Hex Hall

Casnoff want with him? Was he like an EMT or something?

Mrs. Casnoff nodded, her grip still tight on my shoulders. "Yes. Cal," she repeated. "He lives next to the pond. Get him and tell him what's happened."

I turned and ran for the stairs. As I ran, I saw Jenna coming out of our room. I thought I heard her calling my name, but by then I was already out the front door and into the night.

Even though the day had been warm, now it was cold enough to make goose bumps stand up on my arms. The only light came from the school behind me, those huge windows making even bigger rectangles of light on the lawn. Knowing the lake was to my left, I turned that way and kept running, the cool air going in and out of my lungs like knives. I could just make out a dark lumpy shape that I really, really hoped was Cal's house, and not, like, a storage shack or something. Even though I was trying to push the panic away, all I could see was Chaston bleeding to death on those black-

and-white tiles.

As I got closer, I saw that it was definitely a house. I could hear faint music coming from inside, and there was a little bit of light in the window.

By now I was breathing so hard I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get any words out.

I only had to bang on the door for about three seconds before it was flung open, and Cal stood before me.

I'd assumed he'd be old and burly with a side order of crotchety, so I was really shocked to find myself facing the jock guy I'd seen on the first day, the one I thought might have been someone's older brother. He couldn't have been more than nineteen, and his only concession to burliness was a flannel shirt and his vaguely annoyed expression.

"Students aren't allowed--" he started, but I cut him off.

"Mrs. Casnoff sent me to get you. It's Chaston. She's hurt."

As soon as I'd said "Mrs. Casnoff," he'd closed the door behind him.

Then he was moving past me and running across the yard toward the house.

Wiped out from my earlier sprint, I lagged behind.

By the time we got back to Chaston, she'd been pulled out of the tub and wrapped in a towel. Bandages covered the holes on her neck, and were wrapped tightly over both wrists. But she still looked really pale, and her eyes were closed.

Elodie and Anna were huddled against the sink in their pajamas, clutching each other and sniffling. Mrs. Casnoff was kneeling by Chaston's head, murmuring something. Whether it was comfort or magic, I didn't know.

She looked up when Cal came in, and her face seemed to sag in relief, making her look more like someone's concerned grandmother than a formidable headmistress. "Thanks be," she said softly. As she stood, I saw that her heavy silk robe was soaked at the knees and probably ruined. She didn't seem to notice.

"My office," she said to Cal as he knelt and scooped Chaston into his arms.

Mrs. Casnoff moved out into the hall, spreading her arms to part the crowd of students gathered outside the bathroom. "Back up, children, give us some room. I assure you, Miss Burnett will be fine. Just a small accident."

Everybody retreated, and the groundskeeper emerged, with Chaston in his arms. Her cheek rested against his chest, and I saw that her lips were purplish.

As the three disappeared down the stairs, I heard someone behind me sigh,"Wow." I turned and noticed Siobhan lounging against the bathroom doorframe.

"What?" she said. "Don't tell me you wouldn't give up a little blood to get carried around by that."

Siobhan started when Elodie and Anna walked out of the bathroom looking shaky and pale. Then Elodie's eyes fixed on something behind me and narrowed. "It was you," she spat. I turned and saw Jenna standing outside our bedroom door.

"You did this," Elodie continued, slowly advancing on Jenna, who, proving herself either brave or completely insane, held her ground and continued to stare at Elodie.

The whole mood in the hallway changed. I think despite being worried about Chaston, we were all sort of anticipating an Elodie/Jenna smackdown, maybe to get our minds off the blood still pooled on the bathroom floor, maybe because teenage girls are horrible creatures who like to watch other girls fight. Who knows?

Jenna's cool faltered for just a second, and she glanced down at her feet. When she lifted her head, however, that same bored, languid look was in her eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Liar!" Elodie cried, and tears spilled down her cheeks. "You're killers, all of you vamps. You don't belong here."

"She's right," someone piped up, and I saw Nausicaa push her way through the crowd. Her wings were flapping angrily, stirring the air around her. Taylor was standing just behind her, dark eyes wide.

Jenna laughed, but it sounded forced. I looked around and realized the crowd had thinned around her, making her look very small and alone.

"And what?" she asked, her voice shaking a little. "None of your kind has ever killed? None of you witches or shapeshifters or fae? Vampires are the only ones who've ever taken a life?"

All eyes were on Elodie, and I think we expected her to lunge for

Jenna's throat or something.

But she had the power and she knew it. Her green eyes were positively glittering as she sneered, "What do you know about anything?

You're not even a real Prodigium."

The breath that everyone had been holding seemed to rush out all at once. She'd said it. The one thing they all thought but never acknowledged out loud.

"Our families' powers are ancient," Elodie continued, her face pale, except for two red spots on her cheeks. "We are the descendents of angels.

And what are you? A pathetic little human who was fed on by a parasite; a monster."

Jenna was shaking now. "So I'm the monster? What about you, Elodie? Holly told me what you and your little friends were trying to do."

I waited for Elodie to fire back with something, but instead she turned very pale. Anna had stopped crying and was clutching Elodie's shoulder.

"Let's go," she implored in a high voice.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Elodie said, but she looked scared.

"The hell you don't. Your little coven was trying to raise a demon."

You'd think the crowd would have gasped. I think I gasped. But the rest of the hall was quiet.

Elodie just stared at Jenna, but I thought I heard Anna whimper.

In the face of that stare, Jenna started to babble. "She said you wanted more power, and that you wanted to do a summoning ritual, and you needed a sacrifice to do that. Y-you have to let the demon feed . . . feed on someone, so . . ."

Elodie had regained her composure. "A demon? You think we could raise a demon here and not have Mrs. Casnoff and the Vandy and the

Council jump all over us? Please."

Someone in the crowd snickered, and the tension broke. One person laughing gives everyone permission to laugh, so that's what they did.

Jenna stood there listening to that mocking laughter a lot longer than I could have. Then she pushed past me and went down the hall and into our room. She slammed the door behind her.

Once she was gone, the murmuring began.

Nausicaa was talking to Siobhan. "Which one of us is next?"

Siobhan's blue wings shuddered as she replied, "All I did was fly to catch the bus! I don't deserve to be locked up here with killers."

"Jenna isn't a killer," I said, but I realized I didn't know that for sure.

She was a vampire. Vampires feed off humans.

And maybe witches.

No. I shoved that thought away even as I remembered Jenna trying so hard not to look at my blood that first day.

To my surprise, it was Taylor who piped up next, saying, "Sophie's right. There's no proof Jenna killed anybody."

I have no idea if she said it because she actually believed it, or if she just wanted to irritate Nausicaa, but I was grateful anyway.

"Thanks," I said, but Beth stepped in between me and Taylor.

"I wouldn't listen to anything Sophie Mercer has to say, Taylor."

I stared at Beth. What happened to our whole hairsniffing moment of bonding?

"I was talking to one of the other weres, and she said Sophie's dad is the head of the Council."

I heard a few murmurs at that, and some of the older girls glared at me. The younger ones just looked confused.

Crap.

"Her dad is the one who let vampires into Hex," Beth said. She looked back at me, and I saw the gleam of her fangs as they slid out of her gums.

"Of course she's gonna say Jenna's innocent. Otherwise her daddy's job would be on the line."

I did not have time for this. "I've never even met my dad, and I'm certainly not here to further his political agenda or anything. I broke the rules and got sentenced to Hex. Just like everyone else."

Taylor narrowed her eyes. "Your dad is head of the Council?"

Before I could answer, Mrs. Casnoff appeared at the top of the stairs.

She was still in her wet robe, and she looked majorly stressed, but she wasn't nearly as pale, so I took that as a good sign.

"Attention, ladies," she said in a voice that managed to be powerful without actually yelling. "Thanks to Cal's efforts, Miss Burnett has regained consciousness and appears to be on the mend."

The collective sigh of relief and following murmurs covered my leaning against Anna and whispering, "What does she mean about this Cal guy?"

I'd expected a snotty response about how stupid I was, but Anna was apparently too relieved about Chaston to be bitchy. "He's a white warlock," she replied. "A super-powerful one. He can heal wounds other witches and warlocks can't."

"Why didn't he heal Holly, then?" I asked, and that got me a snotty look. Good to know Anna was back to normal. "Holly was already dead when they found her, thanks to your little friend. Cal can only heal the living; he can't raise the dead. No one can."

"Oh," I said lamely, but she was already talking to Elodie.

"Her parents will come for her tomorrow," Mrs. Casnoff continued, "and I hope she will be able to rejoin us after winter break."

"Has she said anything?" Elodie asked. "Did she say who did it?"

Mrs. Casnoff frowned slightly. "Not at this time. And I encourage all of you to use your best judgment before you go around spreading rumors about this incident. We're obviously taking this very seriously, and the last thing we need is panic."

Elodie opened her mouth, but a look from Mrs. Casnoff stopped whatever nasty thing she was about to say.

"All right," Mrs. Casnoff said with a clap of her hands. "Everyone off to bed now. We can discuss this further in the morning."

When I returned to my room, Jenna was inside, sitting on the dresser next to the window. Her forehead was resting on her knees.

"Jenna?"

She didn't look at me. "It's happening again," she said in a thick voice.

"Just like Holly."

She took a deep shuddery breath and said, "When I saw them carrying

Chaston out . . . it was exactly the same. The holes in her neck, the slashes on her wrists. The only difference is that Chaston was white. Holly w-was nearly . . . nearly gray when they p-pulled her out. . . ." Her voice broke.

I sat on my bed and laid a hand on her knee. "Hey," I said softly, "that wasn't your fault."

She looked up, her eyes red with anger. "Yeah, but that's not what everyone else thinks, is it? They all think I'm what, a 'bloodsucking freak'?"

She hopped off the dresser. "Like I asked for this," she muttered in a low voice, pulling clothes out of her closet and tossing them on her bed.

"Like I wanted to come to this damn school anyway."

"Jen," I started to say, but she whirled around on me.

"I hate it here!" she cried. "I . . . I hate taking stupidass classes like A

History of Nineteenth Century Witches. God, I j-just wanna take algebra or something stupid like that. I wanna eat lunch-- real lunch--in a cafeteria, and have an after-school job, and go to the prom."

With a sob, she sat down on her bed, like all the anger in her had evaporated. "I don't want to be a vampire," she whispered, and then she broke down crying, burying her face in the black T-shirt she was holding.

I looked around the room, and for the first time, all the pink didn't seem cheerful; it just seemed sad, like Jenna was trying to hold on to whatever life she'd had before. There are times when saying nothing is definitely the best course of action, and I felt like this was one of those times. So I just crossed the room and sat on her bed, stroking her hair like my mom did for me the night I'd found out I was going to Hecate.

And after a while, Jenna leaned back against her pillows and started talking.

"She was so nice to me," she said softly. "Amanda."

I didn't have to ask who Amanda was. I knew she was finally telling me the story of how she'd come to be a vampire.

"That was the biggest part. Not that she was cute, or smart, or funny.

She was those things too, but it was the nice that got me. No one had ever paid so much attention to me before. When she told me what she was, that she wanted me to be with her forever, I didn't really believe it. I didn't believe it until I felt her teeth in my neck."

She paused, and there was no sound in the room except the soft rustling of the breeze in the oaks outside.

"When the Change happened, it was . . . amazing. I felt stronger and just better, you know? Like the rest of my life had been a dream. Those first two nights with her were the best nights of my whole life. And then they killed her."

"They?"

Her eyes met mine. My tiny reflection in her eyes looked very pale.

"The Eye," she replied, and an involuntary shiver ran through me.

"There were two of them. They broke into the motel where we were hiding, and they staked her while she was sleeping. But she woke up and she started . . . she started screaming, and it took both of them to hold her down.

So I got up ran out the door and I just kept running. For three days I hid in somebody's garden shed. I only left there because I was starving. So I stole some food from a convenience store.

"As soon as I put the first Twinkie in my mouth, I felt like was I going to die. I chewed it maybe twice before I had to spit it out. The--" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "The manager of the store came out and found me on my knees in the parking lot. He saw the wrapper and started yelling about calling the cops, and I--"

She broke off and wouldn't meet my eyes. I put my hand on her shoulder, trying to console her or let her know I didn't care that she'd drunk someone's blood, but I couldn't look at her face.

"After . . . after that, I felt better. I got a bus back into the city and found Amanda's parents. They were vamps too. Amanda's dad had been bitten years ago and had changed all of them. So they contacted the Council and I got sent here."

She looked at me again. "It wasn't supposed to be like this," she said plaintively. "I don't want to be like this without Amanda. I only wanted to be a vampire if we could be together forever. She promised." Tears were glistening in her eyes.

"Wow," I said. "Who knew girls sucked just as bad as boys?"

She sighed and tilted her head back against the headboard, eyes closed. "They're going to kick me out."

"Why?"

She looked incredulous. "Um . . . hello? They're totally going to pin

Chaston on me. Holly was one thing, but two girls in a six-month period?"

She shook her head. "Somebody's gonna go down for that, and you can bet it's gonna be me."

"Why?" I repeated. Jenna was the only person at Hecate I considered a friend. Well, maybe Archer and I were friends now, but there was still that whole possiblybeing-in-love-with-him-maybe-a-little thing, and that pushed him out of the friend zone. If Jenna left, I'd be at the mercy of Elodie and

Anna.

No way.

"You don't know that they're gonna kick you out. Chaston may remember what happened to her. Just wait and talk to Mrs. Casnoff, okay?

Maybe by tomorrow everyone will have calmed down some."

Her derisive snort told me exactly how likely she found that scenario.

After a moment she began putting her clothes back in the closet. I stood up and helped her.

"So how was cellar duty tonight?"

"Cellar-ific."

"And your stupendously futile crush on Archer Cross?"

"Still stupendous. Still futile."

She nodded as she hung up one of her many Hecate blazers. "Good to know."

We worked in companionable silence.

"What did you mean about Elodie and her coven trying to raise a demon?"

"That's what Holly told me they were working on," she said as she closed the closet. "Mrs. Casnoff was really pimping the whole L'Occhio di

Dio will kill us all thing she's so big on, and their coven freaked out. Holly said they thought if they raised a demon, it would give them more power and they'd be safer should stuff go down."

"Did they do it?"

She shook her head. "I don't know."

The lights blinked out, plunging us into darkness. I heard a few startled shrieks from down the hall, but then Mrs. Casnoff's voice boomed, "Lights out is mandatory tonight. Go to bed, children."

Jenna sighed. "You gotta love Hex Hall."

Bumping into furniture and whispering bad words, we made our way to our respective beds.

I flopped down on mine with a low groan. I hadn't realized how exhausted I was until I felt my cool soft pillow under my head. So I was nearly asleep when I heard Jenna whisper, "Thank you."

"For what?" I mumbled.

"Being my friend."

"Wow," I replied. "That's like, the lamest thing anyone's ever said to me."

She gave a cry of mock outrage, and a second later one of her many pillows landed on my face.

"I was trying to be nice," she insisted, but I could hear the laughter in her voice.

"Well, don't," I retorted. "I like my friends mean and hateful."

"Will do," she replied, and a few minutes later we were both asleep.

I awoke to Jenna's screaming and the smell of smoke.

Confused, I sat up. Morning sunlight was streaming into the room and onto Jenna's bed. It took me a minute to realize that that's where the smoke was coming from.

Jenna's bed. Jenna.

She was frantically trying to stand up, but she was tangled in her sheets, and panic was making her clumsy.

My feet barely touched the floor as I leaped from my bed and tossed my comforter over her. As I did, I caught sight of her hand. The normally pale skin was bright red, and it was bubbling up in places.

Without thinking, I pushed her into her closet.

Once she was in, I grabbed one of her sheets and shoved it against the crack underneath the door. Jenna was crying, but she wasn't making that high-pitched sound of pain anymore.

"What happened?" I shouted through the wood.

"My bloodstone," she sobbed. "It's gone!"

I ran to her bed and crouched to peer under it.

Maybe it just fell off, I told myself. Maybe the clasp broke, or it got caught on her pillow.

I wanted it to be one of those things.

I pulled everything off the bed, even shoved the mattress off the box springs, but Jenna's bloodstone wasn't anywhere.

Rage surged inside of me.

"Wait here," I yelled to Jenna.

"Oh, like I'm going anywhere!" she replied when I was already halfway out the door.

There were a few girls in the hall. I recognized one, Laura Harris, from Magical Evolution. Her eyes went wide when she saw me.

I ran to Elodie's room and pounded on the door.

She opened it, and I pushed past her into the room.

"Where is it?"

"Where's what?" she asked. There were dark circles under her eyes.

"Jenna's bloodstone. I know you took it, now where is it?"

Elodie's eyes flashed. "I didn't take her stupid bloodstone. Although if

I had, it would've been totally justified after what she did to Chaston last night."

"She didn't do anything to Chaston, and you could have killed her!" I shouted.

"If she didn't attack Chaston, then who did?" Elodie asked, raising her voice. Little threads of light were racing under her skin, and her hair was starting to crackle. I could feel my own magic pulsing like a second heartbeat.

"Maybe that demon you were trying to summon," I fired back.

Elodie made a disgusted sound. "Like I said last night, if there were a demon, Mrs. Casnoff would know it. We all would."

"What's going on?"

We both whirled to see Anna standing in the doorway, her hair damp and a towel in her hand.

"Sophie thinks we took the vamp's stupid bloodstone," Elodie told her.

"What? That's ridiculous," Anna said, but her voice was tight.

I closed my eyes and tried to get control of my temper and my magic.

Then, picturing Jenna's necklace in my mind, I murmured, "Bloodstone."

Elodie rolled her eyes, but there was a distinct squeaking sound as one of Anna's dresser drawers slid open. The bloodstone rose up from underneath a pile of clothes, its red center glinting.

It floated into my hand, and I closed my fist around it.

Surprise flickered across Elodie's face for a moment. Then it vanished.

"You have what you came for, so get out."

Anna was looking at the floor. I wanted to say something withering, something that would make her feel ashamed for what she'd done, but in the end I decided it wasn't worth it.

When I got back to the room, Jenna's sobs had dwindled to sniffling. I opened the closet door a crack and handed her the bloodstone. Once it was back on her neck, she came out of the closet and sat on her bed, cradling her burned hand.

I sat next to her. "You should get this looked at." She nodded. Her eyes were still red and watery.

"Was it Elodie and Anna?" she asked.

"Yeah. Well, it was Anna. I don't think Elodie knew, but it's not like she would've disapproved."

Jenna released a shuddery breath. I reached up and brushed her pink stripe out of her eyes. "You need to tell Mrs. Casnoff what they did."

"No," she said. "No way."

"Jenna, they could have killed you," I insisted.

She stood up, pulling my comforter around her. "It'll just make it worse," she said wearily. "Remind everyone that vamps are different from the rest of you. That I don't belong here."

"Jenna," I started.

"I said drop it, Sophie!" she snapped, her back still turned.

"But you're hurt--"

And then she whirled on me, her eyes bloodred, her face contorted with rage. Her fangs slid out, and she grabbed my shoulders with a hiss.

There was nothing of my friend in her face.

Only a monster.

