She shrugged and turned back to me. “It’s okay.”
“I guess your uncle will be here soon to tuck you in, huh?” I said, trying to change the subject. I was a little nervous about what Balthazar Freedman would say when he found one of his students in his niece’s room, playing with dolls and dancing rather than studying or practicing spells.
“No,” she said. “He’s always too busy to tuck me in. Plus, I’m freaking twelve. Why do I need to be tucked in? I’m basically grown.”
I wanted to point out that we’d been playing with dolls a few minutes ago, and most grown kids don’t do that, but I kept my mouth shut. Instead, I thought about how strange it was to be outside pack life. Packs lived in close communities, and family wasincrediblyimportant. I remembered my own mother tucking me into bed until I waswellpast fourteen. In fact, I was pretty sure she did that until I’d come into my magic.
“I’ll tuck you in,” I blurted.
“For real?” Her whole face lit up. “You don’t have to.”
“Go brush your teeth,” I said. “I’ll wait.”
“All right,” she said, practically running to her bathroom.
I picked up the dolls and put them back in the toy chest. As I did, I thought about what Wendy said about the song on her music box, and I recalled the way my mother had tucked me in. Unconsciously, I began to hum the lullaby she used to singme as a child. It was some ancienttune sung for hundreds of generations of our pack of wolf shifters.
“All done,” Wendy said, as she emerged from the bathroom wearing a sleeping gown.
“Hop in,” I told her, peeling the covers back from her bed.
She climbed in, and I continued humming the melody. Once she was fully tucked in, she smiled at me.
“What’s that?”
“Something my mother sang to me when I was little,” I said.
Wendy frowned and reached forward, gently poking her finger through the glassless frames of my glasses, brushing my upper cheek with her fingertip.
“Why the heck do you wear glasses with noglass? I’ve been meaning to ask you that for weeks,” she said.
My cheeks flushed. It was a bit silly. Shifters didn’t need things like glasses, unlike someone like Virgil, who was still basically human and had the physical issues that came with that.
Adjusting the glasses, I said, “I didn’t become a shifter until I was seventeen. Before then, I was basically just a plain old human. I needed glasses since I was four years old. Once I became a shifter, I had twenty-twenty vision. I still wear them because they’d become…uh…mylook. You know how it is,” I said, leaving out the part where I considered them as a sort of mask to hide behind. They gave me comfort.
Wendy nodded sagely. “Fashion. I can respect that.” She put her hand on my thigh. “We’re best friends now. I hope that’s cool.”
I couldn’t help it; I burst out laughing.
“Are we, now?” I said.
“Yup.”
“Well,best friend, it’s time for bed,” I said, standing up and heading toward the door.
“Okay.” She yawned. “Good night, old buddy, old pal.”
Flipping off the light, I stood in the doorway and looked at her. What had I gotten myself into by accepting Wendy’s offer to come to her room? I didn’t think it was a bad thing, though. I was actually a bit touched that the girl had latched on to me so fast. One evening of playing and dancing, and I was her best friend. Kids always made it look so easy.
I grinned to myself and eased the door shut. What would people think of a twenty-five-year-old woman being best friends with a twelve-year-old?
Screw ’em,I thought to myself.
2
VERONICA
My newfriendshipwith Wendy really took off the next day when she sat next to me during breakfast. Usually, most of the students were too groggy to congregate and chitchat, so we chose to sit alone and study while inhaling our coffee and food.
