Digging scraping pulling tearing ripping, invisible things inside me being pulled away, and something left me in a huge gush. My head tipped back, breath locked in my throat. Graves made another

small horrified sound and tried to pull me away.

Christophe jerked his head back, fangs sliding free of my flesh, and something wrapped itself tightly around my wrist, below his bruising-hard grip on my forearm. He exhaled, shuddering, and

Graves tried to pull me away again. My arm stretched like Silly Putty between them, my shoulder

screaming, and I couldn’t make a sound.

The silence that fell wasn’t comfortable in the slightest. I yanked the chair at the head of the table

out, dropped down into it, and glared at them all. The so-called cushion was hard as a rock and the

back wasn’t much better. And I had to let go of the switchblade in my pocket to sit down.

It was a bad morning and getting worse.

One of the silent djamphir, the one with coal-black skin and shockingly white teeth, laughed. His

dreadlocks moved as he stalked toward the buffet table. Of all of them, he was the only one in

worn-out jeans and a T-shirt. “She’s certainly Elizabeth’s daughter.” He sounded very prep-school,

enunciating crisply. But there were odd spaces between his words, just like in Christophe’s or Dylan’s. Like they were translating from another language inside their heads. It was like the ghost of

an accent. I mean, other than the flat nasal Yankee everyone above the Mason-Dixon pretty much

speaks.

I don’t have an accent. Northerners just talk funny.

“As if there was any doubt.” Bruce sounded sour for the first time. “Her face alone is enough to

convince one of that.”

My hands tightened into fists under the table. Dad had never told me I looked like Mom, beyond

saying something about my hair once in a while. “Did you all know my mother?”

“I did,” the Japanese one said softly. “Bruce did, and Alton too, I believe. Marcus?”

The skinny blond in the gray suit shook his head. “She was before my time in administration.”

The other blond spread his hands; he’d left his cigar in the other room. He had thick curly hair, and

for a moment I felt lightheaded. Someone had stolen a lock of Christophe’s hair from my nightstand

—don’t even ask how it got there, a keepsake, he’d said—and left a single long, curling blond hair

behind. It could have been any number of teachers or students at the other Schola. Including shy,

gentle Dibs.

I was suspecting everyone now. Except Graves. And Christophe.

“So, some of you knew her. Then you know someone inside the Order betrayed her.” My fingernails

dug into my palms. “Anna showed me a transcript of the call.”

They all went utterly still again. Bruce finally turned away from the buffet table and stared at me,