I try to ignore the slowly building ache in my heart that feels like envy and nostalgia had a really ugly baby.

Scanning the door signs, I murmur the names of the girls who’ll be my classmates (and hopefully eventually dormmates, if I have my way) for the next three years—Cassie and Emmy and Mika and—

A yelp, followed by “What is that?”

Well, sounds like someone might be having a worse first day than I am. I don’t wanna be nosy, but, well, I could stand to feel a little better about myself right now, so I shuffle back through the hall until I find the room I’m looking for (“Heather” and “Sabrina”), which is pretty easy to do since one girl looks like she’s gonna pass out and the other one is holding something furry and black and almost definitely not dorm-sanctioned.

But is it alive? That much I can’t tell, although the goth girl is holding it like a precious baby.

“It’s my familiar,” she says in a hurt voice, petting the Thing, and it hits me in a rush of coal-black hair and milk-white skin that this absolutely has to be Salem’s twin. “His name is Checkers. And he’s only the stuffed-animal version of the real Checkers, who’s home with my parents, so chill out.”

Heather breathes a sigh of relief, and I guess I do too, because she turns to me suddenly, her neat French braid swinging against her shoulder. Which is when I realize that it’s the same girl from the Beast—the one who was sitting with Farmboy. She immediately breaks into a warm, welcoming smile, a glaring contrast to Sabrina’s resting witch face.

“Hi! I’m Heather. This is Sabrina. Are you on the first floor too?”

“Yes, but different dorm.” Might as well test the waters for how this is gonna go over. “There was a whole screwup with my name—I go by Evie, but my name is Everett—and now I’m in Rumson. I have my own room and bathroom, so at least I don’t have to deal with pee all over the seat and whatever other grossness I’m about to learn boys do.”

“Oh, the limit does not exist,” Sabrina says dryly, and as she rolls her eyes, I see they’re exactly the same stormy gray as Salem’s.

“You’re Salem’s twin, right?”

If I hadn’t been sure before, the identical way her eyebrow rises a thousand feet in the air answers my question before the words “How the hell do you know my brother?” can even leave her mouth.

Oh, how to even begin answering that … “We met at dorm orientation. He seems like a nice guy. Sort of.” Nice enough, anyway. “We just had lunch together, too. Also sort of.”

She snorts. “If he was nice to you, he must think you’ve got decent weed.”