“Because she cannot,” Griffin said calmly. “Her system rejects it on contact.”
“He’s right,” Emma put in. “The minute it goes down, it comes right back up again. Have you ever seem someone vomit blood?” She made a face. “It’s pretty gross.”
“Being a Nocturne myself, I have beheld such things, Miss Plunkett,” the Headmistress said dryly. “However,” she continued, turning to Ari. “Your father has requested that you come home alone. So I am afraid Kaitlyn will have to stay here and we will have to find her some other, er, donor.”
“Headmistress, as you are a Nocturne yourself, you know very well that allowing one you have marked to take the vein of another goes against every instinct,” Griffin said, frowning. “You might as well tell a man his wife will have to sleep with another male while he is gone.”
“That, Mr. Darkheart, is a rather melodramatic analogy, don’t you think?” she asked, raising one eyebrow.
“I don’t!” Ari exclaimed. “Dios, Headmistress, do you really think I’ll go back to the Sky Lands and leave my avowed L’lorna behind when she is in mortal danger every moment she is here without me? And before you accuse me of being melodramatic also,” he went on, “I am not only speaking of Kaitlyn’s need for my blood. I’m talking about the way the fucking Guardian tried to eat her—and wants to eat her still!”
The Headmistress’s lips thinned down to a white line.
“Mr. Reyes, kindly watch your language while you are in my presence! And what in the world do you mean the Guardian tried to eat Miss Fellows?”
“He means exactly what he says, Headmistress,” Megan said. “Not long after you left for your conference, Kaitlyn fell in the lake around the castle—well, she was actually shoved in by some idiots who were roughhousing—and the Guardian tried to eat her.”
The Headmistress frowned skeptically.
“Maybe it looked like he was about to eat her, but the Guardian does not have an appetite for either human or Other flesh.”
“No.” Ari shook his head. “He was going to eat her—of that I am positive.”
“Oh? And how can you be sure of that, Mr. Reyes?” the Headmistress demanded.
“I know because he told me,” Ari growled. “Or rather, he told my Drake when I changed forms to rescue Kaitlyn.”
Headmistress Nightworthy’s eyebrows shot up.
“You changed to your Drake again? When I expressly forbid you not to, Mr. Reyes?”
“I had no choice,” he said shortly. “If I had not, Kaitlyn wouldn’t be standing in front of you today.”
“He’s right!” Megan exclaimed, defending Ari. “We all saw it—the Guardian opened its mouth and tried to eat Kaitlyn!”
All my Coven-mates nodded and Headmistress Nightworthy sighed.
“All right, Mr. Reyes—what exactly did the Guardian tell you—or rather, tell your Drake when you rescued Miss Fellows?”
“He said that he wasn’t usually attracted to anything but fish flesh but that Kaitlyn smelled so delectable that he had been unable to help himself,” Ari told her. “He further said that he couldn’t promise not to eat her in the future.”
“What?” I cried. “You never told me that!”
“Dios, Kaitlyn!” He spared me a quick, apologetic glance. “I didn’t want to frighten you.”
“Well, what exactly did he say?” I asked, thinking of how huge the Guardian’s crocodilian jaws were and how sharp his teeth looked.
Ari raked a hand through his hair.
“He said he couldn’t promise not to eat you, especially if you were covered in the ‘delicious spice’ again.” He shrugged and looked at the Headmistress. “I have no idea what he meant by that—I assumed what drew him was Kaitlyn’s new scent as she was in the process of turning into a Nocturne at that time.”
“No—that wasn’t it at all!” Megan said. “I know what he meant by the ‘delicious spice.’ Kaitlyn, don’t you remember?” She turned to me, but I was reeling from the news that the Guardian apparently still wanted to eat me.
“Um…what?” I asked, feeling slightly nauseous.
“The spice! Remember—the paprika-looking stuff that Nancy ‘accidentally’ spilled all over you in Home Ec that same day you got knocked into the lake and the Guardian went for you?”
Her words jogged my memory. So much had happened between the fateful day I had become a Nocturne and now, that I had almost forgotten what had seemed like simply a minor cruelty at the time—par for the course for Nasty Nancy and her friends.
“Do you mean the same magical MSG stuff they put on that shepherd’s pie-type casserole?” Emma asked, frowning. “The stuff that tasted so good I couldn’t stop eating it and I was sick all night?”
“Yes, exactly!” Megan exclaimed excitedly. “It must be the same spice—it makes anything smell and taste so delicious, you can’t help eating it even if you know you shouldn’t. Nancy and the Weird Sisters were testing it out on the casserole and when they saw how well it worked, Nancy ‘spilled’ a bunch of it all over Kaitlyn and got someone to knock her in the lake!”
“Not just ‘someone’ Ari said grimly. “She was speaking to two of my countrymen—two other Drakes earlier that day. They were the ones who pushed Kaitlyn into the lake. I saw everything from the West Tower before I dived down in Drake form to save her.”
Headmistress Nightworthy looked like she wanted to give herself a big, fat face-palm.
“And once again, Nancy Rattcliff is involved,” she muttered. “Why am I not surprised? And why, oh, why did I ever swear that oath to her mother never to expel her? That girl will be the death of me!”
“I’m sorry, Headmistress Nightworthy, but trying to get Kaitlyn eaten by the Guardian isn’t the only way Nancy is involved in all this,” Megan informed her. “She was also the one who sent you and everyone else those ‘happy-gram’ bubbles.”
“Which were not showing true images,” I put in anxiously.
“And nearly caused a riot,” Griffin pointed out. “In fact, one could make a
