Winter looks both tough and pretty, even first thing in the morning. She looks like the warrior she made herself into after the Reveal, which is no doubt why she’s still alive. Her blond hair is cut in a pixie style that would makemelook like a sad, shorn sheep, but it works for her. There’s a wariness in her indigo eyes, but there always is. Making it through the Reveal as a human can’t have been easy.
Most didn’t. I don’t like to think about the human friends I had to leave behind in New York, or what likely became of them. We probably all have that distance in our eyes these days. Even though, as a card-carrying monster, I’m not supposed to think such things. I’m meant to make jokes about the all-you-can-eat buffet out there. Then pretend that I love a world without airplanes to far-off cities, excellent restaurants, and television shows to binge.
But it wouldn’t be life if it wasn’t complicated.
“Did I hear Briar?” Winter goes directly to the coffee machine that takes up most of the counter and requires a lot of barista shit to work right, because apparently working in a coffee stand all day isn’t enough. She has to make snooty coffee at home, too.
Not that it doesn’t taste good.
“She asked me about growing up here,” I tell her. “About you and me being from here and going to high school together. I don’t know. Maybe she’s trying to make friends.”
Winter looks toward the back door with an odd look on her face. “I wonder.”
“Maybe she needed some time to settle in here,” I suggest. I think of what Ty and I were talking about last night. “Most of the Kind live separate from each other, sometimes underground. That’s how it’s been forever. It’s only been three years since things changed, and many creatures are going to need longer than that to catch up.”
Winter frowns like she’s considering that. Then she drags her gaze back to her coffee preparations.
I pile my meal on my plate, take it to the table, and pull Briar’s chair back so I can sit in it. I watch Winter take an inordinate amount of time with her coffee before she comes over and sits down with me.
I take a few bites of my breakfast but then point my fork at her. “Are you okay?”
She blinks. “I’m fine.” When I keep looking at her, she frowns again. “I keep having these weird, muddy dreams. That’s all. So I wake up feeling that way.” She lifts her mug. “Coffee helps. Coffee helps everything.”
“Muddy sounds better than the piercing brain-tumor death goddess dreams,” I point out. “If you have to choose.”
Her mouth curves. “True. These don’t hurt, they’re just odd. Like I can almost remember them, but they disappear into the muck if I get too close.” She takes a pull of her coffee and doesn’t look at me. “Maybe I’ve lost them.”
“Is that bad?” I watch her face as I ask it. “You’re the oracle all day, every day now. Maybe your visions don’t have to come to you in dreams anymore.”
It seems to take her a long time to look up from her mug, but when she does, she smiles. “The last clear dream I had was about Briar. Not long after Halloween.”
That surprises me, but I don’t say anything. I keep my eyes on her and wait for her to tell me.
“It was clear in that I could see everything that was happening,” she says, “just not what itmeant. I had to really think about that. But it makes more sense now. I think you’re right that Briar wants to make friends. I’m almost positive that the dream was telling me that Vinca was after her. Whether she knows it or not. Whether Vinca will ever rise again or not.”
I sit back in my chair, and she tells me about the dream. About trailing Briar through a forest only for the death goddess to take her over and start speaking out of her mouth. I shudder with distaste. “Why would she want Briar?”
Winter shakes her head. “I don’t know. And the cards have not been forthcoming. I’ve asked them for clarity on this pretty much daily.”
I contemplate this over some bacon. “One thing we know Vinca hates is you.”
“Yes.” Winter takes a swig of her coffee and sighs happily. “I’m glad Briar is reaching out. That doesn’t feel very death-cultish of her, so really, I don’t see whynotto be friends.”
“We can all trauma-bond over being stalked by a vengeful, trapped psycho bitch,” I say merrily. “We’ll be braiding each other’s hair in no time.”
It feels like an achievement when she laughs.
Then she heaves a heavy breath, so I know she’s getting serious. “How is he?” she asks, avoiding my eyes.
She means her twin brother, August. After treating him like the pawn he was, Ariel returned Augie to Winter. But Augie came home still addicted to that vampire blood. After what happened at Crater Lake on Halloween, which included Augie and Winter losing their grandmother so violently, he decided to go clean.
Except, of course, there’s no goingcleanfrom vampire blood. Those who don’t get killed for irritating their drug pushers—the vampiresthemselves—usually die anyway, because nothing around is supposed to meet that high.
Augie had to know that better than anyone, but he wanted to clean up. Ty told him he could make that happen—it’s just brutal. And long.
“He’s okay,” I tell her.
I’m pretty sure she knows better than to ask for details.
