stalked. He looked up, saw me, and stopped dead for a few seconds.

The next thing I knew, he was right in front of the door. “You were here? You’ve been here?”

I hate it when they blink in and out of sight like that. I almost flinched. “Uh, yeah.” I couldn’t even

say it like he was an idiot or anything. I was too badly rattled. “Had my door barred and everything.

But I . . . heard something.”

“Is some sleep too much to ask?” Graves moaned from the bed. “Jesus Christ, what’s happening

now?”

“This is bad,” Leon murmured, finally arriving and casting a mild, raised-eyebrow look down at

Blond No.1’s sock feet.

Dammit, why couldn’t I remember their names? Thomas and something. Something with a G,

maybe?

“What did you hear?” Benjamin planted his sneakered feet and leaned forward, like a terrier straining at the leash. “Dru?”

George. I remembered the name and felt immediately, oddly better. Like I’d accomplished something. “Someone knocked. But it didn’t feel right. I didn’t feel like opening the door.” Great. Now

he was going to think I was a stubborn brat or something.

So let him. What was Anna doing anyway? Why would the warding react to her and not to the

boys?

Because she was up to no good, Dru. Duh. And if you weren’t so busy trying to explain it away, you

could probably figure out why.

Amazingly, Benjamin looked over his shoulder at Leon. They shared the kind of Significant Glance

I was used to seeing between adults. Then the dark-haired djamphir shook his emo-boy fringe down

and turned his attention to me. “That’s good.” As if praising me for a test answer. “Don’t open your

door if you’re not sure. You should trust your instincts on this. And we’ll post a guard instead of—”

“What did you see?” Screw the rest of it. I wanted to know that, first.

“I thought . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I thought you were running down the hall to visit

the Broken again. I’ve heard a svetocha can do that—make a game out of slipping away sometimes.

It must be . . . hard, to have someone with you everywhere you go.”

Boy, you don’t know the half of it. I shrugged. I’d still prefer it to being killed by a sucker.

Always assuming, of course, that I could trust whoever was guarding me. That was the whole problem, wasn’t it?

“What the hell’s going on?” Graves wanted to know.

“I don’t have a problem with it,” I told Benjamin. “I know better.” Unless one of you is a traitor and

looking to kill me. I didn’t say it, but I also didn’t stop watching the kid with the Walther. He was