I made a shocked sound of hurt and fear, and she abruptly released me. My knees gave out, and I crumpled to the floor.

She was immediately beside me, Jenna again, her eyes pale blue and filled with apology. "Oh God, Soph, I'm so sorry! Are you okay? Sometimes when I get stressed . . ." Tears spilled down her cheeks. "I would never hurt you," she said, pleading.

I didn't trust myself to speak, so I just nodded.

"Girls? Is everything all right?"

Jenna looked over her shoulder. Mrs. Casnoff stood in our doorway, her face unreadable.

"We're fine," I said, standing up. "I just slipped, and Jenna was, uh, helping me up."

"I see," Mrs. Casnoff said. She looked back and forth between me and

Jenna before saying, "Jenna, if you don't mind, I need to speak with you for a moment."

"Sure," Jenna replied, in a voice that was anything but certain.

I watched them leave the room, then sat down on Jenna's bed. My shoulders were sore, and Jenna's fingers had left a mark.

I sat there absentmindedly rubbing my arms, the smoky smell of

Jenna's burned skin still stinging my nose.

And I wondered.

A week later, things still weren't any better. No one had heard anything from Chaston, so Jenna was still the number-one suspect.

After dinner, I was in the cellar with Archer again. This was our fourth time down there, and we'd begun to work out a kind of routine. For the first twenty minutes or so we just worked on the shelves. Half the stuff we'd catalogued the last time had usually moved, so we'd spend time trying to sort that out. Once this was done we'd take a break and talk. Our conversations hadn't really graduated beyond small talk about our families and the occasional insult, which wasn't that surprising. Other than being only children, Archer and I had almost nothing in common. He'd grown up super wealthy in a big house on the coast of Maine. I'd lived with my mom in everything from the cottage in Vermont to a room in a Ramada Inn for six weeks. But I still found myself looking forward to our talks. In fact I'd started dreading the days when I didn't have cellar duty, which was almost too pathetic to contemplate.

Archer sat in his usual place on the steps while I hoisted myself onto a bare space on top of Shelf M.

He pointed at a pile of empty dust-covered jars in the corner. Two of them rose in the air and twisted and contorted until they were cans of soda.

He flicked his hand in my direction, and one of them sailed straight toward me. I caught it, and was surprised by how icy cold it was.

"I'm impressed." I meant it, and he nodded his head in thanks.

"Yeah, turning jars into soda. Let the world tremble before my power."

"Well, at least it proves you still have powers."

He looked up at me quizzically. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Crap. "I--uh, I just . . . some people said that you left last year because you wanted to get your powers taken away."

I'd assumed he'd heard all those rumors, but he looked genuinely surprised. "So that's what everybody thinks. Huh."

"They know you didn't," I replied hastily. "Lots of people saw you drop Justin on the first day."

A smile played around the corners of his mouth. He looked up at me.

"Bad dog."

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn't help smiling back. "Shut up. So where did you go?"

He shrugged and rested his elbows on his knees. "I just needed a break. It's not unheard of. The Council acts like it'll never let anybody out of

Hecate, but they'll give you a leave of absence if you petition them. I guess they figured I needed it, especially after Holly."

"Right," I said, but the mention of Holly had me thinking about

Chaston again. Her parents had come to get her the day after her attack.

They'd been in Mrs. Casnoff's office for over two hours before Mrs. Casnoff had come to get Jenna.

When Jenna had come back to the room, she hadn't said a word, just gone to lie on her bed and stare at the ceiling.

The sudden shift in my mood must have showed on my face, because

Archer asked, "Is Jenna okay? I noticed she wasn't at dinner tonight."

I sighed and leaned back. "It's not good," I told him. "She won't go to class or meals. She barely gets out of bed. I don't know what they said to her in that meeting, but the fact that they called her in there seems to prove her guilt to everybody."

He nodded. "Yeah, Elodie's pretty pissed."

"Wow, what a shame. I hope it doesn't give her wrinkles."

"Don't be like that."

"Look, I'm sorry your girlfriend is upset, but the only friend I have here is being accused of something she didn't do, and Elodie is leading the charge. I just can't feel sorry for her right now, okay?"

I waited for him to fire back, but apparently he decided to drop it. He got up off the steps and went back to his clipboard.

"Have you seen anything that looks like 'Demon-possessed

Instrument: J. Mompesson'?"

"Possibly." I hopped off the shelf and went to the space where I'd found a drum the other day, but of course it had vanished. By the time we found it (it had hidden itself behind a pile of books that disintegrated when we moved them. "Really, really hope those weren't important" had been

Archer's only comment), our hour was nearly up.

I heard the lock above us click open. The Vandy had stopped coming down to the cellar to get us; she just unlocked the door.

We tossed our clipboards down and headed for the stairs.

As we started up, I could've sworn I saw a flash of green out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned around to look, there was nothing. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and I rubbed my hand absently over them.

"You okay?" Archer asked as he opened the door.

"Yeah," I said, but I was freaked out. "It's just . . . Can I ask you something really weird?"

"Those are my favorite kinds of questions."

"Do you think anyone around here could raise a demon?"

I thought he'd laugh or make a sarcastic comment, but instead he paused outside the cellar door and looked at me in that intense way he had.

"Why would you ask that?"

"Something Jenna said the other night. She thinks Holly may have been killed because, uh, some people raised a demon."

Archer took that in before shaking his head and saying, "Nah, there's no way. Mrs. Casnoff would know if there was a demon on campus. They're pretty conspicuous."

"Why? Are they green and horny?" I willed a blush away and said, "I mean, as in having horns, not . . . the other."

"Not necessarily. They can look as human as you and me. Some of them even used to be human."

"Have you ever seen one?"

He looked at me incredulously. "Uh, no. Thank God. I like my face where it is and not eaten off."

"Yeah," I said as we reached the main staircase. "But you're a warlock. Couldn't you take a demon?"

"Not unless I had that," he said, pointing to the stained-glass angel above the stairs. "See that sword? Demonglass. Only thing that can kill demons."

"And so originally named," I commented, making him laugh.

"You mock," he said, "but that's some hardcore stuff. The only place you can find it is in hell, so it's kinda hard to come by."

"Wow," I said, looking at the window with new appreciation.

"Archer!" I heard Elodie trill from somewhere upstairs. I walked past him. "Well, thanks. See ya."

"Mercer."

I turned around.

He was standing at the bottom of the stairs, and in the soft lights of the chandelier he was so handsome that my chest hurt. It was easy to forget how irritating he was when he looked that good. "What?" I asked in the most bored voice I could manage.

"Arch!"

Elodie came bounding past me, and Archer's eyes went from me to her.

I turned and ran up the stairs before I had to see her in his arms.

By the beginning of October, Chaston had sent written testimony into the Council, stating she couldn't remember anything about the attack, so

Jenna was allowed to stay. I'd thought that news would do something to remove the shadows from under her eyes, but it didn't. She hardly talked to anyone besides me, and even then she barely smiled, and she never laughed.

As for me, I started to feel like I might actually be getting the hang of life at Hecate. My classes were going well. Elodie and Anna had been shaken up for about two weeks after Chaston and temporarily lost their sadistic urge to torture me. Instead they pretty much ignored me. But by the middle of October they were back to normal, which for them meant making nasty remarks and talking about clothes.

I avoided trouble with the Vandy even though she'd made Archer my permanent Defense partner, probably in the hopes that he'd inadvertently kill me. But even that wasn't going too badly, although being forced to spend more time in close proximity to him was its own type of torture. In fact, the more time we spent cataloguing in the cellar or blocking each other's blows in Defense, the more I began to suspect that my crush might be deepening into something else, something that I really didn't want to put a name to. It wasn't just that he was hot--although, believe me, that was definitely part of it--it was the way he ran his fingers through his hair. The way he looked at me like I was actually interesting to talk to. The way his eyes lit up when he laughed at my jokes. Hell, the fact that he laughed at my jokes.

And the more I got to know him, the more wrong his dating Elodie seemed. He'd sworn there was more to Elodie than met the eye, but in the two months I'd been at Hecate, practically the only things I'd heard her talk about were spells for making your hair shinier or freckles disappear. She'd looked at me when mentioning that one. Even her essay for Lord Byron's class was about the way physical beauty enhanced a witch's power, supposedly because it gave her easier access to humans. It was ridiculous.

Now, sitting behind her in Ms. East's Magical Evolution class, I couldn't help but roll my eyes as she prattled on to Anna about the dress she was planning on conjuring for the school's annual All Hallow's Eve Ball in two weeks.

"Most people think redheads can't wear pink," she was saying, "but it totally depends on the shade of pink. Either really light pink or dark pink works best. And hot pink, of course, is just trashy."

This last bit was spoken in a louder voice for Jenna's benefit. She was sitting beside me, and even though she pretended to ignore them, I saw her fingers steal up to her pink streak a few minutes later.

I nudged her arm. "Don't listen to them. They're total bitches."

"Excuse me, Miss Mercer?"

I looked up to see Ms. East standing over my desk, one hand on her hip. Ms. East looked like she'd be one of the coolest teachers at Hecate.

Jenna and I privately joked that her look was dominatrix-chic. She was rail thin and always wore her dark maroon hair pulled back in a tight bun. Factor in her all-black wardrobe and sky-high heels, and she looked like she could easily be walking the runways in Paris. But like all the teachers at Hecate, Ms. East seemed to have been born with her sense of humor gland completely absent.

Now I smiled weakly at her and said, "Um . . . there are witches? In this class?"

The class erupted into giggles except for Elodie and Anna, who had probably guessed what I actually said, and were glaring at me.

The corners of Ms. East's mouth turned down a fraction of an inch, which was about as close to a frown as she got. I think she was afraid of creasing her perfectly smooth face.

"What a thrilling observation, Miss Mercer. However, you know that I do not tolerate interruptions in my class--"

"I wasn't interrupting," I interrupted, and Ms. East's mouth tilted down ever farther, which meant I'd just crossed into the land of Royally Screwed.

"Since you have so much to say, perhaps you would like to write it in an essay on the different classes of witches? Two thousand words, let us say? Due tomorrow."

As usual my mouth opened before my brain had a chance to stop it, and I yelped, "What? That's totally unfair!"

"And now you may exit my class. When you come back, kindly have your essay and an apology in hand."

I bit off a retort and gathered my things under Jenna's sympathetic gaze and Elodie's and Anna's smirks. It took a lot of self-control, but I didn't slam the door as I left.

I checked my watch and saw that I had forty minutes to kill until my next class, so I ran upstairs and dropped my books off before heading outside for a little fresh air.

It was one of those insanely beautiful days that only October seems capable of producing. The sky was a deep clear blue. The trees were still mostly green, with a few orange and gold leaves poking out here and there.

There was a pleasant sort of smoky-smelling breeze blowing, which felt just cool enough to make me glad I was wearing my blazer. So even though a part of me was still seething with the unfairness of getting kicked out of class, I was pretty happy about being given an unexpected free period, even though I should have been using it to write my stupid essay.

Just before I could do something super lame like spread my arms wide and burst into the chorus of "Colors of the Wind," I heard a voice say, "Why aren't you in class?"

I turned around to see the groundskeeper, Cal, standing behind me. As usual he was rocking his lumberjack look--all flannel and denim. And this time he even had a prop: a giant ax, which he held in his left hand, the lethal head gleaming dully against his boot.

I don't know what the expression on my face was as I stared at that ax, but I imagined I must have looked like Elmer Fudd when Bugs Bunny had dressed up as a girl--popping eyes, jaw dropped to the ground.

Apparently that wasn't too far off, because Cal seemed to stifle a laugh as he lifted the ax and rested it on his shoulder.

"Relax. I'm not a psycho."

"I know that," I snapped. "You're the healing janitor dude."

"Groundskeeper."

"Isn't that like a janitor?"

"No, it's like a groundskeeper."

From the two interactions I'd had with him, I'd assumed Cal was some sort of Neanderthal jock type. For one thing, he was super buff, and his hair was dark blond, making him look exactly like your average high school quarterback. Plus I'd barely ever heard him speak more than three words at a time. But maybe there was more than met the eye.

"So if you can heal with your touch, why are you working here as like, Hagrid, or whatever?"

He smiled, and I noticed his teeth were very white and very straight.

What was with this place? Even the staff looked like Abercrombie & Fitch models.

"Shouldn't you be out there healing really important people instead of here, pulling weeds and patching up teenagers?"

He shrugged. "When I was released from Hecate last year, I offered my services up to the Council. They decided my talents were most useful here, protecting their most precious treasures. You."

There was something so . . . I don't know, intimate, about the way he said it that I felt like I might burst out in giggles and start blushing. Then I caught myself. I already had one stupid crush. I wasn't about to start lusting after the groundskeeper, for God's sake.

Maybe he realized the way he'd said it was weird too, because he quickly cleared his throat. "I mean, all of you. You know, their kids."

"Right."

"Anyway, now get back to Portraits of Faeries in Eighteenth Century

France, or whatever other dumb-ass class you're skipping."

I crossed my arms, both because I was getting a little pissed and also because the breeze across the lake was turning chilly. "Actually, I got kicked out of Ms. East's class. Magical Evolution."

He snorted. "Man. Cellar duty for a semester, kicked out of class . . ."

"Tell me about it," I replied. "Apparently there's something about me that pisses off every teacher in this school."

To my surprise, Cal shook his head. "I don't think that's it."

Dimly in the distance, I heard the clanging bell that signaled class changes. I knew I should hurry back for Byron's class, but I wanted to hear what Cal had to say.

"What do you mean?"

"Look at it from their point of view, Sophie. Your dad is head of the

Council. Everybody at Hecate is bending over backward to not show favoritism to you. So maybe they're going a little overboard in the opposite direction, you know?"

I just nodded. Why wasn't I surprised to find out that yet another thing was my dad's fault?

"You okay?" Cal asked, his head tilted a little.

"Yeah," I answered way too brightly. I sounded like a cheerleader on a Kool-Aid high. "Yeah," I repeated, much more normally this time. "I gotta go. Don't wanna be late!"

I rushed past him, nearly colliding with one of his shoulders.

God, the guy's built like a freaking oak tree, I thought as I picked up my pace.

In the end, I was still late for Byron's class. Which meant that not only did I get yelled at--in iambic pentameter no less--but I also had to write a five-page essay on my "chronic and egregious tardiness."

"I think I need to find a homework spell," I whispered to Jenna as I slid into my seat.

She just gave a halfhearted shrug and went back to drawing faces in her notebook.

Faces, I couldn't help but notice, that looked a lot like Holly and

Chaston.

Later that night I worked on Ms. East's essay while Archer catalogued; I'd already written Byron's in my last class of the day, Classifications of Shapeshifters. Our teacher, Mr. Ferguson, was in love with the sound of his own voice, so he rarely paid attention to what we were doing at our desks. Jenna and I used to pass notes the whole time, but these days she usually spent the period doodling in her notebook and trying to shrink inside herself.

Archer and I had gotten to the point where we both barely catalogued more than ten things during our hour in the cellar. The Vandy hadn't said anything, which only confirmed my suspicion that the real point of cellar duty was being trapped down there for an hour three nights a week. After all, doing the work was pointless since everything we catalogued was in a different place the next time we arrived. We spent most of our time talking.

Since Jenna had started swimming in the deep end of the pity pool, Archer was pretty much the only friend I had. Elodie and Anna had completely given up on my joining their coven, and from what I'd heard, they were looking for white witches now, a sure sign that I had fallen below contempt with them. I tried to tell myself that it didn't matter, but the truth was, life at

Hecate had gotten pretty lonely.

"Do you think the teachers are hard on me because of my dad?" I asked Archer, looking up from the textbook spread across my lap.

"Probably." He hoisted himself onto an empty shelf. "Prodigium have pretty big egos. Not all of them are your dad's biggest fan, and Casnoff wouldn't want the other parents to think you're getting special treatment just because your dad is practically their king."

He raised an eyebrow. "Which makes you Crown Princess."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh yeah. Just let me polish my tiara and I'm set."

"Oh, come on, Mercer. I think you'd make a good queen. You've definitely got the snotty part down."

"I am not snotty!" I nearly yelped.

He leaned back on his elbows, a wicked smile on his face. "Please.

The first day I met you, you practically had a layer of permafrost covering you."

"Only because you were a jerk," I retorted. "You told me I sucked at being a witch."

"You did suck," he said with a laugh.

And then, in what was becoming a running joke, we said in unison, "Bad dog!" and smiled at each other.

"You're just not used to meeting women who don't fall all over your ass like you're in a boy band or something," I said when our laughter had subsided a little.

I'd turned back to my essay, so I had to look up when I realized he hadn't answered me.

He was looking at me with a small smile, a strange glint in his eye.

"So why didn't you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Well, according to you, women are always falling over me. So why didn't you? Not your type?"

I took a deep breath and hoped he didn't notice. Weird little moments like this one were getting too common with Archer and me. Maybe it was all the time we spent together alone in the cellar, or how familiar we'd gotten with each other's bodies while kicking the crap out of each other in Defense, but I was beginning to notice a subtle shift in our relationship. I wasn't delusional enough to believe that he actually liked me or anything, but flirting had definitely entered the picture. It left me feeling strange and totally unsure of myself in moments like these.

"Nope," I finally said, striving for a light tone. "I've always had a thing for the nerdy type. Arrogant pretty boys don't really ring my bell."

"So you think I'm pretty?"

"Shut up."

I needed to change the subject. "What about your family?" I asked.

He looked up, startled. "What?"

"Your family. Do they like my dad?"

He looked away quickly and gave a half shrug, but I could see something was wrong. "My family pretty much stays out of politics," he said. Then he held up his list. "Have you seen Vampire Fang: D. Frocelli?"

I shook my head.

As I turned back to my essay I wondered what the heck I'd said to freak Archer out so much. It occurred to me that in the past six weeks we'd been working together, Archer hadn't talked much about his family. It had never really bothered me before, but of course now that I knew he didn't want to talk about it, I was consumed by curiosity.

I wondered if Jenna would know anything about Archer's past, but then I quickly tossed the idea. Jenna was barely speaking to anyone and was clearly going through some major crap. The last thing she needed was me pestering her about my crush.

By the time the Vandy came for us, I'd already finished most of my essay, and I decided I would do the rest of it in the morning before class.

I walked back to my room, but as I did, I passed Elodie's open door and heard Anna's soft, lilting voice say, "Well, I'd be suspicious if it were my boyfriend."

I paused just outside the door and heard Elodie answer, "I would be if she weren't such a freak. Trust me, if Archer had to be stuck in the basement with any girl at this school, I'm positively thrilled it's Sophie Mercer. Archer wouldn't look at her twice."

It's funny. I knew that Archer wasn't interested in me, but actually hearing another person say it really, really sucked.

"She does have big boobs," Anna mused.

Elodie just snorted at that. "Please, Anna. Big boobs are not enough to compensate for being short and plain. And that hair!" Even though I couldn't see her, I imagined Elodie gave a shudder at that. I, meanwhile, was starting to feel vaguely nauseated. I knew I should walk away, but I couldn't stop listening. I wonder why it is that we always want to hear people talk about us, even if it's horrible stuff. And, you know, it's not like Elodie was saying anything I didn't know. I was short and plain and I did have crazy hair. I'd said these things about myself lots of times. So why were hot tears stinging my eyes?

