Chapter 28

THE HALL HAD CLEARED AS EVERYONE JAMMED INTO the section near the narrow front doors. The panicked screams had given way to sobbing and angry shouts of “Move!” and “Get out of my way!” Through the commotion, though, the sound I heard loudest was the softest—the whimper of frightened children. I tried not to think about them, packed into that seething mob. People knew there were kids here—they wouldn’t let panic override caution. Or so I told myself. It was the only way I could keep going in the opposite direction.

“Eve!”

I was almost at the gym when Kristof hailed me. I looked across the scattering of people to see his blond head cutting through them.

“Savannah,” I said, rushing to him. “Where is she?”

“I can’t find her.”

“Here, I’ll—”

He grabbed my arm as I raced past, toward the gym. “She’s not there, Eve. The courts are empty. They closed for lunch hour. She must be in the cafeteria. Where is it?”

“No, Lucas just dropped her off. If her class was after lunch, she’d have eaten at home. She—Art! She has art class on Saturdays. They were downtown last year, but they must be here now. The studios are up the hall.”

I turned and ran in the other direction, passing through the logjam at the front door and racing to the studios on the other side. Distant sirens blared. Then a shot. Another. More screams behind us.

The first studio door was closed, the room dark and empty. In the next, we found the remains of a class—a half-dozen adults huddled behind tables, a few whaling at the locked exit door. Unfinished sketches papered the floor. One middle-aged man grabbed an upended easel and threw it at the window, but it only bounced off the thick glass. A younger man raced for the hall.

“No!” a woman screamed after him. “It’s blocked. Stay here!”

My gaze swept across the faces, seeing no Savannah, no one even close to her age. As I turned, I caught a shimmer in the corner—like a portal, but much weaker, the glimmer so slight only a practiced eye could see it.

“There!” I said, pointing. “She’s cast a cover spell.”

I raced across the room and knelt beside the empty spot.

“Good girl,” I whispered. “Smart girl. Stay there. Stay right there.”

A shot sounded in the hall. A young woman to my left screamed. A figure wheeled through the door. Another young woman—skeletal-thin, all jutting bones, with greasy brown hair and an acne-pocked face.

She lifted a gun.

I started to call Trsiel. The woman beside me dove to the floor, sailing through me and knocking against Savannah. The cover spell broke, and Trsiel’s name died on my lips.

Savannah lifted her head. She saw Lily. Saw the gun.