“‘Fly Me to the Moon,’” I requested, and within a few seconds, Frank was singing it to us all. I showed them both the Andromeda galaxy, directing them to look up from Pegasus, then go northeast until they saw it, the soft fuzzy glow of a billion stars far away. After that, I spent a long time combing through the cosmos, each familiar star like a long-lost friend.

The next day, on my way to history class, I glimpsed Lucas in the hallway at the very same moment he spotted me. Sunlight from the stained glass windows painted him the colors of autumn, and it seemed to me that he had never been more handsome.

When our gazes met, though, the moment lost all its beauty. Lucas looked hurt, as bewildered and lost as I’d been feeling ever since the argument in the restaurant—and for a terrible second I felt guilty, because I knew that I’d hurt him. I could see guilt in his eyes, too. Then he clenched his jaw and turned from me, shoulders slightly hunched. Within seconds, he was lost in the crowd of uniforms, one more invisible person at Evernight.

Maybe he was telling himself, once again, that it was best to keep his distance from people. I remembered how he had acted when we were together—so much happier and looser, more free—and I hated the idea that I might have forced him to shut himself off from the world again.

“Lucas’s totally dragging ass around the dorm room,” Vic informed me later that day when we ran into each other on the stairwell. For once, Vic was dressed normally—at least, from the ankles up, because the red Chucks he had on his feet were definitely not part of the uniform. “He’s kind of a moody guy anyway, but this is beyond moody. This is supermoody. Megamoody. X-treme moodiness.” He made an X with his arms to spell out the last.

“Did he send you here to plead his case?” I tried to make it sound light. I don’t think I did very well; my voice was so ragged that anybody could tell I’d been crying earlier that day—even someone as oblivious as Vic.

“He didn’t send me. He’s not like that.” Vic shrugged. “Just wondering about the source of the drama.”

“There’s no drama.”

“There’s totally drama, and you’re not going to tell me about it, but, hey, that’s okay. Because it’s not my business.”

I felt so disappointed. I would have been angry if Lucas had sent Vic to argue on his behalf, but it was depressing to realize that Lucas was going to let me go without a fight. “Okay.”

Vic nudged my elbow with his. “You and me are still friends, right? You guys get joint custody in the divorce. Generous visitation rights.”

“Divorce?” Despite myself, I laughed. Only Vic could call the aftermath of a bad first date a divorce. We hadn’t exactly been friends beforehand, so “still” was an exaggeration, but it would’ve been mean to point that out. Besides, I liked Vic. “We’re still friends.”

“Excellent. The weirdos have to stick together around here.”

“Are you calling me a weirdo?”

“Highest honor I can bestow.” He held out his hands as we walked through the corridors, taking it all in with one gesture: the high ceilings, the dark, scrolling woodwork that framed every hall and door, the shaded light that filtered through old windows and streaked long, irregular shadows on the floor. “This place is the capital of weird. So what’s weird here is what’s normal anywhere else. That’s how I look at it, anyway.”

I sighed. “You know, I think you’ve got a point.”

He was definitely right about needing as many friends as I could get in a place like Evernight Academy. It wasn’t as if I’d ever liked it here, but my brief time with Lucas had taught me how it felt not to be so desperately alone. Now that he was gone, my isolation stood out in sharper relief. Realizing how much better it could have been only made it harder to bear how unfriendly and intimidating this place actually was.

The change in seasons didn’t help. The school’s Gothic architecture had been softened slightly by the lush ivy and the sloping green lawn. The narrow windows and strangely tinted light hadn’t been able to fully mask the brightness of the late-summer sun. Now, however, dusk came earlier, making Evernight seem more isolated than ever before. As the temperatures cooled, a lasting chill crept into the classrooms and dormitories, and sometimes it seemed that the featherings of frost on the windowpanes were etching themselves permanently into the glass. Even the beautiful autumn leaves rustled in the wind, a lonely, shivery sort of sound. They’d already started falling, leaving the first few branches bare, like na**d claws scrabbling at the gray-clouded sky.

I wondered if perhaps the founders of the school had created an Autumn Ball to cheer the students up at such a melancholy time of year.

“I don’t think so,” Balthazar said. We were at the same table in the library; he’d first invited me to study with him a couple of days after the ill-fated Riverton trip. At my old school, I hadn’t studied with anyone, because “studying” usually turned into “talking and goofing off,” and then the assignments stretched out even longer. I preferred to get my homework over and done with. But Balthazar turned out to feel the same way, and we’d spent a lot of time together in the two weeks since, working side by side, hardly saying a word for hours. The conversation didn’t start until we were packing up our books. “I suspect the school’s founders loved autumn. It brings out Evernight’s true nature, I think.”