InsaneJournal

Here's to the nights we felt alive
Who: Antonin and Circe and a dead body
Where: London, England
When: Some time in 1999
What: Proving a point

It’d been one of those seriously hard things that had needed a lot of restraint for Antonin to not call Alexandria the very next day. Something told him that wasn’t the way he was supposed to behave so he’d manage to wait a whole three before inviting her out. He’d promised to show her what his blood was like after all. That was as good a reason as any in his book and so he was settled in one of the smaller, out-of-the-way courtyards that people hardly even knew existed, waiting for her while flipping his knife and seeing how many times it could twirl before he caught it. Totally good game.

He needed to remember to call his mother later and make sure that she knew how well he was getting along at school. She’d be so proud to know he was pulling top marks, no need for her to also know that he was only managing it thanks to his telepathy. Although she did view that as the more natural of his two abilities. Eh, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Good a philosophy as anything was.

Her clothing choice was not prophetic. It had simply been a cold day and she wasn’t in a particularly jovial mood. Most of her clothes were earthy tones anyway. She didn’t have anything that was bright. Clothes, for Alexandria, were made to be functional and pretty was secondary. She’d never had to dress up to impress anyone and she wasn’t really about to start now. She was feeding a curiosity about the boy that smelled like death. That was all there was to this evening. She had even brought a small vial with her...if he decided he would like to share. She was studying to be a hematologist. Things like this were her curiosity.

Huddled against the wind, she walked purposefully towards the courtyard she had promised to meet him in. She saw him the moment he was in sight because he was the only person there. Alexandria convinced herself this would be worthwhile. She’d get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding this boy. Even if it meant draining him of blood and then taking it to her mother for inspection. Intellectual curiosity. That’s all.

Alexandria definitely looked good in black, Antonin had no problem admitting that to himself when he caught sight of her walking towards her. She’d probably say something about him staring, she seemed like that sort, and instantly he reached out to her mind. But then he remembered her adverse reaction the first time. She wouldn’t know I’m in there, he reasoned with himself. But she wouldn’t like it... A brief argument that was won by the fact that he didn’t, for whatever reason, want her mad at him. So instead of probing her mind Antonin raised a hand in greeting and grinned widely. “Alexandria, good to see you came!”

Putting his knife away on the next catch, even though he knew he’d probably have to pull it right back out, he stretched as he stood. “How’ve you been?” And then, because keeping his mouth shut was something he’d never been good at, “you look pretty in that.”

His smile was infectious, to say the least, and Alexandria caught herself with a small smile of greeting on her face before she realized what was going on. “Of course I did,” she scoffed, trying to erase the smile without him noticing. “I said I would,” she said, sitting down next to him but with a good foot between them at least. She turned to him and decided there was no need for false pleasantries. They both knew what she was here for and there was no need to pretend otherwise. “Well?” she asked impatiently, the compliment about her appearance ignored and forgotten.

Oh no, Antonin caught that smile and his only grew wider. Marble girl could smile after all. He’d always been good at making people smile, his mother had always... the thought of his mother caused a slight falter in his mind and it took a moment before the gears started grinding away. Shaking himself he sunk back to the ground and took out his knife. “Hello to you too,” he remarked, not phased by her general lack of courtesy or polite reaction. She didn’t seem like the sort to engage in those unless forced. And he didn’t care. She’d smiled after all. Pulling his knife out he pressed the blade to his palm, ignoring the slight bite as it sliced through the skin, a line of black welling up and dripping a few drops onto the ground. “Told you it was different.”

Alexandria was surprised when he pulled out his knife and cut himself open right there in the courtyard. Her blood looked like everyone else’s, but she wasn’t allowed to spill it in public. Her mother would have had an aneurysm. What if they somehow got a sample? It had the potential to be disastrous. Nevertheless, she was even more surprised when he bled black. She stuck her tongue out to taste the air. His blood smelled of death and the scent was strong. She wondered what his blood would taste like. Babies were delicious, but their blood was salty. For some reason, she didn’t think his would taste the same.

Reaching out, she caught a droplet of his blood in her palm and licked it off. Weird. She couldn’t describe the taste. It was...strange. She looked at him, the curiosity and wonderment plain on her face now. Her brows furrowed a little bit in that thinking face that she made when she was having deep thoughts. “You can see into my mind...and your blood is black,” she said, accent strong in her natural thinking voice. “What are you?” she asked. Secretly, somewhere deep inside of her, in a place few people were ever allowed to venture, Alexandria was glad to have finally met someone who, like her, was different...and wasn’t afraid to show it.

