Her dark brunette hair was pulled back and partially covered by her red headscarf, and the bright ensemble matched her big smile—Margarida was also the best tempered of the snake-brats, which was why she was possibly my second favorite after the competent Killian.
I still had to drag her out of the occasional slump—she insisted on getting attached to humans and then went into a depressive spiral whenever any of her favorites died—but in general she was good humored and needed far less…help than the rest of her siblings. Killian excluded, of course.
“Sire!” Margarida declared.
Killian exploded into a coughing fit that sounded too close to amusement for my taste. Behind Margarida, seated together on a fainting couch, the twins—Auberi and Amée—scoffed.
“Margarida, you overstep,” Amée said, her voice as severe as her hairline. “Considine is not our Sire.”
Margarida rolled her eyes and stopped approaching me long enough to look back at her siblings. “Please. I’ve known Considine for twice the years I knew Ambrose Dracos, and he’s been the guardian of our little Family for so many years now that you can’t deny he’s due credit for the role.”
“Guardian, or torturer?” Auberi muttered into his chalice of blood.
Margarida had taken another few steps closer to me, but she scowled back at her older brother.
“I’m afraid I agree,” I said. “It’s a sweet sentiment, Margarida, but my blood curdles at the thought of being related to such a Family.”
Killian suspiciously coughed again—probably to cover laughter—while Margarida looked crestfallen.
Amée merely looked icy—as was her custom—while her biological twin tried to adopt a similar expression but failed and looked afraid.
Amée and Auberi mirrored each other, each possessing radiant blonde hair and an extra paleness that I personally thought made them more closely resemble sickly Victorian children addled with arsenic poisoning than vampires.
Amée had her hair pulled back in a bun so tight it looked painful, and she was—shockingly—wearing a modern, navy-blue pantsuit and heels. Auberi was also in a navy-blue suit, which he had probably been forced into by Amée as she didn’t want Killian’s Drake Family to look down on them.
（For all their incompetence, all the snake-brats except for Margarida had something of a complex over Killian’s vastly superior minions in comparison to their own. Margarida was spared from this as she mostly cuddled her underlings and didn’t want anything more than for them to be ‘happy’。 I said she wasn’t trouble. I never said she was apt.）
“Considine? A father-figure? Hah!” This came from somewhere behind the twins’ fainting couch where Baldwin was hiding, lying down on a couch so plush it engulfed him.
I scooped up Margarida’s right hand so I could pat it—if I didn’t show some sign of affection she’d try to hug me—then sauntered up to the twins’ chosen settee so I could look over it and see Baldwin-the-broke.
He was dressed in Rococo fashion with breeches and white stockings, and an undecorated black jacket that was left open to display a lavish waistcoat. He’d even gone so far as to bring a white wig with tight curls, but it looked distinctly flat and sad from where he’d tossed it on an ottoman.
His real hair—a boring mix of blonde and brunette that matched his beige personality—was plastered to his forehead, and he wore his accustomed dour look that inspired me to make a mental note to call his Second later tonight and inquire just how much was in his bank account, so I would know the precise amount to drain.
“Hello, Baldwin. I must say I’m shocked to see you here—living off Auberi’s and Amée’s generosity, are you?”
Baldwin cranked his body into a sitting position, his scowl deepening. “I wouldn’t have to if it weren’t for you!”
“Please.” I made a show of getting out my cellphone and looking at the screen. “Your incompetence is hardly my fault.”
Baldwin stood up, his red eyes blazing. “You drained all of my accounts—investments and savings and lost it gambling!”
“Well, you should have had more in savings and then I wouldn’t have needed to drain it all for my wager.” That would have been enough to get Baldwin, but I couldn’t help acidly adding in the truth of the situation—something the Dracos children excelled at ignoring. “Or maybe you should have been more self-aware. Your Drache Family’s gambling habit—which you refused to address between your naps—was eventually going to put you in bankruptcy. I just hastened the effect.”