"The best laid plans." I sighed.
"I know. It's tragic. I came back in, all wet and my stomach aching from eating about twenty Oreos, and my mom—who is a smart lady even if she drives me nuts—well, she acted like nothing had happened." Lucas shrugged. "Which is what your parents are going to do, too. You know that, right?"
"I do now." My throat tightened with disappointment. I'd known the truth all along, really. I'd simply had to do something, more to act out my own frustration than to send a message to my parents.
Then Lucas asked a question that astonished me: "Do you want out of here for real?"
"Like—run away? Really run away?"
Lucas nodded, and he looked serious.
He wasn't, though; he couldn't be. No doubt he had asked me that to snap me back to reality. I admitted, "No, I don't. I'll go back. Get ready for school like a good girl."
There was that grin again. "Nobody said anything about being a good girl."
The way he said that made me feel warm and soft inside. "It's just—Evernight Academy—I don't think I'll ever belong there."
"I wouldn't worry about that. Might be a good thing, not belonging there." He looked at me, serious and intent, like he thought he had another idea about where I might belong. Either this guy really liked me, or I was inventing things in my head because I wanted him to like me. I was much too inexperienced to guess which.
Hurriedly, I pushed myself to my feet. As Lucas stood also, I asked, "So what were you doing? When you saw me?"
"Like I said, I thought you were in trouble. There are some rough characters up in these parts. Not everybody has self-control." He brushed a few pine needles from his sweater. "I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions. My instincts got the best of me. Sorry about that."
"It's okay, honestly. I realize you were trying to help. I meant, before you saw me. Orientation doesn't start for another few hours. It's really early. They told students to arrive around ten A.M."
"I've never been very good at playing by the rules."
That was interesting. "So—you're a morning person, getting a jump on the day?"
"Hardly. I haven't gone to bed yet." He had a fantastic grin, and I'd already noticed that he knew how to use it. I didn't mind. "Anyway, my mom couldn't bring me herself. She's away, on business, I guess you'd say. I caught the red-eye train in and thought I'd walk up here first. Get the lay of the land. Rescue any damsels in distress."
When I remembered how fast Lucas had been running after me, and realized that he'd been doing that in an attempt to save my life, the memory changed. The fear was gone, and now it made me smile. "Why did you come to Evernight? I'm stuck here because of my parents, but you could probably have gone someplace else. Someplace better. So, like, anywhere else."
Lucas honestly didn't seem to know how to answer. He pushed branches back as we kept walking through the forest, keeping any of them from scraping my face. Nobody had ever cleared a path for me before. "It's a long story."
"I'm not in a hurry to go back. Besides, we've got a few hours to kill before orientation."
He lowered his head, but kept his eyes fixed on me. There was something undeniably sexy about that move, though I wasn't sure he meant it that way. His eyes were almost exactly the same color as the ivy that grew on the towers at Evernight. "It's also kind of a secret."
"I can keep a secret. I mean, you're going to keep this whole incident secret for me, right? With the running and the freaking out—"
"I'll never tell." After a couple more seconds of consideration, Lucas finally confessed, "An ancestor of mine tried to go to school here almost a hundred and fifty years ago. He washed out, I guess you'd say." Lucas laughed, and it felt like the sunlight had broken through the trees. "So it's up to me to 'restore the family honor.'"
"That's not fair. You shouldn't have to make all your decisions based on what he did or didn't do."
"Not all my decisions. They let me pick out my own socks." I smiled as he tugged up his pants leg to reveal a sliver of argyle sock above his heavy black boot.
"How did your great-grand-whatever wash out?"
Lucas shook his head ruefully. "He got into a duel during his first week."
"A duel? Like, somebody insulted his honor?" I tried to remember what I'd learned about duels from romance novels and movies. All I knew was that Lucas's history was definitely a lot more interesting than mine. "Or was it over a girl?"
"He would've had to move fast, to meet a girl in the first few days of school." Lucas paused, as if he were just realizing that it was the first day of school and he'd already met me. I felt this tug, like something was almost physically pulling me to lean toward him—but then Lucas turned his head and glared at the towers of Evernight, just visible through the pine branches. It was as though the building itself had offended him. "Could've been anything. Back then, they'd duel at the drop of a hat. Family legend has it that the other guy started it, not that it matters. What does matter is that he survived but not without breaking one of the stained glass windows in the great hall."
"Of course. There's one that's just clear glass, and I never understood why."
"Now you do. Evernight's been closed to my family ever since."
"Until now."
"Until now," he agreed. "And I don't mind. I think I can learn a lot here. Doesn't mean I have to like everything about it."
"I'm not sure I like anything about it," I confessed. Except you, added the voice in my head, which had turned awfully bold all of a sudden.