Most people didn’t have a pleasant reaction to the sight of his blood. Antonin hadn’t expected Alexandria to flinch away but neither had he expected her to, well, reach out and taste his blood. And look at how the marble face didn’t appear at all anymore, now that she was intrigued. He didn’t have to look into her mind to know that there were thoughts chasing themselves all around in there. Because he shouldn’t exist. That was what Madeleine had always said, right? He was unnatural and shouldn’t be alive, but he was and so they had to deal with him.

“I told you what I am,” Antonin grinned as he closed his palm, drops of blood continuing to drip out but slower. At least he healed fast. “A necromancer. A telepath. Different at the very heart of everything.” And he loved it. He didn’t know anyone else who could lay claim to being as different, as unique, as he was and it made him smile. Though Alexandria with her lamiae-ness... she might be close. She certainly was the most interesting person that he had ever come across. “Surprised?”

Somehow the words “necromancer” and “telepath” didn’t meant much to Alexandria. Words wrapped around a truth that needed to be experienced to be understood. She had read somewhere that words had been created by people who did not understand a thing and, thusly, needed words to describe it. The idea of pain, for example, need not be verbalized by one who experienced it because they understood what it was. The word pain was invented by people who had never felt it. She needed to experience what he was to understand it.

“Show me,” she demanded. He’d already been inside her head - and he was no longer allowed to be there - but this raising the dead thing. She had never seen it before except in stupid little zombie movies that she did not believe in. So the boy smelled of dead and tasted of death...and he could raise the nonliving back from the grave. It was an interesting thought. We are on opposite ends of the spectrum, Antonin and I, she reflected. She enjoyed newborns, sucking them of life...and he played with the deceased. Then again, it was all about someone else dying, wasn’t it?

“Show you,” Antonin repeated. He was still amused and loving her reaction, but she wanted to be shown. They were in the middle of a courtyard where there wasn’t likely to be a corpse within miles that was accesible... oh, unless it was something. She’d never said what size it had to be. “Hold on.” Grinning, Antonin climbed back to his feet and went off towards where a few trees had grown together, listening and searching, eyes darting until... “aha!” Darting in he emerged with a few leafs in his hair, clasping a squirming mouse by the tail. On his way back to Circe he made sure to snap the neck because it wasn’t any good alive, now was it?

“Corpses are harder to come by,” he explained as he settled down, tipping the dead mouse from his palm on the grass. The little body was still warm but the twitching had stopped. Until... focusing, letting his power flow out and into the small thing he spoke easily. “Up on your hind legs, do a little tap dance.” And the mouse, head tilted strangely, in an impossible way, the mouse did just as he’d said. “Can’t do that with strings, can you? The answer’s no just in case you were wondering. Starting to believe me yet?”

Alexandria watched as he retrieved something from a grove. She smelled it before she could see it. Mouse. He placed it on the grass and ‘brought it back to life’. Circe shook her head. “The mouse probably wasn’t even dead,” she said with a shrug. “You’re a telepath,” she told him. He’d proven that he could get into her head, perhaps he had simply gotten into the mouse’s head, too. It shouldn’t be too difficult, considering mice’s brains were less complex than hers. But then there was his blood... Alexandria shook her head and her blonde hair went along with it. She didn’t believe it.

Looking up at Antonin, she reached out and plucked the leaves out of his blond hair as she considered their options. What could he do that she would believe him? There were graveyards all around but the thought of having to dig up a corpse was too much trouble for what it was worth. Unless...well, of course. Their bodies were donated for the purpose of scientific inquiry and this was an inquiry like no other. Rising to her feet, Alexandria pointed in the direction of the medical morgue. “There are dead bodies in the morgue,” she told him. “Technically, I’m not allowed in yet...but I can make the intern let us in if you dare,” she smirked at Antonin, her final three words hanging in the air between them.

Antonin’s mouth actually dropped open. He doubted that he was a strong enough telepath to animate a body via thoughts along... but a dead body? The mouse was dead! That wasn’t telepathy, that was his necromancy and he knew it sure as anything. But Alexandira... oh she was frustrating, his mouth clipped back togehter with an audible noise and he just looked at her. “That wasn’t telepathy,” he said, almost a touch defensively. “I couldn’t make you so much as lift a finger, do you know how much bloody effort it would take to move even a small body? Especially when there aren’t any thoughts left to direct.” Dead things didn’t think. But her suggestion.

