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In classes the next day, everyone kept casting glances at me and whispering, but nobody dared ask outright what was going on. I ignored the attention. The petty grievances of Evernight Academy had never bothered me less. In driver’s ed, Mr. Yee hesitated before allowing me my turn, but he did allow it; for the first time, I parallel parked without any trouble.
“Nice job,” Balthazar said, as we strolled away after class. Those were the first words either of us had spoken to each other since the night before.
“Thanks.” Even a second’s silence between us lengthened and became tense. The awkwardness would only get worse if we didn’t deal. “I think we have to talk.”
“Yeah, we do.”
Students had crowded onto virtually every inch of the grounds to enjoy the spring weather. Even the vampires who shied away from sunlight stretched out in the shade beneath trees with new, pale-green leaves. To get some privacy, Balthazar and I had to retreat to the library. It was all but deserted. We walked to the far corner and sat together on the broad wooden sill of one of the stained-glass windows.
Balthazar said, “You’re going to tell me that last night shouldn’t have happened.”
“No. I’m glad it happened. For too long, I’ve been telling myself that I could spend all this time with you and flirt with you and not have it mean anything. It does mean something. You mean something to me.
But I’m not in love with you.”
I’d expected those words to hurt him. Instead, he smiled ruefully.
“I’ve been trying to make this something it’s not. To make you someone you’re not.”
I remembered the image I had glimpsed of a dark-haired girl from centuries ago, laughing in the autumn woods and gazing at Balthazar with depthless adoration. “Charity mentioned somebody named Jane, and I thought I saw—”
“Leave it in the past. That’s all it is any longer. The past.”
“If we—last night, if we had—I don’t think I’d be sorry.” The thrill of being so close to him was still too fresh in my mind to deny. “It can’t happen again, though.”
“No.” Balthazar sighed. “You never settle for less than what you really want, Bianca. You’ll never be with anybody you don’t truly love.” I wished I could love him. Everything in my whole life would be easier if I did. He’d protect me and shelter me forever.
But I was beginning to realize that being sheltered came at a price.
When I changed out of my school uniform that evening, I put on my oldest jeans and a favorite T-shirt. They were so familiar that they were like a part of me—like armor, in a way I couldn’t define. Then I went upstairs to face my parents and have a conversation I should’ve had a long time ago.
My mother opened the door with a smile. “There you are. We were hoping you’d come by tonight—weren’t we, Adrian?” As I walked inside, she murmured, “Your father is in an odd mood, and maybe you and I should have a private talk about Balthazar later. Okay?” Ignoring this, I walked to the center of our living room and demanded, “Why are the wraiths after me?”
Mom and Dad stared. Nobody said anything for a few long seconds.
Then Mom began, “Honey, they could just be—This school is probably a target—”
“The school isn’t a target. I am. I’m the only one who’s seen the wraiths every time they’ve appeared, and I’m the one they came after.
Each appearance came immediately after I drank blood. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
“You drink blood all the time,” Dad said, trying too hard to sound reasonable. “You’ve drunk blood since the day you were born.”
“Things are different now. Every single one of those times was different, because I was hungrier, or the blood came from a living creature, or—” Well, I wasn’t going to get into why it was different with Balthazar. “I’m becoming more of a vampire. And the wraith said I was in danger.”
“What?” That genuinely confused Mom, I could tell, but that just went to show how much of this she really did understand but wouldn’t say. “The wraiths are the ones trying to hurt you!”
“I think she meant that I was getting closer to becoming a vampire.
To the wraiths—I think—I think being a vampire is even worse than being dead.” I folded my arms. “Then she said that I couldn’t break the promise. That whatever the wraiths were doing was what had been promised. What promise is she talking about?”
My parents both went completely still. They glanced at each other, guilty and almost horror-struck, and I felt a queasy kind of dread. Even though I knew I absolutely had to hear this answer, I wanted to run away. The truth, I sensed, was going to hurt.
“You’ve always known,” I said. “Haven’t you? That the wraiths were coming after me. But you never told me why.”
Dad said, “We knew. And no, we didn’t tell you.” It was as if something snapped in two deep inside me. My parents—
the people I’d loved the most in the world, the ones I’d always told all my secrets to, the ones I’d wanted to hide with far away from the rest of the world. They had lied, and I couldn’t imagine why. It couldn’t possibly matter why.
