I picked up Nala and, holding her close to me, hurried down the sidewalk, trying to stop the trembling that was still quaking through my body.

I was feeling shaky and ultrasensitive, and when my gut told me I really shouldn't be seen right now, I called spirit to me as I entered the quieting school building, and through it covered myself in silence and shadow. So I moved through the mostly deserted halls of school undetected. It was weird of me to do this inside our school building, and it made me feel detached, like I was hiding not just my body, but my thoughts, too, and gradually as I made my way to the Council Chamber, the fear and the triumph that trembled inside me stilled and I began to breathe more easily.

Though Neferet's hand hadn't literally tried to slit my throat, I knew deep in my gut that what I'd just avoided really had been my death, or at the very least a foreshadowing of it. Had Damien still been mad at me, I don't think I could have pushed through the terror the Raven Mockers washed over me and reached out to the elements for protection. And even though Neferet hadn't been holding a blade to my neck, I couldn't help but believe that she was somehow all tied up in what was happening.

Was I still scared? Hell yes!

But I was also still breathing and more or less in one piece. (Okay, I was currently invisible, but still.) Could I beat the Raven Mockers again? In their current form where they were part spirit, part body, yes--with the help of my friends and the elements. Could I beat them if they were fully formed and had come into all their power?

I shivered. Just the thought of it terrified me.

So I did what any reasonable kid would do--I decided to think about it later. A snatched piece of a quote surfaced from my memory, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, and as I ped deeply into the lovely Land of Denial, I kept my mind busy trying to figure out where I'd read it.

Soundlessly, I floated up the stairs to the Council Chamber, across from the library, where I thought I would probably find Shekinah. It was in the hall outside the room that I heard the all-too-familiar voice, and I was very, very glad I'd followed my instinct to conceal myself.

"So you admit to feeling it, too? This sense of something being not right?"

"Yes, Neferet. I readily admit to sensing there was something wrong about the school, but if you'll recall, I was firmly against buying this campus from the Cascia Hall monks five years ago."

"We needed a House of Night in this part of the country," Neferet insisted.

"And that is the argument that won the Council over and convinced them to open this House of Night. I didn't agree with it then, and I don't agree with it now. The recent deaths simply prove we should not be here."

"The recent murders prove we need more of a presence here and all over the world!" Neferet snapped. I heard her draw a deep breath, as if she was working hard to control herself. When she spoke again, her voice was much more subdued. "This bad feeling of which we were speaking--it has nothing to do with being reticent about opening a school. It's different, more malevolent, and it's grown far worse in the recent months."

There was a long pause before Shekinah answered her. "I do feel a malevolence here, but I cannot name it. It seems hidden, shrouded in something I do not find familiar."

"I think I can name it," Neferet said.

"What do you suspect?"

"I have come to believe it is an evil hidden, shrouded, in the appearance of a child, and that is why it is going to be so hard to expose," Neferet said.

"I don't understand your meaning, Neferet. Are you saying one of the fledglings is hiding evil?"

"I don't want to say it, but I'm coming to believe it." Neferet's voice was filled with sadness, like what she was saying was so difficult to admit, she was almost on the brink of tears.

I knew it was absolutely, utterly, an act.

"Again I ask you, what do you suspect?"

"It isn't a what, but a who. Shekinah, sister, it grieves me to say it, but the deep evil I have been sensing, that you have been sensing, too, began to build and intensify with one student's entry to this House of Night." She paused, and even though I knew what she was going to say, it was a shock to hear her actually speak the words. "I'm afraid Zoey Redbird is hiding a terrible secret."

"Zoey! But she is the most gifted fledgling in history. Not only has no other fledging ever wielded the power of all five elements, but no other fledgling has ever been surrounded by so many gifted peers. Each of her closest friends can manifest one of the elements. How could she possibly be so gifted and be hiding evil?" Shekinah said. "I don't know!" Neferet's voice broke, and I could tell she was crying. "I'm her mentor. Can you imagine how much it grieves me to even think these things, let alone say them aloud?"