Betrayals

standing up on my skin. Right before I wanted to drink blood. Just like a sucker. “You didn’t see his eyes.”

Almost defeated, I slumped back into the couch. “You just didn’t. I want to help him.”

“He’s been you-know-who’s wulf for a long time. Since the Dark Times, when you-know-who used him for hunting his kin. There aren’t any other Silverheads left, just Ash.” Dibs shivered. His tone was soft, scared, and terribly sad.

My hands were fists. I took a deep breath. “But he didn’t hurt me. And he killed how many suckers? This wouldn’t be a bad thing on our side.”

A ripple ran through them, like ink threading into water, and I knew I’d said the wrong thing.

“Sides. You djamphir are all the same. Sooner or later you start talking about sides.” Shanks’ lip curled up. “Then it’s time for wulfen to do the dirty work while you lay back and—”

The ball of fury inside my chest swelled. My teeth tingled, and I felt something sharp touching my lower lip on each side. I rocketed up to my feet. “Fuck you.”

“Let’s just calm down—” Graves began.

“Calm down my ass! I almost died, and this asshole’s acting like everything’s my fault!”

Frustration boiled sharply under my skin, prickles and pokings. Every secret I was keeping jostling for release. “If we’re gonna start the you’re just like the rest of them shit, then how about finding someone else to pick on? I didn’t ask to be born part sucker! I didn’t fucking know until everyone was trying to kill me and my dad never came back!” I had to stop to take a deep breath. Everyone was staring at me. “Now nobody will tell me what the fuck is going on, and I’m sick of it! I’m sick of feeling like I’ve done something wrong just by breathing! I didn’t ask for this!”

“Nobody’s saying you—” Graves started. To give him some credit, he was trying to smooth the ruffled waters, or something. But I was done with being soothed.

“Yes they are!” I jabbed an accusing finger at Shanks. “That’s exactly what he’s saying! That I deserve all this shit somehow because of what I was born like!”

The air changed just as I ran out of breath, and a ripple ran through the room again. This one was cold, a breath of warning. Graves grabbed for my shoulder, but I ducked away from him. If anyone touched me right now I was going to go absolutely postal.

The bloodhunger was a roiling ball of fury inside my chest, and it was hard to push it down and lock it away. Did all the other djamphir feel like this? All the time, or just when the aspect came over them?

How did they stand it? How could anyone stand it?

“Oh Jesus.” A wulfen in a crouch by the door lifted his head and sniffed. “Djamphir on the way. Must be a teacher.”

“Crap.” Shanks bounded to his feet. “We’ll have to split up. If they catch us out here with her —”

“Don’t worry about it.” I had already spun on my heel and was headed for the door.

He let out a snorting laugh. “What are you gonna do, tell on us?”

“I should,” I tossed over my shoulder, picking up my weary feet. “But I’m not like you assholes. My dad raised me right, dammit. I’m going to draw whoever it is off so you can go back to the dorms and fuck yourselves.”

I hit the hall at a run and plunged into the corridor. Here in this wing it was cold, and my shoes were wet and covered in dirt. I made a lot of noise, feet slapping, yelling anything that came into my head, usually four-letter words, bouncing back eerily at me from the stone and paneling.

That, at least, would distract any teacher coming down here. The wulfen of them could go back to the dorms and play pinochle or spin the bottle or whatever, for all I cared.

I burst out into the lunchroom. Which was strangely deserted, sunlight falling from the high windows. The chairs were all stacked on the tables, and I picked one stack and pulled it down with a bouncing clatter. That ought to bring someone out. My heart pounded, and the sheer injustice of it all rose up to choke me. The ball of fury behind my ribs smoked and boiled so hard my eyes leaked heat and water.

“FUCK THIS PLACE!” I yelled. “I WANT SOME ANSWERS!”

“You don’t need to scream,” someone said behind me, and I whirled. Dylan stepped out of the shadows with a creak of leather, stopping just short of a bar of heavy yellow sunlight. “You should be more careful. If I can catch you out during the day, so can someone else.”

It took a couple seconds for my heart to climb down out of my throat. “Jesus Christ!”

“Nope. Just me.” A crooked smile lifted the corners of his lips. But his dark eyes were serious, and there were bruised-looking rings underneath them. “We don’t have much time, Dru. Come on.”

You know, any other day I probably just would have gone with him. But not today. I was tired of following people around, tired of being led by the nose. “Where? Does what’s-her-face want to see me again?”

Dylan sighed, an aggravated, familiar sound. The sleepless rings under his eyes matched the tension around his mouth, and his hair was messy too. “You should hope not. Come on, Dru. Please. I’ve got something to show you.”

I folded my arms and refused to budge. “Why should I hope not?”

“Because I’m not so sure Milady can be trusted.” He stepped back, retreating from the sunlight. “Are you coming, or do I have to wait for another time when I’m on duty to watch you?”

“You were on duty?”

He shrugged. “Why do you think I let you out with your little friend? At least I’m sure he and his wulfen won’t kill you, even if they are delinquents and thieves.” Another two steps back. Dylan’s eyes glittered, the aspect sliding over him and retreating in waves, sending fingers of ebony highlighting through his hair. “Dru. Believe me. You want to see this, and it’s not safe to talk up here.”

Up here? I sighed. It was what everyone said: Trust me, Dru. Believe me, Dru. Let me do what I want, Dru.

I was helpless, the way I’d been all along. And the idea that Christophe maybe wasn’t coming back for me, that he was using me as bait, that I might be stuck here for a while, it was enough to take the fight right out of anyone.

My shoulders slumped. The dampness on my cheeks clung to my fingers as I scrubbed at it.

I followed.

CHAPTER 18

I was spending a lot of time following boys through stone-walled halls. Dylan didn’t speak for a long time, just took me into the north wing. He moved soundlessly in his heavy engineer boots, with the peculiar grace of the Kouroi. I got the idea his jacket only creaked for effect, too.

I finally had to open my mouth. “The wulfen. They’re not going to get in trouble, are they?”

“Of course not. I’m not one of the proud.” He unlocked a wooden door and paused for a moment, breathing in deeply. “There’s so much more than you’ve been told. I wondered why they sent you here, and I wondered even more when the directive came that you needed ‘time to recover’ and shouldn’t be held to a teaching schedule, and that no allotment would be made for tutors or bodyguards this quarter.” His tone turned bitter. “Then Milady started meddling even further. And when Milady meddles, beware.”

Milady? “You mean the chick who was here the other day.” The one who thinks it’s really important that I hate Christophe. He called her that, too.

“That ‘chick’ is the queen of the Order, Dru, and the head of the Council. Svetocha are precious. Milady was saved from the nosferatu about fifteen years before your mother was, and I think those years gave her a taste of ambition. I wonder…” Maddeningly, he stopped short, so I didn’t get to hear what he wondered. “At the main Schola, you would be given everything your heart