I didn’t like this feeling of not knowing whether I could trust my boyfriend. I thought of Sam’s words from earlier. You’re not all the way in or all the way out. Was this what it meant to be all the way in? Pretending to be a clan witch, in a room full of clan witches?
Why did I get the niggling feeling that Maven was testing me? That was nuts, right? Surely I’d proven my loyalty, many times over.
I wished I could talk to Lily about it, or Simon. Or Sam. The moment I had that thought, I really, really wanted my sister, and not in a half-assed psychic connection way.
I scrubbed the back of one cold hand across my eyes. It would have been nice to sit there and feel sorry for myself awhile longer, but Quinn was right about one thing: I had to do this. I stood up. “Let’s go back in.”
When we got back to her office, Maven was off the phone, and she didn’t say anything about my little time-out. Instead, she just asked Quinn to contact Opal.
“Why Opal?” I asked, looking back and forth between them. Opal was one of Maven’s most loyal vampires and had once saved my ass in a fight—but I knew very little about her outside of that context.
Quinn had already pulled out his phone and begun texting, but Maven answered me. “In life, she was a hairstylist and makeup artist. She helps all of us with our appearances when a change is required.” She smiled again, in a kind way. “Or did you think I was born with orange hair?”
“I never really thought about it,” I admitted. I’d known that the vampires had a complex system to change their legal identities every decade or so, but I hadn’t really considered that they’d also need to change their appearance. It . . . made a lot of sense, actually.
Opal arrived twenty minutes later, slinking into the big concrete-floored space with a pricey backpack over her shoulders. She appeared to be about twenty, a white woman with streaks of electric pink in her shoulder-length black hair. While we were waiting Quinn had explained that she lived nearby—like many of the young-looking Boulder vampires, she hung out in the university area, where she blended in perfectly with the students.
When she walked through the door, she seemed subdued and stressed, like any other college kid worrying about finals. As soon as the door closed behind her, though, she trotted to the open office door and leaned in with a shy smile. “Someone call for a makeover?” she asked.
Quinn and Maven both pointed at me. “Shit,” I muttered.
Maven gave Opal a general explanation of the situation: they needed me to sneak into a witch meeting this afternoon, but no one could know it was me. That sounded like a completely impossible problem to my ears, but Opal just nodded thoughtfully, looking me over. “Can you stand up, please?” she asked.
I liked Opal well enough, but I had serious trepidation as she took my hand and pulled me gently into the concert space, walking around me in a circle. She asked how tall I was and what size shoes and pants I wore. “Is all of this really necessary?” I asked desperately. “Can’t you just loan me a wig or something?”
Maven was already shaking her head, but Opal answered first. “You’re underestimating women,” she said. “There are plenty of women who notice things like brands, fit, body type. And wigs.”
“Come on,” I protested. “Nobody pays that much attention to what other people are wearing.”
Opal gave me a sympathetic smile. “Lex, I’ve seen you in person maybe ten times, and you were wearing the same shoes seven of those times.” She pointed to my beat-up waterproof Merrells. “I’m betting you own two, maybe three pairs of jeans, and not one of them is less than three years old. That increases the chances of them being recognizable in some way.”
I gaped at her for a second, struggling to recover. “Fine, I’ll change my clothes.”
“Plus hair and makeup,” she said, as though this were obvious. “How do you feel about facial piercings?”
Piercings? In my face? I looked desperately at Quinn, who read my expression and moved toward me vampire-fast. The two of us never did PDA, preferring to keep our relationship as quiet as possible, but now he took my face in his hands, stepping into my personal space. In my peripheral vision, I saw Opal’s eyes widen. She hadn’t known about us.
“Opal is kidding about the piercings,” Quinn said, his eyes locked on me. “And I’m sure she won’t do anything that can’t be undone. Right, Opal?”
“I wasn’t kidding,” she corrected, “but I didn’t mean I wanted to actually pierce you, just that I would get some fakes. They make great magnetic nose rings now. And yeah, I can use a hair color that will wash out.”
I relaxed, finally. “I’ll bring you some stuff,” she said, checking her watch. She frowned and looked up at Maven. “Timing is going to be a problem.”
Maven nodded. “I don’t suppose you can stay up between now and the witch meeting?” she asked me lightly.
God help me, I actually considered the question. It was already after three a.m., though, and I was exhausted. I shook my head. “Physically, I could manage it, with caffeine pills and energy drinks. But I’d be jittery and slow-witted. Not exactly what you look for in a spy.”
Maven regarded me for a moment. “Can we use Charlie?” she asked softly.
Opal’s face lit up, but she didn’t speak, her eyes flicking back and forth between Maven and me like a kid who’s been invited to a sleepover but needs Mom’s approval. Some vampires hated the notion of being made human—and vulnerable—around a null, and some, especially the newer ones, loved it.