"Yeah, but Archer is weird," Anna said. "Remember how mean he was to you first year? Like, didn't he call you a shallow bimbo, or something? Or dumb--"

"That's in the past now, Anna," Elodie said tightly, and I had to suppress a laugh. So Archer had apparently once been sensible. What had changed? Did Elodie actually have some depth to her, like he'd said? 'Cause

I sure wasn't hearing anything deeper than a bedpan.

"Anyway, even if Archer was insane enough to have a thing for

Sophie, after the All Hallow's Eve Ball, he won't even think about looking at another girl."

"Why?"

"I've decided to give myself to him."

Oh, gross. Who says stuff like that? Why didn't she just say "delicate flower" or "carnal treasure" or something equally stupid?

But Anna, of course, squealed. "Omigod, that is so romantic!"

Elodie giggled, which was a weird sound coming from her. Girls like

Elodie should cackle. "I know, right?"

I'd definitely heard enough, so I tiptoed away and softly opened the door to my room.

Jenna was, as usual, curled up on her bed, one of her hot-pink throws pulled over her. She was doing this a lot now, pretending to be asleep so that

I wouldn't talk to her. Normally I just gave her what she wanted and didn't attempt a conversation. But tonight I sat on the edge of her bed hard enough to bounce her a little. "Guess what I just overheard?" I singsonged.

She pulled down one corner of the blanket, and one eye blinked owlishly at me. "What?"

I repeated the conversation between Anna and Elodie, finishing up with, "Can you believe that? 'Give myself to him'? Ugh. What's wrong with just saying sex, you know?"

I was rewarded with a tiny smile. "That is pretty stupid," Jenna said.

"Totally stupid," I agreed.

"Did they say anything about Chaston?"

Surprised, I said, "Uh . . . no. Not that I heard, at least. But you heard what Mrs. Casnoff said at dinner a few nights ago. Chaston's fine and resting in the Riviera or some other glamorous place with her parents. She'll be back next year."

"I just can't believe they're gossiping about boys when one of their coven is dead, and another one nearly died just three weeks ago."

"Yeah, well, they're shallow jerks. Not exactly news, that."

"Yeah."

I stripped out of my clothes and pulled on a Hecate-issue blue tank top and a pair of pajama pants my mom had sent me last week. They were white cotton covered with tiny blue witches riding brooms. I think they were her way of saying she was sorry for the fight; I was sorry too, and had called her to tell her so. It felt nice to be on good terms with her again.

"Wow, I really bruised your shoulders," Jenna said, sitting up.

I glanced down. "Oh . . . right. No big deal. They don't even hurt."

They did still hurt a little.

Jenna's eyes were bright, and I think she was trying not to cry. "I'm still really sorry about that, Soph. I was just so freaked out and hurt, and . . . and sometimes I lose control."

Icy fear ran down my spine, but I tried to ignore it. Jenna was my friend. Yes, she'd vamped out on me, but she'd snapped out of it immediately.

But you're her friend. Chaston definitely wasn't. And who knows about Holly?

Nope. Not going there.

Instead I said with mock confusion, "Lose control of what? Your bladder? Because you might want to get that checked out. I'm so not loaning you any sheets."

"You're such a freak." She giggled.

"Takes one to know one!"

For the next couple of hours, we chatted and attempted to study for

Magical Evolution. By lights out, Jenna seemed almost like her old self again.

"Night, Jenna," I said when the lights finally blinked off.

"Night, Soph."

I stared at the slanting ceiling, my head full of thoughts: Archer, Elodie and Anna, Jenna, that conversation with Cal by the pond. I fell asleep wondering if Archer knew he was about to become the proud recipient of

Elodie's virginity.

I didn't know what time it was when I awoke to find the girl in green standing at the foot of my bed. My heart in my mouth, I was sure I had to be dreaming, that there was no way this could be real.

Then she gave a exasperated sigh and, in a British accent, said, "Sophia Mercer. What trouble you've been."

I sat up in bed, blinking.

It was the girl I'd been seeing since I'd started at Hecate, but she didn't look anything like a ghost; she looked very much flesh and blood.

"Well?" she asked, raising one perfect eyebrow. "Are you coming or not?"

I glanced over at Jenna. All I could make out was a dark lump. By the sound of her steady, even breathing, I knew she was still asleep.

The girl followed my gaze. "Oh, don't worry about her," she said with a dismissive wave. "She won't wake up and sound the alarm. No one will;

I've taken care of that."

Before I could ask what she meant, she turned and swept out the door.

I sat frozen until she reappeared in the doorway and said, "Oh, for

Christ's sake, Sophia, let's go!"

Now, I knew that following a ghost was a Very Bad Idea. Everything in my body said that. My skin felt clammy and my stomach was in knots.

But I found myself pushing off my covers, grabbing my Hecate blazer off the back of my chair, and catching up to her at the top of the stairs.

"Good," she said. "We have a lot of work to do and not much time."

"Who are you?" I whispered.

She flashed me that irritated look again. "I told you, you don't have to whisper. No one can hear us."

She stopped on the stairs and threw her head back, shouting, "Casnoff! Vandy! Sophia Mercer is out of bed and up to mischief with a ghooooooooooost!"

I instinctively crouched down. "Shhhh!"

But just as she'd promised, there was no sign that anyone had heard her. The only sound was the muffled ticking of the grandfather clock in the main foyer and my own hard breathing.

"See?" she said, turning to me with a bright smile. "Taken care of.

Now come along."

She ran down the last few steps, and before I knew it, we were outside on the front lawn. The night was cool and damp, and the grass squished unpleasantly under my feet. I looked down to make sure I was only standing on grass and noticed that my feet seemed a weird shade of green. Then I noticed I could see my shadow even though there was no moon.

I whirled around to look back at Hecate and gasped. The whole house was encased in a huge opalescent bubble that glimmered with dull green light. The bubble was in constant motion, undulating and shooting off pale green sparks. I had never seen anything like it; never even read about a spell like that.

"Impressive, isn't it?" the girl said smugly. "It's a basic sleeping spell that renders the victims totally insensible to the world for at least four hours.

I just . . . enlarged it."

I didn't like the way she said "victims."

"Are they . . . are they okay?"

"Oh, perfectly safe," she answered. "Just sleeping. Like in a fairy tale."

"But . . . Mrs. Casnoff has spells all over the place. No one could just come in and do a spell that big."

"I can!" the girl said. Then she grabbed my hand. Hers was as solid and real as mine. I was sure Mrs. Casnoff had said ghosts couldn't touch us.

But before I could ask, the girl started pulling me away from the house.

"Wait. I can't go anywhere with you until I know who you are and what you're doing here. Why have you been following me?"

She sighed. "Oh, Sophia, I had hoped you were a little more perceptive. Isn't it obvious who I am?"

I studied her knee-length flowered dress and bright green cardigan.

Her hair was shoulder length, curly, and held back from her face with bobby pins. Glancing down, I saw that she was wearing heinous brown shoes. I felt a little sorry for her: ghost or no, no one should have to go through eternity in ugly shoes.

But then I looked into her eyes. They were large and wide set, and even though the green light was reflected in them, I could tell that they were blue.

My eyes.

British, from the forties, and had my eyes.

"Alice?" I asked, my heart in my throat.

She smiled broadly. "Excellent! Now, just come with me and--"

"Wait, wait, wait," I said, holding a hand to my head. "You're telling me that you're the ghost of my great-grandmother?"

That irritated look again. "Yes."

"So what are you doing here? Why have you been following me?"

"I haven't been following you," she answered hotly. "I've been appearing to you. You weren't ready for me before, but now you are. I've worked very hard to get to you, Sophia. Now, can we please stop all this chattering and get down to business?"

I let her drag me away, mostly because I was afraid she might zap me if I didn't, but also because I was genuinely curious. How many people get pulled out of bed by their great-grandmother's ghost?

We walked away from Hecate and down the steep hill toward the greenhouse. I wondered if she was taking me there for training, but when we arrived, she veered off toward the left and pulled me into the woods.

I'd never been in the forest that surrounded Hecate, and for very good reason: it was spooky as hell. And of course it was doubly so at night. I stepped on a rock in my bare feet and winced. When something soft brushed against my cheek, I gave a little shriek.

I heard Alice murmur a few words, and suddenly a large orb of light appeared in front of us, bright enough that I had to shade my eyes. Alice muttered under her breath, and the orb jerked upward as if someone had it on a string. It floated away until it was about ten feet over our heads, casting light in all directions.

You would think that the light would make the woods less creepy, but actually it was worse. Now shadows moved across the ground, and I caught the occasional flash of animal eyes. We came across a dry creek bed, and to my surprise, Alice leaped nimbly into it. I followed, a lot less gracefully, tripping on loose soil and cursing.

If I'd thought the woods were spooky, they had nothing on the dry creek. Rocks were sharp against my bare feet, and it seemed that everywhere

I looked, there were dark hollows and exposed roots that looked like the entrails of some giant animal. In the end I just grabbed Alice's hand and kept my eyes shut until we came to an abrupt stop.

I opened my eyes and immediately wished I hadn't.

In front of me was a small wrought-iron fence flecked with rust.

Behind the fence were six gravestones. Four were slightly crooked and covered in moss, but the other two stood straight and were as white as bone.

The gravestones were unsettling enough, but it was the other thing in this tiny graveyard that had my heart in my stomach, and the metallic taste of fear in my mouth.

The statue was about eight feet high, maybe a little taller. It was an angel carved in light gray stone, its wings spread wide. They were so finely carved you could make out every feather. Likewise, the angel's robes seemed to ripple and float in a nonexistent wind. In one hand it held a sword. The hilt was carved out of the same stone as the rest of the statue, but the blade was some sort of dark glass, which shone brightly in the light from the orb. The angel's other hand was held out in front of it, palm forward, as if it were warning others to stay back. The look on its face was one of such stern authority that it would have put Mrs. Casnoff to shame.

The angel was very familiar to me, and I realized with a start that it was the same one depicted in the stainedglass window at Hecate. The angel that cast out the Prodigium.

"What . . ." I broke off and cleared my throat. "What is this place?"

Alice was gazing up at the angel with a faint smile. "A secret," she answered.

I shivered and pulled my blazer tighter around me. I wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but there was a steely look on her face that told me I probably wouldn't get an answer. Hadn't the brochure said that one of

Hecate's big rules was to never go into the woods? I'd just assumed the woods were dangerous or something.

But maybe it had been more than that.

The wind picked up, rattling the leaves and making my teeth chatter.

Why hadn't I thought to grab shoes, I wondered as I rubbed one numb foot on top of the other.

"Here," Alice said, pointing to my feet. They tickled for a moment, and as I watched, my feet were suddenly encased first in wooly white socks and then in my favorite pair of fuzzy red slippers. Slippers that, as far as I knew, were still sitting in the bottom of my closet in Vermont.

"How did you do that?"

But Alice just smiled mysteriously.

And then without warning she whipped her hand through the air.

I felt a heavy blow right in my chest that knocked me off my feet. I hit the ground with a startled, "Oomph!"

Sitting up, I glared at her. "What was that?"

"That," she said sharply, "was a ridiculously simple attack spell that you should have been able to block."

I stared at her in shock. It was one thing to get laid out by Archer in

Defense, but being attacked out of nowhere by my great-grandmother was just embarrassing.

"How could I have blocked it when I had no idea you were going to do that?" I fired back.

Alice walked over to me and offered her hand to pull me up. I didn't take it, mainly because I was pissed, but also because Alice looked like she weighed about ninety pounds, and I thought I'd probably end up pulling her down with me.

"You should have been able to sense that I was going to do that, Sophia. Someone with power as great as yours can always anticipate an attack."

"What is this?" I asked, dusting the dirt and pine needles of my now-

sore butt. "A Star Wars thing? I was supposed to 'sense a disturbance in the

Force'?"

Now it was Alice's turn to blink in confusion.

"Forget it," I mumbled. "Anyway, if you've been watching me at all over the past six weeks, you've probably picked up on the fact that I don't have any 'great power.' I'm like, the least powerful witch here. Clearly, the awesome family superpowers passed this gal by."

Alice shook her head. "No they didn't. I can feel it. Your powers are every bit as great as mine. You just don't know how to use them yet. That's why I'm here. To help you sharpen and mold them. To prepare you for the role you must play."

I looked up at her. "So you're like, my own personal Mr. Miyagi?"

"I have no idea what that means."

"Sorry, sorry. I'll try to stop with the pop culture references. What do you mean the role I must play?"

Alice looked at me like I was stupid. And in her defense, I felt pretty stupid.

"Head of the Council."

"Okay, why would I want that?" I asked with small laugh. "I know nothing about Prodigium, and I'm a crappy witch."

The wind caught my hair, blowing it into my mouth and eyes.

Through the strands covering my face, I saw Alice flick her hand toward me.

My hair swept back from my face and gathered itself into a bun on top of my head. It was so tight my eyes watered.

"Sophia," Alice said in the tone used to placate a tantrum-throwing toddler, "you only think you're crappy."

The word "crappy" sounded ridiculously classy in Alice's cut-glass accent, and I had to smile a little. I guess she saw that as a good sign, because she took my hand. Her skin was soft and ice-cold to the touch.

"Sophia," she said in a softer voice, "you're incredibly powerful.

You're just at a disadvantage because you've been raised by a human. With the right training and guidance, you could put those other girls--what do you and your half-breed friend call them? 'The Witches of Noxema'?"

"Jenna's not a half-breed," I said quickly, but she ignored me. "You could be far, far more powerful than any of them. And I can show you how."

"But why?" I asked.

She smiled in that enigmatic way again and patted my arm. Even though I knew Alice had died at eighteen, which made her just two years older than me, there was something very grandmotherly in her touch. And after a lifetime of having just Mom as family, it felt nice.

"Because you're my blood," she answered. "Because you deserve to be better. To become what you are meant to be."

I didn't know what to say to that. Was head of the Council what I was meant to be? I thought of my onetime fantasy of owning one of those New

Age bookshops, reading palms and wearing a big purple caftan. That seemed very far away now and, honestly, kind of stupid.

And then I thought of Elodie, Chaston, and Anna glowing and levitating in the library. They had looked like goddesses, and even though I'd been scared, I'd envied them. Was it really possible that I could become better than them?

Alice laughed. "Oh, you'll be much better than those girls."

Great, she could read my mind.

"Come, we haven't much time left."

We walked past the cemetery and into a clearing inside a ring of oak trees. "This is where we'll meet," Alice said. "This is where I'll train you to be the witch you should be."

"You do know that I have class, right? I can't stay up all night."

Alice reached down and slipped a necklace off her neck. Her hands glowed with a light brighter than the orb still floating above us. Then the light abruptly went out and she handed the necklace to me. It was almost too hot to touch. Just a simple silver chain with a square pendant about the size of a postage stamp. In the center was a teardrop-shaped black stone.

"There. Family heirloom," she said. "As long as you're wearing that, you'll never become too tired."

I looked at the necklace with appreciation. "Will I learn that spell?"

And for the first time, Alice smiled a real smile, a broad one that lit her whole face and made her slightly plain features beautiful.

She leaned in and took both my hands in hers, pulling me close until our faces were inches apart. "All that and more," she whispered. And when she broke out into giggles, I found myself laughing too.

Several hours later, I was not laughing. I wasn't even cracking a smile.

"Again!" Alice barked. How did a girl so tiny have a voice so loud? I sighed and rolled my shoulders. I focused as hard as I could on the empty space in front of me, willing with all my might for a pencil to appear. For the first hour, we'd just worked on blocking spells. I'd done pretty well blocking

Alice's attack spells, even though I hadn't been able to sense them coming.

But for the past hour we'd been working on making something appear out of nothing. We'd started small, hence the pencil, and Alice claimed it was just a matter of concentrating.

But I'd been concentrating so hard that I was afraid I'd now be seeing bright yellow Number 2 pencils every time I closed my eyes. I'd vibrated the grass a bunch, and after one particularly frustrating moment, I'd sent a rock flying toward Alice, but no pencils.

"Should we start even smaller?" Alice asked. "A paper clip, perhaps?

An ant?"

I cut my eyes at her and took another deep breath.

Pencil, pencil, pencil, I thought. Bright yellow pencil, soft pink eraser, SAT, please, please . . .

And then I felt it. That feeling like water rushing up from the soles of my feet and into my fingertips. But this wasn't just water. This was a river.

Everything inside of me seemed to be vibrating. I felt a burning behind my eyes, but it was a good sort of heat, the way a sunwarmed car seat feels on your back on a cool day. My face ached, and I realized it was because I was smiling.

The pencil faded in slowly, looking like a ghost of itself at first, before finally becoming solid. I kept my hands out, the magic still pulsing through me, and turned to Alice to say something along the lines of "Neener neener!"

But then I saw that she wasn't looking at me. She was looking past me, where the pencil was. I turned back and gasped.

Now there wasn't just one pencil in front of me. There was a pile of maybe thirty spilling over each other, and more were popping up.

I dropped my hands and felt the magic stop instantly, like a connection had been severed.

"Holy crap!" I exclaimed softly.

"My, my," was Alice's only comment.

"I . . ." I stared at the pile. "I did that," I said finally, even as I mentally kicked myself for sounding so stupid.

"Indeed you did," Alice said, shaking her head a little. Then she smiled. "I told you so."

I laughed, but then a thought occurred to me.

"Wait. You said your sleeping spell lasts for only four hours." I glanced at my watch. "It's been almost four hours now, and it took us at least half an hour to get out here. How are we going to get back in time?"

Alice smiled, and with a snap of her fingers, two brooms suddenly materialized beside her.

"You're joking," I said.

The smile broadened, and she threw one leg over a broom and zoomed off into the sky. She came back down and hovered a few feet above my head, and her laugh echoed throughout the woods. "Come on, Sophia!"

she called. "Be traditional for once!"

Heaving myself off the ground, I grabbed the slender neck of the broom. "Is this thing gonna hold me?" I called up to her. "We don't all shop at Baby Gap!"

This time she didn't bother to ask me what I was talking about. She just laughed and said, "I'd hurry if I were you! Fifteen minutes stand between you and year-long cellar duty!"

So I straddled the broom. I wasn't quite as ladylike as Alice, but when the broom suddenly lifted into the air, I didn't care how undignified I looked.

I grabbed the handle tighter and gave a startled yelp as the night air rushed over me. And then I was in the sky.

I'd assumed the broom would rush off and that I'd be hanging on for dear life, but instead it sort of glided, and I caught my breath, not out of fear but out of a feeling of sheer exhilaration. The air was cold but soft around me, and as I followed Alice back to the school, I gathered the courage to look down at the trees below me. Alice had extinguished the orb, so all I could really make out were dark blobs, but I didn't care. I was flying--

actually honest-to-God flying.

The stars overhead felt close enough to touch, and my heart felt like it was floating free in my chest. In the distance I could see the green glow of the bubble around Hecate, and I hoped we would never get there, that I could just go on feeling this light, this free, forever.

Too soon, we touched down just in front of the porch. My cheeks felt chapped and my hands were numb, but I was smiling like a lunatic.

