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Natalie's friends eyed us with a quiet curiosity, but she didn't hold back. She threw her arms
around us. Like Lissa, she had jade-green eyes, but her hair was jet black, like Victor's had been
before his disease grayed it.
"You're back! I knew you would be! Everyone said you were gone forever, but I never believed
that. I knew you couldn't stay away. Why'd you go? There are so many stories about why you
left!" Lissa and I exchanged glances as Natalie prattled on. "Camille said one of you got
pregnant and went off to have an abortion, but I knew that couldn't be true. Someone else said
you went off to hang out with Rose's mom, but I figured Ms. Kirova and Daddy wouldn't have
been so upset if you'd turned up there. Did you know we might get to be roommates? I was
talking to…”
On and on she chatted, flashing her fangs as she spoke. I smiled politely, letting Lissa deal with
the onslaught until Natalie asked a dangerous question.
"What'd you do for blood, Lissa?”
The table regarded us questioningly Lissa froze, but I immediately jumped in, the lie coming
effortlessly to my lips.
"Oh, it's easy. There are a lot of humans who want to do it.”
"Really?" asked one of Natalie's friends, wide-eyed.
"Yup. You find 'em at parties and stuff. They're all looking for a fix from something, and they
don't really get that a vampire's doing it: most are already so wasted they don't remember
anyway." My already vague details dried up, so I simply shrugged in as cool and confident a
way as I could manage. It wasn't like any of them knew any better. "Like I said, it's easy.
Almost easier than with our own feeders.”
Natalie accepted this and than launched into some other topic. Lissa shot me a grateful look.
Ignoring the conversation again, I took in the old faces, trying to figure out who was hanging
out with whom and how power had shifted within the school. Mason, sitting with a group of
novices, caught my eye, and I smiled. Near him, a group of Moroi royals sat, laughing over
something. Aaron and the blond girl sat there too.