Lucas seemed to be able to hear that voice. There was something knowing in the way he gazed back at me. With his chiseled features and school uniform, he should've looked like the all-American boy, but he didn't. During the chase, and in the moments afterward when he'd thought we'd be fighting for our lives, I'd glimpsed something a little wild lurking just beneath the surface. He said, "I like the gargoyles, the mountains, and the fresh air. That's it so far."
"You like the gargoyles?"
"I like it when the monsters are smaller than me."
"Never thought of it that way." We had reached the edge of the grounds. The sunlight was bright now, and I sensed that the school was waking up, preparing to receive its students, to swallow them through that arched stone doorway. "I'm dreading this."
"Not too late to run, Bianca," he said lightly.
"I don't want to run. I just don't want to be surrounded by all these strangers. Around people I don't know, I can never talk or act normal or be myself at all—why are you smiling?"
"Seems like you know how to talk to me."
I blinked, astonished at myself. Lucas was right. How was that even possible? I stammered, "With you—I guess—I think you scared me so badly that I got all the fear over with right away."
"Hey, if it works—"
"Yeah." Already I sensed that there was more to it than that. Strangers still terrified me, but he wasn't a stranger. He hadn't been since the first moment I realized that he'd been trying to save my life. I felt as though I'd always known Lucas, as if somehow I'd been waiting years for him to arrive. "I should go back before my parents realize I'm gone."
"Don't let them hassle you."
"They won't."
Lucas didn't seem sure of that, but he nodded as he stepped away from me, edging back into the shadows while I walked into the light. "See you around, then."
I raised one hand in a farewell wave, but Lucas was already gone. He'd disappeared into the forest in an instant.
Chapter Two
Still shaky with adrenaline, I walked back up the long spiral staircase until I reached the top apartment in the tower. This time I didn't bother being quiet. I slipped my messenger bag off my shoulder and flopped onto the sofa. A few leaves still clung to my hair, so I picked them out.
"Bianca?" My mother emerged from the bedroom, her hands knotting her bathrobe belt. She smiled drowsily at me. "Did you get up early for a walk, sweetheart?"
"Yeah." I sighed. Not much point in
trying to make a dramatic scene anymore.
Dad came out next. He hugged Mom from behind. "I can't believe our little girl is already at Evernight Academy."
"It all happened so fast." She sighed. "The older you get, the faster it goes."
He shook his head. "I know."
I groaned. They talked like this all the time, and we'd made a game of how much it annoyed me. Mom and Dad only smiled wider.
They look too young to be your parents, everybody in my hometown used to say. What they really meant was too beautiful. Both things were true.
Her hair was the color of caramel; his was a red so dark that it almost looked black. He was average height but muscular and strong; she was petite in every way. Mom's face was as cool and oval as an antique cameo, while Dad had a square jaw and a nose that looked like he was in a few fights in his youth, but on his face, it worked. Me? I got red hair that could only look red, and skin so pale that it looked more pasty than antique. Everyplace my DNA should have turned right, it swerved left. My parents told me I would grow into my looks, but that's the kind of thing parents say.
"Let's get some breakfast into you," Mom said, heading toward the kitchen. "Or have you already had something?"
"No, not yet." It wouldn't have been a bad idea to eat before my big getaway, I realized; my stomach was growling. If Lucas hadn't stopped me, I'd be wandering around in the woods right now, incredibly hungry and facing a long hike into Riverton. So much for my big escape plans.
The memory of Lucas tackling me, the two of us rolling over into the grass and leaves, flashed through my mind. It had terrified me then, and when I thought of it now I shivered, but it was a completely different kind of feeling.
"Bianca." My father's voice sounded stern, and I looked up guiltily. Had he somehow guessed what I'd been thinking about? I realized immediately that I was being paranoid, but there was no mistaking how serious he was as he sat beside me. "I know you're not looking forward to this, but Evernight is important for you."
This was the same sort of speech he gave before I had to take cough medicine as a kid. "I really don't want to have this conversation again right now."
"Adrian, leave her alone." Mom handed me a glass before she headed back toward the kitchen, where I could hear something sizzling in a frying pan. "Besides, if we don't hurry, we're going to be late for the preorientation faculty meeting."
He looked at the clock and groaned. "Why do they schedule these things so early? It's not as if anyone could want to be down there at this hour."
"I know," she muttered. To them, anytime before noon was too early. Yet they'd worked as schoolteachers my whole life, continuing their long feud with eight A.M.
While I ate breakfast, they got ready, made little jokes that were supposed to cheer me up, and left me alone at the table. That was fine by me. Long after they'd gone downstairs, and the hands of the clock crept closer to orientation time, I remained in my chair. I think I was pretending that, as long as breakfast wasn't over, there was no way I'd have to go meet all those new people.
The fact that Lucas would be down there—a friendly face, a protector—well, it helped a little. But not much.
Finally, when I couldn't put it off any longer, I went into my room and changed into the Evernight uniform. I hated the uniform—I'd never had to wear one before—but the worst part was that returning to my bedroom reminded me once again of the strange nightmare I'd had the night before.
