And I heard her again, from the vault in my memory where the really bad stuff hid. The stuff I

didn’t ever want to think of again, the things the touch showed me that I didn’t want to see.

Don’t let the nosferatu bite. A prearranged signal from the very location. It meant our house. My

mother’s house. The house where I lay asleep upstairs until she woke me up. The yellow house with

the oak tree in front, its branches twisted and blackened by whatever Sergej had done to my mother’s body.

How could Anna betray another svetocha, even one she hated? How could anyone do that?

“Keep your commentary to yourself and pass along the message,” Anna said calmly. And the sound

of a phone being laid down in a cradle clicked through, right before Christophe hit the stop button.

He still stared right at me, his mouth a thin line, and I got the feeling he was trying to tell me something.

I didn’t know what. I couldn’t even begin to guess. But it was like he’d thrown me a line, and the

thin cord that stretched between us poured a flood of heat into me. It ran up into my cheeks, and I

closed my eyes and leaned against Augie. He swayed a little.

“You should look elsewhere for your traitor, Kouroi. Not at me.” Christophe’s heel scraped the floor

as he turned away.

Murmurs raced through the crowd. I wished I could open up the ground and crawl into it. I felt sick

all over. It was Anna. Anna had done it, betrayed my mother to the vampires.

Don’t let the nosferatu bite.

Why?

But I knew why. The horrible shape under the blanket in my head twitched.

Where is he . . . if you’re hiding him . . .

“Dru.” Christophe was very close now. “You have something to tell us. Something you remember.”

I shook my head. No. God, no. I didn’t want to remember anything about that night. I didn’t want to

remember what happened after I went to bed. I didn’t want to remember Anna’s visit or my mother

hiding me before she went out to fight.

The only thing I wanted to remember was Dad’s face when he opened up the hidey-hole in the closet and collected me. He’d told me I was safe and taken me out to the car, and we’d driven for days

to Gran’s house.

There was nothing else I wanted to remember. Nothing. Not even my mother’s face, or her perfume,

or—

But Christophe was pitiless. “That was why Anna came to see you at the reform Schola.” Patient

and calm, like a teacher with a slow student. “You were so close, Dru. So close to remembering. But

you didn’t, not yet. It was so long ago, and you were so young.”