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“There’s a way out,” he gasped. “There’s a way out, and I can never take it.”
I held him tighter. Why hadn’ t I realized how much worse this would be for him? He’d been promised a release from an existence he considered worse than any jail — and it was true; every one of Mrs. Bethany’s promises was true. It was the doorway out, and he would never walk through it.
Then I considered that. A small, scared feeling quivered inside me, but I didn’t let it take me over.
I held Lucas as he buried his face in the curve of my shoulder, his whole body shaking with suppressed emotion. Until I was sure, I couldn’ t speak.
Finally I said, “We could do it.”
Lucas shifted back, enough to see my face. “Do what?”
“The ritual. What Mrs. Bethany did.” I steadied myself. “I could bring you back to life.”
“No. You’d be giving up whatever life or existence you have left, and then you ‘d be gone forever.”
“You offered to do the same for me,” I said. “Remember?”
“And you were brave enough to die in my place.” Lucas brushed his thumbs across my cheeks and cradled my face in his hands. “I’m not gonna give you anything less.”
I hugged him again, and he sank against me like he was exhausted. Mrs. Bethany would never hold power over him again, I knew, and yet his burden was heavier than ever. It would never get any easier. Neither of us would ever die, or ever live again.
Chapter Eighteen
LATER THAT NIGHT, UP IN THE RECORDS ROOM, we told the others what we’d seen. So, instead of just Lucas and I being in total shock, each of us sat around mutely for about an hour. Mrs. Bethany’s feat — returning a vampire to life — defied every physical and supernatural law any of us had ever known, and yet there was no denying what we’d witnessed.
Balthazar repeated, for about the eighth time, “It’s still so … unreal to me. That there’s a way back to being alive.”
“Doesn’t tempt me,” Patrice sniffed, as though she hadn’t spent the first ten minutes after our revelation repeating “Oh, my God,” over and over. “I found out the hard way — once someone’s dead, in whatever way they happen to be dead, it’s best to leave things as they are.” She suddenly seemed to be highly interested in her rings. but I knew she was remembering her long — lost love, Amos, whom she had brought back as a ghost. Although Patrice was too private to ever share the full details, it was clear the results had been tragic.
Vic nodded. “Raising the dead brings up serious monkey’s paw issues, definitely. What do you think, Ranulf?”
Ranulf, by far the calmest of the vampires in light of this news, shook his head. “I was alive for seventeen years,” he said. “I have been a vampire for approximately thirteen hundred years. This is truer to my nature, now.”
“I’d do it,” Balthazar said. His eyes met mine apologetically. “If it didn’t involve killing a sentient being, that is. If it were anything else — I mean, anytllinrl’d go back in a second.”
“So we know what she’s after now,” Lucas said. His eyes had an unearthly focus; he was strategizing, I realized, as a way of distracting himself from pain. “And we know we want to stop her. So we need to find the traps. Clear this place out and make it safe for Bianca, not to mention any other wraiths Mrs. Bethany hasn’t already snared.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Balthazar said. He had taken the only real chair in the room, while Vic and Patrice took the beanbags. Ranulf and Lucas were both sitting on old crates, and I was levitating about halfway to the ceiling. “Do we just want to divide the grounds up into sections, go through 188 them when we can?”
Lucas shook his head. “I want to make one massive sweep. She’s probably laying new traps all the time, but if we could get this place cleared out for a little while, it might make it easier to track what she does from here 0111 out.”
“When are we supposed to do that?” Patrice said. “Someone’s going to notice.” Lucas began, “Late at night, maybe — ”
“Hang on,” Vic interrupted. “I’m about to be brilliant. What about the Autumn Ball?”
Evernight Academy’s biggest dance — the vampire version of the prom — was only a week away. Ranulf had a date, but to the best of my knowledge, nobody else did. As I rolled the idea around in my mind, I liked it more. “Everyone will be out, be busy, and lots of people will go into different rooms to make out or sneak a beer or whatever. That makes it good cover for pretty much anything we would need to do.”
“There’s no we here,” Lucas said. “It’s too dangerous for you.”
I wanted to argue, but in this particular case, Lucas wasn’t being overprotective. Sending a ghost to find ghost traps would be a little like sending a vampire to inspect a stake factory. “Well, then, it gives me something to watch while you guys are busy. It’s a perfect distraction — Balthazar, remember how you and I were able to go through the school records last year?”
After the words came out, I wished I could have pulled them back; it was never a great idea to remind Lucas, or Balthazar, that Balthazar and I had been on a date last year.
The silence that followed hung awkwardly in the room, until Vic couldn’t take it anymore. “Okay!” he said, too cheerfuUy. “So we’re all going to the Autumn Ball. Ranulf and I have dates — what about you guys?”
“Since when did you get a date?” I asked, joining his effort to brighten the mood of the evening.
Vic looked sheepish. Ranulf said, “Upon questioning, my date revealed that she has a friend lovely in visage yet unfortunate in matters of romance. We have therefore arranged for Vic to accompany her to the ball. “
