I followed Reg, mumbling “bathroom” under my breath. I kept muttering until he practically shoved me in front of the mirror over the sink.

The eyes staring back at me were not my own. They were the palest blue and enhanced by a soft pink in the cheeks just below.

“Who is she?” I whispered, reaching out to touch the girl in the mirror.

Reg appeared in the mirror behind her. “Wonderful, isn’t it? It must be what we looked like before we turned.”

I blinked, and the girl in the mirror blinked as well. It was me, though I barely knew myself. Reg and I both had the same black hair, the same paper-white skin, but there was something else now too—a sort of light that wasn’t there before.

“Just when I thought it wasn’t possible for you to admire yourself anymore,” Reg said. “I think I’ve just lost you to your own reflection.”

“I’m not admiring myself.” My skin felt hot again, in that new unfamiliar way, and this time I saw the change, as the me in the mirror went from white to bright red, the rosy color in my cheeks spreading all over my face.

I stumbled backward.

I had seen many colors in the skin of vampires, all faded by the lack of blood flow but as varied as humans’—pale echoes of who they must have been in their first lives. But I had never seen anything like this warm the cheeks of our kin.

“Why, Miss Charlotte, I do believe you’re blushing.”

I swiped at Reg, but he dodged and slipped out of the bathroom. I chased him back to my room, where he held up the black dress like a hostage.

“Touch me, and the Prada dies!”

I tutted. “You’re an imbecile.”

“Oh, Charlie,” Reg corrected in his best impression of me. “Nobody says ‘imbecile.’ I’m a moron.”

“Yes,” I laughed. “You are.”

“And you’re stuck with me.” He tossed the dress at me. “For life.”

I caught the dress, fingers curling tight around the fabric.

“For life.” An uncomfortable lump formed in my throat, and I whispered, “Reg, what are we supposed to do now? Besides school . . . what’s next? If the Elders don’t come back for us . . . what do we do for the rest of our lives?”

Reg held out his hands, still bone white and delicately smooth.

“I, for one, plan to get a tan.”

An hour later, I met Reg and Sal in the kitchen, where they were picking over a pile of food.

“Are you guys eating again?” I asked. “The buffet never ends around here.”