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discussing the details of an active case over breakfast.” I eyed her mug critically. “Since when are you drinking coffee?”
    “Since I started studying for AP exams.”
    “It hardly seems healthy.”
    “Didn’t you eat, like, a whole box of vanilla wafers before you went to bed last night?” She shook her head.
    “That’s not just unhealthy; it’s sad.”
    “I had low blood sugar. And you’re fifteen. You should be enjoying the tenth grade, not studying for college entrance exams.”
    “They’re AP exams. The SAT is totally different, although I’m going to write that, too. It’s the only way I’ll get into Stanford.”
    “Make sure to win a few scholarships in the meantime,” Derrick said. “We can’t afford to pay that kind of tuition.”
    “Those grants are supercompetitive. That’s why I have to ace all of my AP exams and do extra-credit work.”
    “Isn’t Stanford a little far away?” I asked. “What about UBC?”
    “What about it?”
    “They have lots of great programs.”
    Mia folded her arms. “Tess, do you even know what I want to study?”
    God, I hated when she said my name like that. Tess, do you even know what I’m talking about?
    Tess, do you have any idea how lame you sound? I never talked to my mother that way. But Mia wasn’t my biological kid, and she knew it.
    Miles made a quick sign while looking at me: He extended the index fingers of both hands and rotated them counterclockwise next to his head, while assuming an expression of vague authority.
    “History,” I said. “Classics, right?”
    Mia gave him a look. “That’s cheating. She totally didn’t know.”
    He shrugged and spoke softly: “Just making conversation.”
    I heard some shuffling in the living room, and Patrick emerged. He looked exhausted. He was pale, even for a vampire, and he hadn’t even bothered to use any of Derrick’s thirty-dollar hair paste. His five-o’clock shadow made him look older than eighteen, and slightly threatening, which I didn’t want to admit even if I felt it. Living with a young vampire magnate had its emotional ups and downs. Mostly, I tried not to think about the fact that he could drain my blood while I was sleeping.
    If he wanted to borrow the car and stay at a friend’s place, I wasn’t going to stand in his way.
    “Morning.” Derrick raised an eyebrow. “Looking a bit rakish, aren’t we? Did you sleep in a mausoleum?”
    “Funny.” Patrick sat down and yawned. “Barely slept at all, actually.”
    “I’ll make some more coffee.” Derrick grabbed another filter from the drawer. “Now, if I had my Gaggia espresso machine, I wouldn’t need—”
    I raised my hand. “Don’t even. That matter was already settled.”
    He rolled his eyes and poured more coffee into the machine.
    I turned to Patrick. “Why aren’t you sleeping? When I was your age, I could sleep twelve hours a night.”
    Of course, I wasn’t a vampire.
    He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I need a nicer bed.”
    “You got my old bed,” Mia said, “and I got the futon. So don’t complain.”
    “You can have it back.”
    “I don’t want it.”
    “Right. Because you stole every pillow in the house anyway, so it doesn’t matter that you got the crappy futon.”
    “Oh, my God, why are you still going on about the pillows? I took one extra pillow from the couch.”
    “Yeah, the one I was using.”
    “So why was it on the couch?”
    “Just because it’s on the couch doesn’t make it—”
    “Shut it. Both of you.” I drained my mug. “As long as you’re both living in this house, you have to learn to get along. That means respecting each other’s boundaries and actually making an effort once in a while.”
    Mia laughed. “Yeah, like he totally makes such an effort. Yesterday he ate all the leftover pizza and left greasy paper towels on the counter.”
    “I asked you if you wanted some.”
    “Yeah, when you already had two pieces in your mouth. And then you spent forty