your roommate, Gabe, should be here at any moment to bring you to your room and help you settle in.”

Seth didn’t look happy at the prospect of being left alone here, but nodded.

I reached out and lightly squeezed his arm. “See you at breakfast tomorrow?”

His expression brightened a little bit at that. “It’s a date.”

“Hurry, Evelyn!” Amelia called, already climbing the stairs.

“Bedtime is less than twenty minutes away, and we still need to get you settled in. You do not want to break the rules your first night here, do you?”

“Of course not,” I murmured. Seth chuckled quietly behind me.

Amelia either didn’t hear me or didn’t pick up on the sarcasm.

Instead, she wordlessly led me up the stairs and down a narrow corridor with tall windows that looked out onto the front yard, the thick red carpet swallowing the sound of our footsteps.

Glancing over my shoulder, I could see the wet footprints I was leaving behind and hoped that Amelia didn’t notice them. She seemed like the kind of person who would notice if anything was out of step, maybe fine me for an infraction I didn’t even know existed.

At the end of that corridor, we climbed another flight of stairs where I struggled with all my luggage.

When Amelia suddenly spoke, it wasn’t to offer help, but to say, “Evelyn, I do have to warn you about something.”

“What is it?” I asked, almost tripping over my suitcases as I tried to keep up with her.

“Your roommate . . . let me phrase it like this: she is not easy.”

“What do you mean?”

“She is impossibly rude and does not care about anyone else other than herself and that boy, Jasper, that she’s always with.

Fact is, all of the girls she’s shared a room with moved out within a few weeks. But I am sure you will last longer than that,” she said. “Let us hope so, at least. There is no other girl at this school that would volunteer to move in with Noelle Daniels. Everyone is rather . . . intimidated by her.”

“Intimidated?” I laughed. “I’m sure she can’t be that bad.”

Amelia spared me another, almost pitying look before she said, “See for yourself. This is your room.”

With that, she pushed a key into my palm and pointed at the door at the end of the corridor. I hesitantly closed my fingers around the cool metal and walked past her, raising a hand to knock. When a few seconds had passed and no answer came, I inserted the key and turned it slowly, surprised when the lock only opened with a click after a second turn.

The room behind the door was almost exactly like I had imagined. The walls were bare stone, the floor a dark wood marred with scratches and dents left there by decades of girls. Two beds, two drawers, and two desks with one chair each occupied the two halves of the room. The left side was obviously taken by the other girl, books and magazines scattered all over her desk and clothes lying on the unmade bed.