Page 59 of The Witch They Fear

"Even the witch with the armed escort?"

"Especially her. You think anyone's going to miss the chance to stare at you in a formal dress? The gossip mill would implode." She glances at me sideways. "Plus I need a date. Platonically. Someone to stand next to while the noble-born vampires circle the room like sharks at a feeding."

I actually laugh at that. The image of me and Nellie in formal wear, backed against a wall with drinks, watching ancient vampires network—it's so absurd and so inevitable that the laughter bubbles up before I can question it.

"Which house is hosting this year?"

Nellie's grin fades by a degree. "Vassard."

I roll my eyes so hard I think they’re going to fall out of my head. Of course.

"So Leopold's basically throwing the party."

"Leopold's family is bankrolling the party. He'll be the golden host in the center of the room with his perfect hair and his perfect smile and every witch in the building will be calculating how close they can get without getting burned." She pauses. "Speaking of which—has he bothered you again? Since the... classroom thing?"

"Actually—well not since then. But–" I chew my lip. "After you left the classroom. He offered me his witch slot. I said no. Then he bit his own finger and smeared his blood on my bag strap. Said he'd always know where to find me."

Nellie's hands tighten on the steering wheel. "He what?"

"Blood-tracked me. I think. I don't fully understand how it works but I ditched the bag."

"Smart." Her jaw is set. The breezy Nellie energy has gone sharp and focused. "Okay. So. Leopold Vassard. Here's what you need to know." She downshifts harder than necessary. "He's a collector. That's what the noble-born ones do—they find a witch, pour on the charm, make her feel special, make her feel chosen. And for a while it's great. He's attentive, he's generous, he opens doors that don't open for anyone else. Every witch who partners with him thinks she's different."

"And then?"

"And then he gets what he wants. Access to her magic, her connections, whatever she can do for him politically. He uses her up—not cruelly, not obviously, just... thoroughly. And when he's bored or when someone shinier comes along, he moves on. The witch is left with a year of her life spent boosting a vampire's career and nothing to show for it except the education she would've gotten anyway." She glances at me. "He's been through three witch partners since I've been at Devenir. Three in three years. All of them brilliant. None of them talk about it."

"None of them?"

"That's the other thing. Whatever happens in a Vassard partnership stays in a Vassard partnership. Whether that's loyalty or shame or something else—" She shrugs. "I've never been able to figure out which."

I think about his smile. The warmth that reached his eyes while his index finger tapped three times against his thigh. The way the door closed behind his expression when he looked at me.

"Thanks for telling me."

"Calypso." Nellie's voice is serious in a way I haven't heard before. "Promise me you won't take his slot. No matter what he offers."

"I already told him no."

"Tell him again. Louder. With witnesses."

We drive for a few miles in heavy quiet. Nellie's grip on the steering wheel loosens by degrees. The sharp Nellie—the one who was just willing to go to bat for me against Leopold Vassard—softens back into the Nellie I know. She fiddles with the radio. Lands on a Cajun station playing something with an accordion and a fiddle and a man singing in French about someone who left.

"Sorry," she says eventually. "I didn't mean to go full conspiracy board on you. It's just—I've watched him do this. I've watched good witches walk into that orbit and come out... quieter. And you've got enough people trying to manage you without adding a Vassard to the list."

"That’s very true. I appreciate it. Seriously, I do."

She nods. Reaches over and squeezes my knee once—brief, warm. Then she turns the radio up a notch and the accordion fills the car and the highway stretches ahead and I feel the knot in my chest loosen by a fraction. Just a fraction. But it's enough.

"Okay. New topic." She adjusts her rearview mirror. "I know the broad strokes about you. The general stuff, and of course what all the rumors say.”

She laughs as I poke her in the side. “But what's... what's a Calypso Dellaby memory? A little sliver of the real her?”

I watch the road. The flat green going dark. The oaks leaning over the highway like they're trying to listen. I think about deflecting. Cracking a joke. Pulling the armor up.

But the car is warm and the accordion is playing and Nellie asked like she actually wants to know, and somewhere in the back of my brain a door opens that I haven't touched in a long time.

"I don't know," I say. "It's all kind of... buried."