"That," I pronounced, "was the most awesome thing ever. Why don't all witches do that?"

Alice laughed as she dismounted. "I suppose it's thought of as a cliche."

"Well, screw that noise," I said. "When I'm head of the Council, that's going to be the only way to travel."

Alice laughed again. "Glad to hear it."

As we watched, the bubble around Hecate began to dim.

"Guess that means I should go in," I said. "So, same time, same place tomorrow?"

Alice nodded and then reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a small pouch. "Take this with you."

The bag was soft in my hand, and I could feel its contents shifting.

"What is this?"

"Dirt from my grave. Should you ever need extra power for a spell, just pour a little on your hands and that should do it."

"Okay. Um, thanks." It would be nice to have a little extra magic mojo, but inside, all I could think was, Grave dirt? Gross.

"And, Sophia," Alice added as I turned to go.

"Yeah?"

She walked up to me and took my shoulders, pulling my head down to her mouth. For a second I thought she was going to kiss me on the cheek or something, but then she whispered, "Be careful. The Eye sees you, even here."

I jerked back, my heart pounding and my mouth dry, but before I could reply, Alice gave a sad smile and faded away.

"So," I breathlessly asked Archer a week later, "have you picked out the perfect shade of pink for your tux yet?"

We were in Defense, and I was only winded because I'd just delivered a blow that had sent Archer to the mat for the fifth time that day. My lack of oxygen had nothing to do with how good he looked in his tight T-shirt. I couldn't believe I'd knocked him down so many times. Either he was getting worse, or I was getting a lot better. I mean, I was never going to be on

American Gladiators, but I wasn't half bad. And I'd been out all night.

My necklace bumped against my chest as I leaned down to offer

Archer a hand. Alice's charm had worked like a . . . well, you get it. I'd only gotten about two hours of sleep for the first three nights, and yet I'd woken up feeling fine. The first morning I'd lived in fear that Mrs. Casnoff was going to pull me into her office and ask if I knew anything about a sleeping spell someone had put on the school, but when that hadn't happened, I'd started to relax a little. Now I didn't even bother to sleep. I'd just lie there in the dark, feeling as antsy as a kid on Christmas Eve until I saw the soft green glow spill through my windows. Then I'd rush outside, jump onto my broom, and soar through the night sky until I got to the cemetery.

I knew what I was doing was dangerous and maybe a little stupid. But when I rode through the sky or did spells so powerful I'd never dreamed they existed, it was hard to remember that.

Archer grinned as I helped him to his feet.

"No, seriously," I said. "Elodie was saying earlier that you two were going to match. So what shade is it? 'Tickled Pink'? 'Rambling Rose,' maybe? Ooh, ooh, I know! 'Virgin's Blush'!"

The All Hallow's Eve Ball was just a week away, and it seemed like that was all anyone was talking about. Even in Byron's class our assignment had been to compose a sonnet about the outfit we were going to wear. I still had no idea what I was wearing. Ms. East was in charge of teaching us the transformation spell that would create our dresses and tuxes. Just yesterday she'd given us each a dummy dressed in something that looked like a pillowcase with armholes. I didn't know why we couldn't just transform clothes we already owned, but I figured it was just another one of Hecate's dumb rules.

The shapeshifters and faeries had to get their own clothes, which meant that boxes had been arriving nonstop for the past few days.

And then there was Jenna. I'd offered to make her a dress, but she'd looked at me like I was completely stupid and said there was no way she was going to that "idiotic dance."

We'd been working on the spell every day in Ms. East's class, but so far everything I'd attempted had come out a little too poufy. Ms. East said that was just because I was too excited, but I didn't really buy that. There was nothing all that exciting about the ball for me. I wasn't "giving myself" to anyone.

"Shut up," Archer said good-naturedly, lifting his arms over his head to stretch. "For your information, only my bow tie will be pink, and I plan on rocking it, thank you very much."

I tried to smile back, but I was trying not to stare at the ribbon of skin that was showing beneath his T-shirt as he bent over.

As usual, my mouth went a little dry and my breathing sped up, and that weird, almost sad feeling settled in my stomach.

I never thought I'd be glad to hear the Vandy's braying voice, but when she shouted, "All right! That's it for today!" I could have kissed her.

Well, on second thought, no. Maybe a firm handshake.

"Holy hell weasel," I muttered an hour later.

I was staring at my latest attempt at a ball gown. At least this one had avoided a serious case of the poufies, but it was also a noxious shade of yellow-green usually found in baby's diapers or around nuclear disasters.

"Well, Miss Mercer. That's . . . an improvement, I suppose," Ms. East said. Her lips were pursed so tightly, it was a wonder any words had come out at all.

"Right," Jenna said. She was sitting on a desk next to me. She spent most of the class reading those mangas she liked so much. "You're getting better," she said encouragingly, but she frowned as she took in my latest creation.

"Yeah, at least this one didn't knock over three desks," Elodie sneered from beside me.

Her dress, of course, was gorgeous.

I'd assumed the ball was like the monster version of prom, and that the dresses would be similar to anything you'd see in a regular high school.

Yeah, not so much. The dresses most of the girls were working on looked like something out of a fairy tale.

But Elodie's dress was easily the prettiest in the class. High-waisted with delicate cap sleeves and frothy skirts, it looked like something you'd wear if you were in a Jane Austen book. I'd teased Archer about it being pink, but even I had to admit that the shade of pink was really lovely.

Nowhere near "Electric Raspberry," it was more the pale pink that you sometimes find inside shells. It seemed to glow like a pearl, and Elodie was going to be devastatingly beautiful in it.

Damn it.

Frustrated, I turned back to my own dress. I put my hands on either side of the dummy's waist and thought, Beautiful dress, beautiful dress, something blue, as hard as I could. It was so annoying to know that I could now make something as big as a chair appear out of thin air, but I couldn't seem to make a dress that wasn't completely heinous. Okay, so the chair I'd conjured up last night was toddler-size, but still.

I felt the material shift and slip under my hands. Please, I thought, my eyes squeezed shut.

Then I heard Elodie and Anna burst out laughing.

Crap.

I opened my eyes to stare at a bright blue tulle monstrosity with a skirt that would hit me at mid thigh. I'd look like the really slutty bride of Cookie

Monster.

I muttered a really bad word under my breath, which earned me an evil look from Ms. East, but surprisingly, no punishment. I guess she couldn't really blame me after she looked at the dress.

"Wow, Sophie, that's really something." Elodie sauntered over to me, one hand on her hip. "I think you have a real future in fashion design."

"Ha-ha," I muttered, which, as far as comebacks go, is about as cool as saying, "So there."

"I can't believe I actually invited you to join my coven," she said, turning those bright green eyes on me.

I groaned inwardly. Elodie's eyes were only that bright when she was about to deliver a huge smackdown. The last time I'd seen her like this was the night she'd called Jenna a bloodsucking freak after they'd found Chaston.

"Here you are, the head of the Council's daughter, and you can't even make a dress. Pathetic."

"Look, Elodie, I don't want to fight. So just . . . just leave me alone and let me work on my dress, okay?"

But she wasn't remotely finished with me.

"Why do you even care about making a dress for the ball? Who have you got to look pretty for? Archer?"

I fought very hard to keep cool, even as my hands tightened around the material in front of me.

Elodie leaned in closer, so I doubted anyone else heard it when she whispered, "You think I don't see the way you look at him?"

Keeping my eyes on the dummy, I said in the lowest, calmest voice possible, "Stop it, Elodie."

"I mean, your crush on him is just so sweet. And by sweet, of course I mean tragic," she continued. From the corner of my eye, I could see that almost everyone had stopped working and was watching us. Ms. East was pretending to ignore us, so I knew I was being thrown to the wolves on this one.

I took a deep breath and turned around to face Elodie, who was smirking at me in triumph.

"Oh, Elodie," I said in a voice that was so sweet it practically dripped syrup, "don't worry about me and Archer. After all, I'm not the one planning on having sex with him at the ball."

The class erupted into giggles, and Elodie did something I'd never seen her do: she turned bright red and actually sputtered in her attempt to come up with a serious put-down.

Ms. East chose that moment to shout, "Miss Mercer! Miss Parris!

Back to work!"

Smiling, I turned back to my dress. But the feeling of triumph was immediately deflated by the bright blue disaster in front of me.

"Does your magic feel off or anything?" Jenna asked softly.

"No, it feels the same as always. Water rushing up from my feet and all that."

"What?" Anna sneered, propping a hand on her hip. " How does your magic feel?"

"Uh . . . like something coming up from underneath me," I said, rushing to get the words out.

"That's not what magic feels like," Anna said.

I glanced around and saw that there were a few other witches staring at me in confusion.

"Magic comes from above," Anna continued. "It feels like something falling over you, like . . ."

"Snow," Elodie finished.

My face was hot when I turned back to my dummy. "I guess mine is just different, then."

I heard some whispers, but I ignored them.

"You'll get it," Jenna said, shooting Anna a dirty look.

"Oh, I know I'm gonna get better," I told her, running a hand over the tulle bustle in the back of the dress. (A bustle? Screw you, magical powers.)

"This is the dress I'm making for you."

"Oh, really?" she asked, her smile widening.

"Yeah, we'll probably have to hem it, though. Don't want it dragging on the floor."

She playfully smacked my arm with the back of her hand, and before I knew it, we were laughing.

I spent the rest of the class attempting to make the ugliest dresses possible, which was only funny to me and Jenna. I lost count of how many times Ms. East threatened to throw us out of class, and Elodie rolled her eyes so much that Jenna finally asked if she was having a seizure. This made us laugh so hard that Ms. East finally did kick us out, and gave us both a seven-

page essay to write on the history of clothing spells.

I didn't care. To have Jenna laughing again, I would have written a hundred pages.

"I don't know what changed," I told Alice later that night as we moved through the forest, picking mint for some spell that could slow time. "One minute she was the same sulky Jenna she's been for the past month, the next we were friends again."

Alice didn't say anything, so I said, "Isn't that great?"

"I suppose."

"You suppose?" I said, mocking her accent.

She straightened and glared at me. "It's just that I don't approve of your having a vampire for a bosom companion. It's beneath you."

I laughed. "Oh my God, beneath me? Come on."

Alice sighed as she shoved another bunch of leaves into the small leather sack she'd conjured. "Your friends are your concern, Sophia. I'll try to respect that. Now tell me about this party you have coming up."

I bent down to pick another bunch of mint. "It's a ball, actually. For

Halloween. It should be awesome. Especially since I can't manage to make a dress that doesn't completely suck. Oh, and--bonus--I get to suffer through watching a girl I despise be totally beautiful and seduce a guy I like. Should be good times."

"Elodie?"

I nodded.

Alice scowled. "I don't care for that girl. She's been quite hateful toward you. Undoubtedly because your powers are so superior to her own.

There are few things more abhorrent to me than a weak witch."

"Wow, tell me what you really think."

Alice blinked at me. "I just did."

"Forget it. It's just so unfair that she's such a heinous person, but her dress spell has turned out so beautifully. She's going to look amazing."

And have sex with Archer, I added silently.

I'd forgotten Alice could read my mind. "Oh. Is Archer that boy you fancy?"

There was no use in denying that I "fancied" him. I nodded.

"Humph," Alice replied. "Why not just use a love charm on him?

They're frightfully simple."

I shoved some more mint into my bag. "Because I . . . Look, this sounds stupid, but I really like him, and I don't want him to like me back if it's just, like, some spell."

I thought Alice might argue with me, but she just shrugged and said, "Attraction has its own magic, I suppose."

"Yeah, well, there's probably no chance of him ever being attracted to me. I thought maybe at the ball . . . but I can't even make a decent dress."

I turned to Alice. "Why is it that when I'm out here with you, I can do completely kick-ass spells, but when I'm in the school, everything I do blows up in my face?"

"Confidence?" she suggested. "You feel unsure of yourself in that school, and it's reflected in your magic."

"Maybe."

We continued picking plants for a while until Alice said, "You say this girl's dress is beautiful?"

I sighed. "It's perfect."

Alice smiled, and in the light from the orb, I could swear her teeth actually gleamed.

"Would you like to change that?"

Classes were canceled the day of the ball, and since it was another one of those beautiful, clear October days, nearly everybody spent it outside.

Everybody but me. Well, me and Jenna. Even with her bloodstone, she wasn't the biggest fan of the outdoors. She was curled up in her usual spot, on her bed, covered with her throw, and a manga in her hand.

I sat on my bed staring at my stupid dress dummy, which was still wearing the pillowcase. I'd spent most of the morning trying to turn it into something at least halfway presentable, and had had absolutely no luck. I couldn't figure it out; I knew I wasn't the world's best witch, but a transformation spell just should not have been this hard. True, I'd never attempted anything as elaborate before, but I should have at least been able to make a little black dress. But even that had turned out shapeless, with a crooked hem to boot.

I sighed, and Jenna exclaimed, "Damn, Sophie, I'm supposed to be the moper. What is your problem?"

"This freaking dress." I pointed at the offending object. "Nothing I do works."

Jenna shrugged. "So don't go."

I glared at her. Jenna wasn't going to the ball, so she didn't understand why I so badly wanted to go. I didn't really understand why I wanted to go either, although it probably had a lot to do with Archer in a tux.

I didn't want to tell Jenna that, though. "It's not the ball; it's the principle of the thing. I should be able to do this spell. It's just not that hard."

"Maybe somebody cursed your dummy," she joked, turning back to her manga.

My hand sneaked into my pocket and closed around the small object that seemed to be burning a hole there.

When Alice suggested doing a spell on Elodie's dress, I had initially said no way. "I could get kicked out for doing magic on another student," I'd told her.

"But it wouldn't be you," Alice argued. "It would be me. You would just be the carrier, as it were."

That had made sense, and I have to admit I'd felt a little giddy when

Alice had reached into her pocket and pulled out a tiny bone, probably from a bird. Alice having bones in her pocket probably should've freaked me out, but by that point I was used to Alice's weirdness. Like the necklace that first night, the bone glowed softly in her hands. She'd smiled as she gave it to me.

"Just slip this into the hem of her dress."

"Do I need to say any special words or anything?"

"No. The bone will know what to do."

I remembered those words now as I fingered the small, smooth bone.

I'd had it for a week, and I still hadn't used it. Alice had promised that the bone would only turn Elodie's dress some horrible color when Elodie put it on, and that didn't sound too bad. Still, I was worried. Every spell I'd ever tried to do on another person had gone badly, and even though I didn't like

Elodie, I didn't want to accidentally hurt her. So the bone had stayed in my pocket.

But if I wasn't going to use it, why hadn't I thrown it out?

With another sigh, I got off my bed and went to the dummy. Even though it didn't have a head, its very posture seemed to be mocking me.

"What up, loser?" I imagined it saying. "I'd rather wear this pillowcase than any of your ugly designs."

"Shut up," I murmured as I put my hands on it and, yet again, concentrated as hard as I could. "Blue, pretty, please . . ." I muttered.

The fabric rippled and promptly became a sequined, bright blue hot pants outfit that looked like a majorette's uniform.

"Crap, crap, crap!" I cried, hitting the dummy so that it spun on its stand.

Jenna looked up from her book. "Now that's fetching."

"Not helpful," I growled. God, what was wrong with me? I'd done spells way harder than this, and they'd never, ever come out this badly.

"I'm telling you," Jenna said, "you got a bum dummy. Nobody else seems to be having this hard a time with theirs."

"I know," I said, leaning my head on the dummy. "Even Sarah

Williams, who is, like, the worst witch ever, made this really pretty red dress. It's not as fancy as Elodie's but--"

I stopped, a sinking feeling in my stomach.

It didn't make sense for me to be having so much trouble making a dress. Maybe Jenna was right: maybe my dummy was cursed.

I pressed my hands to the pillowcase again, but this time I didn't think of a dress. I just said, "'Fess up."

For a moment nothing happened. I wasn't sure whether I should feel relieved or disappointed.

Then, very slowly, two glowing handprints the faint burgundy color of watered-down wine appeared on the front of the dress.

Relief surged through me, but that was quickly swallowed up by a white-hot wave of anger.

"How did you do that?" Jenna asked from behind me. She was on her knees staring at the handprints.

"It's a revelation spell," I said through clenched teeth. "Lets you know if an object has been messed with magically."

"Well, at least you know that you're not a crap witch."

I nodded, but I was nearly shaking with fury. Here I'd been thinking I was just useless, and it had been Elodie all along. It had to be her. Who else would want to make sure I couldn't go to the ball? God, the whole thing was almost too fairy tale to handle.

And the thing that really bothered me was that I hadn't used my curse on her dress. I'd felt bad about using it.

Well, screw that.

"Where's Elodie right now?" I asked Jenna.

Her eyes were wide, so I knew I must have looked pretty scary.

"Um, I heard Anna say they were going down to the beach with a bunch of people."

"Perfect."

I headed for the door, ignoring Jenna as she called out, "What are you going to do?"

I hurried toward Elodie's room. There was no one in the hall to see me as I slipped in.

My heart pounding, both out of fear and anger, I walked over to the window, where Anna's and Elodie's dress dummies stood. Anna's dress was black with purple trim and a short train. She'd look amazing in it, but it was nothing compared to Elodie's dress.

I hesitated for a moment.

Then I thought of Elodie laughing at me in class as I'd tried so hard to make just one damn dress, and my nerve came back.

I dropped to my knees and fished around in the filmy layers of skirts until I found a small gap in the hem. I slid the tiny bone inside and gave it a light pat. It glowed brightly inside the dress, shining dull red through all the layers of pink. I held my breath until the glow went out, then I ran for the door.

The hall was empty, so I was able to sneak back to my room unseen.

Jenna was still sitting on her bed when I came in.

"What did you do?"

I walked over to my bed and pulled out the small pouch of dirt I'd hidden there. "Let's just say turnabout is fair play."

Jenna opened her mouth, but then closed it again as she watched me pour some of the dirt on my hands. She probably thought I'd totally cracked up as I marched over to my dummy with dirt-covered hands, grasped it around the waist, and closed my eyes.

This time I didn't even think anything specific. "Dress," was all I said.

As usual, I could feel the dress slip and slide under my hands, but it was different this time. My hands felt hot, and it was like there was an electric current running through me.

I heard Jenna gasp, and when I stepped back and opened my eyes, I gasped too.

The dress wasn't just beautiful, it was stunning.

It was peacock blue satin, and green lights seemed to dance inside the fabric. The top looked like a corset, strapless and boned in the front, and as I spun the dummy to the back, I saw that it laced up with a bright green ribbon.

The skirt belled out from the cinched-in waist, and, most impressive of all, there was a panel of actual peacock feathers running down the front, starting at a point just under the corset top and widening as it reached the bottom, like an upside-down triangle.

"Whoa," Jenna breathed. "Now that is a dress. Sophie, you're going to be gorgeous."

She was right, I thought, feeling dazed. I would look gorgeous.

"What was that stuff you put on it?"

I wasn't ready to tell Jenna about Alice, and I had a feeling she wouldn't take the words grave dust well, so I just shrugged. "Magic powder."

Jenna looked skeptical, but before she could ask any more questions, I gave her a bright smile and said, "Let me make you one."