“Like I’m scared of getting caught.” He was on his feet in an instant, delighted that she’d given him another option and more, that she’d been touching his hair. That had to be some sort of a good sign, right? Girls didn’t just play with boy’s hair if they completely annoyed them. “You lead the way and I’ll follow, Alexandria, show you what you want to see.” He even went so far as to offer his hand to help her up. Though he wasn’t sure she’d take it.

Twitching an eyebrow, Alexandria gave him a look that simply spelled I don’t believe you. She wasn’t sure how any of these powers worked and didn’t know what they could or couldn’t do, but she wasn’t about to say that outright. Taking the hand offered because it was there, she got to her feet and crossed the courtyard, hand still closed around Antonin’s dragging him along. She’d managed to trick one of the older students into giving her the passcode for the morgue if there was no one tending it...and if there was, Alexandria could be very persuasive.

Pushing the buttons in the proper order, there was a beep and the loud clack of the lock releasing. She took a quick look both ways, but as they were here at an odd time, there was no one in sight. Sliding in and dragging Antonin with her, Alexandria was glad to notice that there was no one else in the morgue this afternoon. Smiling to herself, she released his hand and walked over to the nearest drawer. Unlocking it, she pulled out a body covered in a sheet. Pulling it back, she discovered it was a gentleman in his late fifties and the tag remarked he’d died of a heart attack. Looking back up at Antonin, she pointed at the cadaver and smiled. “Show me.”

Just because she didn’t believe him didn’t make it a lie. And here she was, holding his hand and not letting go. Antonin didn’t even hide the grin that crossed his face at that and he didn’t pay much attention to the surroundings as they started into one of the buildings he assumed to be part of the medical wing he’d never set foot in. Blinking at the abruptness of it all he looked down at the cadaver. Nothing he hadn’t done before but the last time he’d been playing with a human body... Shouldn’t think about that, Antonin told himself, drawing in a slightly ragged breath as memories tried to beat at his mind and were pushed back by automatic defenses. He couldn’t think about the last time or he couldn’t be there. Because it meant something terrible had happened and it was all his fault and - hey, focus. Pretty girl right there wants to see you make a dead body move. That’s what’s important!

Yes, impressing Alexandria was enough to help suppress the memories he didn’t even want. “Don’t scream,” he instructed her with a slight smirk, focusing on the body. A few beads of sweat popped out as he let his powers creep out and he verbalized because it was how he’d learned to do it. “Sit up.” And the cadaver did. “Wave hello to the pretty lady and give her a nice smile.” It did that too, though the smile was a little odd and potentially terrifying. “Do you want me to make him show you a nice little dance? Is that when you’ll believe me?” He didn’t go demanding that she show him proof of what she was. Though he’d seen those fangs...

Alexandria was blatantly unaware of any sort of trauma Antonin had with human bodies. After all, he’d been the one talking about making dead things come to life. What better proof for her than if he did it right here and right there with the dead bodies that were meant for education anyway? She gave him a dark look when he asked her not to scream. She wasn’t sure if she was even capable of something so heated as screaming. Her attention, however, was quickly drawn back to the something she felt as he stared at the dead body. And then it got up.

She didn’t even flinch. She did make face as it smiled at her in a toothy, stiff smile. She could have done without ever seeing a dead person smile at her. Adam’s last girlfriend had not smiled when she died. In fact, she’d practically torn her own throat out as it swelled close. Alexandria couldn’t remember her name. It was a color. Unimportant. “No,” Alexandria responded, pushing the drawer back in forcefully so that the cadaver hit the rest of the steel and then fell back onto its back. “I believe you,” she conceded, closing the door shut, not even considering if Antonin had to do something to the cadaver so that it stopped smiling.

Antonin felt something snap back into him as the contact was suddenly broken without him doing a thing. Normally he did that sort of thing on his own. Stepping back he shook his head, bringing his fingers up to rub at his temple as everything settled back down. He didn’t even hear Alexandria say that she believed him and for a brief instant he totally didn’t care. That hadn’t been polite at all and he didn’t get why she’d done it. When he finished rubbing at his head he gave her a bit of a sullen glare.

