“It’s like their Neferet musta said to make the professors’ quarters livable, but not like home,” Stark said as he and I sipped coffee and ate fried egg sandwiches at sunset.
“That’s how the whole school seems to me,” I said. “I mean, there’s nothing technically wrong with it, but it lacks color, personality, and something else.”
“Happiness,” he added. “That’s what it lacks. Not that it’s surprising that it does. They’ve been under Neferet’s iron thumb and at war.”
I nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s a black-and-white copy of our House of Night.”
“I hope that changes when all of this is over,” Stark said.
“I think it will. Anastasia is a really awesome High Priestess.”
Stark smiled. “It’s so crazy to see her and Dragon again. Good crazy, but still.”
“Yeah, it takes some getting used to. But I think under their leadership, happiness will come back to this Tulsa and this House of Night.”
He reached over and wiped what must have been egg off my lip with his napkin. “I think you’re probably right.”
“Ooooh, I love it when you tell me I’m right,” I grinned at him.
“Well, I—”
Three really loud knocks sounded against the door followed by a muffled curse.
I sighed. “It’s Aphrodite. Come on in!” I shouted.
Aphrodite opened the door rubbing her fist. “It’s far too early for me to be so physical. I need coffee to go.”
“Knocking on a door isn’t physical,” I said. “And I think I saw travel mugs in one of the cabinets. Help yourself.”
“Don’t you have coffee in that overdone suite of yours?” Stark asked.
Aphrodite frowned at him as she walked past us and started rummaging through the cabinets. “Yes, but I make crappy coffee. Z’s is always better.”
“I swear I do nothing special to it,” I said.
“Don’t believe you,” she said over her shoulder as she filled a tall to-go mug. “By the way, it is super weird to be in that other Aphrodite’s room.”
“How so?” I asked, honestly interested in her response. My Other World twin was dead. This Neferet had killed her shortly after she’d been Marked, so there really wasn’t anything of her left at this school, but I was still curious about how much like, or unlike, me she’d been, which also made me curious about Aphrodite’s take on her doppelgänger.
“Well, she did have a nice selection of frozen organic fruit and protein powder, so I could make my smoothie. And her clothes are pretty much my style.”
I checked out the slim-fit Burberry jeans, vintage Rolling Stones T-shirt, leather jacket, and knee-high black suede boots. “So, is that outfit yours or hers?”
“Jeans and jacket are hers. Tee and boots are mine. As one would expect, she had no flat boots.”
I looked at the wedges she was wearing. “Uh, Aphrodite, wedges aren’t flats. Seriously.”
“Like I’ve said before, we’ll agree to disagree on that,” she said, sipping her coffee before she added more sugar. “But these must be her fat jeans. Girlfriend was skinny. I couldn’t get most of her jeans over my butt.” Her blue eyes narrowed at Stark. “And do not say anything, Bow Boy.”
He was laughing but held up his hands in surrender. “Not a chance.”
“Now that I think about it, I do recall her seeming kinda frail, almost like an unfinished version of you.”
She nodded. “I get that. About every third thing in her room was me, something I’d buy or wear or eat or drink, but the rest was just slightly off. It’s really weird. She had a lot of pills stuffed in her bathroom, like enough Xanax to drop an elephant. And the fridge was well stocked in champagne and everything to make an excellent dry martini.”
I told her the simple truth. “She was you without friends.”
Aphrodite shocked me by coming over to where I was sitting at the little counter and hugging me. “Thanks for not letting me fade away like her.”
Her unexpected affection had my throat closing, so all I could do was hug her back and nod.
She was, of course, the first to recover. She tossed her hair back and said, “We better get down there and see Kev and Other Stark off.”
“He wants to be called James now,” Stark said as we headed to the door.
“Whatever,” Aphrodite said.
We made our way quickly and directly to the foyer of the school. Even though it was just after sunset, the school should have been buzzing with fledgling activity, but this House of Night was strangely quiet. We saw a few fledglings heading to their dining hall. They stared at us but didn’t whisper and gossip like our kids would’ve done.
“It’s depressing here,” said Aphrodite. “I seriously never thought I’d say this, but letting humans mix with our fledglings has really brightened up our House of Night. I mean, most teenagers are a pain in the ass—fledgling or otherwise—but they’re less idiotic when they expand their horizons and are around different types of people.”
“Aren’t you still a teenager?” Stark asked.
“Don’t be a smartass. I’ve always been older than my years. Z, you need to tell your brother to work on making this place less gloomy.”
“Well, I don’t think they’re going to be mixing with humans for a good long while. Gotta end that pesky little thing called the vampyre/human war first,” I said.
She waved that away. “Mere details. That’ll be done for good once we get rid of the Neferets.”
We entered the main school building from the rear and went to the
