Her skin was clammy, but Raquel insisted, her voice shrill, “I’m fine!” We stared at each other in silence for a second, and then she added in a whisper, “Bianca, please. He didn’t touch me. So I’m fine.”

Someday Raquel might be ready to talk about this, but not tonight. Tonight she needed to get out of here and fast. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s get back to school.”

“Never thought I’d be glad to go back to Evernight.” Her laugh sounded broken, somehow. We started to walk away, but then she paused. “Aren’t you going to—to call the police or the teachers or somebody?”

“We’ll tell Mrs. Bethany as soon as we get back.”

“I could try to call from here. I have my cell—it worked in town—”

“We’re not in town any longer. You know we don’t get reception out here.”

“It’s so stupid.” She was shaking so hard that her teeth chattered. “Why don’t those rich bitches make their mommies and daddies pay for a tower?”

Because most of them haven’t even gotten used to landlines yet, I thought. “Come on. Let’s go.” She wouldn’t let me put my arm around her shoulders as we made our way out of the frosty woods. Instead she just kept twisting her leather bracelet over and over.

That night, after Raquel went to bed, I went to see Mrs. Bethany in her carriage house office. Given her disdainful attitude toward me, I’d assumed she would doubt my word, but she didn’t. “We’ll see to this,” she said. “You are dismissed.”

I hesitated. “That’s it?”

“Do you think you should be allowed to discuss his punishment? To mete it out, perhaps?” She arched one eyebrow. “I know how to keep discipline at my own school, Miss Olivier. Or would you like to write another essay as a reminder?”

“I just meant, what are we going to tell everybody? They’ll want to know what happened to Raquel.” Already I could envision Lucas’s handsome face, maybe questioning again if something strange was at work within Evernight. “She’ll tell people it was Erich. We’ll just have to say he was playing a practical joke or something, right?”

“That sounds reasonable.” Why did she look so amused? I realized the reason when Mrs. Bethany added, “You’re becoming quite adept in deception, Miss Olivier. Progress at last.”

I was afraid she might be right.

Chapter Ten

THE FIRST SNOWFALL OF WINTER DISAPPOINTED us all—only an inch and a half, just enough to melt into ice and slick the sidewalks. The countryside appeared patchy and dull, yellow-brown hills spotted with watery clumps of snow. Outside the bedroom window of my turret room, the gargoyle wore beads of frozen water over his scales and wings. It wasn’t enough snow to play in or even to enjoy looking at.

“Suits me,” Patrice said, artfully draping an acid-green muffler around her neck just so. “I’m glad we’re getting more sunshine.”

“Now that you can go back out in it again, you mean.” I had been so frustrated with Patrice and the others with their constant “dieting” before the Autumn Ball; like all vampires denied blood, they’d become thinner—and more vampiric. Courtney and her admiring clique had all been staying out of the sunlight, something that didn’t bother a well-fed vampire but was painful to a starving one. I’d had to put up with Patrice spending hours in front of the mirror trying to see herself as her reflection faded more and more, approaching invisibility. I thought they’d seemed bitchier, too, but with that crew, it was hard to tell.

Patrice knew what I was referring to and shook her head, so exasperated with me. “I’ve been fine since the day after the ball. It was worth a few weeks of hunger pangs and staying in the shade! Eventually you’ll learn the value of self-denial.” Her round cheeks dimpled with amusement. “But not while Lucas’s around, right?”

We laughed a long time at one of our few shared jokes. I was glad we were pretty much getting along, because between Raquel’s trouble and exams approaching, I needed as little stress in my life as possible.

Finals were brutal. I’d expected as much, but that didn’t make the papers for Mrs. Bethany write themselves or the trig exam any easier. My mother revealed an unexpected sadistic streak by covering every single thing she’d ever mentioned in class—though the main essay on the Missouri Compromise had at least been signaled in advance by some bouncing on the balls of her feet. Guess that means Balthazar is doing okay, I thought as I wrote so fast that my hand cramped around my pen. I hoped I was doing half as well.

I threw myself into my studying during finals week, not only because of the intensity of the tests but also because work served as a distraction. Making Raquel quiz me nonstop took her mind off what had nearly happened in the woods. It helped that Mrs. Bethany had Erich on penalty, which involved him spending virtually every free moment scrubbing down hallways and glowering at me furiously when he got the chance.

“I don’t trust that guy,” Lucas said once as we walked past him.

“You just hate his guts.” That was true as far as it went, though I knew other, better reasons for not trusting Erich.

Despite our efforts to keep Raquel busy, she remained haunted. Whatever fears she’d always carried within her had been magnified by Erich’s harassment. I knew that she wasn’t sleeping at night because of the dark circles under her eyes, and one day she came to the library with her hair freshly hacked off—obviously something she’d done herself, and not very carefully either.