“Show you what you want and you’re all rude about it,” he shook his head, shoving his hands into his pockets. “But now you definitely know what I am. Interesting enough for you?” So Antonin was feeling a touch snippy, he hadn’t quite recovered from the initial shock of a dead body followed by having his contact with it severed by a slamming drawer he hadn’t even been warned about.

Alexandria watched him as he stepped away and rubbed his head. She narrowed her eyes at him as glared at her. She picked a light off the table and held his chin gently between two fingers as she tilted his head back to check his pupil dilation. She realized there was probably some sort of mental connection there and she had just...well, snapped it. Both eyes were fine so she clicked the light out and tossed it back on the table she had plucked it from. “Are you okay?”

Still standing in his personal space (because Alexandria didn’t really have much of a gauge of these things when she didn’t try), she tilted her head a little pertly, trying not to look apologetic at all. “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” she said without much emotion. “But, yes, you’re very interesting,” she responded, looking at him, not bothering to step away. It was the first time she had actually met anyone that was truly different outside of the lamia population her family interacted with on an occasional basis. There was talk and rumor, of course, but he was the first.

“I’ll be fine,” Antonin said after a moment, surprised at how she just went about checking him over for signs of problems. That she’d have been the one to cause. But Antonin wasn’t actually upset with her it just wasn’t expected at all. New things like that bothered him. “Just not used to that sort of thing and it didn’t hurt me, just... different.” He’d be fine. Probably a lot more fine than if she’d just wandered off because she was right there in his personal bubble. Which meant close. And Antonin wasn’t blind to the part where she was very, very pretty. Emotions lacking or not.

But she probably wouldn’t respond to the typical sort of thing. Because he could already tell that she liked what was unusual and different. “Glad you think I’m interesting because I haven’t really been able to stop thinking about meeting you the other day. Fangs, a knife...” Fierce girl, that was a given. Slowly, Antonin’s grin returned to his face and he focused it on her. “And a beautiful face.” Yep, he was probably going to get his fingers broken off, but Antonin still reached up to brush a piece of her hair back off her cheek, tucking it behind her ear.

She made a sound with a closed mouth that was supposed to acknowledge his statement that he was going to be fine. Whether or not that translated was of no importance to her. “Is it difficult, that thing you do?” she asked. It should take a decent amount of concentration, shouldn’t it? After all, it was a mental thing. Alexandria had to focus when she was trying to hypnotize someone, which reminded her that she hadn’t been practicing of late. She should probably fix that. She looked at Antonin before deciding he wasn’t the type to be turned into a pawn for her personal amusement. No, he was, well, different.

“You’re saying things for the sake of saying them,” she said with a shrug. She didn’t really believe he’d been thinking about her this whole time. It was just one of those stupid things boys said to girls. She’d seen enough telly. And she’d seen Adam. And he was always saying something like that to girlfriends he’d never see again. Partially because he was simply not the settling down type and partially because if he saw them more than twice, they died of mysterious causes. “No,” she said when he called her beautiful. She knew she was when she was in her natural form but not with these ugly legs. She intercepted his hand and pushed it away but not before noting his fingers were warm. Not at all like the dead people he played with. She’d expected him to be a lot more...clammy and less human. She liked warm things. “Your hand is warm,” she said, not meaning anything by it except as an acknowledgement of fact.

“It can be,” Antonin acknowledged. “Sometimes it makes me sweat and my head hurts, but it’s more difficult not to do it.” The migraines that came when he didn’t practice were killer but he’d really only had a few of those in his life since he practiced more than enough to avoid them. “I get migraines if I don’t practice. It builds up.” Let her make what she wanted of that because that was definitely what she did with everything else he said. Like implicating he was just saying things. Yeah, Antonin’d done that with girls plenty of time but that wasn’t happening here. She really had gotten inside of his head and it was as weird to him to realize it as it’d be for her to accept it. Because girls were supposed to be fleeting, the only one who ever stayed in his life through everything being his mother.

His smile didn’t falter when she denied what he said. “Yeah, did you think I was going to be cold? I make dead things move but I’m not one.” Antonin tapped the front of his chest. “Got a heart that beats to keep me that way. And oh, you are beautiful to me so don’t tell me you’re not, I can think whatever I want and I wasn’t saying things to say them. No girl’s ever threatened me before, that sort of thing sticks.”

