THERE’S A FAINT clicking noise. I pull the blankets up over my shoulder and bury my head in the pillow. Drip. Drip. Drip. It’s as if someone forgot to turn off a faucet somewhere in the distance.

I yawn under my thick comforter and rub at my eyes. I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time last night, and all I want to do is roll over and burrow farther under my comforter. But the light is already peeking through the edges of the heavy curtain and I want to talk to Layla about that horrible assembly before we have to go to class.

The books Layla gave me are with me in the bed, where I passed out reading them. I stretch and wince. My muscles are sore from all the sparring exercises Ash and I did.

I toss off the covers and swing my legs out. When my feet hit the cold stone, there’s something gritty under my toes, and I yank them back up. Something’s wrong. There’s never dirt on the floor; they keep this place spotless. I kneel on my bed, my mind racing through every terrible thing that could possibly be on that stone, and I pull back the curtains, letting the morning light spill in.

When I look back at the floor, I start to scream but stop myself so fast it sounds like a strangled yelp. Next to my bed, written in dark brown smears, are two words: Sarete ridotti.

Italian. My mom and Aunt Jo spoke in Italian when I was little. Aunt Jo still does sometimes. I’m not amazing with it, but I can translate this: “You will be reduced” or possibly “You will be eliminated”?

I immediately look at my bedroom door. The lock’s no longer in place. My adrenaline spikes and I run to get Layla. I knock on her door and vigorously brush off the bottom of my feet.

Within two seconds she unlatches her door. She takes note of my spooked expression. “What happened?”

“I don’t…Come here,” I say, leading her back to my room.

She walks in, freezes as though someone pressed a pause button, and then resumes her fast pace. She kneels down on my floor and sniffs at the brown smears and scattered droplets. “That’s…blood,” she says, confirming what I already suspected.

I immediately think of Charles and Ash and the whole traumatic bloody scene in the dining hall yesterday. I swallow. “I can’t imagine that anyone is walking around carrying blood to write a message in,” I say mostly to myself.

“No,” Layla confirms. “It’s highly unlikely.”

“Which means someone must have cut themselves in my room?” I shudder, immediately pulling up a mental image. “So creepy. Who would do that?”