“I was reluctant to wake you, or I would have moved you over to your bed,” he says, but he doesn’t ask me about my nightmare. Strangely enough, I get the sense that he doesn’t want to pry. I’ve come to understand why Strategia guard their Family secrets, but the way they guard themselves and their emotions is something I’m still not used to. If my best friend, Emily, had seen me wake up in a panic like I did just now, she would not only have insisted I tell her every detail, but would have analyzed the dream with me until the meaning was nothing more than the prediction of a bad hair day.

I glance at Layla’s closed bedroom door.

“She went to bed an hour ago,” Ash says in response to my unasked question.

I look back at him, taking in his concerned expression. “But you stayed,” I say, relieved that he did. Despite our rocky start when I first came to Academy Absconditi and all the suspicion between us, I’ve grown to truly rely on Ash.

“I was lost in thought,” he replies with a small smile, and while I’m sure it’s true, I’m also certain it’s not the only reason he’s next to me on my couch late at night. If he were any other guy and I hadn’t just had the most gruesome nightmare of my life, I would tease him about how much he obviously wanted to be near me. But knowing Ash, he had a less romantic reason, such as trying to ensure no one stabbed me while I slept.

“Lost in thought about what?” I ask.

“I was just thinking that we can’t be sure who knows about your father,” Ash says, directing the conversation right back to my family’s conflict and squashing the small amount of comfort I was starting to feel, which I suppose I should be used to by now—comfort isn’t an Academy trademark. This school is more about survival than academics, more about carefully planned alliances than friendships, attributes I learned the hard way when I discovered that the most powerful Strategia Family had a vendetta against my dad. And it turns out several of the kids—as well as a professor who happened to be my dad’s brother—were prepared to kill me to show their allegiance to that Family. “Obviously Dr. Conner knew something,” Ash continues, “but what about the Lion Family in general? I think we have to assume they are hunting your family for a specific reason, one we will need to uncover if we have any hope of finding your father.”