by Claudia Gray
But this far from the road, it was odd to hear someone else reply.
Balthazar rose to his feet and hurried over the hill, where he saw Charity standing beside a wagon driven by two people—a man and a woman—neither of whom was known to them. They must have come to market, but he hadn’t seen them there; two people like this would have stood out, dressed in brilliant colors, the woman’s hair loose and free like a small child’s. Like Charity’s.
Strangers were rare in this part of the world, the only part Balthazar had ever known; perhaps that was why he became suspicious so quickly. He hurried down to Charity’s side.
“You would look enchanting in green,” said the man holding the reins. He was a handsome man, and Balthazar would’ve known it even without Charity’s adoring gaze to guide him. His hair, his skin, even his eyes all seemed to be touched with gold, and he had a fine, patrician profile. His clothes seemed well made, and the new, uncracked leather of his boots shone. “Ah, and who have we here?”
“My older brother, Balthazar More.” Charity went up on tiptoe to confide, “He’s not as strict with me as my parents.”
“Then perhaps he will not mind an introduction,” said the blond-haired woman, whose locks would have looked lustrous if she had not been sitting next to the strangely dazzling man. Perhaps they were brother and sister as well. She was beautiful in her statuesque way, but there was something avid about the way she looked at Balthazar. It was the way some of the ruder men looked at women whose hair was not partly covered, or girls just leaving childhood whose skirts were not yet fully long. He hadn’t known women could look at men this way, too.
If it had been Jane looking at him so hotly, Balthazar thought he might have liked it. But she wasn’t Jane.
“Good day to you, sir,” Balthazar said, turning his attention to the man. “Forgive my sister. She is eager to make friends.”
“How wise of her,” the man said. “Call me Redgrave. I think we shall be very good friends indeed. Don’t you agree, Constantia?”
“Oh, I do,” Constantia whispered, leaning past Redgrave’s shoulder to peer at Balthazar again, the sunlight catching her hair—
“Balthazar?”
He tensed as the phantasms of the past vanished, leaving him back in his own mind, in the here and now. He still knelt in the snow, the taste of blood fading on his tongue. Skye’s face was pale with worry.
“How long?” His voice croaked as though he hadn’t spoken in months. “How long was I … out?”
But Skye said, “Maybe a minute and a half? I don’t know. Are you okay?”
“I think so.” What the hell had just happened to him?
The smell of smoke and gasoline reminded him where they were; at the sound of distant sirens, she looked past him. “I don’t want to leave Mr. Lovejoy—we have to stay—but how are we supposed to explain this?”
“Leave it to me.” Balthazar summoned all his strength of will to stand upright again. “I’ve got a lot of experience in covering this stuff up.”
The police were told that Skye had been walking home from school, and that Balthazar was headed toward downtown, when they separately saw the explosion. Mr. Lovejoy’s car had then jumped the curb; no doubt he’d been startled. Another car had sped away afterward, but they couldn’t say what it had to do with the explosion. They were bewildered, innocent bystanders, no more.
“I still can’t believe they bought that,” Skye said as they walked away from the scene, smoke still thick in the darkening sky overhead.
“Why not? It’s actually more plausible than the truth.” Balthazar glanced back at the police cars behind them. None of the officers suspected they had any greater involvement. It was frightening how good he’d become at lying over the past few centuries.
“I just—I feel awful. Mr. Lovejoy’s all banged up, because of me—”
“It’s not your fault.” He spoke so forcefully that she stared at him, but it was important that she understand this. “What happened is not because of you. It’s because Redgrave and his crew came after you. All of this is their fault. Nobody else’s. Never forget that.”
“Redgrave?” Skye frowned. “I thought you said his name was Lorenzo.”
“The one hunting you last night and this afternoon is Lorenzo. The one who drove up at the end, the guy with gold hair? That’s Redgrave. He’s much older and much more powerful. Almost anything Lorenzo does, he does because Redgrave wants him to.”