She gave a startled laugh. "You really wanna make me a dress?"

I nodded. "Why not? It'll be fun, and then you can come with me to the ball."

"I don't think so, Soph," she protested weakly, but I was already pulling one of her nightgowns out of her dresser. I pressed my still-dirty hands on it and just thought, Jenna.

All of Jenna's protests died on her lips when she saw the dress: hot pink, with thin straps and a sparkling belt at the waist that I thought might be made out of real diamonds. The dress was perfect for her, and before long she was holding it up and spinning around.

"I don't know what your 'magic powder' is, and I don't care," she said with a laugh. "This is the most beautiful dress I've ever seen!"

We spent the rest of the afternoon transforming our shoes until we each had the perfect pair. By the time evening fell, we were both dressed, and if I do say so myself, looking pretty hot. Jenna had piled her white-blond hair on top of her head, with her pink streak falling over one eye. My own hair was actually behaving for once, and I'd let Jenna arrange it into a low bun at the base of my neck, a few tendrils escaping around my face.

We walked downstairs arm in arm, giggling. There was a crush of people in the narrow hallway leading to the ballroom. I craned my neck, looking for Archer and Elodie, hoping to discover what gross color Elodie's dress had become, but I couldn't see them.

I'd been pretty impressed with Jenna's and my dresses in our room, but now I saw that we were hardly the most spectacular people there. A tall blond faerie bumped into me, and her dress, a concoction of ice-green sparkles, chimed softly, like bells. I also saw a shapeshifter in what looked to be a gown made entirely of white fur.

The boys were a little more sedate. Most of them were just in tuxes, although a few had been more daring and were wearing long coats and breeches.

We were just about to enter the ballroom when I felt something warm press up against my back. I thought it was just some random person crowding me, until a voice whispered in my ear, soft and low, "I knew it was you."

I tried to whirl around, but it's hard to do when you're squashed between a bunch of people and wearing a big dress. I ended up accidently elbowing Jenna, who gave a startled squawk, before I could finally turn to face Archer.

Both of us widened our eyes and said, "Whoa."

Then I immediately blushed. Oh my God, had I just looked at Archer and said, "Whoa"?

But . . . wait a minute. Had Archer just looked at me and said, "Whoa"?

We just kind of stared at each other. Archer more than deserved his "whoa." This was a boy who could make a school uniform look good. What he did to formal wear was damn near criminal. He had lied about his bow tie being pink. He wasn't even wearing a bow tie, just a regular tie, and it was black, like everything else he was wearing.

But the best part wasn't the way he looked. It was the way he was looking at me.

"That dress," he said at last, his eyes still skimming over me. "It's . . . something."

I fought the urge to self-consciously tug at the low neckline and just smiled. "Thanks. I just, uh, whipped it up."

He nodded, but he still looked a little shell-shocked, and it was all I could do to keep a big goofy grin off my face.

Then I remembered what he'd said. "What do you mean, you knew it was me?"

He shook his head a little, like he was trying to clear it. "Oh, right.

Elodie."

My heart seemed to stutter in my chest, and I could actually feel my face paling.

"I just saw you from the back and said that had to be you. Elodie said there was no way it could be."

"Oh." I glanced over and saw Elodie coming up behind him. She glared at me, and I was surprised to see that her dress looked perfect.

The bone will know what to do, my ass, I thought, but I was kind of relieved. My anger had faded once I'd been able to make a killer dress. I figured that was a way better revenge than messing up her dress anyway.

"How on earth did you pull that together?" Elodie asked. She tried to keep her tone sweet, but her eyes were cold and angry.

I just smiled back and shrugged. "It was the weirdest thing.

Apparently I got a cursed dummy."

Her eyes widened a little before she broke my gaze. "Weird," she mumbled.

"Yeah, it was. Luckily, I was able to lift the curse, and then--tada!" I held my skirt out with a bright smile, and was rewarded with Elodie's scowl.

"Don't you think it's a little . . . loud?" she asked.

Before I could answer with something cutting, Archer turned to her.

"Oh, come on, El. She looks great and you know it."

That did it. The goofy grin could no longer be held back. Archer smiled and winked as he and Elodie slid past us and into the ballroom.

I turned to Jenna, who laughed and rolled her eyes. "Oh, girl, you got it bad."

She was still giggling, and I was still smiling like a lunatic when we entered the ballroom. I don't know what I had been expecting, but the ballroom blew me away. There were no paper streamers and balloons here.

Instead, the room glowed with soft faerie lights, smaller and softer versions of the orb Alice always made for us. Each light rested on what looked like a dark purple flower. They floated high in the air, bobbing softly like they were caught in a gentle breeze. The chandeliers weren't lit, but their crystals had been turned violet for the occasion, and the fairy lights made them sparkle like amethyst. The mirrors were uncovered too. I thought that might bug Jenna, but when we looked in them and saw only me, she just pointed and said, "Look. In Mirrorland, you're still a dateless wonder," which made us both laugh.

The floors were no longer the shiny light wood they usually were, but a deep and glossy black. I shook my head in wonder. "This is . . . wow."

"I know," Jenna said. She took my hand and squeezed it. "I'm so glad you made me come."

We hovered on the edge of things for a while, watching everybody dance. I remembered the prom I'd gone to with Ryan, where everybody had danced like they were auditioning for a rap video. This could not have been more different. The witches and shapeshifters were all waltzing, which freaked me out a little. No one had told me ballroom dancing lessons were a prerequisite for going to Hecate. The faeries were off to one end of the ballroom by themselves, doing some elaborate dance that looked like something out of Elizabethan England.

I spotted Archer and Elodie dancing, and my breath caught at how beautiful they both were: Archer, tall and dark, and Elodie, her hair glowing in the lights, her dress floating around her. But then I looked at their faces and saw that they were clearly arguing. Archer was frowning and looking at a spot somewhere over her head, and Elodie seemed to be talking a mile a minute.

Then suddenly Elodie pulled her hands from Archer's and clutched her side.

A slow feeling of dread rose up in me as I watched Archer lead her off the dance floor. She was trying to smile, but it was more like a grimace. I saw her wave him off and mouth the words "I'm fine." But then she gasped and clutched her side again. I saw Anna push her way through the crowd, Mrs. Casnoff in tow. By now Elodie was nearly bent double.

"I wonder what's going on," Jenna said.

"Maybe she got a stitch in her side."

"Yeah. Maybe."

I looked over and saw that Jenna was looking at me with a troubled expression.

"What?"

"What did you do to Elodie's dress this afternoon?"

"Nothing!" I insisted, but I'm a terrible liar and I knew it was showing all over my face.

Jenna just shook her head and turned back to watch Elodie, who was now being led from the room by Mrs. Casnoff and Anna. Archer went to follow, but Elodie turned back and said something to him. We couldn't hear, obviously, but it was clear from her expression that she was pissed.

Whatever she said, Archer backed up a couple of steps and raised his hands in front of him. Elodie turned back to Mrs. Casnoff, and the two of them left the ballroom, Anna and Archer trailing behind.

Archer came back about twenty minutes later, looking flustered and angry.

I could feel Jenna's eyes on my back as I crossed the room to him.

"What was all that about?" I asked him.

He was still looking at the door they'd led Elodie out through. "I don't know. She was fine, then she started saying her dress felt too tight, like it was shrinking or something. It just kept tightening she said, and she was having trouble breathing. Mrs. Casnoff thinks the dress was cursed."

I was glad he was still looking away from me so that he didn't see me flinch.

The bone will know what to do.

Had Alice known this would happen, or had I screwed it up somehow? Maybe I was supposed to use it right away, and the magic on it had, I don't know, soured or something in the week I'd held on to it.

Or she'd known, a voice kept whispering. She never meant for the dress just to change colors. She'd meant for it to hurt Elodie.

But why would Alice want to do that? I knew she didn't like Elodie, but this seemed really harsh. No, I must have screwed it up somehow, like the love spell on Kevin.

"Hey," Archer said.

"Yeah," I said weakly. Then I smiled and tried to sound more enthusiastic. "Yeah, I'm fine. That's just . . . you know, weird about Elodie."

"Yeah," he agreed, looking back toward the door.

"Is she mad at you or something?" I ventured.

Running a hand though his hair, he sighed and said, "I guess. She told me I should be glad because now I could spend the ball with the person I really wanted."

He looked down at me. "I guess she meant you."

There were people all around us, but suddenly I felt like we were totally alone. And in that moment I swore I could feel something shift between us. Some spark flared that hadn't been there before, at least not on his part.

He looked away again, back toward the door, and then smiled at me.

"Well, it seems a shame not to show off that dress. Wanna dance?"

"Sure," I said, going for the most casual tone possible, but my heart was beating so hard I was afraid he'd actually be able to see it. A lot of my chest was on display, after all.

He pulled me onto the dance floor, one hand warm on my waist, the other holding my hand high at shoulder level. I was scared to death that I would trip on my dress or step on his feet, but thanks to Archer, we glided across the ballroom.

"You can dance?" I asked.

He looked down at me with a smile. "A few years ago, Casnoff decided to teach a formal dancing class. Attendance was mandatory."

"I could've used that."

"Nah, you're doing fine. Just hold on to me."

I'd never been given better instructions. There was no band or sound system that I could see, just dreamy music that seemed to float in from everywhere and nowhere. My fingers rested lightly on Archer's shoulder as we spun around the room. We danced near the spot where I'd left Jenna. I looked for her, but I couldn't see her. I wondered if she had gone back up to the room, and felt a little guilty. But then Archer's hand tightened on my waist, and Jenna slid completely from my mind.

I looked up to see him studying me intensely with an expression I'd never seen before. Well, one he'd never directed at me before.

"She was right," he murmured.

"About what?" I said, and my voice didn't even sound like mine. It was low and breathy.

"I did want to spend the ball with you."

I felt like a thousand sparklers had just gone off inside me. The smile that began to spread across my face actually made my face hurt, and for the first time I didn't care if he saw it.

I knew I didn't have a crush on Archer anymore.

I was in love with him.

His face lowered, and my heart stopped. "Sophie--"

But before he could finish, a scream pierced the air.

The music stopped abruptly. Nearly everyone turned to see Elodie rushing back into the ballroom, a green silk robe flapping around her pale legs, and a look of horror on her face.

"It's Anna!" she was screaming. "It's happened again! I . . . Oh God, I think she's dead."

Anna wasn't dead, thank God. They'd found her sprawled in the hallway just in front of her room. Elodie said Anna had gone to get her some tea from the kitchen. When she hadn't come back, Elodie had been worried and went to look for her.

That's when she'd discovered her, facedown in the hall, a puddle of tea and her own blood soaking into the thick cream-colored rug. Just like Holly, just like Chaston, she had two small holes in her neck, but her wrists weren't cut.

Cal had gotten to her in time, and by the time Mrs. Casnoff came running up the stairs, Anna was sitting up, her head lolling against Cal's shoulder.

Just like Chaston, she couldn't say who had attacked her.

Jenna had been back in our room, and seemed totally unaware of what had happened to Anna.

But she'd been right down the hall.

Sometime around midnight, Mrs. Casnoff had come to get her. They hadn't come back.

I lay awake in my bed, still in my dress, long into the night. Luckily, Alice and I had decided not to meet tonight, so I didn't have to worry about her sleeping spell suddenly taking hold.

Around three, I finally fell asleep, but I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning from nightmares. I saw Jenna, her mouth stained with blood, and Anna at her feet. I saw Archer and Elodie dancing, only Elodie was pale, her lips blue and her eyes staring as her dress clutched around her like a snake. And strangest of all, I saw Alice in the cemetery, clutching the iron fence while three men in black descended upon her, silver knives raised high.

I woke up as the first rays of sunlight swept across the floor.

I felt disoriented. My mouth was dry and sticky, like I'd spent the night eating lint. There was also a low, hollow ringing sound. At first I thought it was just in my ears. Then I realized it was the bell on top of the house, the bell that usually called us to classes. Why was it ringing this early in the morning?

Then last night came back to me in a rush. I looked over to Jenna's bed, but it was still empty.

I pushed myself out of bed and stuck my head out the door. Several girls were already dressed and headed down the stairs. I saw Nausicaa and called out to her, "Hey! What's going on?"

"Assembly," she answered. "You'd better get dressed."

I shut the door and shimmied out of my gown. It became a pillowcase again as soon as it hit the floor. I set some sort of land-speed record for getting dressed, and decided to just leave my hair up in the chignon I'd worn last night. It was a lot messier now, and half of it was falling around my face, but I figured no one would care.

We all met in the ballroom, which had been transformed back into the room we all knew, complete with mismatched tables. As I sat at a table near the back, I looked up and noticed a lone fairy light high on the ceiling. It bumped gently against a corner, like it was trying to find a way out.

All the teachers had gathered on the dais up front, except for Byron.

Mrs. Casnoff looked tired and older than I'd ever seen her. I noticed with a shock that her hair wasn't in its usual complicated bun, but was caught in a sloppy knot at the back of her neck.

Archer and Elodie were sitting up front and to the left of me. Elodie looked pale, and there were still tears streaking down her face. Archer had his arm around her, his lips moving in the hair at her temple. Then, like he knew I was watching them, he turned and looked at me. I dropped my eyes, my hands fisted in my skirt.

After Anna and Jenna, I'd nearly forgotten about me and Archer, but now our encounter from last night came flying back at me, slamming into my heart.

Thankfully, Mrs. Casnoff stood up and raised her hands for silence, so

I could turn my eyes to her and not Archer.

"Students," she began, "as I'm sure you know, there was another attack last night. Miss Gilroy is going to be all right, but as this is the third attack in less than a year, we obviously have had to take some drastic measures. As I'm sure you've all noticed, Lord Byron is not here. Nor is

Miss Talbot. Until the Council can get to the bottom of these attacks, vampires are no longer welcome at Hecate."

My heart sank as everyone around me burst into applause. I thought of

Jenna, how happy she'd been last night in her pink dress, and felt tears prick my eyes. Where had they taken her?

Mrs. Casnoff said a few more things, mostly about being careful and aware of our surroundings, and that we couldn't drop our guard until we knew for sure what had happened, but I barely heard her. It was true that

Jenna had been back up in our room when Anna was attacked, but I'd seen

Jenna after she came back from a feeding at the infirmary. She was always worn out and almost drugged. Last night, when Casnoff came to get her, she'd just looked scared.

I didn't realize that the assembly was over until a shapeshifter boy stepped on my toes, getting out of his seat.

Numb, I stood, only to hear Mrs. Casnoff say, "Sophie, Elodie, please wait a moment."

I turned back. Elodie looked as confused as I felt.

"If the two of you would kindly go to my office."

Archer gave Elodie's arm a quick squeeze before leaving. His eyes met mine as he passed me. He gave me a smile, and I tried to smile back.

Whatever had happened between me and Archer last night had been a freak incident, one I knew would just be easier to pretend had never happened. He was clearly with Elodie, and I couldn't blame him. Not only was she gorgeous, but now all her friends were gone. What kind of jerk would break up with a girl the day after her best friend had had nearly all her blood drained?

Not that it was a situation that came up often, I guess.

Elodie and I walked to Mrs. Casnoff's office, our shoulders brushing in the narrow hallways.

"I'm really sorry," I started, but Elodie cut me off with a glacial stare.

"What, that your best buddy nearly killed another one of my friends, or that you tried to kill me with my own dress?"

I was too tired to even give my crappy lying skills a shot. "The spell wasn't supposed to hurt you. It was just going to turn your dress a different color when you put it on."

Elodie was silent, and when I glanced over at her, I saw that she was watching me with an appraising look. "That was some pretty powerful magic," she said. "And while I don't appreciate nearly being strangled by clothes, it might be a cool spell to learn."

"I'll teach it to you if you'll teach me the curse you put on my dummy," I offered.

Before she could reply, Mrs. Casnoff ushered us into her cramped office. "Come along, ladies."

Once Elodie and I were seated in the tiny chairs, Mrs. Casnoff moved behind her desk. "I'm sure you both know why I wanted to speak with you."

She sighed as she sat down. If it had been anyone else, I would've said she flopped into the chair, but Mrs. Casnoff was way too formal to flop. It was more like a graceful collapse.

"I'm sure it's occurred to you that all these attacks have been exclusively on members of your coven, girls."

Confused, I said, "Oh, I'm not a member of their coven."

Now Mrs. Casnoff looked puzzled. She glanced over at Elodie, who I now noticed was looking anywhere but at either of us.

"You joined Sophia to your coven without her knowledge?" Mrs.

Casnoff asked.

"What?" I yelped. "How is that even possible?"

Elodie blew out a long breath that ruffled her bangs. "Look, we didn't have a choice," she said, still looking down at her lap. It was weird to see

Elodie so subdued. Normally she would have rolled her eyes a bunch of times and said something dripping with contempt.

But now she looked downright guilty.

"We needed her," Elodie said to Mrs. Casnoff, her tone pleading. "She wouldn't join with us willingly, so we did the joining ritual without her."

Mrs. Casnoff was glaring at Elodie. "And what did you use in place of her blood?"

"I snuck into her room and took some hair from her brush," Elodie muttered. "But we didn't think it had even worked. There was just this big black puff of smoke when we threw her hair in the fire. That's not supposed to happen."

"Oh my God!" I exploded. "You can't just do something like that! I can't believe I felt bad about putting that stupid bone in your dress."

Mrs. Casnoff's glare swung back to me. "You did what?" she asked in a voice so frosty, I was sure I was about to be flash-frozen like a wooly mammoth.

Elodie saw her chance. "That's right! She's the one who nearly killed me last night by putting a charmed bone in my dress!"

"Only because you put a curse on my dress," I fired back.

"Only because you're trying to steal my boyfriend!"

That was apparently the last straw for Mrs. Casnoff.

"Girls!" she yelled, standing up and slamming both of her hands on the desk. "The time for bickering about dresses and boys is over. Two of your sisters were severely injured, and another is dead."

"But . . . you've fixed it," Elodie said softly. "You kicked out the vampires."

Mrs. Casnoff sat down in her chair and rubbed a hand over her.

"We can't be sure that Jenna or Byron was responsible. Both claim their innocence, and last night neither showed signs of having recently fed."

I thought of the picture in the book about L'Occhio di Dio, the one with the witch drained of blood, and Alice saying that The Eye saw me, even here.

"Mrs. Casnoff," I ventured, "do you think . . . Do you think it's possible that L'Occhio di Dio has gotten into the school?"

"Why would you even think that?" Elodie asked, but Mrs. Casnoff held up her hand.

"It's just that I saw this picture of a witch they had killed, and she had two holes in her neck and hardly any blood, just like Holly and Chaston and

Anna. I mean, maybe it's possible--"

Mrs. Casnoff interrupted. "I've also seen that illustration, Sophia, but there is no way L'Occhio di Dio could infiltrate Hecate. There are simply too many protection spells. And even if they could somehow get past those, what would they do? Hide out on this tiny island for months waiting until they could sneak into the school?" She shook her head. "It doesn't make sense."

"Unless they were already in the school," I said.

Mrs. Casnoff raised her eyebrows. "What, as a teacher? Or a student?

Impossible."

