But Jennifer completely ignored me and stepped closer. She did a very strange thing. She took her hand and just hovered it above the pages, not touching it as I had done. Then she closed her eyes and leaned her whole body in.
“What are you—”
“Shh.”
I shut up. The other two both glanced at me, and I shrugged my shoulders. I had no idea what she was doing.
Then she stepped back and, almost as though coming out of a trance, looked at me. “Lucy, could I see you outside for a minute?”
“Of course.”
Oh, this first meeting was so not going the way I’d hoped it would.
I left two baffled vampires and took my best friend back into the corridor. “Sorry about that,” I said. “They get a bit intense.”
“Lucy. That book is spellbound.”
“I know.”
“What’s going on?” She looked at me, and I had a hard time holding her gaze.
“What do you mean?”
“Who are those two? They’re not witches, are they?”
“No, they’re not.”
She was looking at me, her faced creased in some emotion I couldn’t name. Consternation? Horror? Plain curiosity?
“Lochlan Balfour talked about Paracelsus as though he’d known him. I remember studying him in chemistry. I barely remember it, but didn’t he live in like the Middle Ages or something?”
I loved that her sense of history was about as good as mine. “I think so. He didn’t exactly say that he knew him—”
“Don’t toy with me, Lucy. We’ve known each other too long.” She took in a deep breath. “I’m just going to ask. Are they vampires?”
She said it the way she might have asked if they were Republicans or Catholics. Not shocked, just curious. I nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s not exactly the easiest thing to share with anyone, even my best friend. I didn’t know how you’d feel or how you’d react. I thought we’d meet today and you’d get to know him and then I’d sort of slip it into the conversation later.”
She dragged me back to the terrace, and we sat back down. She glanced around to make sure we couldn’t be overheard. “Lucy, are you sure about this?”
And I heaved a huge sigh. “See? That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I knew you’d say this. You have to get to know Rafe to understand how amazing he is. And how happy he makes me.”
“I could see that right away. You two are crazy about each other. It’s just that you’re going to get old.”
“Do you think I don’t know that? And he’s not? I fought this for two years. But I don’t want to fight it anymore. I love him. He loves me.”
“Well, if he makes you happy, that’s all that matters. And, realistically, he’s the one with the most to lose.” She settled back. “It’s a lot to take in.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So how old are they?”
“Lochlan’s older. I don’t know exactly how old, but he was a Knight of the Garter, and I think that was in like the 1200s. I know that Rafe got turned into a vampire when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne. He worked for her. He was a spy or something. That’s how he got killed, and then saved by a vampire right before he died.”
“Wow. I guess they’ve seen a lot.” She laughed. “Weird to think of a vampire running a high-tech firm. It’s so forward-thinking of him. Rafe’s work makes a lot more sense. It’s easier to imagine a vampire in dusty, book-lined corridors than in Silicon Valley.”
“And yet they’re great friends.”
She settled back. “Okay. Are there any other big secrets you need to tell me? Because I’d rather get it all out in the open right now.”
Oh my gosh, where to begin. “Well, Meri, an Egyptian grad student who you’ll meet tomorrow, is really a two-thousand-year-old witch.”
“Wait, what? Witches don’t live two thousand years.”
“This one did. She got cursed and trapped in a mirror, and I rescued her.”
“I’ll think about that later. What else?”
“Um, so my shop is home to a pretty special knitting club.”
And then I told her all about the vampire knitting club. Her eyes grew round, and when I told her that they were my friends and that they were making my wedding dress, she burst out laughing.
“The older I get, the more I discover that the world is full of the most amazing things. So you’re marrying a vampire, some of your best friends are vampires, and one of your guests is a two thousand-year-old witch. Okay.”
“Oh, and one of the members of the vampire knitting club is also my grandmother.”
“What?” She picked up her glass. “I am going to need some more champagne. Oh, and I’d really like to meet your grandmother.”
And that made me so happy. Because I couldn’t tell my own mother about Gran being alive. Mom was too strange about her magic. She’d rejected it her whole life, and now I suspected it was too late for her. She’d been nearly destroyed when a demon used her own magic against her, but Mom had somehow wiped the entire incident out of her mind. But to have Jennifer meet my grandmother—that was amazing. I’d told Gran so much about my best friend and my best friend so much about my grandmother. It just felt right.
Olivia appeared with a pair of pruning shears in her hand, and I called her over to meet Jen. “Olivia is William’s sister. She keeps the grounds and is also doing our flowers for the wedding.”
“That’s amazing. It’s going to be so beautiful. If you want any help, I love gardens and flowers. I’m a willing pair of hands, and I come free,” Jen told her.
Olivia laughed. “What first-rate qualifications.”
“You don’t have to help with the wedding,” I said when Olivia had left to get back to work.
“I want to. Besides, it will give me something useful to do when you’re busy working.”
Chapter 9
The next day, Violet
