I know something’s off when I walk into Mr. Val’s class and notice Natalie, Jasmine, and Michelle glaring at me. I choose to smile at them and slide into my seat. Their gazes burn my back the whole hour. At the end of class, I hope to escape first, but Natalie and her friends have other ideas. They barrel past me, knocking me into my desk. If Mr. Val notices, he doesn’t say anything.

Lennon meets me outside Walcourt, bursting with excitement.

“You won!” she cries, her hair dancing as she jumps up and down.

“Won?”

“You’re our princess for queen’s ransom! It was announced this morning.”

Oh no. I told Shy I didn’t want that.

“Is there a way to…I don’t know…relinquish the title?”

Lennon frowns. “Why would you want to? You beat Natalie Rivera! Did you see the look on her face?”

I can’t really pinpoint why, but Lennon’s excitement at my having beat Natalie seems a little off—almost vengeful.

“I’m not interested.”

Lennon blinks at me like she can’t comprehend the words that just came out of my mouth. Finally, she shrugs. “Talk to Shy.”

I don’t want to talk to Shy.

He knows things about me. When he looks at me, I see him stitching it together in his head—sees the dead, knows my weapons, lies.

After he left on Saturday, I spent the rest of the weekend warding my house against the dead when Mom wasn’t holed up in her room. Sprinkling a mix of crushed garlic and cloves under the windows outside and at the front and back doors. I also burned sage in my room. Mom wouldn’t let me do it throughout the house. She hates the smell, and I could tell from how little I saw of her that she was having an episode that I didn’t want to exacerbate.

I placed Shy’s obsidian in my window, because despite the fact that it won’t keep people like him away, I believe he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to the dead. And if the ones from the mass grave are looking for me, I want to do everything I can to keep them away. After seeing the scythe sheathed at Shy’s side, I know he’s one of them: the people who hunted me after Chase died.

If ever there is a sign I need to move forward carefully, this is it. I’d already made too many mistakes, but I think I can right this ship so long as I find my coin.