"But--"

Mrs. Casnoff's voice was gentle, and her eyes were sad as she said, "Sophia, I know you don't want to believe that Jenna is responsible for this.

None of us do. But I'm afraid that at this time, it's the most plausible explanation. Jenna is being transported to Council headquarters now, and she'll have a chance to plead her case. But you have to accept that she may be guilty."

My chest tightened at the thought of Jenna, scared and alone, on her way to London, where she'd probably be staked. Maybe even by my own dad.

Reaching across the desk to pat my hand, Mrs. Casnoff said, "I am sorry." She looked over at Elodie. "I'm sorry for both of you. But perhaps this will give you an opportunity to put aside your differences for now. After all, you're the only members of your coven left here." She looked back at me and gave a wry smile. "Whether you like it or not. Now, I'm excusing the two of you from classes today. Until we get the results of the Council's inquiry, I want you to keep a close eye on each other. Understood?"

We both mumbled yes and then shuffled out of Mrs. Casnoff's office.

I spent the rest of my day in my room. Without Jenna, it felt big and lonely, and it was all I could do not to cry when I looked at her stuffed lion, whom we'd named Bram as a joke, and all her books. They hadn't let her take anything with her.

I stayed in bed through dinner. Sometime after night had fallen, I heard a soft knock on my door, and Archer saying, "Sophie? You in there?"

But I didn't answer, and after a while, I heard him walk away.

I lay awake until midnight, when the soft green glow of Alice's spell crept through my windows.

Throwing off my covers, I jumped to my feet, eager to get out of this house and into the sky, and wanting to tell Alice everything that had happened.

I didn't even bother being quiet on the stairs as I walked to the front door. My hand had just turned the knob when I heard a voice hiss, "Busted!"

My heart in my mouth, I turned around and saw Elodie standing at the foot of the stairs, her arms crossed, and a smirk on her face.

"I knew it," she said, louder now. "I knew you were up to something.

When Mrs. Casnoff finds out you've been doing a spell on the whole school, you're going to join your little leech friend in London."

I was still frozen at the door, the knob half turned in my hand. Of all the people to catch me sneaking out, why did it have to be the one person who hated me the most? I stood there thinking of something to say that would keep her from running to Mrs. Casnoff right then and there.

Then I remembered the look on her face when she'd asked me about the bone spell, and an idea occurred to me. I just hoped Alice would go with it.

"Okay, you caught me." I tried smiling sheepishly, but probably just looked deranged, because Elodie moved back a step as I came closer.

"Since my magic was going so badly--no thanks to you--I've been taking, um, private lessons from one of the ghosts here."

Elodie rolled her eyes. "Oh, please," she said. "A magic tutor? Who happens to be a ghost? You must think I'm completely brain dead."

Her eyes narrowed. "Who are you really meeting out there? A guy?

Because if it's Archer--"

"There is nothing going on between me and Archer," I said, which wasn't technically a lie. I mean, I was pretty sure I was in love with the guy, and I think he might've kissed me at the ball if Elodie hadn't rushed in, but it's not like we were meeting for secret trysts in the woods. No matter how much I wished that might have been true.

Now I smiled at Elodie and held out my hand. "You wanna learn some awesome magic? Come with me."

Just as I'd hoped, the thought of learning new magic was too seductive for Elodie to pass up.

"Fine," she said. "But if this is some trick that ends up getting me killed, I'm so haunting your ass."

Alice must've known Elodie was coming, because there were two brooms waiting outside.

Elodie's eyes widened like a kid's on Christmas morning. "You ride brooms?"

I just smiled and hopped on. "Come on," I told her, repeating Alice's words to me. "Be traditional for once."

Then we were riding through the night, the cold, clear air burning our lungs. Overhead, the stars sparkled in the inky sky. I could hear Elodie laughing next to me, and I looked over at her, our eyes meeting in the first smile we'd ever shared.

After we landed in the cemetery, I introduced Elodie to Alice, leaving out the part where Alice was my great-grandmother, and introducing Elodie as a "member of my coven."

Alice gave me a sideways glance at that, but she didn't say anything.

"So. What sorts of magic do you two do out here in Creepyville?"

Elodie asked.

"A number of things," Alice replied. In the moonlight, her skin looked like porcelain and her cheeks were rosy. Even her eyes seemed brighter. I wondered if she had some sort of beauty spell. If so, I really hoped we'd learn that one next.

"Sophie has mastered summoning objects," Alice continued, "and she is currently working on a transportation spell."

Elodie turned to me, surprised. "You can make things appear out of nothing?"

"Yeah," I said, like it was no big deal even though I still couldn't summon anything bigger than a lamp, and that made me sweat buckets.

Concentrating on something small that wouldn't leave me gasping for breath, I waved my hand and an emerald brooch appeared in the air right in front of

Elodie. Her mouth fell open, and I smiled at Alice.

Elodie reached out and took the brooch, turning it over and over in her hands. "Teach me."

She was a quick learner, faster than I had been, and within an hour she had made a pen and a tiny yellow butterfly appear. I was a little jealous; I'd never conjured anything that wasn't inanimate. On the bright side, Alice didn't seem very impressed with Elodie, and she didn't praise her nearly as much as she had me.

While they worked on that, I worked on transporting myself from one spot to another, a spell I still couldn't master. Alice said the best witches could cross oceans with that spell, but so far I couldn't even move one inch to the left.

Finally, Elodie and I were both exhausted and pretty tipsy with magic, so we sat on the grass, our backs against the cemetery fence while Alice leaned against a tree, staring off into space.

"I hope it's okay that I'm here," Elodie said to her.

"Why did you come with Sophia tonight?" Alice asked. She didn't sound angry, just curious, so I answered, "Elodie caught me sneaking out, so

I invited her to come along. I thought she might like to learn some new magic, too."

"Mrs. Casnoff said to keep an eye on you," Elodie said to me, but she was smiling. I wasn't sure if it was from the magic or if she was just genuinely happy to be here.

"Why?" Alice asked, and both Elodie and I turned more serious.

Briefly, I told Alice what had happened to Anna, and how Jenna and Byron were gone.

"Are they sure it was a vampire?"

"No. They don't know who else it could be, though," Elodie said.

"The Eye," Alice said, and I felt Elodie stiffen next to me.

"I asked them about that," I said. "But Mrs. Casnoff said there was no way they could get to us. There are too many protection spells."

Alice gave a low laugh that sent chills up my spine. "Yes, that's what they said to me too. It was nothing for my sleeping spell to blast through their pathetic defenses. Do you really think The Eye couldn't do the same?"

"They don't have magic, though," I argued, but I sounded unsure.

Elodie scooted a little closer to me.

"Don't they?" Alice asked. She walked toward us and crouched down in front of me. I saw her long white fingers go to the buttons of her green cardigan, and when she'd discarded that, she unbuttoned her dress.

I sat, frozen in horror, as she pulled her arm out of the left side of her dress and pushed down her slip.

There, just where her heart would have been, was a large gaping wound.

"This is what The Eye did to me, Sophia. They tracked me down, they chased me until I could run no farther, and they cut out my heart. Here. At

Hecate."

All I could do was stare at that hole and shake my head. I could feel

Elodie trembling beside me.

"Yes, Sophia," Alice said quietly. I looked up at her face and saw that she was watching me with pity, like she was sorry she had to tell me all this.

"It was the head of the Council himself who set them on me, who tricked me into feeling safe here, and then offered me up like a lamb to sacrifice."

"But why?" I asked, my voice no more than a strained whisper.

"Because they were afraid of my power. Because it was greater than theirs."

My head was spinning and I felt like I might throw up. Somehow all the horrors we'd been shown that first night at Hecate were nothing compared to this one wound, this one story.

"Your father believed you'd be safe here because he didn't know the real story of how I died. But, Sophia, you have to believe me. You are in very real danger here." She looked over at Elodie. "Both of you are.

Someone is targeting powerful witches, and you two are the only ones left."

Now it was Elodie who was shaking her head. "No, no, there's no way. It was Jenna. It was a vamp. It . . . it has to be."

Alice's face went very still, like a mask had come down, and her eyes seemed to be looking through us. "Perhaps it was. For both of your sakes, I hope it was."

She reached out and took one of my hands in hers, and one of Elodie's in the other. "But in case it wasn't . . ." Suddenly my hand was hot in hers.

Too hot, and I winced, trying to pull back. I could feel Elodie trying to do the same, but Alice held on until we were both making little whimpering sounds. Finally the heat faded, and she let us go. I studied the hand that now lay in my lap, thinking it would at least look red, if not blistered, but it looked normal.

"What was that?" Elodie asked in shaky voice.

"A protection spell. It will help you know your enemies, should the time ever come."

Elodie and I were quiet as the three of us flew back to the school. This time there was no delighted laughter, no weightless feeling of freedom.

When we landed, Alice reached around her neck and pulled off the necklace she was wearing. It was just like the one she'd given me. Elodie didn't put it on right away. She just looked at it, frowning, before closing her hand around it.

"Thanks for the lesson," she told Alice. Then she looked at me, her face still troubled, and said, "See you tomorrow, Sophie."

"Do you really think The Eye is here at Hecate?" I asked Alice once

Elodie had gone inside.

Alice glanced past me at Hecate. The huge shadowed mansion looked like a many-eyed monster slumbering in the dark.

"Something is here," she said at last. "But what, I don't know. Not yet."

I looked back at the house and knew Alice was right. A shadow had fallen over the school and seemed to be creeping closer and closer to me.

Overhead, clouds snaked across the crescent moon, and the night became even darker. I dreaded the thought of walking into the dark hallways by myself and up to an empty room.

"Do you--" I started to ask Alice, but when I turned, she was gone, leaving me shivering and alone in the night.

I'd figured that Elodie wouldn't want to go back with me to see Alice again after the "my gaping chest wound, let me show you it" thing, but she surprised me by meeting me on the stairs the next night.

"So when did you meet Alice?" she asked on our way down.

"Middle of October?" I answered. Elodie nodded, like that was the answer she'd expected. "So after Chaston, then."

"Yeah," I said. "What does that have to do with it?"

But she didn't answer.

Elodie came with me for the next two weeks. Alice didn't seem to mind her tagging along, and I was kind of shocked to discover that I didn't find her presence completely abhorrent either. In fact, I started to suspect that I might actually like Elodie.

It's not as if her whole personality changed or anything, but she was definitely becoming a kinder, gentler Elodie. Maybe she was just using me for Alice. I mean, after just a couple of nights of training, Elodie could already make a small couch appear out of nothing, and she'd moved on to the transportation spell. Not that either of us could do it yet.

But I didn't think it was just about the magic; I think she was lonely.

Anna and Chaston were both gone, and I'd never really thought about how they were the only people Elodie ever talked to, besides Archer. And even they seemed to be spending less time together. Elodie said she was too busy with "other stuff" for a boyfriend, while Archer said he was giving her some space.

Archer and I were weird too. After the ball, something had changed between us, and the easy camaraderie we'd shared during cellar duty had evaporated. Now we usually spent the full hour actually cataloguing instead of teasing and joking, and sometimes when he didn't know I was looking, I'd see this really faraway look cross his face. I didn't know if he was thinking about Elodie, or if, like me, he was disappointed by the uncomfortable distance that had sprung up between us.

November at Hecate was gray and rainy, which seemed to suit my mood. Even though I was glad Elodie and I were becoming sort-of friends, she wasn't Jenna, and I missed my real friend. About a week after Anna had been attacked, Mrs. Casnoff announced at dinner that the Council had cleared Byron of any suspicion. Apparently, he had a solid alibi; he'd been telepathically talking to someone at the Council at that time. But no matter how many times I asked, Mrs. Casnoff would never give me an answer about where Jenna was or what was going on, and I worried about her pretty much all the time.

Mom, being a mom, could sense something was up whenever I called her, but I told her that I was swamped with classes. I hadn't mentioned anything about Chaston or Anna or Jenna; it would have freaked her out, and

I knew she worried about me enough as it was.

I hated being alone in the room at night, so I started spending my cellar duty-free evenings in the library, reading up on Prodigium lore in the hopes that I could find something that might clear Jenna. So far, the only creatures I knew of who took blood from their victims were vampires, demons, and, if that one book was to be believed, L'Occhio di Dio. Since

Mrs. Casnoff had already shot down my L'Occhio di Dio theory, I tried finding books about demons. But it seemed that every book about demons in the whole library was written in Latin. I tried pressing my hand to the pages and saying "Speak," but the books seemed charm proof. The only parts I could make out were facts I already knew, like how they had to be killed with that demonglass. I sincerely hoped there wasn't a demon at Hecate, because I suspected you couldn't just run down to Williams-Sonoma to pick some up.

One drizzly evening in late November, just after dinner and before I was supposed to report for cellar duty, I took a few of the books to Mrs.

Casnoff. She was in her office, writing in a big black ledger. Lamplight cast a warm glow over the room, and classical music was playing softly. Like on the night of the ball, the music wasn't coming from anywhere that I could see.

She looked up when I came in. "Yes?"

I held the books out. "I had some questions about these."

She frowned a little, but closed her ledger and gestured for me to sit down.

"Is there a reason you're researching demons, Sophia?"

"Well, I read that they sometimes drink the blood of their victims, and

I thought, you know, maybe that's what happened to Chaston and Anna."

For a long moment Mrs. Casnoff studied me. I realized the music wasn't playing anymore.

"Sophie," she said. It was the first time she'd ever called me that. Her voice was tired. "I know how much you want to exonerate Jenna."

I knew what she was going to say: the same thing she'd said about The

Eye. I rushed on. "I can't read any of these books because they're all in Latin, but there are pictures in them that show demons who pose as humans."

"That's true. But it's also true that we would know if such a thing was on school grounds."

I stood up, slapping one of the books on her desk. "You said yourself that magic isn't always the answer! Maybe your magic is broken. Maybe something has a power stronger than yours and got in."

Mrs. Casnoff rose from her desk, her shoulders drawn back. There was a sudden charge in the air, and I was suddenly--painfully--aware that

Mrs. Casnoff was much more than just a principal. She was an extremely powerful witch. "Do not raise your voice with me, young lady. While it's true that magic is not always infallible, what you are suggesting is not possible. I'm very sorry for you, but you have to face the fact that in the three weeks Jenna has been gone, neither you nor Elodie nor any other student at this school has been attacked. You made a poor choice for a friend, but it cannot be helped."

I stared at her, my breath coming in and out in a harsh rasp, like I'd just run a race.

Mrs. Casnoff ran a hand over her hair, and I saw that her hand was trembling. "I apologize if I seem blunt, but you have to understand that vampires are not like us; they are monsters, and I was foolish to forget that."

Her expression softened. "This hurts me as well, Sophie. I backed your father's decision to let vampires attend this school. Now I have a dead student, two more who may never return, and a lot of very powerful people very angry at me. I would love to believe that Jenna had nothing to do with any of this, but the evidence strongly suggests otherwise."

She took a deep breath and pressed the books into my numb hands.

"You're a loyal friend for trying to find a way to clear her, but in this case, I'm afraid your efforts are wasted. I don't want you doing anymore research on demons, is that understood?"

I didn't nod, but she acted as if I had. "Now, I believe you're late for your cellar duty, so I suggest you hurry on to that before Ms. Vanderlyden comes looking for you."

Through a film of tears, I watched her sit back down at her desk and open her ledger. I was angry with her for refusing to admit there could be something at Hecate she didn't know about. I also felt a bone-deep sadness.

It didn't matter what I found, or what theories I tried to work on; the easiest explanation was that Jenna had killed Holly and tried to kill the other two, so that was all anyone was ever going to believe. Anything else might mean admitting they were wrong or, worse than that, not omnipotent.

The tears were gone when I reached the cellar. They'd been replaced by a dull steady ache just behind my eyes. The Vandy was waiting for me at the door. I expected her to bite my head off--maybe even literally--but she must've seen something in my face, because all she did was grunt, "You're late," and give me a light push toward the stairs.

As she locked the door behind me, Archer looked up from behind one of the shelves. "There you are. Did the Vandy send out the hellhounds after you?"

"No." I picked up the clipboard and headed to the farthest corner of the cellar.

"What, no witty retort? No standard-issue Sophie Mercer comeback?"

"I'm not feeling very witty right this second, Cross," I said as my eyes scanned the shelves without seeing.

"Huh," he said softly. "What's up with you?"

"Let's see, shall we? The only real friend I have here is gone and will probably never come back. Everyone is determined to think she's a monster, and no one will listen to any other ideas."

"What other ideas?" he asked. "Sophie, she's a vampire. It's what they do."

"So you believe that too?"

He tossed his papers down. "Yeah, I do. I know she was your friend, and that it sucks, but she wasn't the only friend you have here."

I was so angry, I felt like I was vibrating. I crossed the room to stand in front of him. "Are you saying you're my friend, Cross? Because I could swear you've barely talked to me since the night of the ball."

He looked away, and I could see the muscles working in his jaw.

"You've been completely weird ever since that night."

"Me?" He swung his gaze back to me. "You're the one who hasn't been able to look at me. And excuse me if I think it's a little suspicious that as soon as Elodie started spending time with you, she suddenly breaks it off with me."

I shook my head, confused, until what he was saying dawned on me.

"What, you think I told Elodie what you said about wanting to spend the ball with me so that she'd dump you and I could have you all to myself?"

When he didn't say anything, I gave him a light shove. "Get over yourself," I nearly snarled. I tried to walk past him, but he caught my arm, pulling me up short so that I nearly collided with him.

For a few charged seconds we froze, glaring at each other, breathing hard. I saw his eyes darken just a little, like Jenna's had the day she'd seen my blood. But this was a different kind of hunger; one I felt too.

I didn't let myself think. I just leaned forward and pressed my lips to his.

He took a split second to respond, but then he made a sound almost like a growl from low in his throat, and his arms were suddenly around me, holding me so tightly I could hardly breathe. Not like I cared. All I cared about was Archer, his mouth on mine, and his body pressed against me.

I'd been kissed a few times before, but nothing like this. I felt electrified from the top of my head to my toes, and somewhere in the back of my mind I heard Alice saying that love had a power all its own. She was right: this was magic.

We broke apart to catch our breath. I wondered if I looked as dazed as he did, but then he was kissing me again and we were stumbling against the shelves. I heard something fall and shatter against the floor, heard the soft crunch of glass underfoot as Archer pushed me against the wall.

There was a sensible part of me somewhere that clutched its pearls and hissed that I better not give up my V-card in a cellar, but when Archer's hands slid under my shirt and onto the skin of my back, I started thinking that a cellar was as good a place as any.

As if they didn't even belong to me, my hands reached up between us and unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt. I wanted to touch his skin the way he was touching mine. He must've felt the same way, because he backed up a little to give me better access. His lips trailed from mine to my throat, and I closed my eyes and let my head tip back against the wall as I slid my hands inside his shirt.

His mouth on my neck felt so good that it took me a while to realize that my left hand was burning.

My head felt heavy as I lifted it to look at my hand on his chest, just over his heart.

And then the haze of desire clouding my brain gave way to a numbing wave of shock as I watched a tattoo--a black eye with a golden iris--appear under my fingers.

