"What's lesson two?"

"I'm making you a better weapon than just a damned flute."

She raised a brow, giving me a sassy look. "I think it's more than just a damned flute."

She'd sounded amused, but when I replied, I was more serious than ever. "Yeah, but can it pierce a heart?"

She looked appalled. "I can't pierce someone's heart."

I had no patience for her revulsion. "First of all, it wouldn't be someone's heart. It'd be something's. And, if it were your life or theirs, you bet you could do it. But first, you need a stake."

I'd been thinking about this since the day Ronan had revealed his handmade stakes, slim but lethal, hidden beneath the sleeves of his sweater. One of those stakes had saved my life, killing the Draug that would've killed me. And now I was going to make some for myself. For us.

"Where will you get a stake?"

I stood at my bureau, sad but resolved. Because the trouble was, you needed wood to carve a stake. And the only wood I had was my shuriken box. "Stakes-plural. I'm gonna make them."

"You're making us stakes?"

I opened the drawer. Pulled it out. I hated to do it. I'd not received many gifts in my life, and this had been one of them. Even though it came from a bunch of vampires, it was impossible not to appreciate the gorgeous antique, stained a deep red. The wood had been notched and pieced together by hand. Someone had spent much time carving a crane, etched in black on the lid. "Yup. Hopefully I can get a few out of this."

"Oh, you can't," she exclaimed, seeing the box. "That's too beautiful."

"Then they'll be some mighty pretty stakes." I set aside the throwing stars, wrapped in a swatch of dark velvet. I'd tucked my pencil rubbing of the runes in there, too, and pulled it out, sliding it under my clothes instead. It was a weird compulsion, keeping this memento, but somehow the snippet of ancient Viking graffiti served as a reminder of how banal humanity actually was. How banal it was supposed to be.

I held up the empty box, studied it. And then in a violent motion, I began to wriggle the lid free of the base.

Mei leapt to her feet. "You'll ruin it."

I swung my back to her, holding it out of her reach. "Better the box than us." The hinges slowly gave way, and then my arms jerked as the lid ripped free.

I got to work, popping off the edges of the top and the sides. I'd use it all. "Hopefully, we'll each get two good stakes out of this. Maybe three. They'll be crude, but sharp enough."

I began to sharpen the chunks of wood, using the edge of one of my throwing stars. It reminded me of peeling potatoes.

She sat next to me, enthralled. "What are we going to do with them?"

"You're not going to do anything. You're going to learn how to protect yourself, so you can keep yourself safe if anything happens to me."

"What's going to happen to you?"

Deep in thought, I swept the edge of my shuriken along the stake, working methodically. Lethal points were gradually emerging from the blunted, splintered ends. "The vampires in charge want Car-Master McCloud dead, even though I'm certain he's innocent. There's more going on with this island than Watcher training."

"And you think if you throw Master Alcntara off stride, you'll get one step closer to uncovering the truth?"

I stopped carving, amazed. "Wow, you really are going all Nancy Drew on me."

"I prefer Buffy references." She gave me a sly grin. "And I want to help."

Ironically, it was the grin that turned my stomach, stopping me. My hands froze in midair. She should've been grinning with friends at the mall, not smiling with me over this macabre endeavor. "I can't let you help me. I mean, you could die, Mei."

She grew serious. "I know."

"Why help? And why me? I mean, we just met. Seriously, I'm just a messed-up seventeen-year-old who's trying to go down swinging. I am so not worthy of your help."

She looked away, thinking, and I expected an adolescent response. But what I got was something far wiser.

"My grandmother used to tell me not to be afraid," she said. "She said the only thing in this world that we should fear is standing still." She met my eyes once more, her expression hard and focused. "The vampires ordered the Tracer to kill my boyfriend. They would've killed my family if I hadn't come. I must not remain still. Evil has been done to me. I can lie down and take it. Or I can stand up and take revenge."

I looked at the crude stakes in my lap. "But this could get you killed."

