Claudia trails behind Root, hating how much she knows she looks like a child trailing after her mother. She should look like Root, they should be two women going out for a meal together, like friends (secretly, she hopes they can be friends. Root seems nice. Root treats her like a person). But instead, she is well aware of how juvenile she looks.

At least the conversation is distracting. Because Root's right: people are funny. The idea of someone setting up a bank account for an illegitimate child, who actually cared about relations that weren't hers, is foreign to Claudia. All vampires are assholes. Most people are as well.

"Really makes you wonder what her ulterior motives are," she muses. "People ain't that nice. Not like that."