Starched white shirt.
Thorns scratching at my skin, lashing me, telling me to turn back.
Red plaid kilt.
Petals curling up and turning black as though they were burning in the heart of a fire.
Gray sweater with the Evernight crest.
Okay, a good time to stop being hopelessly morbid? Right around now.
Determined to act like a normal teenager for at least the first day of the school year, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. The uniform didn't look terrible on me, but it didn't look great, either. I tugged my hair into a ponytail, picked out a tiny twig I'd missed before, and decided my appearance would have to do.
The gargoyle was still staring, as though he were wondering how anybody could look that dorky. Or maybe he was mocking the total failure of my escape plan. At least I wouldn't have to look at his ugly stone face any longer. I squared my shoulders and left my room—for the last time, really. From now on, it didn't belong to me.
I'd been living on campus with my parents for the past month, which had given me time to explore virtually the entire school: the great hall and lecture rooms on the first floor, after which it split into two enormous towers. The guys lived in the north tower, along with some of the faculty and a couple of musty filing rooms that seemed to be where permanent records went to die. The girls were in the south tower, along with the rest of the faculty apartments, including my family's. The upper floors of the main building, above the great hall, housed the classrooms and the library. Evernight had been expanded and added to over time, so not every section was in the same style or seemed exactly to fit with the rest. There were passageways that twisted and turned and sometimes led nowhere. From my tower room I looked down on the roof, a patchwork of different arches and shingles and styles. So I'd learned my way around; that was the only way in which I felt prepared for what was to come.
I began down the steps again. No matter how many times I made this trip, I always felt as if I might tumble down the rough, uneven steps, over and over, all the way to the bottom. Stupid, I told myself, worrying about nightmares with dying flowers or about falling down the stairs. Something a lot scarier than any of that was waiting for me.
I stepped out of the stairwell into the great hall. Early this morning, it had been hushed, cathedral-like. Now it was packed with people, ringing with voices. Despite the din, it seemed as if my footsteps echoed throughout the room; dozens of faces turned toward me at once. Every single person seemed to be staring at the intruder. I might as well have hung a neon sign around my neck that said NEW KID.
The other students clustered together in circles too tight for a newcomer to enter, their eyes dark and quick as they darted over me. It was as though they could see down into the panicked fluttering of my heart. To me, it seemed that they all looked alike—not in any obvious way but in their shared perfection. Every girl's hair shone, whether worn down in a cascade past her shoulders or tied back in a prim, sleek bun. Every guy looked self-assured and strong, with smiles that served as masks. Everybody wore the uniform, with the sweaters and skirts and blazers and trousers in all the acceptable variations: gray, red, plaid, black. The raven crest marked them all, and they wore the symbol as though they owned it. Confidence radiated from them, and superiority, and disdain. I could feel the heat leaching from me as I stood on the outskirts of the room, shifting from foot to foot.
Nobody said hello.
The murmuring welled up again within an instant. Apparently gawky new girls weren't worth more than a few moments of interest. My cheeks were flushed with embarrassment, because obviously I'd already done something wrong, even if I couldn't guess what. Or did they already sense—as I did—that I didn't really belong here?
Where's Lucas? I craned my neck, searching for him in the crowd. Already I felt as though I might be able to face it if Lucas were beside me. Maybe it was crazy to feel like that about a guy I barely knew, but I didn't care. Lucas had to be here, but I couldn't find him. In the middle of all these people, I felt completely alone.
As I edged toward a far corner of the room, I began to realize that a few students were in the same situation as I was—or, at least, they were also new. A guy with sandy hair and a beach-bronze tan was so rumpled that he might have slept in his uniform, but being supercasual didn't win you any points here. He wore a Hawaiian shirt open over his sweater but beneath his blazer, its gaudy cheer almost desperate in Evernight's gloom. A girl had cut her black hair so short that it was more like a boy's, but not in a cute, pixie style; it looked
more like she'd haphazardly taken a razor to it. Her uniform hung on her, two sizes too big. The crowds seemed to part around her as if repelled by some force. She might as well have been invisible; even before our first class, she had been branded someone who didn't matter.
How could I be so sure? Because it had just happened to me, too. I was trapped on the edge of the crowd, intimidated by the din, dwarfed by the stone hallway, and as lost as it was possible to be.
"Everyone!"
The voice rang out, instantly shattering the noise into silence. We all turned as one to the far end of the hallway, where Mrs. Bethany, the headmistress, had stepped upon the podium.
She was a tall woman, with thick dark hair she wore piled on top of her head, like someone from the Victorian era. I couldn't begin to guess her age. Her lace-trimmed blouse was gathered at the neck with a golden pin. If you could think of somebody so severe as beautiful, then she was beautiful. I had met her when my parents and I moved into the faculty apartments; she had scared me a little then, but I'd told myself that was because I'd only just met her.