, and Fremont raised her eyebrows. “And before you ask, I didn’t do them. Tattooing minors is illegal.”
“Don’t lets the tats fool ya,” Cinnamon said. “She’s more square than you are.”
“The proper way to say that would be, ‘Do not let her tattoos fool you,’” Fremont corrected, mouth pursed up. “You will need to learn to express yourself properly.”
“If Clairmont Academy can correct her grammar,” I said, laughing, “that alone will have been worth the price of admission.”
“We’ll do our very best,” Fremont said with a grin, starting the paperwork. But when done with name- address-and-phone-of-parent, she bit her lip. “And her real name? I do need it for the record.” Cinnamon lowered her head and mumbled something, and Fremont canted her head, making her glasses into reflective half-moons. “What was that, dear?”
