It’s a book with letters written in blood. The same blood from my walls.

I’m being led to him with a blood trail. But why?

Footsteps approach down the stairs above me, and Fiona appears on the landing with her bag, like she has no intention of returning to class. She sits next to me, swinging her backpack onto her lap.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hey!” Her face is heart-shaped and dimpled, her eyes magnified behind a pair of round glasses. Her hair falls in two pigtails over either shoulder, resting on the lapels of her blazer. She crosses her legs so the plaid skirt forms a blanket at her knees and pulls out a box of crackers. “Seaweed nougat?”

“What’s that?”

“Delicious.”

I eat a cracker. It’s savory with a sweet filling. “That is good. Did Ms. Kingston send you out?”

“I walked out.”

“Why?”

“Because . . . I really feel like they’re ganging up on you.” She chews and speaks with her mouth half-full. “Chad and Ms. Kingston. Chad probably did that to your book. Seems like a stunt he’d pull.”

“You think?”

“He stares at you a lot. I’ve noticed that.” She pulls her knees to her chest and rests her hands on her saddle shoes. And then she faces down the stairs, where a teacher’s footsteps are clacking in the hallway.

We jump to our feet at the same time, then rush up the stairs and out of sight. She’s laughing like we got away with something. “Do you ever hate it here?” she asks.

“Every day.”

She spins around the landing like a ballerina dulled in the light. “Do you want to have lunch together today?”

“Yeah, of course!”

Her eyebrows rise at my enthusiasm, and I’m a little embarrassed—I don’t usually get so excited. But then, nobody’s ever invited me to lunch except for Grady, and Jalen from my old school, who I never see anymore and will probably never see again.

The fountains and tables in the lunch courtyard are like what you’d find in the garden of an elusive aristocrat from the dark ages. Statues of cherubs holding cornucopias of fruit. In the middle of the courtyard, a stone version of Sam the saber cat—our mascot, pisses water from his mouth and into a pool of pennies.

We take a table in the nook of a brick wall and a hedge. Fiona unzips a lunch bag and stares at my hand.

Ecto-mist has been thicker in the air all day, erupting in quick lightning strikes, centralizing in pockets of static storm clouds. That’s probably why there are zigzags and bubbles scribbled across my knuckles. Sometimes that world consumes my every thought. Sometimes all I hear is screaming—like now. Someone is screaming, and it sounds like there’s water in their throat. Fiona’s mouth is moving, but I can’t even hear the words.