“I shed,” was Alexandria’s response his mention of the migraines. It wasn’t meant to be a I have more problems than you sort of response. It was actually, well, some form of sympathy from the girl. Hey, look, feelings. They actually do exist for her. Surprise! Tea and cake seem to be in order. “And I get weak when I don’t have babies,” she added, not knowing if he knew that bit about her kind or if he knew anything about her kind at all. Lamiae, to her knowledge, were a huge secret. But she trusted this boy with the weird powers. He’d keep her secret, just like she’d keep his. And if he didn’t, well, he was expendable and they could always move again.

The possible mistranslation of Alexandria’s statement was far beyond her. Spoken language was something she thought was necessary but often superfluous or strange because people never said what they mean to say and when they did say things, they were never what they meant in the first place. “I didn’t know what you were going to be,” Alexandria responded rather coldly, which didn’t mean anything, really. It was just her manner. “So you think that girls who can kill you are beautiful,” she said flatly, rolling the words around in her head. A pause. A sigh. “Boys,” - and she did mean boys - “are so strange. You ignore the girls begging at your feet and run after those that don’t want you.” She wasn’t, of course, speaking from personal experience, but from the girls that Adam enjoyed pursuing. Several laid themselves down at his feet despite rumors of nasty things happening to his past flings but he always went after the one who never paid any attention to him. She shook her head.

Have babies? Antonin glanced at her figure, surprised, wondering how on earth she could have babies when she looked like that. “Umm... sorry, have babies?” he asked. The shedding he accepted and moved past like it wasn’t anything all that special, but the babies caught and kept his attention. He hadn’t really looked lamia up because he figured that anything he needed to know he could always learn from Alexandria. Because yes, he was totally hedging bets that said she’d tell him. She could act all unaffected and like she didn’t care, but Antonin wasn’t quite buying it. For some reason. There was nothing telling him he shouldn’t believe that she didn’t care in the slightest but it was still there.

“Well, I think they’re different,” Antonin hedged. “And no one’s begging at my feet, they tend to get a little freaked out after they realize I carry a knife and won’t let it go. I don’t get what’s so odd about a bloke liking a girl because she’s different and maybe a little dangerous. I’m not exactly a declawed kitten.” Alexandria probably didn’t see him that way. “And you’re beautiful without the killing thing but you don’t seem to think so.”

Still unaware of the double meaning she had just given him despite having it repeated to her, Alexandria gave him one of those small, rare smiles. “They’re quite delicious, really,” she smiled wider. “And when they’re half a year old...they positively perfect.” She wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted to know this about her but figured if he wanted to be her friend, then he needed to take the good with the bad. Not that there was much good about her. Why did he want to be her friend again? She touched her hair, playing with a lock of it.

“They don’t know a good thing when they see it,” Alexandria shrugged. Again, she hadn’t really said that in reference to Antonin but as a general blanket statement for girls who didn’t see the potential in him simply because he carried a knife. Okay, maybe it was a little about Antonin. But only a little. Minute. Microscopic, even. She dragged a finger down her cheek. “I don’t like it when I’m masquerading as a human,” was all she offered. She didn’t like her legs. They were skinny and made no sense aerodynamically. Her tail was so much more comfortable and pretty.

Delicious. Oh. So she didn’t have them she ate them. That wasn’t weird at all. Except for the part where if Antonin didn’t regularly make dead things move and read whatever passed through people’s minds then it probably would’ve been at least a little weird. Must have been a lamia thing. What am I doing with this girl? She doesn’t even think she’s pretty and she probably doesn’t look at guys at all. Not that Antonin was all that sure what he was looking at or far. His mind was shaken and a little rattled by the reminder of his mother and the abrupt snapping of his hold on that dead man so any logical or semi-logical thoughts he’d had were practically ruined. By her. Because of her.

Tilting his head Antonin couldn’t help himself. “What do you look like when you’re not masquerading?”

Circe tried to figure out how to describe what she looked like when she was in her natural form. That was the only time she ever felt beautiful. Humans were small, weak and fragile and she detested being that. She felt vulnerable on legs. “Different,” she replied at length. She could find the words that would appropriately describe what she looked like. It would have to be something you saw and felt to understand what she was like when she wasn’t in human form. She got out of her human form as often as she could handle the shifting and preferred to lounge around the house like that. Her mother didn’t like it, just in case some nosy neighbors starting prying. “I have fangs for one,” she told him. He’d already seen those...and not been scared. Which was why they were here. Together.