“But why?” Skye breathed out in frustration, her breath creating a little cloud in the frosty air around them as they continued toward her house.
“I’m not sure.” Though he was beginning to consider a disquieting possibility. Skye was holding her injured hand. She had reopened the cut on her hand during their escape. If that was her blood he’d tasted on the ground—if that was the reason for what he’d just experienced—
But that was impossible. Nobody’s blood had that kind of power. Surely some of what had happened in his mind had more to do with the fact that he’d just had to face Redgrave for the first time in more than thirty years. He’d been injured and dazed; he’d had a hallucination. He couldn’t be sure of more than that.
Balthazar forced himself to focus again on Skye’s situation. “I don’t know what it means yet, but whatever it is about you that Lorenzo responded to—it’s made Redgrave curious. Once he’s curious, there’s no stopping him.”
“Is this the reassuring part of the speech? Because I’m starting to get worried.”
“There is no reassuring part of the speech.” His eyes met hers, and he could see Skye’s effort at a joke was her way of trying to be brave. Good: She’d need some bravery to get through this. “This is bad. This is real. And until we figure out what to do—I’m staying with you.”
For the first night, at least, this meant staying in her room.
As he punched out a text message—hey, he was getting pretty good at this—Balthazar said, “Your parents really aren’t going to notice the guy staying in their house?”
“They’ll probably get home after midnight and leave before six A.M. Usually they don’t even look in here,” Skye called from her bathroom closet, where she was changing into her night-clothes. He ought to have offered to stay downstairs, in some room her parents wouldn’t enter, but if one of Redgrave’s tribe tried to get in through the windows of her bedroom—no, it was too dangerous. For tonight, he was staying close. “They work really hard ever since—since Dakota.” From the tightness in her voice, Balthazar knew that must have been her brother’s name.
Although Balthazar knew he was no expert in dealing wisely with grief, he said, “They shouldn’t leave you alone so much.”
“That’s how they cope. When they get hurt, they work harder. Since last summer, they’ve been working harder than they ever have in their lives.” The depth of her understanding surprised him; he’d been on earth a lot longer than Skye before he’d been able to look past his own pain to somebody else’s. “They leave me little notes and treats. I know they love me. It’s okay.”
Her room was a colorful place, with lavender walls and a bright quilt on the bed, and a shelf laden with gleaming equestrian trophies and ribbons. A couple pieces of homemade artwork hung on the walls: a collage made mostly of magazine cutouts that seemed much too angry to be Skye’s own work, and a framed, blown-up, artistically Photoshopped photo of Skye with another girl he remembered from Evernight, Clementine Nichols. And yet there was something a little bare about the room—maybe only because she’d been at boarding school the past two and a half years.
Or maybe not: On one slightly dusty shelf, Balthazar could see the imprints where framed photos had once stood. They’d been removed from this shelf not that long ago. Pictures of Dakota, he thought. Skye’s parents weren’t the only ones in the family who reacted to pain by pushing it away.
She continued, “Besides, my parents never had tons of free time, not after they started lobbying in Albany. Thus boarding school.” Sk
ye stepped out of the closet, and Balthazar glanced over at her briefly—or that was the idea. Instead, he couldn’t look away. She was dressed in a black T-shirt and leggings, but both of them hugged her lithe body, breasts to waist to hips to thighs—
No humans, he reminded himself, thinking of Jane. But the old rule seemed very far away.
Skye couldn’t quite meet his eyes, as if she knew what he was thinking. Then, when she glanced up at him again, he felt the impact—heat coursing through him, as real as blood. “So, if you’re really staying in here until morning…”
“I’d better,” Balthazar said, though he had just dramatically downgraded his chances of getting any sleep. This was going to be a restless night.
“Well, the window seat might work. But you’re a big guy; it might not be comfortable for you.”
He glanced at the window seat, the last corner of the room that still seemed to be part of a child’s room rather than a young woman’s. “I wouldn’t want to disturb the sanctity of the stuffed animal graveyard.”
