Page 70 of Flickerstate

I sigh. “Look, whatever happens between you guys, you’re in the same room all year. Do you like each other enough to risk it?”

“She likes me enough to risk it,” Candace says after a pause.

I hear an exposed nerve in Candace’s voice; I wait for her to keep talking.

“It’s compelling when someone really likes you,” she says. “You want to respond to it. Especially when you like them back. And cute girls don’t throw themselves at me every day. You may be surprised to learn.”

“Pretty surprised.”

“That’s because you’re very intelligent. But the last girl I was sort of seeing dumped me over text after I got bitten. And the girl I was into before that… Let’s just say I’ve never had a real girlfriend. So when Bree and I were leaving Zipporah’s party, and she hadn’t let go of my hand since the dancing, and all of a sudden she told me how much she liked me—I went with it.”

We stroll in silence through the darkening evening. This is the first time I’ve heard Candace admit to feeling vulnerable without a strong overlay of irony. I want to share in return. A hostage swap, so Candace won’t feel like I can hold the situation with Bree over her head.

“I haven’t talked to my mom since I came to the Academy,” I say.

Candace glances at me. “Oh?”

“She calls, I don’t pick up. I’ve sent her proof-of-life texts, butI haven’t heard her voice in months.”

“This is unusual for you two?”

“Unprecedented, pretty much.”

“You applied to the Academy knowing she’d hate it.”

Something like that.“I do want this.”

She nods. “My mom doesn’t love me going here either.”

“Even with Griffin here too?”

“I was bitten right after my nav manifested. My mom didn’t want me doingmorenav.”

“Did you guys fight?”

“Mom and I don’t fight.” Candace laughs through her nose. “It’s more like my decisions are geological formations, and she erodes the ones she disapproves of, over time, by a gentle but merciless drip. Every time she calls, she reminds me that I can always transfer back to my old school. She and the stepdad wouldloveto have me home.”

“Huh.”

“But you fight with your parents?”

“Me? Never.”

We laugh.

“You don’t like your stepdad?” I ask after a second.

“Why do you ask?”

“You call him ‘the stepdad.’”

“To his face I call him Terry.” Candace adjusts her sleeves absently. “How can I put this? He’s fine. I mean, he’s a fundamentally boring man whose whole life is devoted to piling up money. I already told you he works in finance. Except he pronounces it withthe emphasis on the second syllable. Fih-nance. Like an utter tool. He’s obsessed with Mom, though. He’d lie in a puddle and ask her to trample him before he’d let her get wet feet. I like that for her, in theory. But… I’ll joke all I want about getting an MRS from an econ major—that’s my First Amendment right—but an ultrarich spouse devoted to fulfilling your random whims seems like a corrupting influence.”

I snort. “I don’t know. I might take the money.”

“You say you would, but you wouldn’t. Let’s talk about Vik.”

I groan.