At first I refused to believe what I was seeing. Then Archer, noticing how I'd frozen up, pulled back and looked down.

When he lifted his face back to mine, he was pale, and there was a panicked look in his eyes. That's when I knew that what I was seeing through my fingers was real: it was the mark of L'Occhio di Dio. Archer was an Eye. I said the words in my mind, but it was like they wouldn't compute. I knew I should scream or run or something, but I couldn't move.

Archer spoke. "Sophie."

It was as if my name was the code word to break my paralysis--I pressed both of my hands hard against his chest and shoved. I caught him by surprise or I never would've been able to knock him down. But he fell back, crashing into a shelf, sending its contents to the floor. A viscous, yellow liquid spilled from one of the broken jars. I slid in it as I turned to run.

But Archer was already steadying himself, and he grabbed my arm. I thought he said my name again, but I wasn't sure. I whirled around, and my momentum knocked him off balance again. As he slipped in the yellow ooze, I shoved my elbow as hard as I could into his chest. He bent over as the air rushed out of his lungs, and I took that as my chance to slam the heel of my hand into his jaw.

Skill Number Three, I thought.

Just like in Defense.

Archer clutched his mouth as bright red blood seeped through his fingers. I felt the crazy urge to laugh bubble up inside of me. I had just kissed that mouth, and now it was bleeding because of me.

He reached for me, but he was moving slowly, and I was able to spin away from him.

How many times had we fought each other in Defense? Had we just been preparing for this moment? Had Archer watched me struggle to deflect his blows, and laughed at how easy it would be to kill me?

I dodged his last grasp and ran for the stairs. My mind felt like it was going down one of those spiral slides. All I could think was that Archer had kissed me, Archer had killed Holly, Archer had hurt Chaston, Archer had attacked Anna. I didn't look behind me, but I thought I felt his fingers brush my ankle. I ran for the door, only to remember that it was locked . . . Oh my

God, it was locked.

I fell against the wood, screaming, "Vandy! Mrs. Casnoff!

Somebody!"

Banging as hard as I could on the door with my fists, I finally looked behind me in time to see Archer pulling up his pant leg. It took me a minute to figure out that he was reaching for something strapped to his leg.

A knife. A silver knife, like the one that had cut out Alice's heart.

My scream turned breathy and weak with fear, like something out of a nightmare.

But Archer didn't come near me. He ran for the low window in the back of the room, sliding the knife along the ancient lock.

I could hear people on the other side of the door--footsteps and, I thought, the jangle of keys.

The lock on the door and the lock on the window gave way at the same time.

Archer looked at me one last time as I sagged against the door. I couldn't read the expression on his face, but I was shocked to see that there were tears in his eyes. Then he turned and shimmied out the window just as the door opened behind me, and I fell, shaking, into the Vandy's arms.

I sat on the couch in Mrs. Casnoff's office, a cup of hot tea in my hands. From the smell of it, there was more than just tea in the cup, but I hadn't taken a sip yet. I couldn't get my teeth to stop chattering long enough to drink, even though Mrs. Casnoff had wrapped a heavy afghan around me.

I wasn't sure I was ever going to stop shaking.

Mrs. Casnoff sat next to me, stroking my hair. It was a weirdly motherly gesture from her, and it was more unsettling than comforting. The

Vandy was leaning against the door, rubbing the back of her neck. It had been a long time since anyone had spoken.

Then Mrs. Casnoff said, "You're sure it was the mark of The Eye."

It was the third time she'd asked me, but I just nodded and tried to bring my shaking teacup to my lips.

She gave a sigh that made her sound a hundred years old. "But how?"

she asked for the third time. "How could one of ours be L'Occhio di Dio?"

I closed my eyes and finally drank. I was right: the tea was fortified with some kind of alcohol. It hit my stomach in a warm wave, but it did nothing to stop the shivering.

How? I thought. How?

I tried to answer the question for myself, wondering if he'd sought them out last year when he'd left Hecate for a while. But that was a logical question, and my brain felt totally incapable of dealing with logic right now.

Archer was an Eye. Archer had tried to kill me.

I kept repeating it in my head. Almost from a distance, I wondered if

Archer had only befriended me, pretended to like me, so that he'd have a chance to get close to me. Was that the reason he'd started dating Elodie?

I rubbed my hand over my chest, just above my heart. Mrs. Casnoff watched with a look of concern. "Did he hurt you?"

"No," I told her. "He didn't."

Nowhere you could see, at least.

"Looks like you got a few good blows in, though," the Vandy piped up, nodding toward my right hand, which was turning purplish and swelling up from its runin with Archer's jaw.

I raised my eyes to her. "Yeah," I said flatly. "Thanks for your high-

quality defense lessons. Much appreciated."

"I just don't understand," Mrs. Casnoff said, dazed. "We should have known. We should have been able to sense it. Or someone should have seen his mark."

I shook my head. "It was hidden. It only appeared because . . ."

Because of Alice's protection spell, I thought, but I didn't want to tell them about Alice. "I did a protection spell on myself," I lied. As usual I sucked at lying, but they were too shaken up to notice. "When I touched the mark, it appeared."

Mrs. Casnoff looked at me. "You touched it?"

I felt my face flame with embarrassment. Like it wasn't bad enough that the boy I loved had turned out to be an assassin, now I was going to get busted for making out in the cellar.

Luckily, Mr. Ferguson, the shapeshifter teacher, came in, shaking rain off his heavy leather coat. There was an enormous Irish wolfhound at his side, as well as a golden mountain lion. As I watched, the wolfhound stood and became Gregory Davidson, one of the older kids on campus. The mountain lion was Taylor. For the first time since Beth had told her who my father was, Taylor wasn't glaring at me. In fact, I was pretty sure I saw pity in her eyes.

"No sign of him, Mrs. C.," Mr. Ferguson said. "We searched the whole island."

Mrs. Casnoff sighed. "None of my tracking spells have turned up anything either. It's as though he vanished into thin air."

She massaged her temples and said, "The much more pressing issue now is informing the Council that we were infiltrated. Your father will definitely want to hear of this, and then of course, our security spells will have to be strengthened, and the other students will have to be told what happened."

Her voice wavered on the last word, and to my horror, she dropped her face into her hand with what sounded like a sob.

I shrugged off the afghan and draped it over her shoulders.

"It'll be okay."

She looked up at me, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "I'm so very sorry, Sophie. I should have listened to you."

Just a few hours ago, those words from Mrs. Casnoff would have had me dancing in the streets. Now I just smiled sadly and said, "Don't worry about it." I was glad that this meant Jenna might be able to come back, but that one piece of happy was buried under a compost pile of hurt, sadness, and anger. I'd wanted to be proven right, but not like this.

I left Mrs. Casnoff, Ferguson, and the Vandy planning an assembly for the next morning, and headed for my room. Though I missed Jenna, tonight I was actually looking forward to being alone.

Cal met me at the foot of the stairs.

"I'm okay," I said, holding up my hand. "It'll heal on its own."

"It's not that. Mrs. Casnoff doesn't want you going anywhere on your own for now. Not until we find Archer."

I sighed. "So . . . what? You're going to follow me to my room?"

He nodded.

"Fine." I laid a hand on the smooth wood of the banister and attempted to drag my weary self up the stairs. Now I finally understood the term heartsick. That's exactly how I felt. Like I had the flu, but in my soul instead of my body. I was so tired, and everything seemed to hurt. Just as I was thinking I might reconsider my pledge to never get into one of those spooky bathtubs, I heard Elodie say, "Sophie?"

I turned around to see her standing in the foyer. Her face was pale, and it was the first time I'd ever seen her look anything less than beautiful.

"What's going on?" she asked. "All these people are saying that

Archer, like, attacked you in the cellar, or something, and I can't find him anywhere."

Just when I thought the pain in my chest couldn't get any worse, it seemed to bloom like a thorny plant.

"Wait here," I said to Cal.

I took Elodie's hand and led her into the nearest sitting room. Sitting next to her on the sofa, I explained what had happened, leaving out the whole me and Archer kissing part and mainly telling her about the fight and the mark over his heart.

Halfway through, she started shaking her head. Tears pooled in her eyes. I just kept talking and watched those tears spill down her cheeks and onto her lap, leaving dark spots on her blue skirt.

"That's impossible," she said when I was through. "Archer . . . couldn't hurt anyone. He . . ."

By then she was crying too hard to talk, and I reached out to hug her, only to have her slap my hands away. "Wait," she said, and a sliver of the old Elodie began to reemerge. "How did you see his mark?"

"I told you," I said, but I couldn't look her in the eyes. I looked at the lamp behind her instead, keeping my eyes on the blank face of the shepherdess at its base. "That protection spell Alice put on us."

"I know that," Elodie said, scooting back from me. "But why were you touching his chest?"

I lifted my eyes to hers and tried to think up a plausible lie. But I was tired and sad, and nothing would come. Guiltily, I looked down at my lap.

I waited for Elodie to yell or cry some more, or hit me, but she didn't do any of that. She just wiped her face with the back of her hands, stood up, and walked out.

I thought the news about Archer would really upset people, but the opposite ended up being true. Instead of freaking out that L'Occhio di Dio had been inside our school, everybody seemed relieved that the mystery behind the attacks had been solved and that life could finally go back to normal. Well, normal for a school like Hecate, which meant the shifters could go outside at night again, and the faeries were allowed to roam the woods at sunrise and sunset.

A few days later, Mrs. Casnoff pulled me aside and told me that Jenna would be coming back, and my dad would be arriving a week or so after that.

I should probably have been excited to finally meet him, but all I felt was nervous. Was he coming to Hecate in his official capacity, or was it because I was his daughter and I'd nearly been attacked? What would we talk about?

I called Mom one night to talk to her about it. I hadn't told her about

Archer. It would've only scared her. I just said there'd been some trouble, and Dad was coming to check it out.

"You'll like him," Mom said. "He's very charming and very smart. I know he'll be thrilled to see you."

"Then why hasn't he tried to see me before? I mean, I get when I was little you didn't want us hanging out. But what about after I came into my powers? You'd think he could've spared a visit somewhere in there."

Mom got quiet before finally saying, "Sophie, your dad had his reasons, but they're his to tell, not mine. But he loves you." After another pause she asked, "Is there something else going on?"

"I'm just really swamped with school," I lied.

I tried to be happy about seeing Dad, but it was hard to be enthusiastic about anything. I felt like I was moving underwater, and anything people said to me seemed muffled and distant.

On the other hand, I found myself suddenly popular. I guess nearly getting murdered in the cellar by an undercover demon hunter is all it takes to make people want to be your friend. Who knew?

I made that joke to Taylor one evening at dinner. Ever since that night in Casnoff's study, she'd been a lot friendlier to me, now that she finally realized I wasn't a spy for my dad. She laughed. "I didn't know you were so funny!"

Yeah, I was a regular laugh riot. Maybe because making jokes meant that I didn't burst into tears.

I watched people gather around Elodie and cluck over her sympathetically, murmuring how heartbroken she must be. She wasn't talking to me, and I missed her. It sounds weird, but I really wanted to talk to her about Archer. She was the only person who was feeling the same thing I was.

I'd stopped meeting Alice in the woods. Mrs. Casnoff had been true to her word and put about a dozen new protection spells over the house, so even Alice's super-powerful sleeping spell didn't work anymore. I could've just snuck out, but I had a feeling that was what Elodie was doing, so I left her to it. I mean, I'd stolen her boy-friend, even if it had been only temporarily. She could have my great-grandmother. Not exactly a fair trade, but as far as amends went, it was the best I could do.

Besides, I wasn't sure if I trusted myself with Alice anymore.

Looking back on it, a tiny part of me had been thrilled when that spell on Elodie's dress had started working. I hadn't wanted to hurt her--at least I don't think that I had--but there'd been a definite rush knowing I was capable of a spell like that.

Where would that thrill end?

My attraction to the dark side wasn't the only thing occupying my thoughts. I thought about that night in the cellar constantly. I kept coming back to Archer pulling out that knife. He'd had plenty of time to stab me and run. So why hadn't he? I kept turning that question over and over in my head, but I couldn't come up with a scenario that gave me the answer I really wanted; that Archer wasn't an Eye, that it had all been a horrible mistake.

A week after Archer left, I was perched on my window seat, flipping through my Magical Literature textbook. Even though he'd been cleared, Lord Byron wasn't coming back to Hecate. I got the impression he'd said something really rude to Mrs. Casnoff when she'd asked him back, because she pursed her lips a lot when she said we'd have a new teacher. It ended up being the Vandy. I'd thought she might be a little nicer to me after she'd rescued me from a killer, but other than canceling my cellar duty for the rest of the semester (all three weeks of it--really big of her), she showed no signs of softening. We already had three essays due by Friday, which was why I was attempting to find something in the stupid textbook that half interested me.

I'd just started to read a paragraph about Christina Rossetti's "Goblin

Market" when movement out on the lawn caught my eye. It was Elodie walking purposefully toward the woods. I guess she and Alice had decided the brooms were a little too attention-grabbing.

I told myself that I wasn't jealous, and that it was fine Alice hadn't made any attempt to contact me in the past few weeks. Elodie was a better student anyway. I glanced over to the closet, where I'd stashed Jenna's lion, Bram. I'd had to hide it a few days after she'd left because it hurt too much to look at it. Last week I'd hung the necklace Alice had given me around

Bram's neck for a similar reason. Not like I needed it to keep me awake anymore anyway.

I was still looking at the closet when my door opened.

"Miss me?" Jenna asked with a grin. I don't know which one of us was more shocked when I burst into tears.

She was across the room in an instant, wrapping her arms around me and leading me to my bed. She hugged me while I cried.

Jenna reached behind her and pulled a box of Kleenex off my desk.

"Here," she said, handing it to me.

"Thanks." I sniffled into my tissue. Then I let out a deep shuddering breath. "Whew. I feel better."

"Rough couple of weeks, huh?"

I glanced at her. She looked the best I'd ever seen her. Her skin was still pretty pale, but there was a light rose flush on her cheeks. Even her pink stripe looked brighter.

"Did they fill you in?"

Jenna nodded. "Yeah, but I can't believe it. Archer really didn't strike me as the secret demon hunter type."

I snorted and wiped my nose again. "You or anybody else. You were with the Council. Are they freaked?"

"Big time. From what I heard, Archer and his whole family disappeared off the face of the earth. No one knows what happened, but it seems pretty clear they were all in on it." Jenna ran a hand through her hair.

"It's crazy to think he was hiding that all this time."

"Yeah," I said, looking down at my hands. "It just sucks because . . ."

I sighed.

"You hate him for what he did, but you miss him," Jenna finished.

I looked up at her, surprised. "Exactly."

She reached up and swept her hair to one side, revealing a pair of light blue puncture wounds just below her ear. "I know a little something about falling for the enemy."

With a sad smile, she let her hair fall back.

I shifted on the bed to make more room for her, and we both leaned back against my pillows.

"So tell me about London."

Jenna rolled her eyes and kicked off her shoes. "I never even got to

London. The Council has a house in Savannah they use when they have stuff to do at Hecate. I just hung out there while they asked me a bunch of questions, like what vampire made me, and how often did I feed. I'm not gonna lie: it was pretty scary at times. I was sure they were bringing in

Buffy at any moment to give me the ol' stake and shake."

I choked on a laugh. "The what?"

Blushing, Jenna looked away and rubbed one foot on top of the other.

"It's just this thing this girl there said."

"A pretty girl?" I asked, bumping shoulders with her.

"Maybe," she said, but she was grinning from ear to ear. All I could get out of her was that the girl's name was Victoria, she worked for the

Council, and she was a vampire too.

"They have vampires that work for the Council?"

"Yeah," Jenna said, more animated than I'd ever seen her. "They work all sorts of cool jobs, mentoring younger vamps and acting as security for

VIPs in the Council."

"Speaking of which, you didn't run into my dad by any chance, did you?"

Jenna shook her head. "Nope, sorry. But I overheard Vix say he would be out here in a few days."

"Vix?" I asked, doing my startled eyebrow thing.

Jenna blushed all over again, and I laughed. "Wow, does Bram know he might have to share you soon?"

"Shut up," she said, but she was still smiling. "Hey, where is Bram?"

"Saved him for you," I said, hopping off the bed and going to the closet. I fished Bram out from underneath some laundry and tossed him to

Jenna. She caught him with a smile. "Ah, Bram, how I've miss--"

Her expression changed, and I watched that pretty flush seep from her cheeks as she stared at the stuffed lion.

Or, more accurately, at the necklace around his neck.

"Where did you get this?"

"The necklace? It was a present."

"From who?" She raised her eyes to mine, and I saw real fear in them.

An uncomfortable prickling sweat broke out on the back of my neck.

"Why? What is it?"

Jenna shuddered and pushed Bram away from her. "It's a bloodstone."

I crossed the room and picked up Bram, pulling the necklace over his head.

The large flat stone looked nothing like a bloodstone. It wasn't even red.

"It's black," I said to Jenna, holding it out to her, but she scooted back against the headboard.

"That's because it's demon blood."

Everything within me went completely still. "What?"

Jenna reached into her blouse and pulled out her bloodstone. The liquid inside was pitching and rolling, like there was a storm inside the tiny capsule. "See?" she said. "There's white magic in my stone. It only reacts like that if black magic is near. And that's some seriously dark stuff, Sophie."

Her fingers were clutching her necklace so hard her knuckles were white. "It did this the day of the ball too," she said, her eyes still on the pendant in my hands. "When you got that dirt out. I should have said something then, but you seemed so happy with the dress, and I thought black magic couldn't make something so pretty."

I was barely listening to her. I was remembering that Mrs. Casnoff said no one knew how Alice had become a witch. How she had only spoken to me after Chaston was attacked, how much more alive she'd seemed after

Anna.

And Elodie's face when Alice had given her her necklace.

Elodie was with her right now.

I dropped the necklace, and the stone cracked against the corner of my desk. A drop of black liquid seeped from the crack and sizzled on the floor, leaving a small burn mark.

I was amazed at how stupid I'd been. How naive.

"Jenna, get Mrs. Casnoff and Cal. Tell them to go to the woods, to

Alice's and Lucy's graves. She'll know where that is."

"Where are you going?" she asked, but I didn't answer. I just ran--the way I had the night I'd found Chaston.

I plunged into the woods, branches scratching at my face and arms, rocks cutting my feet. I was only wearing pajama pants and a T-shirt, but I barely felt the cold. I just ran.

Because now I understood how Alice had been corporeal, how she had all that power even though she was supposed to be dead. That black magic ritual Alice had gotten caught in hadn't turned her into a witch: it had made her a demon.

You too, my mind whispered. If that's what she is, that's what you are.

I was certain I'd find Elodie lying bleeding or maybe even dead when

I got to the cemetery. So I was shocked when I saw her standing next to

Alice, smiling as she faded away--only to reappear seconds later about a yard away.

She'd finally mastered the transportation spell.

Alice saw me first and lifted her hand in greeting. I stared at her and wondered how I'd ever believed she was just another ghost. None of the ghosts at Hecate had ever looked so real, so whole. Life radiated from her. I felt stupid for not seeing it before.

I neared them, fear racing through me. Elodie had stopped smiling the instant she saw me and was now looking somewhere over my head.