“They’re just my old toys.” Skye looked a little embarrassed, as well she might, but he noticed how carefully she picked up the stuffed bears and dogs to put them on the floor. “See how it’s a daybed, too? My friends used to sleep over on it. But if you don’t think you’ll fit, I could take it. You could stay in my bed.”
That conjured up all kinds of dangerous thoughts. Stop it, he told himself. Her teddy bear is in this room. She was a child not long ago.
She’s not a child now—
Stop it.
His phone chimed at the same moment hers did, covering his momentary awkwardness, he hoped. “Excuse me,” Balthazar said. As he read his message—good, that was a relief—he heard Skye gasp. “What’s the matter?”
“The school sent out an email. Mr. Lovejoy’s alive and everything, but—he’s going to be in traction for weeks. He really got hurt today.” Skye’s fingers tightened around her phone. “It’s still sinking in how dangerous this is. Do you think Redgrave’s going to try coming after me again?”
“I know he will.”
“So I just have to—go around tomorrow knowing they might come after me?”
“Not tomorrow.” Balthazar glanced out her window, wondering if they were already staring back. “They’ll be here tonight.”
Chapter Six
OMG, BALTHAZAR IS IN UR BEDROOM RIGHT NOW?
Skye kept her phone cupped close to her, so there was no chance Balthazar would read Clementine’s message. It’s kind of an emergency. Tell u about it later. OK?
She hadn’t been able to bring herself to text Clem about the second vampire attack or the fact that she had apparently attracted the attention of some vampire clan that was even worse than the others. So little of it made any sense to her yet: Which vampires were evil? Which weren’t? How did Balthazar know any of them? Were they really going to come after her again, tonight?
It was all confusing, and scary, and so she’d told her best friend only about the one thing she did understand for sure, which was that her biggest crush over the past two years had decided to spend the night in her room.
Under any other circumstance, it would’ve been awesome.
“Assuming they don’t leave Darby Glen tonight, they’ll start tracking your movements.” Balthazar kept peering out her window, ever on the watch. “We’ll have to work out some way for you to get to and from school safely. No more wandering out on the road.”
Embarrassed, Skye said, “It seemed safe at the time.”
“I realize that. I didn’t mean to make it sound like—”
“Like you thought it was stupid.” She folded her arms in front of her, trying to make a point, but then it occurred to her that this T-shirt was a little tighter than she’d remembered. Without a bra—yeah, the arms in front felt more comfortable. Definitely. “Which it was.”
“You didn’t yet know they were after you specifically.” When he wanted to be reassuring, Balthazar’s voice became so warm. Almost soft. Coupled with his imposing, broad-shouldered frame, it made for an intoxicating combination.
“I knew vampires were on the loose in town, which is bad news … no offense.”
“None taken.”
“But I still rushed out of school, just because I wanted to be alone, and I wasn’t thinking. Obviously I can’t make any more mistakes like that until—until we get this taken care of.”
But what did that mean, in this context? How were they supposed to get the vampires to leave her alone? Kill them all? She remembered seeing vampires lying on the grounds of Evernight, stakes buried in their chests, and wondered if that was what they’d have to do. Skye had never asked herself if she could kill anyone or anything except for Eb, in some nightmare scenario in which he’d broken his leg.
Maybe she wouldn’t have to attack anyone. Balthazar would keep her safe. After seeing him today—swooping in just when she thought she was dead, wiping the floor with that vampire, smashing through that wall to get her to safety—Skye could believe that there was nothing he couldn’t handle.
Her phone dinged one more time, signaling a final text from Clem: Use protection.
As Skye silenced the phone, hoping desperately that she wasn’t blushing, Balthazar said, “Why did you want to be alone?”
“Huh?” She had to backtrack past her overheated thoughts about Balthazar to remember what they were actually talking about. “Oh, this afternoon. My first day back at school just—it wasn’t good. Although now that I compare it to getting repeatedly attacked by vampires, it doesn’t seem so awful.”