I blinked, opening my mouth to say no, but I forced myself to stop and think. I’d always been hell-bent on keeping Charlie out of everything related to the Old World, but after she turned eighteen, my niece would almost certainly have the supernatural as a part of her life. Simon had often suggested that it would be good for her to start learning about what she could do. Besides, Opal was an ally, and Charlie could probably use more allies who knew what she was.
I couldn’t see the harm—as long as I understood what Maven was asking. “To be clear, Opal comes to my cabin before sunrise and hides out in Quinn’s spot, then Charlie wakes her up long enough to do the makeover and Opal goes back to sleep at my place. Is that what we’re saying?” I asked.
Maven nodded, but the paranoid aunt in me had to be sure. “No fighting, no meetings, no feeding. Right?”
“Lex,” Maven said, a little exasperated.
“Okay.” I sighed. “I’ll call John. If he says yes, we’ll do it.”
I stepped out into the dim parking lot to give myself at least the pretense of privacy and called my brother-in-law. Waking him up two nights in a row made me feel like an asshole, but at least I wasn’t going to show up at his house this time.
“’Lo?” he said groggily. “Allie? What’s wrong now?”
“Actually, nothing,” I said, deciding to forgive his use of my old name. Just this once. “No crisis or anything, I just want to ask a minor favor, but I need an answer before sunrise. Can you sit up and put your feet on the floor so I know you’ll remember?”
There was an audible yawn and a shuffling noise, and when John came back, his voice was much clearer. “You know me too well,” he said.
I explained the problem the same way we’d explained it to Opal: I needed to go to a witch meeting in disguise, but the person who could help was a vampire. Would he bring Charlie over from noon to two so she could be nearby during a makeover?
Yeah. It sounded stupid to me, too.
“You want me to introduce my four-year-old to a vampire?” John sounded plenty awake now.
“Another vampire,” I corrected. “She already knows Clara and Quinn. And I trust Opal. She saved my life once, when she didn’t have to.”
John knew me well enough to know what that meant to me. “Are you sure about this, Lex?” he asked, sounding dubious.
“I am. It really won’t be a big deal. You guys can come over, and Charlie can watch a movie while Opal puts makeup on me.”
“All right.” But he still sounded unsure.
“John . . . I think it would be good for her to meet a few more of the local good guys.” I did not say “in case she’s kidnapped again,” but we were both thinking it.
“Okay,” he said, more firmly this time. “I’ll pick up Charlie and take a long lunch break. See you around noon.”
I drove the Jeep home, and Opal followed in her own car, an unremarkable—and untraceable—Chevy Malibu. It was registered under one of her aliases, and I would drive it to the witch meeting, since Maven’s big, specially altered Jeep wasn’t exactly incognito.
When we arrived at the cabin, I was too tired for an official tour, so I simply grabbed some clean sheets from the hall closet and took Opal downstairs to the lightless room Quinn had built for himself in the basement. Actually, the word “room” was a little generous—it was more like a really dark alcove—but Opal just thanked me and took the sheets from my hands. “You should get to bed,” she said. “Big day tomorrow and all that.”
“Yeah.” I waved a hand in the direction of the stairs. “If you want to watch TV or anything, help yourself.”
Upstairs, I did the bare minimum required for the animals, most of whom were in the back bedroom, hiding from the strange new vampire. When I finally climbed into my own bed, it was with a gratitude that almost made me dizzy. “I love you, pillow,” I mumbled.
I expected to be out before I could pull up the blankets properly, but I found myself staring at the ceiling for a while, thinking about Simon and Lily and my own contributions to their situation. The farm was beautiful, and I was pretty sure they weren’t being mistreated, but I hated the whole idea of house arrest, especially since they were mostly in this mess for helping me. I wished I could call or text to apologize—or, better yet, sneak over to the farm and bust them out of there.
But I wouldn’t do it—at least, not yet. My friends were still trying to repair the rift in their clan, which was the cornerstone of their entire lives. The least I could do was stay out of the way while they tried.
My last thought before I finally drifted off, near 5:00 a.m., was that Lily would have loved to be there for my makeover.
Chapter 18
When I opened my eyes, I was in my old bedroom, on the twin bed I’d slept in for all of high school.
Unlike in real life, where my mom had long since redecorated, everything was the same: the posters on the wall, the comforters, our backpacks stuffed with textbooks. I sat up and looked to the other side of the room, where my twin sister was sitting cross-legged on her own bed, facing me.
“Sam!” She looked as she had the last time I saw her in life: my own bright blue eyes on a pixie face and more petite frame. She wore black leggings and a long turquoise shirt that draped past her hips.