“I want to know how you did what you did to Travis, and why,” I said.

He looked at me the way you’d look at a poodle that suddenly started reciting Hamlet.

“I… I know not what you mean,” he said.

“Don’t lie to me!” I snapped. “I saw the way you were looking at him.”

Riley’s lip curled. “That’s your damning evidence?” he sneered. “That I looked at him?”

My cheeks flushed. Now that I’d said it aloud, it sounded ridiculous. But my gut was still telling me Riley was to blame.

“It had to be you,” I protested weakly. “Who else could have done something like that?”

“I think you’ll find the question is not who, but what. The boy foolishly ingested a most potent drug, or so believe the authorities.”

I shook my head. “That doesn’t add up. There were a hundred people at that party, and none of them saw Travis take drugs.”

“Perhaps he did so while hiding in the lavatory.”

“Or perhaps he didn’t take anything at all,” I said mockingly.

Riley only smiled patronizingly at me.

“I suggest you leave the detective work to the police, Miss Slate. You clearly have no aptitude for it.”

He started to walk out of the room. Furious, I called after him, “That’s not all I’ve seen you do!”

He froze, his hand on the doorknob.

The next instant, I found myself pushed up against the closet wall. Riley was gripping me by the shoulders, his face so close to mine that I could practically count the eyelashes framing his unearthly eyes.

“What do you mean?” he demanded, his hot breath warming my cheeks. I was seriously freaked out, but there was no turning back now.

“Last week, in the parking lot at Henrietta’s,” I said. “You just vanished. I only took my eyes off of you for a second. No normal person could have run away that fast.”

For the first time, Riley Bay was at a loss for words. I would have smiled triumphantly if I wasn’t so scared of what he might do next.

“And that’s not even taking into account the weird way you talk, or the fact that your past is a complete mystery, or—” I stopped short. I didn’t want to tell Riley that I’d seen him in my dreams. That seemed too… intimate. He might get the wrong idea.

“You… you noticed these things?”

“Of course. I’m not blind.”

He shook his head. “But you’re just a girl. One utterly insignificant girl. How could you…?”

Riley trailed off. He was looking at me in a completely different way then: with wonder and—was it possible?—a touch of fear.

“Perhaps the prophecy is true, after all,” he murmured, more to himself than to me.

“What prophecy?” I asked, baffled.