“Why was school so rough?” He frowned, looking genuinely concerned, like bad times at Darby Glen High could possibly compare to the situation they now found themselves in.
Then again, she was going to have to go back tomorrow, wasn’t she? Unless she was dead by then. Skye sighed. “Someone died in my anatomy classroom.”
“What?”
“Not today! Long ago, I mean. But I can still see it.” The horror had been buried under the sheer panic of the afternoon, but now it welled up again, cold and bright. “I’m going to have to watch this guy die of a heart attack every single day.”
“Can you transfer out of that class?”
“Maybe. I’ll have to check.” Evernight Academy hadn’t allowed transfers; she had no idea what the rules were here.
“The effect could stop over time, or lose power, maybe.”
“Maybe,” Skye said doubtfully. “I’ve been avoiding every … death place I’ve found, so I haven’t tested that. It feels like it’s always going to happen. You’re right, though. I don’t know. I guess anatomy class is where I’ll find out.”
“We might still figure out a way for you to manage your—psychic gift.”
“That would help,” she admitted. “But it’s not the worst part about school. The rest sucks, too. I mean, I fell out of touch with most people back here while I was at Evernight. Now they all think I’m some kind of stuck-up snob who doesn’t want to have anything to do with Darby Glen.”
“They’ll see past that,” Balthazar said gently. “And there must be some people from before that you were glad to see.”
A lump formed in Skye’s throat as she thought about the only person from before who had really counted. “Well, I saw my ex-boyfriend, Craig. With his new girlfriend. So you can imagine how much fun that was.”
“Ouch.” Balthazar made such an exaggerated face of pain that she had to laugh despite herself. “This is the guy who dumped you right before the Autumn Ball last year, right?”
“How did you know about that?” She hadn’t thought Balthazar More paid much attention to her at Evernight Academy, much less that he was keeping tabs on her love life.
“Lucas told us. He was nervous about asking you to the ball just as a friend. Sounds like this Craig guy has rotten timing.”
Remaining her constant boyfriend for two and a half years, then dumping her for someone else only a couple months after they’
d had sex for the first and only time—and not even half a year after her brother’s death: Yeah, that counted as rotten timing. “To say the least.”
“Forget him,” Balthazar said simply. “I know—easy to say, hard to do. But any guy who doesn’t appreciate you isn’t worth keeping.”
Which sounded like maybe Balthazar appreciated her. No—she was reading too much into it, surely. Balthazar glanced away, no longer meeting her eyes. Skye didn’t know whether to feel awkward or elated; she knew only that it was impossible to look away from Balthazar, his handsome profile outlined against the dark, frost-rimmed glass of the window—
Wait. The frost was—growing. Lacing over the entire window—on the inside of the window, too, turning everything white, blinding out the night.
The sudden chill in the air made Skye’s skin prickle, and she wrapped her arms more tightly around herself as the cold became almost painful. Her lamp flickered, the electricity failing, but the light didn’t die out. Instead it changed into an eerie blue-green color that seemed to shimmer, almost as if they were underwater.
She remembered one of Dakota’s last photos from Australia, a scene from an underwater cave, and she wondered if this was what he’d seen before he died. Terror and sorrow seized her at the same time, paralyzing her.
At least, until the ceiling started to move.
“Oh, my God.” Skye backed toward Balthazar; she didn’t know what was happening, but knew she wanted him close. “What’s going on?”
“We just got a lot safer.”
Startled, she looked up at him. Balthazar’s face was alight, like he’d just been given the most marvelous gift in the world.
The rippling on the ceiling broke free, came forward, took shape. First it was a swirling, glittering shape, like a cyclone of snowflakes, but then it acquired the form of a young woman with flowing red hair and wide, gentle eyes—but not just any woman. Balthazar said her name first: “Bianca.”
“I like your room,” Bianca said. “It reminds me a little of the one I had back in my hometown.”