Stargazer

“Yes.”

“Do you know why that’s so?” She seemed almost cheerful at the thought of my illusions having been dashed.

I gritted my teeth. “Yes.”

“The fact that you are a target, in turn, endangers the other students.

We have managed to hold the wraiths at bay with the stones so far, but there are limits to what we can accomplish. The wraiths are more determined than I thought they would be.”

“That’s flattering.”

She set the watering can down. “Please reserve your sarcasm for your friends, Miss Olivier. You are here today to discuss what is to be done about the situation. I am not so heartless as to drive you out of Evernight Academy altogether. In the outside world, you would lack any protection whatsoever.”

“I left campus a lot this year with Balthazar, but the wraiths never came after me anywhere else.”

“I expect they simply did not know where you were. Given enough time—eventually, the wraiths would find you, any place in the world.” I’d never thought of that. “Why do they want me so badly? Aren’t there enough ghosts in the world?”

“I imagine the broken promise matters to them more than any indi-vidual. When they consider themselves betrayed, they are relentless.” Mrs. Bethany’s heels clicked against her wooden floor as she walked toward me with her hands clasped behind her back. “There are empty faculty apartments within Evernight. I will move into one for the duration of the school year. You are welcome to stay here.”

“Here?” I couldn’t have understood that right. “Like, in your house?”

“Yes. I believe that you can still attend classes, if you’ll wear this.” She held out a pendant—the obsidian one my parents had given me for Christmas, the one I’d thrown at their feet. “It’s protection for you, though you must not have realized it. Its protection is not fail-safe, however, which is why you are safer remaining in my home at night.”

“Wait, I don’t understand. If I’m in danger at the school, why am I safe here?”

“You may have noticed the copper roof,” she said. “As you have apparently learned, wraiths are especially vulnerable to the metals and minerals found in human blood, such as iron and copper. My residence cannot be haunted. No wraith can enter.”

“Then why don’t you do that to the school, so it would be totally secure?”

It was an automatic question; I expected her to have a good answer.

Copper is expensive, maybe. Instead, she cocked her head, on her guard.

“There are reasons,” she said, like that was an answer.

But I realized the answer almost instantly. Maybe it was because I was in the same room where I’d committed my first burglary in an effort to understand why Mrs. Bethany had admitted human students to Evernight. I remembered figuring it out with Balthazar: The humans were connected to the ghosts. I’d thought that she wanted to learn more about the vampires’ enemies somehow. Since then, I’d seen her attack a wraith, devastating it almost instantly. I’d seen that she knew how to shut them down cold, yet hadn’t done it. Mrs. Bethany wanted something else.

“You’re hunting the wraiths,” I said. “You need them to come into Evernight so you can catch them.”

Strangely, her eyes lit up, like she was almost excited someone had caught on. But she said only, “Your theories are irrelevant, Miss Olivier.

The wraiths are a danger to you and to others of our kind. You will be best protected here.”

“You’re not going to tell me why you’re hunting them.” She hadn’t denied it either, I noticed.

“Do you accept my offer or not?”

“Do I really have a choice?”

“No, not really.”

I’d have liked to tell Mrs. Bethany where she could stick her offer.

But she was right about my being a danger to the other students. For their safety, as well as my own, I’d have to move to the enemy camp.

Mrs. Bethany’s carriage house was actually sort of pretty once you got used to it, but staying there unnerved me. No matter how many times I opened the windows or sprayed a bit of my perfume in the air, the house always smelled of lavender, reminding me of its true owner.

I noticed that every desk drawer and closet had been thoroughly cleaned out before I moved in. She hadn’t left me any more chances to snoop.

My human friends didn’t understand why Mrs. Bethany’s place was safer than Evernight Academy, but after I’d given them an (edited) account of the wraith’s most recent attack, they didn’t question that something had to be done. Raquel helped me pack my clothes, and Vic helped me haul them to the carriage house while she toted the telescope. I didn’t bring everything; no point in even pretending I could ever get comfortable there. Yet I managed to sneak in the carved jet brooch Lucas had given me last year. I thought of it as my own stone with its own power—

my talisman, my shield against the gloom of the place.

Late at night, I’d lie in Mrs. Bethany’s massive canopy bed and imagine that the shadows in the corner of the room were starting to move, or that the air was colder than it ought to be, or any other number of crazy things. Then I’d reach for the brooch on the bedside table and clasp it in my hand, willing all my fear and loneliness to go away. It didn’t matter that I’d lost him. Remembering Lucas would always give me strength.

As April drew to a close, the school became very quiet. Even more of the students had fled in the wake of the most recent event with the wraith; probably only two thirds of the student body remained. The vampires had been far more likely to depart, meaning that humans made up almost half the students at the school. The mood was friendlier over-all, and because so many of the humans considered ghosts no big deal, the atmosphere became almost relaxed. I might have enjoyed it, if I hadn’t been an exile.