“Stupid rules!”
“—and one of them is that only clan can walk.”I didn’t point out that our new clan was already contravening a millennium of tradition just by existing, and pushing it any farther wouldn’t be a great idea.Because Sophie didn’t care about that.She cared about her own little group being seen as equals after a lifetime of being hidden away in the special schools the Corps had for people whose magic wasn’t on the approved list.
She had spent a lifetime being the Other, being Wrong, being Weird and Shameful and whatever other words had been applied to her—I was sort of grateful I didn’t know them all—and now she was touchy.
Very.
And this was just all I needed.
“Only clan and its auxiliaries can walk,” I began, only to be cut off almost immediately.
“Fine.Then we’ll be auxiliaries.”
For someone with her long red hair in a curly updo tonight, and her hi-lo gown a giant mass of pink ruffles, she should have resembled a very well-heeled can-can dancer.Yet she nonetheless managed to look intimidating.Almost as much as a wolf.
I felt my lips quirk.I was proud of her and couldn’t deny it.This place should have intimidated the hell out of her, but nothing intimidated Sophie.Or if it did, I didn’t want to meet it.
And, technically, she was right, although…
“That’s not just a word,” I explained.“Clan auxiliaries are… they’re important.Not wolves, as they haven’t been bitten, but bound by oaths of loyalty and service to the clan nonetheless.Like junior members.”
“Okay, give me the oaths.”It was immediate.
“Yeah, only we haven’t even figured out what they are yet!”I said, getting a bit exasperated.“We don’t have a clan structure, a symbol, even a name, much less written oaths—”
“Then make them up.”That was Jen.She was a vision in pale yellow silk, wearing a sleek, body-hugging gown with strategic cut-outs at the waist outlined in diamond-like bling.It was a get-up worthy of a vampire, which she was not, and complemented her blond bob and the blue eyes that could burn green whenever her necromancy was active.
“Guys, it’s okay,” Jace said, always the peacemaker.“I’ll be fine.”
“We know you will, ‘cause we’ll be there with you,” Sophie said staunchly.
“We’ll call you… honorary auxiliaries… for the moment,” I told them, because I didn’t have time to argue.And because all the other clans that had paraded around for weeks had had long trains of followers, showing off their strength to everyone and dressed to the nines, so why shouldn’t we?“Do all of you want to walk?”I asked, looking past the ringleaders to where my three other students were hugging the wall to stay out of the way.
Kimmie, the cute black girl with the Cleopatra braids and the yellow, black, and leopard-print Versace number that had had Jen eyeing her enviously earlier, only nodded, not being the in-your-face type.Aki, a Japanese-American with blue-tipped hair and a tux with a blue sheen, and Dimas, the youngest of our tribe at barely fifteen, looked at me blankly.They had both been tugging on their finery in different ways, looking like they couldn’t wait to get home to shorts and t-shirts, and now seemed surprised by the question.
“You weren’t planning for us to walk?”Aki asked.“Then why the suits?”
“You’re invited to the party afterward,” I assured him.“Whether you walk or not is up to you.”
“Of course we’ll walk,” Dimas said, like I was being boring, while trying to get his short dark hair to lie flat.It grew in clumps, all of which seemed to want to go in different directions, in what was normally termed a cowlick.Only in his case, it looked like a whole herd had been at him.
“Okay, but you stay to the back and do not pass in front of any of the clan members.It would be interpreted as an insult, possibly even as you challenging them—”
“Everything’s a challenge to Weres,” Aki complained.“I don’t know how you’re not all dead already.”
“—or as a sign that our clan is badly organized and doesn’t know what it’s doing, which is what they expect.”
Sophie, who’d had her mouth open to say something, abruptly shut it.
“We’ll stay to the back,” Jen said, her eyes flashing.“And prove there’s nothing wrong with our clan!”
“So I go in front… alone?”Jace asked quietly.
“You’ll go behind Cyrus and me,” I reassured him.“In line with the other clan members, and in front of the auxiliaries.”
“Just walk in like you own the place!”Ulmer said, passing by and clapping Jace on the back hard enough that the boy almost fell over.
“I’m going to be sick,” Jace informed me, and looked it.
