Page 49 of Roses & Ruin

“Oh!” I say, understanding dawning. “The food just turns into heat. Inside of you? How?”

Delia shrugs. “The way I’ve always figured is, we’re sustained by the living. Everything else is dust to our bodies. So, anything else I ingest sort of just…does that. Breaks down to ash, the energy released as heat.” She shakes her head. “But I’m guessing here. There’s no vampire anatomy class. No one’s running studies. Like, how have I been alive for four hundred years? Why am I able to manipulate the weather, but Hayden isn’t? Why are giraffes the sexiest beasts in the entire animal kingdom? Is it the neck? Their spots? Legs?” Delia stops abruptly, blinks. “Actually, it’s the tongues. Obviously the tongues. Mystery solved. My point is, sometimes we know why something is, and other times, it’s just a mystery of the universe not even immortals understand. So, long story short, Rose, no.” Delia takes a dainty sip of her tea. “Vampires do not poop.”

“I…” I set down my cup. “I’m a little more stuck on the fact that you can control the weather. Has all this fog been you?”

Delia shakes her head dismissively. “Nah, that’s just New England and good old-fashioned climate change.” She flips her hand. “Not worth the energy cost. Kinda nice that it’s overcast a lot, though. Obvi, you’ve seen that day-walking doesn’t kill us, but my powers do get weaker in sunlight.”

“You have powers?” I say, thrilled and a little frightened at the idea. “Does Hayden have powers?”

“He’s strong. Fast. Even for a vampire.” Delia smiles with a sort of wicked pride. “But he can’t do what I do.”

“Like control the weather?”

“Among other things,” she says, her eyes glinting.

“Like…?”

Delia lifts her teacup with both hands, taking a leisurely sip. I feel a little tickle on my index finger and look down. A glossy-winged ladybug is walking along my knuckle. I lift my finger, peering at its tiny beetle face.

“You’re doing this?” I look up at her, eyes wide. Delia watches the ladybug flutter its wings.

“We need all the luck we can get,” she muses. “Don’t we?” I can’t believe it when the ladybug’s pin-size head bobs up and down. Delia and I wordlessly watch it twitch its antennae, take off, and fly in the direction of the front door. “It was nearby. Just the simpler creatures,” she explains. “Like, for example, I can’t really control cats. Too willful. However, rats, bats, other little animals…” Delia lifts an eyebrow. “Persuasion, though. I can persuade anyone.”

“What do you mean, persuade?”

Delia threads her fingers, her espresso eyes sparkling. “Easier to show you.” I realize she’s asking for permission. I nod. Her gaze sparks, and I feel a tickle in the back of my brain.

Hand me a packet of stevia, Rose.

Involuntarily, my hand twitches closer to the glass cup full of yellow, white, and green sweetener packets. I shake my head, the inside of my skull tingling. It’s not necessarily unpleasant.

Go on, grab it. So close. Please, Rose?

When I blink, I’m already placing a little green packet in Delia’s palm. She smiles at me, and I withdraw my hand.

“That was…whoa.” I set my elbows on the table, leaning heavily. “What happens if I didn’t want to hand you the stevia?”

“I’d just give your brain an extra little massage. You’d forget why you didn’t want to hand it to me. And if it had been nighttime? Forget it. You would have given me an entire stevia factory before I’d finished my first glamour.”

I swallow hard, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. I grab my glass of water, draining it. I shake the dregs of ice into my mouth, crunching wildly. Delia’s expression softens into understanding.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you,” she says gently.

“You didn’t,” I say tightly. “It’s just a lot.”

“And creepy. And icky. I’ve literally never gotten to show off, and…I sort of love when you look at me like I hung the moon.” That catches me off guard.

She cares what I think?

My heartbeat slows, and when I look up, Delia’s big eyes are trained on mine, contrite. “I promise that I only use it under dire circumstances.” She rubs her arm. “Okay, like, I did use it to persuade your old shitty roommate to transfer. But Remy was so awful! I really only try and nudge people if they’re on the edge of indecision, and she was already—”

“Dee.” She blinks at the nickname. “It’s okay, I get it. I’m not afraid of you.”

Delia gives me her first real smile since I walked into our room this morning.

“Okay,” she says quietly. “Good.”

I do have one burning, uncomfortable question now. “Can Hayden…um…” I swallow hard, shifting in my seat, bracing myself.