The bell rang, freeing me. I stood up and gathered my things together. “Sorry, Ms. Terwilliger. I’m flattered that you think I’m such an upstanding person, but I’m already caught up in one epic battle of good versus evil. I don’t need another.”

I left our session feeling both troubled and angry and hoped the next two months of this semester would speed by. If this Alchemist mission continued into next year, then creative writing or some other elective would become a very viable choice for my schedule. It was a shame too because I’d really loved Ms. Terwilliger when I first met her. She was brilliant and knew her subject area—history, not magic—and had encouraged me in that. If she’d shown the same enthusiasm for teaching me history as she did magic, we wouldn’t have ended up in this mess.

My dinners were usually spent with Julia and Kristin or “the family.” Tonight was a family night. I found Eddie and Angeline already at a table when I entered East’s cafeteria, and as usual, he seemed grateful for my presence.

“Well, why not?” Angeline was saying as I sat down with my tray. It was Chinese food night, and she held chopsticks, which seemed like a bad idea. I’d tried to teach her how to use them once, with no luck. She’d gotten angry and stabbed an eggroll so hard that the sticks had broken.

“I just… well, it’s not my thing,” Eddie said, clearly groping for an answer to whatever her question was about. “I’m not going at all. With anyone.”

“Jill will be there with Micah,” pointed out Angeline slyly. “Won’t you need to come keep an eye on her since it’s not at the school?”

Eddie’s answer was a pained look.

“What are you talking about?” I finally asked.

“The Halloween Dance,” said Angeline.

That was news to me. “There’s a Halloween Dance?”

Eddie dragged himself from his misery to give me a surprised look. “How do you not know? There are signs everywhere.”

I stirred around my steamed vegetables. “They must not be anywhere I’ve been.”

Eddie gestured with his fork to something behind me. Turning, I looked back toward the food line I’d just been in. There, hanging above it on the wall, was an enormous banner that read HALLOWEEN DANCE. It listed the date and time and was decorated with badly drawn pumpkins.

“Huh,” I said.

“How can you memorize entire books but miss something like that?” asked Angeline.

“Because Sydney’s brain only records ‘useful’ information,” Eddie said with a smile. I didn’t deny it.

“Don’t you think Eddie should go?” pushed Angeline. “He needs to watch out for Jill. And if he goes, we might as well go together.”

Eddie shot me a desperate look, and I tried to find him a way out of this. “Well, yeah, of course he’ll go… especially if it’s off-site.” The banner mentioned some venue I’d never heard of. We’d seen no sign of the Moroi who were after Jill, but an unknown place presented new dangers. Inspiration hit. “But that’s the thing. He’ll be on-duty. He’ll spend the whole time checking the place out, watching for mysterious people. It’d be a waste for him to, uh, go with you. You probably wouldn’t have much fun. Better to go with someone else.”