“Are you always this compliant?” she shot back.
He laughed and almost choked on the blood. “You know, you look too young to be a High Priestess, but you definitely act like one.”
“Yeah, well, my internal age has never accurately been reflected by how I look.”
James laughed. “Really, Ice Cream Shoes?”
Kacie didn’t crack a smile—not even a small one. “That nickname is about fashion—not about me being a kid. It would be stupid of you to underestimate me—especially right after you admitted that I act like a High Priestess. Thank you, by the way, for that compliment. I’m not one. Yet. But I will be. Soon.” She paused as Alison returned to place two huge salads in front of her and gave a smaller one to James. “Thanks,” she told the fledgling before she started squeezing lemons and adding extra dressing.
“Do you always eat this much salad?” James asked as he picked at his assortment of field greens.
“Yep. I was a vegetarian before I was Marked. I’m still kinda uncomfortable with the whole blood-drinking thing, even though it does taste ridiculously good.”
He smiled at her. “You’re not what you seem.”
“Once you get to know me, you won’t say that. The truth is I’m pretty much exactly what I seem. I don’t like lies. I don’t like to pretend to be anything but who I am.” She took a big bite of her salad and then spoke around it. “Oh, and I also don’t like school. Thankfully that was cut short by my dying and then coming back as—wha-bam!—a fully Changed red vamp. So now the classes I take are mostly just spellwork and such. You know, with other newly Changed vamps, which is cool.” She chewed for a while as she watched him, and then added, “But you seem really sad to be a Warrior, and I think that’s for real and not just what you seem. Don’t let it make you sad.”
“It?” he asked.
“Zoey. Even though it doesn’t seem like she and Stark play stupid jealousy games, you gotta know that whatever might be going on between you and Z, they’re seriously together. As in forever. She’s not your girl over here.”
Her words surprised him, but the more James talked with Kacie, the more he realized that she didn’t need to read minds—she knew her own well enough that she was a good observer of others. “I know that, and there’s absolutely nothing going on between Zoey and me.” Then he tried to lighten the mood by saying, “Apparently, it makes me douchey to say that Z is anyone’s girl except her own.”
“Of course it does,” Kacie said, waving her fork for emphasis. “I’m speaking metaphorically.”
The rest of their food came, and they ate silently, though James didn’t think it was an awkward silence. Kacie was easy to be around—even though he had a hard time predicting what she might say next. He looked up from dunking his fry in ketchup to see her watching him.
“What?”
She shrugged. “I was just thinking that you look like a guy who hasn’t had fun in a long time.”
He wasn’t sure why that bothered him so much, but it did—so his response was more abrupt than he intended.
“Yeah, war is a real buzzkill.”
But his tone didn’t put her off at all. “I heard about that. How you were on the wrong side—then you figured it out, blah, blah.”
He stared at her. “Blah, blah?”
“Yeah. You’re on the right side now, and still—zero fun. So, blah, blah with all that self-indulgent angst.” She reached over and snagged one of his fries. “I’m not trying to be mean. I’m just being real with you and telling you what I see. Let me know if I’m wrong.”
James took a bite of his burger and chewed while he thought about his answer. Finally, he decided to be real too. “I was just talking to Nyx about that. Well, not about me having fun, exactly.”
“But about you forgiving yourself and moving on?”
“Actually, yes. Exactly that.”
“How’s it going for you?”
“From what you’re telling me, not very well,” he said—though he did smile at her.
She grinned back for a second before shoving the fry in her mouth and saying, “You can start by not giving a shit about what other people think of you. Just be you. Fuck ’em if they don’t like it or if they want to keep judging you for past mistakes.”
“Is that what you do?”
“Me? Hell no. I’m a sucker for peer pressure. I would jump off a bridge if everyone else did.” Then she snatched another one of his fries and added, “JK.”
They laughed together and, as Kacie continued to steal his fries, James Stark forgot that people were staring at him.
22
Zoey
The Council Room was packed and, as I entered it with Stark right behind me, everyone stood and saluted respectfully, which was moving and nice, but also made me nervous for the first time in a long time. I took a seat at the big round table in the center of the room, and Stark chose the empty one at my side. Then I blinked in surprise at Aphrodite, who had on dark glasses and was ghostly pale and wrapped tightly in a fluffy bathrobe as she sipped more of what smelled like lavender CBD tea from a big mug.
“Are you sure you’re okay to be here?” I asked her.
“No, and I’d much rather sleep off my vision hangover, but I need to be here. I’ll sleep after.”
As always, Darius was at her side. I saw him send her a worried look, but I had to agree with Aphrodite. We did need her. We needed all the help we could get.
Stevie Rae was sitting on Aphrodite’s other side, with a still-damp Rephaim next to her. Then Damien and Kevin were seated beside each other, with James and Kacie in the next seats. Lenobia was beside Kacie, then came Grandma—whose lavender chocolate chip cookies were piled in the middle of the table—and
