“Do you know how weird it is to be repeating my senior year?” asked Eddie. “I can’t even blow it off either. I have to get decent grades to stay here.”
I grinned. “Hey, all knowledge is worth having.”
He tapped the papers in front of him. “Yeah? You got any knowledge on the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in fiction?”
“Edith Wharton,” I said automatically. He scrawled something onto his paper, and I turned to Jill. “How are things with you? Where’s Micah?”
Jill had her chin propped in her hand and was gazing at me with the weirdest look. It was almost… dreamy. It took her a few moments to snap out of her daze and respond. The dreamy look became embarrassed and then dismayed. She glanced down at her book.
“Sorry. I was just thinking how good you look in taupe. What did you ask?”
“Micah?” I prompted.
“Oh. Right. He’s got… stuff to do.”
I was pretty sure that was the shortest explanation she’d ever given me. I tried to remember what I’d last heard on their status. “You guys patched things up, right?”
“Yeah. I guess. He understood about Thanksgiving.” She brightened. “Hey, Eddie and I were talking about that. Do you think we could all have a big family-style Thanksgiving at Clarence’s? Do you think he’d mind? We could all help, and it’d be lots of fun. I mean, aside from the cover, we really are like a family. Eddie says he can make the turkey.”
“I think Clarence would love that,” I said, happy to see her cheery again. Then, I replayed her words. I turned to Eddie incredulously. “You know how to make a turkey? How would you have learned that?” From what I knew, most dhampirs stayed nearly year-round at their schools from an early age. Not a lot of culinary time.
“Hey,” he said, straight-faced. “All knowledge is worth having.”
Jill laughed. “He wouldn’t tell me either.”
“You know, Angeline claims she can cook,” said Eddie. “We were talking about it at breakfast. She says she knows about cooking turkey too, so if we tag-team, we can pull it off. Of course, she’ll probably want to hunt and kill her own.”
“Probably,” I said. It was amazing that he was talking about working with her on anything. It was even amazing that he could speak about her fondly, without a grimace. I was beginning to think more and more that her display at the assembly had been a good thing. We didn’t need animosity in this group. “Well, I got what I came for, so I’m heading back. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“See you,” said Eddie.
Jill said nothing, and when I glanced over, I saw that she was watching me again with that weird, enraptured look. She sighed happily. “Adrian had a great time with you at your class tonight, you know.”
I nearly rolled my eyes. “The bond leaves no secrets. He didn’t always seem to be having a good time.”
“No, he really did,” she assured me. A dopey smile crossed her features. “He loves that you love the car more than he does and thinks it’s awesome you’re getting so good in your defense class. Not that that’s a surprise. You’re always so good at everything, and you don’t even realize it. You don’t even realize half the things you do-like how you watch out for others and never even think about yourself.”
Even Eddie looked a little astonished by that. He and I exchanged puzzled looks. “Well,” I said awkwardly, really unsure how to handle this Sydney lovefest. I decided escape was my best option. “Thanks. I’ll see you later and-hey. Where’d you get that?”
“Huh?” she asked, blinking out of her enraptured haze.
Jill was wearing a silk scarf painted in rich jewel tones, almost reminding me of a peacock’s tail. It also reminded me of something else, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. “The scarf. I’ve seen it before.”
“Oh.” She ran her fingers over the smooth material. “Lia gave it to me.”
“What? When did you see her?”
“She stopped by the dorm yesterday to give the dresses back again. I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d want to return them.”
“I do,” I said adamantly.
Jill sighed. “Come on, let’s just keep them. They’re so pretty. And you know she’ll just bring them back anyway.”
“We’ll deal with that later. Tell me about the scarf.”
“It’s no big deal. She was trying to pitch me on this scarf collection-”
“Yeah, yeah, she told me too. How she could make it so no one recognized you.” I shook my head, feeling a surprising amount of anger. Was nothing under my control anymore? “I can’t believe she went behind my back! Please tell me you didn’t sneak off with her to do a photo shoot.”
“No, no,” said Jill quickly. “Of course not. But you don’t think… I mean, you don’t think there’s any way she could pull it off? Hide me?”
I tried to keep my tone gentle. After all, I was mad at Lia, not Jill. “Maybe. Maybe not. You know we can’t take the chance.”
Jill nodded, face sad. “Yeah.”
I left feeling annoyed and was so distracted that I nearly ran into Trey. When he didn’t respond to my greeting, I realized he was even more distracted than I was. There was a haunted look in his eyes, and he seemed exhausted.
“You okay?” I asked.
He managed a weak smile. “Yeah, yeah. Just feeling the pressure of everything. Nothing I can’t handle. What about you? Don’t they usually have to throw you out of this place? Or did you finally get tired of being here for eight hours?”
“I just needed one book,” I said. “And I was actually only here ten minutes. I was out most of the night.”
The smile fell, replaced by a frown. “Out with Brayden?”
“That’s tomorrow. I had, um, family stuff tonight.”
The frown deepened. “You go out a lot, Melbourne. You have a lot of friends outside school.”
“Not that many,” I said. “I’m not living a party lifestyle, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Yeah, well. Be careful. I’ve heard about some scary stuff going on out there.”
I remembered him being concerned for Jill too. I usually kept up on all the local news and had heard nothing alarming recently. “What, is there a crime ring in Palm Springs I should know about?”
“Just be careful,” he said.
We started to part ways, and then I called to him, “Trey? I know it’s your own business, but whatever’s going on… if you want to talk, I’m here.” It was a huge concession for me, seeing as I wasn’t always the most socially adept person.
Trey gave me a wistful smile. “Noted.”
I was kind of reeling as I went back to my dorm. Adrian, Jill, Trey. I suppose if you counted Eddie and Angeline getting along, everyone in my life was behaving weirdly.
As soon as I was back in my room, I called Donna Stanton with the Alchemists. I never could be sure what time zone she was in, so I wasn’t too concerned about the late hour. She answered right away and didn’t sound tired, which I took as a good sign. She hadn’t responded to my e-mail about the Warriors, and I was anxious for news. They posed too big a threat to us to be ignored.
“Miss Sage,” she said. “I was planning on calling you soon. I trust everything’s okay with the Dragomir girl?”
“Jill? Yeah, she’s fine. I wanted to check in on some other things. You got the info I sent you about the Warriors of Light?”
Stanton sighed. “That’s what I was going to call you about. Have you had any more run-ins?”
“No. And they don’t seem to have been following us anymore either. Maybe they gave up.”
“Unlikely.” Her next words took a long time to get out. “Not from what we’ve observed in the past.”
I froze, momentarily speechless. “In the past? Do you mean… you’ve run into them before? I was hoping they were just some… I don’t know. A crazy, localized group.”
“Unfortunately, no. We’ve encountered them before. Sporadically, mind you. But they pop up everywhere.”
