I tried to look on the positive side. Maybe my roommate was as freaked-out by school as I was. I remembered the girl with the super-short haircut and hoped it might be her. If I were living with another “outsider,” things would probably be easier all around. It would be torture, living with a stranger—actually having somebody I didn’t know there all the time, even when I slept—but I hoped the feeling would pass eventually. I didn’t dare hope for a friend.

Patrice Deveraux, the form had said. I tried to hang that name on the girl I remembered, but it didn’t quite fit. Still, anything was possible.

I opened the door and realized, heart sinking, that my roommate’s name fit her just fine. She wasn’t another outsider at all. Instead, she was the total embodiment of the Evernight type.

Patrice’s skin was the color of a river at sunrise, the coolest, softest brown, and her curly hair was pulled back into a soft bun, which showed off her pearl earrings and her slim neck. She sat at the dresser, still neatly lining up bottles of nail polish while she looked at me.

“So you’re Bianca,” she said. No handshake, no hug—just the click of each bottle of polish against the dresser: pale pink, coral, melon, white. “You weren’t what I was expecting.”

Thanks tons. “You either.”

Patrice cocked her head, studying me, and I wondered if we hated each other already. She lifted one perfectly manicured hand and began ticking off points. “You can borrow my perfume but not my jewelry or clothes.” She didn’t say anything about borrowing my stuff, but it was pretty obvious she wouldn’t ever want to. “I plan to do most of my studying in the library, but if you want to work here, let me know and I’ll talk with my friends somewhere else. Help me with the assignments you’re good at, and I’ll do the same for you. I’m sure we can learn a lot from each other. Sound fair?”

“Definitely.”

“All right. We’ll get along.”

If she’d acted all fake friendly with me right away, I think that would have weirded me out more. As it was, I was sort of reassured that Patrice was so businesslike. “Glad you think so,” I said. “I know we’re…different.”

She didn’t argue. “Two teachers here are your parents, right?”

“Yeah. I guess word travels fast.”

“You’ll be fine. They’ll take care of you.”

I tried to smile at her and hoped she was right. “You’ve been here at Evernight before?”

“No. First time.” Patrice said this as though changing her whole way of living was as simple for her as slipping into a new pair of designer shoes. “It’s beautiful, don’t you think?”

I left my opinion of the architecture out of it. “You said you had friends here, though.”

“Well, of course.” Her smile was as delicate as everything else about her, from the peach gloss on her lips to the perfume and nail polish bottles neatly arrayed on the dresser. “Courtney and I met in Switzerland last winter. Vidette was a friend of mine when I was staying in Paris. And Genevieve and I spent a summer together in the Caribbean, once—was it St. Thomas? Maybe it was Jamaica. I can’t keep these things straight.”

My pokey hometown seemed duller than ever. “So you guys all just—run in the same circles.”

“More or less.” Belatedly, Patrice seemed to realize how awkward I felt. “Eventually they’ll be your circles, too.”

“I wish I were as sure as you are.”

“Oh, you’ll see.” She dwelled in a world where endless summers in the tropics were everyone’s for the taking. I couldn’t imagine ever being a part of that. “Do you know anybody here? Besides your parents, I mean.”

“Only the people I’ve met this morning.” Meaning Lucas and Patrice, for a grand total of two.

“Plenty of time to make friends.” Patrice spoke briskly as she began putting away more of her things: silky scarves the color of ivory, hosiery in shades of taupe or dove gray. Where did she plan to wear things so elegant? Maybe it was unimaginable for Patrice to travel without them. “I hear Evernight is a wonderful place to meet men.”

“Meet men?”

“Do you already have someone?”

I wanted to tell her about Lucas, but I couldn’t. Whatever had happened between me and Lucas in the forest—it meant something, but my feelings were too new to share. All I said was, “I didn’t leave a boyfriend behind in my hometown.” I’d known all those guys at my old school since I was a little kid, and I remembered them back when they used to play with Lincoln Logs and mash Play-Doh in my hair. That sort of made it impossible to feel passionate about any of them.

“Boyfriend.” Her lips curled upward, as if the word struck her as childish. Patrice wasn’t sneering at me, though. I was simply too young and inexperienced for her to take me seriously.

“Patrice? It’s Courtney.” The girl outside knocked on the door even while she was opening it, obviously certain she would be welcome. She was even more beautiful than Patrice, with blond hair that fell almost to her waist and the pouty kind of lips I’d seen only on starlets in TV shows, who could afford stuff like collagen. The same kilt that hung awkwardly at my knees made her legs look a thousand miles long. “Oh, your room is much better than mine. I love it!”

The rooms were all pretty much alike, actually—a bedroom large enough for two people, with white, cast-iron beds and carved wooden dressers on each side. The window looked out upon one of the trees that grew closest to Evernight, but I couldn’t think of anything special about it.