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“Bianca!” That was Lucas’s voice. I strained for the sound of it, then realized that he was outside in the storm. “Bianca, don’t move!”
“I’m sorry, Bianca.” Charity’s doll-black eyes were as guileless as a child’s. She brought the torch closer, and I felt its heat searing my skin.
“But it has to burn.”
I jumped through the window. Shards of glass jutting from the window frame sliced my legs and arms, and I landed hard in the wet grass.
The rain came down so hard and fast that it felt as though I were being pelted with stones. But I started running as swiftly as I could, my bare feet cold in the wet grass. Where was Lucas?
Then the hedge changed, thickening and growing in a way I recognized—but when? When had I seen this happen? I didn’t know until I saw the strange, sharp-bladed red flowers begin darkening to black.
My dream—this is a dream—it’s not just a dream—
“Lucas?”
I sat upright in bed, breathing hard. Raquel was propped up on her elbows, and she blinked drowsily at me. “Did you say something?”
“I was dreaming.” My breath came in gasps. “That’s all.”
“You sure? Absolutely sure?”
“Yes. I am. I promise.” It took me another couple of seconds to collect myself enough to reassure her. “Probably I’m just stressing about how I did on my exams.”
She watched me with wide eyes, remembering old night terrors of her own.
I tried again. “It’s got nothing to do with whatever the ghost is. Really.”
“How can you know for sure?”
“You knew. Didn’t you?”
“I guess.” Raquel stepped out of bed, her bare feet padding across the hardwood floor. She brushed a few sweaty strands of hair from my face.
“Want me to get you some water?”
“That would be good, actually. Thanks.”
As soon as I was alone, I thought back on the dream and the flowers I’d seen before—the flowers I had dreamed of the night before I met Lucas for the first time. I’d thought it a coincidence when we found the brooch carved in the exact shape of those strange flowers.
Or so I had always believed. But for the first time, I wondered if maybe my dreams meant something more.
Christmas break was quieter this year than last. Then, several of the vampires had remained, lacking homes to return to. This year, almost all of them had fled the haunted school, and I wondered how many of them would return in the spring.
It was an unpleasant winter, too, without any pretty snow—just gray skies, sleet, and hard ice that made the roads impassable more days than not. Balthazar’s frequent solo journeys off campus in search of his sister had to stop for the time being. I could tell he resented not having left Evernight more when it was still possible, so I tried my best to brighten his mood. On Christmas Eve, we hung out in the Modern Technology room as I helped him get a jump start on January’s assignment.
“You’ve got to go faster than that,” I said.
“It takes time to figure out what the arrows mean,” Balthazar protested, moving stiffly through the steps on the beginner level of Dance Dance Revolution.
“You have to internalize that so your body knows what to do the second your eye sees the arrow. Your brain can’t even come into it.” I sat cross-legged on the floor next to the game mat, watching him in dis-179
may. “You’re a good dancer, Balthazar. How come you’re so bad at this?”
“This isn’t dancing. These days, it’s merely—rhythmic twitching.”
“Well, you’d better get used to it, because the game doesn’t have a fox-trot setting.”
Balthazar glared at me, but there was some humor behind it. He let me play, too, and took my victory in stride.
