Now David’s skin had taken a bit of a greenish cast, and I grabbed one of the extra buckets, just in case. “I was at school Friday night, working on the paper,” he said, almost like he was talking to himself. “Dr. DuPont . . . do you think he was after me, and killed Mr. Hall when he got in the way?”

“I don’t know,” I told him. “But that makes sense. And you’re sure nothing like this had ever happened to you before?”

Briefly, he was the old David again. “Are you asking me if I’m sure no one has ever tried to kill me before, Pres? Trust me, nothing like this has ever happened.”

“That you know of.”

That wiped the smirk right off his face. “Oh God. You’re right. If you hadn’t told me, I never would’ve known about Friday night. Mr. Hall and Dr. DuPont and you and swords . . .”

He trailed off, and for a long moment, he sat there, totally quiet, twisting his fingers and breathing. Then he glanced back up at me, he nodded. “Okay. Processed. Now what do we do?”

As bizarre as it sounds, I wanted to . . . I don’t know, hug him. He’d taken all this weirdness and done the same thing I’d managed to do with it: take it in, feel crazy for a little bit, and then deal.

Maybe David Stark wasn’t completely useless.

“When Dr. DuPont tried to kill me, he called me a ‘Paladin.’”

“Like Charlemagne,” David said, almost to himself.

“What?”

Shaking his head, David said, “Charlemagne. He was this French king—”

Irritated, I cut him off with a wave of my hand. “I know that. I was in AP European History, too. But what does he have to do with Paladins?”

“He had a group of knights called Paladins. I don’t remember anything about them having superpowers, though.”

Well, that was something, at least.

As briefly as I could, I filled David in on what I’d learned about Paladins so far. When I finished, he nodded. “So you think I’m your noble cause.”

“I really hope you’re not, but it’s looking like that’s it. Which is why, yet again, I’m going to ask you if there’s anything you can think of, any reason people would care about you enough to want to kill you. I know you write annoying articles, but if I haven’t wanted to murder you yet, I don’t know why anyone else would.”

He gave a little snort of laughter. “Fair enough. But I’m telling you, Harper, there’s nothing. I’m just . . . a guy.”

But he was flexing his fingers, and I knew there was something he wasn’t telling me.