I look at him closely, trying to make sense of his words. “This is exactly what I mean. You’re assuming I know something I don’t. How do people here know my mother?”

A warning flashes in his eyes, telling me to back off. “I’m doing my best not to kill you right now. But you’re not making it easy. You should have stayed in whatever hideout you came from.”

“Are you kidding?” I say, matching his tone. “Gladly! Fire up the goddamn plane. I don’t want to be at this insane school any more than you want me here. Blackwood refused to send me home. So you can mistrust me until the end of time, but it won’t change the fact that both of us are stuck here together. Only one of us knows anything about my family’s history. And it’s not me.”

He takes a step backward, getting a good look at me. “Bullshit.”

“No, not bullshit. I wish it were like you all thought. I would love to be playing a game right now, masterfully manipulating people and scheming about my next move. But instead I’ve been kept in the dark my entire life and am trying desperately to learn my way around this place and to avoid getting murdered at every turn, all because of something to do with my parents that I know nothing about. In fact, as far as I can tell”—I point at him—“you are the one person who reliably knows who I am. But the moment you saw me, you punched me in the face. So I’ve been left on my own here. Some Family you are.”

Something in his expression shifts, only I can’t quite read his emotions.

I hold eye contact with him so that he knows I’m completely serious. “Stefano is dead,” I say in a calmer voice. “And without Layla and Ash, I would have been dead by now, too. So, yes, I’m in your room yelling at you to explain what I’m missing here. Because as far as I can tell, this whole mess circles around me and my parents and very possibly you. I’m over not having answers. The only way I’m leaving this room without an explanation is if I’m dead.”

He scowls and stays silent for so long that I wonder if he’s coming around or deciding to in fact kill me.

“When you attacked me in the dining hall…,” he says, and his voice is less angry than it was before. “Somebody died that day. Who died?”

“My aunt,” I say, and my voice deflates as I picture Jo’s face. “My mom’s sister.”

His eyes widen and he runs a hand through his hair. “Magdalene?”

The sound of my aunt’s name coming out of his mouth all but freezes me. “She, well, she went by Jo, actually. Sh-she—” I’m stuttering, unable to make sense of his personal knowledge of one of my most important people.

“—gave the name to herself after she read an American novel called Little Women,” he says, finishing my sentence.