"I can take action, help you figure out what's going on in this crazy place, and maybe get killed instantly. Or I can sit here, doing what I'm told, waiting to get killed eventually." She gave me a wry look. "I prefer just ripping off the Band-Aid, thanks."

My mind went back to my creepy run-in with Alcntara. Something had shifted in his lizardy eyes, telling me he might've been done with Mei-Ling. It gave me a chill, but I thought her assessment was probably right. From now on, she would simply be waiting for her eventual death. And it wouldn't be a long wait.

I gave her a quiet smile, then looked down to continue my carving. "Okay, here's what we're going to do."

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.

I began to explain the situation, but my roommate interrupted me almost immediately, and I guess I understood why. The phrase "There's a Draug keeper I need to spy on" wasn't something you heard every day.

I gave her one of my stars to help with the carving, and as we worked, I told her about Draugs and about the keeper and about the dire warnings I'd heard about the other side of the island.

I hoped she was right and that she wasn't helping me in vain. That this actually would be one step toward unraveling the mystery of the island. Because I really liked my peculiar, unpredictable young roomie, and it would devastate me to lose her as I'd lost Amanda and Judge.

When Mei spoke again, her question was the last one I'd expected. "Is this about that vampire you like?"

I froze. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, come on," she said at once. Then she laughed, and I realized I'd never heard her laugh before. It was a high, tittering sound that made me smile despite myself. "You may be able to use your brashness to manipulate and confuse other people, but it doesn't fool me."

"Wait." My hands dropped to my lap. "Full stop. My brashness?"

"Yes," she said, trying not to smile. "Arrogance seemed too harsh a word."

"Wow." I gave a little breathy laugh, amazed at this study of my character. "Well, thanks, I guess. So, you're saying I'm-what?-brash? And that I use it to confuse people?"

She shrugged. Her eyes didn't budge from me, and they were unflinchingly honest and steady. "Maybe cocky is the better word."

I laughed nervously. "I like your style, Mei-Ling. Very Mei-the-Merciless."

"See," she said, not to be interrupted. "Just like that. You're dismissive and pretend to be careless, and it confounds people. Nobody ends up seeing the real you. Then they either fear you or hate you, or they just help you, hoping you'll help them someday."

I had been smiling at this bizarre evaluation, but that last statement gutted me. I was reminded how Josh had offered his help, claiming an alliance with me was only smart. "You think people help me because they fear me? That just kind of completely bums me out."

She put a tentative hand on my arm. "Not all of us. Not those of us who really know you. We really like you."

I shook my head, unsure what to make of it all. "You're way too much, Mei-Ling."

"So what's the answer?"

I laughed again, getting back to my stake, picking up the carving stroke where I'd stopped. My hands were a little shaky after all those true confessions. "You're relentless. I don't even remember the question after all that."

Her smile was prim, and it made her look all of fourteen years old. "Is this all about the vampire you like?"

Discussing Carden seemed like child's play after my very own character assassination, and I caved. Anything to change the subject. "Okay. You win. It's about Carden, the vampire I like." I caught her eye. "Is that what you were after?"

I could only hope she'd noticed my thing with Carden because we were roommates and roommates noticed things and not because my attachment to him was so obvious.

"What's the deal with you two?" Mei-Ling's question was probing, but her gaze was glued to the star and stake in my hands.

Her averted eyes somehow made it easier to reply. "The deal..." I wouldn't tell her about the bond, but if she was going to risk her life to help me, I owed her a partial truth. "The deal is, I really like him."

She made a face. "But why? He's a vampire."

"Why? He's just different," I said, without thinking.

Her brows scrunched even more. "How?"

"How..." I wondered just that. There was the bond. Obviously. But I couldn't tell her that. I trusted her, but that seemed like information that could get her killed, and I was exposing her to enough risk already.

So what else was there? Why did I feel strongly enough about Carden that I'd risk my life-risk my friend's life-to save him?

