Alessia and I made our way to the dinner hall, with her holding onto my arm as she thought that might look funny, her being my mother and me being her handsome daughter and all that, as we ran into Aileen and Helen in the foyer who were heading in the same direction as us.

  “Oh, hey, Helen.” I greeted our friend with a wave of my hand. “I’m sorry we didn’t come to greet you personally.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Helen smiled as she looked at Aileen. “I had a great welcome by your lieutenant.” It might have been my imagination, but those two were being incredibly smiley at one another, even more than usual that is.

  “Did… something… happen… between the two of you?” I asked, slightly hesitantly.

  Alessia gave me a poke in the ribs with her elbow in return. “Aurora, you really shouldn’t ask that of your guests.

  “But…”

  “It’s fine, Alessia.” Aileen chuckled. “I went to Aurora for advice.” She then looked at me. “I followed it and here we are.”

  “That’s good to hear. I’m happy I was at least some kind of useful.”

  “Thank you for providing your guidance, Aurora.” Helen smiled. “And thank you for giving us the opportunity to meet each other.”

  “Absolutely no problem at all.”

  “Are you done with matchmaking now, or should we go meet our guests?” Alessia asked jokingly.

  “Definitely. You two were heading to the dinner room too, right?”

  “Yes, we were.” Aileen smiled. “But was that Epiphania that I sensed or are my senses going all wonky?” Aileen gestured for me and my mom to walk in front of them.

  “It was, she will be joining us later.” I nodded. “You sensed her from that far away?”

  Aileen bobbed her head from side to side. “Maybe sensed is the wrong word to use.”

  “Epiphania has a particular brand of perfume she likes to wear. If you’ve been alive for so long you tend to really pick up a lot more about people, especially if you’ve been around them a lot.” Alessia explained.

  Aileen nodded. “I did smell it in the hallway a bit earlier.”

  “Do you have that with me already?”

  “Not yet.” She shook her head. “But I do with Corelia. And with Helen of course.”

  I looked back and squinted at her. “Why Ria?”

  “She likes a lot of very sweet perfumes. I don’t know very many people who wear that, so it’s not hard for me to guess. As for Helen, I bought her the perfume, so yeah.”

  “Well… I suppose she really does like sweet things…”

  “And it’s a really top-dollar brand too.” Alessia nodded.

  “And what about Em and me?”

  “It’s a lot harder. You two like to switch up a lot still. It starts to get easier once people settle on a certain brand. That’ll come over the years, don’t worry about it.”

  “Huh… Maybe I should make it a point to switch perfumes every couple of months or so.”

  “If you do that purely to throw off a vampire’s scent, you might want to consider just wearing the things you do like.” Aileen laughed. “Although you could say that change is the spice of life.”

  “We’ll see, don’t try to smell my girlfriend too much though, it might upset Helen.”

  “Aurora, I’m sorry to say, but I do also know that Miss Corelia very much likes her sweet perfumes.” Helen replied.

  “Well shit.” I chuckled and continued by pushing open the door to the dinner room.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Everyone else was already present and awaiting us to start on the various appetizers that our lovely staff had put on the table. While Alessia, Helen and Aileen took their places at the table I beckoned over Stephanie who was in charge of this evening’s dinner progression. Telling her to prepare a spot for Epiphania as well, while also partly apologizing for the last minute change of place, she happily obliged, stating that it wasn’t a big issue at all.

  When I sat down again myself, I explained to our guests that Epiphania would be joining us too. “I hope you don’t mind.” I closed my announcement.

  “Of course not!” Ilse happily replied. “I’m happy to get to know her.”

  “Me too.” I smiled back. “I’ve only dined with her once before.”

  “Epiphania’s humor can kill, I’ll warn you in advance.” Aileen grinned. She was holding Helen’s hand while they were both snacking on some snacks.

  “Is that meant in a good or in a bad way?” Em asked.

  “Debateable.” Aileen replied.