“Different,” Antonin repeated, suddenly smiling again as he shook his head and leaned back against one of the doors that doubtlessly held another cadaver. But since when had a dead body bothered him? Wasn’t like it was going to sit up and attack him. He was the one who animated the dead around here. “Here I’d thought you’d look exactly the same if it was a different from. And I liked your fangs. Since I just showed you how I can make dead things move maybe you can show me those again.” It was different, unique, a distraction from the world that he didn’t really care a lot for lately. His smile changed into his more typical smirk and he tilted his head a little. “Come on now, Alexandria, don’t you ever smile?”

She didn’t appreciate the sarcasm but she ignored it. She supposed she had earned that with her response. As for smiling, it wasn’t just her. Her family didn’t smile. Her father hadn’t and her mother didn’t. Adam was the one who flashed the most amount of smiles, but that was simply because he had porridge for brains sometimes. She didn’t know what to answer the question, though, so the silence stretched between them. Then, as if switching gears completely because, well, it surprised people and Alexandria had a penchant for the unorthodox, she smiled, flashing white teeth at him. “Perhaps another time,” she responded. “I can show you what I really look like for showing me this,” she gestured at the metal drawers. Then, possessed by her own instincts, which she often followed, she stepped closer and gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek. The scent of him so fascinated her she wanted to have a bit of it stick with her for a while. She pulled away. “I’ll see you again, Antonin,” she said as she stepped away, the smile gone as if it had never been there and her face a calm, cold mask again.

The smile surprised him but what surprised him even more was when she placed a kiss on his cheek. He was tempted, very tempted, to turn his head and catch her lips but for some reason he’d never be able to place a finger on, Antonin resisted. “I think you like me,” he teased, fingers touching his cheek as he grinned. “And yeah, you’ll be seeing me again, can’t pass up the chance to see what you really look like. You probably need to get your beauty sleep though, medical student and all.” They actually studied and she lacked the ability to comb her classmate’s minds to find the answer.After pushing himself off the wall, Antonin sketched her a bow, amusement dancing in his blue eyes. “I’m glad I got to see you again.”

Alexandria knew in a very logical fashion that there was some sort of power women naturally held over men. It was interesting to see such a selfish gesture misconstrued and then turned into a source of pleasure for him. Well, she supposed as long as it benefited her own wants, whatever joy it caused him was a by-product she didn’t really care about. She did give him a look when he mentioned he needed her beauty sleep. Here he was, telling her how beautiful she was and then ten minutes later, telling her how she needed to sleep to gain some form of beauty. Boys. Apart from an eyebrow quirk, however, she gave no other indication his words had touched her in any manner. “See you soon,” Alexandria responded as she moved towards the door. She paused. “I cannot show you at school. It will have to be somewhere else,” she informed him before continuing towards the door.

Why was she arching her eyebrow? Automatically Antonin went to search her thoughts and see but then he pulled back so quickly it almost made him a bit dizzy. He wasn’t used to stopping himself from sifting through thoughts like they were nothing more than loose leafs of paper on the floor. But it’d bothered Alexandria and therefore he wasn’t going to do it. Even if she didn’t have to know that he was doing it. Somehow it made sense that if he didn’t she’d know and not get upset over it. Because already Antonin was worried about upsetting her... which was why it bothered him that she arched an eyebrow and he didn’t realize he’d said anything to deserve it. “Wherever you think to show me,” Antonin said, staying still for some reason even though this place wasn’t his. “I’ll go, when you’re ready just tell me and I’ll be there.” And he realized that he’d do just what he said. If he happened to be in the middle of class? Skipping never killed anyone.

Alexandria opened the door and casually poked her head out to make sure she wasn’t going to get caught sneaking out of the morgue, where she wasn’t supposed to be in the first place. When she was certain the coast was clear for miles away, she turned back to look at Antonin. “It will have to be at my house,” she said. Her mother wasn’t going to approve, she was certain but Magdalene was gone during most of the day. “On the weekend, while mother’s at work,” she informed him. “I’ll call you.” And with that, she disappeared in the hallway, leaving the door ajar so he could leave when he was ready. She wasn’t entirely sure she was going to show him she was a lamiae other than the fact that he had showed her he was different, too. She considered introducing him to her mother. Shaking her head, she decided against it. He wasn’t a lamia. Magdalene still wouldn’t approve.