"He treats me like a real person," I began, trying to put exact words to my feelings. I swept the blade down the wood, sharpening it, putting all my emotion behind it. I opened my mind, opened my heart, probing just what it was that I felt. "Like I'm my own unique individual. Not some kid, or someone who's been slapped around, or someone who's good at school. Maybe it was because we met on the other island, away from here, without a context. But when I met Carden, he met me as me."

I considered my feelings in light of what Mei had just said about me. Carden didn't fear me-the thought was laughable. And he definitely didn't need my help. He needed me, because of the bond-but I imagined he could bond with any pretty young thing.

No, he liked me. And I liked him. He made me laugh. He was light where I was dark, seeing the humor in things that'd felt so grimly serious to me. Carden gave me hope.

I couldn't lose that hope.

"I think I need him." It went beyond the physical need of our bond. To lose Carden now would make me feel lost. It would steal my purpose, my hope. "I can't lose him," I told her, and it felt like a confession, dredged from the darkest depths of my soul.

"Then count me in." She'd completed a stake, and she put it on the bed with confidence. It was crude, marbled red and brown and black where she'd scraped the paint from the wood, but it looked sharp. It looked like something that could pierce a heart. "So, you think the Draug keeper knows something."

"I didn't see him up close, but the guy looks like he's seen some serious stuff. For all I know, he could be the killer."

"Check," she said with a nod. "We're going to find the Draug keeper. And then what?"

What would we do next? Good question. "Sit down for a nice chitchat?"

"Yeah, right." Mei selected a new strip of wood and began to carve. "We could capture him. Interrogate him. Like a citizen's arrest."

"You've been watching too much Law & Order." I considered it. I knew I-we-needed to take action.

Seeing my star wielded so carefully in her hands somehow cemented our friendship. It made me feel like we could figure this out. As I watched her painstaking strokes, a plan formed in my head. "I could act as bait. Have a Draug attack me. If the keeper is good, he'll help me. If he's bad..."

"He'll sic the whole herd on you?" Mei looked aghast. "That doesn't sound like a great plan."

"No, listen, you'll be there with your flute." The more I thought about it, the more perfect it seemed. "When you play, everyone will get all calm and tractable. If he's the killer, we'll tie him up and Carden goes free. If not, we'll ask him questions, maybe get proof enough to show that Carden's not the murderer."

"Carden, huh?" She raised a brow.

I sat tall, placing my last stake on our small but respectable pile. "Yes. Carden." It felt good to be honest, if only partly so.

But then Mei frowned. "What if you're hurt?"

"I'll be fine," I assured her, trying to believe my own words. The truth was, I expected to get an injury or two. It didn't thrill me, but one or two more scratches taken for the cause wouldn't kill me.

She put her last stake down and we admired our handiwork. Six wooden stakes. They weren't nearly as pretty as my antique box had been, but they promised extra protection, and that was all the pretty I needed.

"Nice work," I said.

Our eyes met. Mei-Ling asked gravely, "Will we leave tonight?"

"God, no," I exclaimed with a laugh. "Do you know what's crawling around out there at night? Eeesh." I shuddered. "No. We'll go tomorrow, when the sun is at its highest." Alcntara had once told me himself-vampires can roam about in the sunlight, they just don't relish it. "Daylight won't protect us from everything, but it might offer a little cover."

I'd gathered from Ronan that we had a little time before the trial-though I wasn't ready to confess Ronan's sympathies just yet. There'd been enough revelations for one evening. Instead, I added simply, "No need to go off stupidly half-cocked."

"Right," she said with a smile. "We'll go off stupidly all-the-way-cocked."

We smiled grim smiles, and though I was nervous, it felt good to share this resolve. To be taking action.

I crawled into bed, praying we woke to an unusually bright morning. Honesty had cleared my conscience, and sleep came fast and hard.

Fantasies of Carden were waiting for me there.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

I awoke feeling heat. Vague images of Carden shimmered on the edges of my mind, but as hard as I tried, I couldn't grasp them. I couldn't remember my dream.

It angered me. Focused me. Intensified my urgency.