  We then all looked at Alessia who also shook her hand. “It depends. Sometimes it sets everyone off to giggle for the entire evening. Other times it lands so badly that the entire room is silent for about five minutes before anyone continues talking.”

  “Hmm. That kind of reminds me of someone.” Ilse smiled coyly and looked at her husband while she took a sip from her drink.

  “What?” Paul looked slightly upset at the allegation. “Me?”

  Ilse didn’t say anything in return, she just looked ahead of her and took a snack of the table.

  Paul then looked at his daughters.

  Karin scratched the back of her head and took a snack as well while Em just smiled innocently at her father.

  “Emma?”

  “I’m sorry, dad. It’s kinda true.” Em admitted.

  “I’m so upset right now.” Paul started sulking to which his wife comforted him.

  “Don’t worry, honey. I married you because you are a smart and extremely kind person. Your humor was absolutely no factor in my decision.”

  “I don’t know if that should make me feel better or worse. Though I do like hearing you say I’m intelligent and kind.”

  Ilse smiled and gave her husband a kiss on the cheek.

  It took about fifteen minutes before Epiphania finally showed up. When she entered she immediately apologized to Em’s family for joining the dinner before she went around the table to greet everyone personally before she sat down next to us.

  “Nice to meet you, Epiphania.” Ilse started. “Can I just say that I really like your name. I hope that’s not weird.”

  “Not at all, ma’am. Thank you for the complement.” Epiphania smiled back.

  “It’s not a name you hear much.” Paul added. “It’s Greek I presume?”

  Epiphania nodded. “Indeed. I was born in Nicaea, it’s close to…”

  Before Epiphania could continue, Paul interrupted her. “Near ?znik?”

  She nodded again.

  “I have actually been there for work.” Paul continued.

  Epiphania smiled. “I can assure you that it looked a lot better when I was born than it does now.”

  Ilse looked at me questioningly.

  “Is something the matter?” I quickly asked.

  “Is it rude to ask when people were born?”

  Epiphania chuckled silently. “Not really, although not everyone likes telling.”

  “Ah ok.” Ilse looked relieved.

  “I was born in 322 AD.” Epiphania continued. Silencing the room so much you could pretty much hear a pin drop, even Ria stopped her snacking for a moment. "Admittedly, that’s a pretty long time ago.”

  “Definitely.” Ilse laughed nervously. “Wow.”

  “This is obviously meant with all the respect in the world. But for us mortals that’s really hard to comprehend.” Paul added.

  Ilse continued that train of thought. “Of course we knew about the lifespan because of lady Alessia, lady Aileen and sir Viktor. But that’s really impressive. To have lived so long and to still look so young.”

  Epiphania nodded, together with all the other vampires in the room apart from me. “That’s just the way it goes. It’s both a blessing as a curse. But I’m sure the others have already told you plenty about that.”

  “To get to a more positive note.” Paul smiled and then said something I completely didn’t understand. But from the context I assumed it was in Greek.

  Em had seen my quizzed face and poked me in the side, leaning in to whisper into my ear. “Dad studied Greek in high school. While he didn’t continue down that path for his university degree, he did keep his Greek up to date as a bit of a side-project.”

  “Oh I see.” When I got back to following the conversation, both Paul and Epiphania were happily engaged in an exchange of friendly sounding Greek words until Paul suddenly switched back to English again.

  “My apologies. I can’t use my Greek that much lately so I got a bit carried away.”

  “You talk it really well.” Epiphania commended Em’s dad. “I can hear that you are definitely not a native speaker, but given some lessons on accents you could definitely go through for one.”

  “Thank you for the compliment.” Paul smiled.

  The tone was set for the rest of the evening as everyone was now happily engaged in a very friendly and fluent conversation. Even over dinner the atmosphere in the room felt incredibly familial and everyone also seemed to really enjoy the evening. And thanks to Ilse having taken a rest somewhat earlier she could also quite easily make it till the end of the informal dinner with dessert.

  Though there was still something I was really curious about, a thought that would not easily escape my mind. What exactly did my mom have in store for us?