shaking your head and trying to figure out where you are here and now.

The chairs were all heavily carved wooden thrones with worn red horsehair cushions. Stone walls,

hardwood floor, and a smell like a lot of late nights and cigar smoke fighting with the heavenly aromas of food and coffee. There were no dusty cobwebs in the corners, like at the other Schola. This

whole building was spic-and-span in a way that made me a little nervous.

Check that. Everything about this place was hinky as hell. If this was where I was supposed to be

sent when that helicopter lifted me out of the snowy hell of the Dakotas, I didn’t know if I should

feel relieved.

Bruce pointed me toward the head of the table, like I was a visiting dignitary. “Please. Coffee? And

what do you prefer for breakfast? Or dinner, given our schedule.”

They were all looking at me. New-girl-in-school time again, only I was here with the teachers.

“Coffee, yeah. And, um, food. Look, I thought I was going to be—”

“All in good time.” Bruce was utterly imperturbable. “We don’t believe in hurrying.”

“Yeah, I kind of got that. I was stuck for weeks out in the back end of beyond with vampires attacking all the time.” I didn’t have to work to sound sarcastic. “I’m not so sure I’m safe anywhere, unless it’s on my own. So I’m wanting to get this over with.” And get back to Graves.

Because the emptiness inside me did get smaller when Graves was around. Still, I didn’t want to

think about how safe I felt with Christophe. It wasn’t applicable, was it? Not when he kept disappearing on me.

I was getting to hate people disappearing on me.

The fang marks in my left wrist twinged again, but faintly. I was glad my sleeves were pulled down.

The memory rose unbidden, of Christophe’s fangs in my flesh. He’d had to do it, to save us—but it

hadn’t been comfortable. And I was damned if I’d tell any of these blow-dried boys about it.

My voice box had frozen up. Everything about me had frozen. One thought managed to escape the

relentless, digging agony.

—please don’t please don’t not again please don’t don’t don’t—

But it came one more time, and this time was the worst because the digging, awful fingers weren’t

pulling at anything physical. Instead they were scraping and burrowing and twisting into me. The

part of me that wasn’t anything but me, the invisible core of what I was.

I’d call it the soul, but I don’t think the word fits. It’s as close as I can get.