Rolling her eyes, Lottie puffed out her cheeks. ‘Fine, OK.’ She felt herself getting hot under his blank stare, and she wasn’t sure if it was the discomfort of having to ask Jamie something she knew he’d hate or from the way he was looking at her, like he might burn a hole right through her head with the intensity. ‘What’s your mother’s name?’ She said it as fast as she could before she chickened out.

Jamie stared at her for a weighted moment, until the intensity in his face melted away, replaced with an inward contemplation, like he’d gone away somewhere she couldn’t reach.

‘You’re the second person to ask me about her,’ he said at last, and Lottie felt her skin prickle because she knew it could only be Haru that Jamie was talking about.

‘It’s OK if you don’t want to answer. I was just curious, and –’

‘Hirana.’ Jamie didn’t look at her when he spoke, but instead turned to the curved window, his face so close to the glass that his breath made angel wings of condensation. ‘Hirana Rajput.’

He spoke as if he was reciting a prayer, soft and personal, more for himself than Lottie, and she didn’t want to interrupt his thoughts but a question popped out of her lips before she could stop it.

‘Why did they change your last name?’

Jamie turned to her with the panicked look of a trapped animal. ‘I …’ It was odd to see Jamie of all people scrabbling for words. ‘I’ve never thought about it,’ he confessed, only this wasn’t his usual blasé attitude – instead his eyes turned fiery again and stared off somewhere far away. ‘That book you gave me for my birthday last year. It said that hirana means “deer” in Punjabi.’ Jamie’s voice was low but his next words hit her ears like a screaming banshee. ‘Maybe they didn’t want any deer among the wolves.’

Jamie’s mother was the deer. Lottie didn’t know what that meant, only that she had to get to her dorm right now and figure it out. ‘Jamie, I –’

Before she could finish, a ruckus outside the window pulled their attention away. Vampy was yowling from the other side of the glass with a dead rabbit firmly caught between his teeth. To Lottie’s horror, the cat began tearing the poor creature to shreds in front of squealing students, all the while looking up at Jamie as if he expected praise.

Percy came up behind the cat, waving at them in apology, entirely oblivious to the enormity of their conversation. He scooped up Vampy, who yowled in protest when Percy, in a panic, kicked the still-twitching creature under a bush.