the address and a mail-stop number, as if I was living in an apartment or something. A walk-in closet the size of the Titanic, completely empty. All the clothes I’d gotten at the other Schola were gone,

and if there hadn’t been a small stackable washer and dryer tucked in a separate closet here I don’t

know what I’d’ve done. As it was, wearing the same jeans and T-shirt was getting old.

“I think we should get a couple sleeping bags.” I dropped down on the bed next to him. “Have you

seen Shanks yet?”

“I can find him. If you want him. What do you want sleeping bags for? Got a nice bed right here.”

He stared up at the ceiling, green eyes half-closed and his expression halfway between angry and

constipated. “What happened? Who was that girl?”

Which answered one question. Anna had walked right by him. Where was her set of bodyguards?

“That’s Anna. Another svetocha.” I almost tacked an Edgar onto the end of the sentence, decided at

the last second not to. It probably wasn’t wise to tease him right now. Though I wouldn’t have

minded a laugh or two, he didn’t look in the mood to chuckle.

He glared at the ceiling, anger winning out. “I thought you were the only one.”

What could I say? So did I, and then I couldn’t tell you. “They kind of keep her a secret so the vampires don’t attack, I guess.”

Graves snorted. “Yeah, the same way they keep you a secret? Don’t tell me you fell for that.”

Now that I was lying down, the bed seemed really, really comfortable. My nerves were twitching

and jumping from the caffeine. “I think some of them were trying to keep me a secret. But maybe

not in a good way.”

Because the more I thought about it, the more the Council’s reactions didn’t make sense. Neither

did Anna’s. It was like she was trying for damage control. Why? Because here I was at the Schola

Prima, her stomping ground, instead of stuck out in the back of beyond at a reform school? She was

probably way, way used to being the only girl in town.

I couldn’t really think clearly about it, could I? Because she just grated on me. She wasn’t just your

garden variety teenager, either. If she was old enough to know Christophe she was an adult, even if

she looked like a cheerleader. And why had she come all the way out to the other Schola? Trying to

trap Christophe, for some reason? Did she really think he’d betrayed my mother? It seemed like a

lot of people thought so.

Except Dylan, maybe. And me.

Don’t hesitate, Christophe had said, holding the knifepoint against his chest. Pulled hard, as if he