Then I remembered sitting with Lucas in this same library, and how the light through the stained glass window had turned his hair to bronze.

I remembered him telling me how he’d run away from home when he was only five years old, carrying a bag of Oreos and a slingshot. I remembered us trying on funny old clothes together in the vintage store in Riverton and flirting in the gazebo and the way it felt when we kissed for the first time.

I remembered him saying that he loved me even though I was a vampire, even though he’d been taught to hate vampires his whole life. And I remembered him lying beneath me, arching his neck so that I could bite down, freely offering me his blood.

That wasn’t infatuation. That was love. If I knew nothing else, I knew that for sure.

Smiling, I shut my notebook and closed my eyes, the better to get lost in those memories. Even if I had to carry on every day as if I weren’t longing for Lucas, I could still be true to him and to what we had together. The time we were spending apart wouldn’t matter, not if I could remain strong. I wasn’t going to feel sad about all the things our relationship couldn’t be, not when I considered all the amazing things it already was. It was time to stop mourning and start celebrating.

My mother didn’t have to alter my dress for the Autumn Ball this year, and I handled my makeup myself, so she had more time to fix my hair. As I sat on the corner of my bed upstairs in my strapless bra and panties, I carefully blew onto each clear-polished fingernail and thought of Patrice, who had given herself a manicure and pedicure virtually every day. “Patrice would be proud if she could see me now.”

“You should write and tell her.” Mom’s words were slightly slurred; she was talking despite having a few bobby pins between her lips. “I bet she would love to hear from you.”

“I guess.” I doubted Patrice spent too much time thinking about anybody but herself. All the same, I owed her a postcard or something.

“I thought maybe you were reaching out a little more,” Mom said as another bobby pin nestled itself near the nape of my neck. “Talking to more of our kind. Now that you and Balthazar are a couple, I mean.”

“I guess so,” I said. “It’s a little weird for me, though. He’s older than I am.” That was an understatement, seeing as how he was practically at the first Thanksgiving.

She shrugged. “Your father has almost six centuries on me. Trust me, after the first hundred years or so, we hardly even noticed.” Mom and Dad made bridging that gap look so easy; I had grown up thinking nothing of it. Only now that I was spending more time with Balthazar did I realize that those years truly made a difference. “Still, it kind of makes you wonder.”

“I know. You have to start thinking long-term—the way all vampires learn to think, if they’re smart. That’s something Balthazar can give you that—well, that Lucas couldn’t.”

My body tensed, and I felt her hands in my hair go still. We were treading on dangerous ground now, and we both knew it. My parents and I talked about almost everything, but not Lucas. “I’m not with Balthazar because it’s a learning experience,” I said quietly. “Just like I wasn’t with Lucas because I was rebelling.”

“Honey, we never thought that. We never blamed you for what happened with that boy. You know that, right?”

I hadn’t turned to look at her. Somehow it was easier to have this conversation while we weren’t face-to-face. “I know.”

She seemed to be more nervous than I was. “Bianca—there might be one subject we should discuss tonight.”

“What?” Had she guessed that I was keeping a secret about Lucas?

Even that I was slipping out to see him?

I imagined a dozen different possibilities in the few seconds before she said, “Do you and I need to have another talk about sex?” Oh, my God.

“I know you’re aware of the facts of life,” Mom plowed ahead, even though I was sure my entire body had just turned beet red with embarrassment. “But when you’re getting close to someone, particularly someone more experienced, like Balthazar, it becomes a lot more real.

Maybe you have different questions.”

“It’s kind of early to be thinking about that,” I said hastily. Leave it to Mom to share the only information I didn’t want to hear. “We just started going out.”

“If you say so.” She sounded amused, but she patted my shoulder and mercifully didn’t mention the subject again while we finished getting me ready for the ball.

I had just slipped my feet into pointy-toed silver shoes when we heard the knock at the door, and then my father and Balthazar greeting each other with loud hellos and a clap on the back, which was how they’d started behaving with each other lately. I’d noticed Dad and Lucas acting that way, too, last year; maybe guys needed to puff up a bit when it came to greeting their daughters’ dates—or their dates’ fathers.

Mom brushed a stray eyelash from my cheek and hugged me. “Go out there and knock ’em dead.”

As I stepped into the front room, both Dad and Balthazar fell silent.

Dad smiled and rocked back on his heels, clearly proud of me. Baltha-142

zar’s face didn’t change, but there was something in his eyes, an appreciation, that sent a small thrill of feminine power shivering through me.

My dark-green satin dress was strapless and tailored closely to my body, dipping low in the back. It flared slightly at mid-thigh, so I’d be able to dance. My mother’s silver-and-opal necklace from the 1920s hung around my neck, and the matching earrings brushed against my throat. Mom had put my hair in a low bun, folding braids over and between each other and finishing it with a single jeweled clip. Last year I had felt beautiful; this year there was more, too. For the first time I felt as if I looked like a woman, not a girl anymore.