Ivy laughed and my skin crawled. As if daring me to object, she rose, coming to lean against the counter. My tension flowed back. It doubled when she eased herself up with a controlled slowness to sit on the counter beside me. “So,” she said, opening the bag of pepperoni and provocatively placing a slice in her mouth. “What do you think he is?”

She was eating. Great.

“Francis?” I asked, surprised she had to ask. “He’s an idiot.”

“No, Trent.”

I held my hand out for the pepperoni and she set the bag on my palm. “I don’t know, but he isn’t a vamp. He thought my perfume was to cover up my witch smell, not—uh—yours.” I felt awkward with her that close, and I dealt the pepperoni like cards onto the pizza. “And his teeth aren’t sharp enough.” Finished, I put the bag in the refrigerator, out of Ivy’s reach.

“They could be capped.” Ivy stared at the refrigerator and the unseen pepperoni. “It would be harder to be a practicing vamp, but it’s been done.”

My thoughts went back to Table 6.1, with its too helpful diagrams, and I shuddered, disguising it in my reach for the tomato. Ivy bobbed her head in agreement as my hand hovered over it in question. “No,” I said confidently, “he doesn’t have that lack of understanding of personal space every living vamp I’ve met besides you seems to have.”

As soon as I said it, I wished I could take it back. Ivy stiffened, and I wondered if the unnatural distance she put between herself and everyone had everything to do with her being a nonpracticing vamp. It must be frustrating, second-guessing your every move, wondering if your head prompted it or your hunger. No wonder Ivy had a tendency to fly off the handle. She was fighting a thousand year instinct with no one to help her find her way. I hesitated, then asked, “Is there a way to tell if Trent is a human scion?”

“Human scion?” she said, sounding surprised. “There’s a thought.”

I sent the knife through the tomato to make little red squares. “It sort of fits. He has the inner strength, grace, and personal power of a vampire but without the touchy feely. And I’d stake my life that he’s not a witch or warlock. It’s more than him lacking even the barest hint of a redwood smell. It’s the way he moves, the light in the back of his eyes.…” I went still as I recalled his unreadable green eyes.

Ivy slipped off the counter, pilfering a pepperoni off the pizza. I casually moved it to the other side of the sink and away from her. She followed, taking another. There was a soft buzz as Jenks flew in through the window. He had a mushroom in his arms almost as large as himself, bringing the smell of dirt into the kitchen. I glanced at Ivy, and she shrugged.

“Hey, Jenks,” Ivy said as she moved back to her chair in the corner of the kitchen. Apparently we’d passed the “I can stand right next to you and not bite you” test. “What do you think? Is Trent a Were?”