"Elodie," I said in what I'd meant to be a calm voice, but I know I sounded as strained and scared as I felt. "I think we should go back to the school. Mrs. Casnoff is looking for you."

"No she's not," Elodie answered. She reached down into her blouse and pulled out her necklace. "It glows whenever someone's looking for me, and tells me who it is. See?" The pendent was glowing, and I could make out my own name etched across it in dull gold.

"Family heirloom, huh?" I asked Alice.

She smiled, but I saw something flicker in her eyes. "Now, Sophia, don't be jealous."

"I'm not jealous," I said too quickly. "I just think Elodie and I should head back to the school now."

Mentally, I was calculating how long it would take Mrs. Casnoff and, I hoped, Cal to get out here. If Jenna had found them right after I'd left, surely they were only a few minutes behind me.

Alice frowned and lifted her head, sniffing the air--there was nothing even remotely human in the gesture. I felt myself start to shake.

"You're frightened, Sophia," she said. "Why on earth would you be afraid of me?"

"I'm not," I replied, but again my voice gave me away.

The wind blew through the trees, making them creak against each other and sending strange shadows skittering across the ground. Alice turned her head and took a deep breath. This time her expression hardened. "You've brought intruders on us. Why would you do such a thing, Sophia?"

She flicked her hands toward the woods, and I could hear a loud groaning, like the trees were uprooting themselves and moving. She was slowing Mrs. Casnoff and Cal down, I realized with horror.

"You led Casnoff here?" Elodie asked, but my eyes were locked on

Alice.

"I know what you are," I said, my voice little more than a whisper. I'd expected Alice to look surprised or at least angry, but she just smiled again.

Somehow, that was much scarier.

"Do you indeed?" she asked.

"A demon."

She laughed, a low throaty sound, and her eyes flashed a reddish-

purple.

I turned to Elodie. She looked guilty, but she didn't flinch from my gaze.

"You did summon a demon," I said, and she nodded, like I'd just accused her of dyeing her hair, or something equally innocuous.

"We had no choice," she insisted. "You heard what Mrs. Casnoff said: our enemies are getting stronger all the time. I mean, my God, Sophie, they turned one of ours and used him against us. We had to be prepared."

She said all of this in the patient tone of a kindergarten teacher.

"So what?" I asked, my voice shaking. "You let her kill Holly?"

Now her eyes dropped, and she said, "A blood sacrifice is the only way to bind a demon to you."

I wanted to run at her, hit her, scream, but I was frozen in place.

Elodie looked at me with wide, begging eyes.

"We didn't mean to kill Holly. We knew we needed four to hold the demon and make it do our bidding. But we had to have blood. So I did a sleeping spell on her and Chaston pierced her neck with a dagger. We thought we could stop the bleeding before it was too late, but she just bled so much."

I could taste bile at the back of my throat. "You could have taken blood from anywhere," I said. "You took it from her throat so you could blame Jenna for it. Kill two birds with one stone, huh?"

I went on. "You knew that you killed Holly, but you let everyone think it was Jenna. You made me wonder if it had been her."

"I thought it was her who attacked Chaston and Anna," Elodie said, a tear trickling down her cheek. "We just thought the ritual had backfired. I never saw Alice before that night with you, I swear."

Now I looked at Alice. "Why didn't you appear to them?

Alice shrugged. "They weren't worth my time. They pulled me out of hell, but I felt no need to serve three schoolgirls."

She lifted one hand, and Elodie jerked.

"I wondered why it took you so long to figure it out," Alice said, still looking at me. "You're supposed to be such a bright girl, Sophie, and yet you couldn't tell the difference between a ghost and a demon? Or was it more?"

She turned her hand a little to the left, and Elodie screamed as she flew to the side, landing in a heap against the graveyard fence. She lay still after that, but I didn't know if she'd been knocked out or if Alice was using magic to keep her from moving.

"Do you know what I think, Sophia? I think you knew what I was but you didn't want to face it. Because if I'm a demon, then what does that make you?"

My whole body was trembling now. I wanted to cover my ears to block out what she was saying. Because she was right. I'd known there was something off about her, but I hadn't wanted to question it because I'd liked her. I'd liked the power she'd given me.

"I've waited for you for so long, Sophia," Alice said, and now she looked like she always did--just a girl my age. "When those pathetic excuses for dark witches did their summoning spell, I clawed my way over a horde of demons to be the one brought forth. In the hopes that I could find you."

Blood was rushing in my ears, pounding at my temples.

"But why?" I whispered through chattering teeth.

Her smile was beautiful and terrible. Her eyes glowed as bright as a furnace. "Because we're family."

Then I was flung backward, my back slamming painfully against a tree, the bark scraping me through my shirt. I tried to move, but my limbs were heavy and useless.

"I apologize for that," she said, moving toward Elodie, "but I can't have you in the way just now."

She knelt beside Elodie while I sat helpless and paralyzed. As gently as a mother with a baby, Alice lifted Elodie's head into her lap. Her eyes unfocused and half shut, Elodie rolled her head to one side as Alice stroked her temple. Then Alice lifted her hand to Elodie's neck. Two thin claws shot from her fingertips, illuminated by the light from the orb.

Elodie barely flinched as the claws punctured her neck, but I screamed. When Alice lowered her mouth to drink, I shut my eyes.

I didn't know how much time had passed before I could suddenly move again--but when I finally stood, Alice was standing in front of me, and

Elodie lay, very pale and very still, against the cemetery gates.

I ran to her, and Alice didn't try to stop me.

Kneeling at Elodie's side, I felt the damp earth beneath us. Elodie's face was cool under mine, but her eyes were still half open, and I could hear her shallow breathing.

The wounds at her neck were red and raw, the rest of her very white.

Our eyes met and her lips moved, like she was trying to say something.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I'm so sorry, for everything."

She blinked once, and her lips moved again. Hand.

Thinking she wanted me to hold her hand, I reached down and took her left hand in mine.

She gave a deep sigh, and I felt a low vibration, like a low voltage current.

I felt her magic settle over me, just like she'd described. It felt soft and cold, like snow. Then her hand slipped from mine, and she went very still.

I heard Alice laugh. I turned to see her twirling in a circle, her skirt held out to her sides. "I must say, of all the gifts you could have given me, that one was the best."

Slowly, I rose to my feet. "Gift?"

Alice stopped twirling, but she was still giggling. "That night you brought her with you, I was sure you had figured out what I really was. It was kind of you to bring her to me and save me the risk of getting caught in that horrid school."

The magic Elodie had passed on to me still thrummed in my veins, but

I had no idea what to do with it. I knew I was no match for Alice, even if we did share the same type of power. She'd had a lot longer to use it, plus I guessed her stint in hell had taught her a few tricks. So the only thing I had going for me were the few paragraphs I could remember from the demon books I'd read, and pure, clean rage.

Alice was laughing again, magic drunk on Elodie's blood. "Now that

I've regained my full strength, we'll be unstoppable, Sophia. Nothing will be out of our reach."

But I wasn't listening to her. I was looking at the statue of the angel and the black sword in its hands. Black rock.

Demonglass.

In Defense, the Vandy was always going on about how everyone had a weakness, and I knew what Alice's was.

Me.

"Break," I murmured, and with a loud crack, the sword split in half.

The jagged stone landed in the grass just in front of me. I picked it up even as it burned hot and its edges sliced my hand. It was heavier than I'd thought it would be, and I hoped I'd be able to lift it high enough to do what I had to.

Alice turned around and saw me holding the shard, but she didn't look scared, just confused. "What are you doing, Sophia?"

She was standing about ten feet from me. I knew that if I ran at her, she'd flick me into a tree like a bug. But she was so giddy and didn't think I'd hurt her. After all, we were family.

I closed my eyes and concentrated, calling on my own power and the magic Elodie had given me. A fierce wind whipped around me, a wind so cold that it took my breath. My blood slowed in my veins even as my heart raced. I opened my eyes to find myself directly in front of Alice.

Her eyes widened, but not with fear or surprise. With delight.

"You did it!" she said excitedly, like we were at my ballet recital.

"Yeah. I did."

And then I hefted the shard of demonglass and sliced her neck.

"So it turns out I'm a demon," I told Jenna the next afternoon.

We were sitting in our room, or, more accurately, she was sitting. I was still in bed, where I'd been pretty much ever since Cal and Mrs. Casnoff had dragged me back to Hecate. Cal had been able to repair most of the damage done to my feet by my crazy bare-footed run through the woods, but my hand was another story.

I looked down. My left hand was fine, but the right had three long gashes across my fingers, palm, and the heel of my hand. They were puckered and angry looking, the edges of each slash a vivid purplish-red.

Cal had done the best he could to heal them, but the demonglass had done too much damage. I'd probably always have scars.

Or maybe Cal just hadn't had much magic left after trying to revive

Elodie. He and Mrs. Casnoff had come crashing into the clearing only moments after I'd cut off Alice's head and watched her body dissolve into the dirt. Cal had run to Elodie right away, but we'd all known it was already too late. Anna had told me Cal couldn't raise the dead, but he had tried that night. Only when it was obvious that Elodie was gone did he turn to me and take the blade out of my hand.

On the way back to the school, I'd been pretty out of it, but I remember Mrs. Casnoff telling me that Alice's body had been buried in the cemetery, along with a few other demons. That's why the angel had held the blade of demonglass--just in case any of them ever managed to get out.

"You people are more prepared than the Girl Scouts," I'd muttered.

Then I'd fainted.

"I always thought you were pretty evil. I just never wanted to say anything," Jenna said now. Her voice was light, but her eyes were sad when she looked down at my hand.

I'd gotten most of the story from Mrs. Casnoff that night. She hadn't lied when she'd told me that Alice had been changed through a black magic ritual. She'd just neglected to tell me that Alice's ritual had been a summoning incantation, designed to bring forth a demon and make it do your bidding.

I had no idea what anyone would ever need a demon for. Errands?

General evil tasks that needed doing around the house?

But demons are tricky, and so instead of becoming Alice's do-boy, it had stolen her soul and made her a monster. Since she was pregnant at the time, her baby had been a demon too. Lucy had married a human, so Dad was half demon, making me only a quarter demon.

"But," Mrs. Casnoff had told me as Cal had tried to heal my hand, "even a diluted amount of demon blood can result in enormous power."

"Great," I'd replied, my hand on fire as Cal's white magic raced over it.

Mrs. Casnoff had known what I really was all along, of course. That's why she hadn't been able to sense Alice. She thought she was just picking up on my demon vibes.

"So what happens now?" Jenna asked, getting off of her bed to sit gingerly on the edge of mine. "What about Archer and your dad?"

I shifted, wincing as my hand bumped against my leg. "I haven't heard anything about Archer other than what you told me about how he and his family have dropped off the face of the earth. Apparently there's a big group of warlocks out hunting for him."

And what they would do when they caught him. . . ? I didn't want to think about it.

"Cal thinks he and his family probably ran to Italy," I continued, trying to ignore the pain in my heart. "Since that's where The Eye is based, it seems like a safe bet."

To my surprise, Jenna shook her head. "I don't know. Something I overheard in Savannah. A few witches were talking about the L'Occhio di

Dio contingent in London. There've been a few sightings of a new guy with them. Dark-haired, young. Could be him."

My chest constricted.

"Why would he go there? He'd be right under the Council's noses."

She shrugged. "Hiding in plain sight? I just hope they catch him. I hope they catch all of them." Her eyes were cold as she said it, and a little shudder ran through me.

"As for my dad, I don't really know. The Council always knew he was half demon, but I guess since he'd never attempted to eat anybody's face and was super powerful to boot, they decided it was okay to make him Head, so long as no other Prodigium found out what he really was."

"And Mrs. Casnoff knew too?"

"All the teachers did. They work for the Council."

Jenna reached up and started twirling her pink streak.

"So you're not a witch," she said. It wasn't a question. Now my wince had nothing to do with my hand.

I wasn't a witch. I never had been. Mrs. Casnoff had explained that the powers of demons are so similar to those of dark witches that it's easy for a demon to "pass" as a witch, so long as she doesn't do anything crazy, like . . . well, like drinking the blood of a bunch of witches to make herself stronger.

I'd liked thinking of myself as a witch. It was a lot nicer than demon.

Demon meant monster to me.

Jenna suddenly reached over and started scratching the top of my head. "What are you doing?"

"I was seeing if you have horns under all that hair," she said, giggling.

I swatted her hand away, but I couldn't help smiling back. "I'm so glad my monsterness amuses you, Jenna."

She stopped playing with my hair and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. "Hey, speaking as one monster to another, I can tell you it's not so bad. At least we can be freaks together."

I turned and dropped my head on her shoulder. "Thanks," I said softly, and she gave me a squeeze in return.

There was a soft rapping at the door, and we both looked up. "It's probably Casnoff," I said. "She's checked on me like five times already today."

What I didn't tell Jenna was that the last time we had talked, I'd asked

Mrs. Casnoff what all this meant for me.

"It means that you will always be incredibly powerful, Sophia," she'd answered. "It means that, like your father, you will be expected to use this power in service to the Council."

"So I have a destiny," I said. "Crap."

Mrs. Casnoff smiled and patted my hand. "It's a glorious destiny, Sophia. Most witches would kill to have your power. Some have."

I'd just nodded because I couldn't tell her how I really felt: I didn't want to be Sophia, the Great and Terrible. That sort of thing should belong to girls like Elodie, girls who were beautiful and ambitious. I was just me: funny, sure, and smart, but not a leader.

Sitting there that night with Mrs. Casnoff, Cal still holding my hand even though all of the magic was out of him, I'd asked the one question that had been buzzing in my brain.

"Am I dangerous? Like Alice?"

Mrs. Casnoff had met my eyes and said, "Yes, Sophia, you are. You always will be. Some demon hybrids, like your father, are able to go years without any incident, although he is accompanied by a member of the

Council at all times just to be cautious. Others, like your grandmother Lucy, are not so lucky."

"What happened?"

She looked away and said, very quietly, "L'Occhio di Dio did kill your grandmother, Sophie, but with good reason. Despite living thirty years without ever harming a living soul, something . . . something happened to her one night, and she reverted to her true nature."

She took a deep breath and said, "She killed your grandfather."

There was no sound for a long time until I asked, "So that could happen to me? I could just snap one day and demon-out on whoever is with me?"

And when I said that, all I'd been able to see was my mom lying bloody and broken at my feet. My stomach rolled and I'd tasted bile.

"It's a possibility," Mrs. Casnoff answered.

And then I asked Mrs. Casnoff if there was a way I could ever stop being a demon--if I could ever return to normal.

She had studied me for a long time, before saying, "There's the

Removal. But it would almost assuredly kill you."

Her answer was still sitting like a stone in my chest. The Removal might kill me.

It probably would kill me.

But if I lived the rest of my life as part demon, I might kill someone.

Someone I loved.

The door opened, but it wasn't Mrs. Casnoff standing there. It was my mom.

"Mom!" I cried, leaping out of my bed and throwing my arms around her. I could feel her tears as she buried her face in my hair, so I hugged her even tighter and breathed in her familiar perfume.

When we broke apart, Mom tried to smile at me, and reached down to take my hands. I couldn't hold back a soft cry of pain, and she looked down.

I thought Mom would cry again when she saw my hand, but she just raised it to her lips and kissed the palm, like I was three and had a skinned knee.

"Sophie," Mom said, smoothing my hair away from my face, "I've come to take you home, okay, sweetie?"

I looked back over my shoulder at Jenna, who was trying really hard to ignore us, but I saw the hurt look flash across her face. If I left, Jenna would have no one. So much for being freaks together.

I took a deep breath and turned back to my mom. I didn't know if I would be strong enough to look in her eyes and tell her what I had to say, what I'd known I had to do as soon as Mrs. Casnoff had given me her answer.

Then, before I could say anything, I saw Elodie walk by my doorway.

Rushing out, my heart in my throat, I wondered if Cal had saved her after all. Maybe she'd been recovering in the school this whole time, and they just hadn't told me.

The hall was empty except for her, and she had her back to me.

"Elodie!" I cried, running up to her. But she didn't look at me, and I realized

I was looking through her.

She walked on, pausing in doorways like she was looking for someone--just another Hecate ghost stuck here forever. I knew she deserved it, in a way. She and her friends had summoned a demon and paid the price.

I watched her for a long time, until she finally faded into the late afternoon sunlight. We'd never really been friends, but she had given me the last little magic she'd had inside her so that I could defeat Alice, and I would never forget that.

And in the end, it was seeing Elodie that gave me the strength to turn to my mom and say, "I'm not going home. I'm going to London, and I'm going through the Removal."

Writing a book has been compared to crossing the Atlantic in a bathtub, so I'm very grateful to have had the following people on my "crew"!

First and foremost, a HUGE thank you to my agent, the incomparable

Holly Root, the first person not related to me to fall in love with Sophie &

Co. Your enthusiasm and killer sense of humor make you the definition of a dream agent! Also, to Jennifer Besser, Emily Schultz, and everyone at

Disney-Hyperion Books, all of whom are freaking geniuses and made this book so much better than I thought it could be.

Big neuroses-laden hugs to all my writer friends in The Tenners, namely Kay Cassidy, Becca Fitzpatrick, and Lindsey Leavitt. Writing can be a lonely business, and you always gave me a shoulder to cry on (or an inbox to fill).

Thanks, too, to Sally Kalkofen and Tiffany Wenzler, who were my first readers, and whose questions, comments, and encouragement helped shape Hex Hall into something actually resembling a book. And to Felicia

LaFrance, whose cupcakes helped me write the last hundred pages. You rock, friend!

Few people are lucky enough to have had the same best friend for more than twenty years, so I am very grateful for Katie Rudder Mattli, who's been reading my stories since 1987, and is probably even now plotting to sell them on eBay. Thank you for your unwavering faith, and for always "validating" me!

Because I always promised I'd do this if I got published: Hi, Dallas!

Thanks to Crys Hodgens, Alison Madison, Debbie McMickin, and

Amber Williams. Y'all are phenomenal teachers, and even better friends.

I was lucky enough to have some pretty phenomenal teachers of my own. Alicia Carroll, Alexander Dunlop, James Hammersmith, Louis Garrett, Jim Ryan, Judy Troy, and Jake York were all mentors and friends, and their guidance is much appreciated.

A special thanks to Nancy Wingo, who made me enter writing contests, and compete in English tournaments, and go to Southern Literature conferences. . . . You're the best, and this book truly would not exist without you.

So much of Hex Hall is about the power of women, and I know few women more powerful than the formidable WOS--Tammi Holman, Kara

Johnson, Nancy Wingo, and my mom, Kathie Moore. You ladies are an inspiration in more ways than one!

For my parents, William and Kathie Moore. I would have to write a whole other book just to express a fraction of how thankful I am to you. You have supported me even when my path took some crazy turns, and I love you more than I can say.

John and Will, you are the brightest part of every day. Without the two of you, none of this would've been possible. I love you both "infinity"!

And last but not least, thank you to every student who sat in my classroom from 2004-2007. You guys were the reason I came to work every day, and I'm so thankful that I got to be a part of your lives. This book is for all of you.