OhmG.o.d, Erik is back and I'm taking a cla.s.s he's going to be teaching. I didn't know if I wanted to cheer or puke, so I settled for silence and an upset stomach.

"As for the barrier spell Neferet erected around the school-it will not be resumed. While I agree with her immediate actions in casting it-after all, there were few of the Sons of Erebus present and a murder had just been committed-those emergency actions are no longer appropriate. To seal off the school would be tantamount to the declaration of a siege state, and that is something we definitely wish to avoid. And, of course, we are fully protected by the Sons of Erebus." She nodded to Ate, who returned the gesture with a bow of acknowledgment. "All in all, I would like your lives to go on as normally as possible. Those of you with ties to the human community, exercise those relationships. Remember the lesson our ancestors learned with their precious blood: Fear and bigotry are bred from isolation and ignorance."

Okay, I do not know what the h.e.l.l came over me, but suddenly I realized I had an idea, and as if of its own free will, my hand dorkishly raised over my head like it thought we were in the middle of cla.s.s and we (meaning my hand and my mouth minus my brain) had just discovered a brilliant answer.

"Zoey, do you have something to add?" Shekinah asked.

Oh, h.e.l.l no! is what I should have said. Instead my mouth blurted, "Priestess, I was wondering if this might be a good time to implement an idea I've had for the Dark Daughters to get involved with a local human charity."

"Go on. I am intrigued, young lady."

I gulped. "Well, I thought the Dark Daughters could contact the people who run Street Cats. It's, uh, a charity that shelters homeless cats and finds them homes. I, well, I thought it might be a good way to mix with the human community," I finished lamely.

Shekinah's smile was luminous. "A cat charity-how perfect! Yes, Zoey, I think yours is an excellent idea. Tomorrow you will be excused from your early cla.s.ses so that you may begin contacting the Street Cat people."

"Priestess, I must insist the fledgling does not travel into the community alone," Ate said quickly. "Not until we know who exactly is responsible for the crimes against our people."

"But the humans won't know we're fledglings," Aphrodite said.

Everyone's eyes went to her, and I watched her spine straighten and her chin lift.

"And you are?" Shekinah asked.

"My name is Aphrodite, Priestess," she said.

I watched Shekinah closely, waiting to see a reaction that said she knew about the rumors Neferet had spread about Aphrodite-that Nyx had turned her back on her and taken away her powers, et cetera, et cetera, but the priestess's curious expression didn't change. She simply said, "What is your affinity, Aphrodite?"

I froze. c.r.a.p! She didn't have an affinity anymore!

"Earth is the element Nyx gave me," Aphrodite said. "But my greatest gift from the G.o.ddess is my ability to see visions of future danger."

Shekinah nodded. "That's right, I have heard of your visions, Aphrodite. Go on, then. What is it you have to say?"

A huge wave of relief washed through me. Aphrodite had fielded the affinity question and, thanks to her use of tense, hadn't actually lied.

"I was just thinking that humans don't know when we leave the school anyway, because we cover our Marks. The only people who would really know that a bunch of fledglings are volunteering to help Street Cats would be the Street Cats people, and what are the chances that they're involved in the murders?" She paused and shrugged. "So we should be safe."

"She has a point, Ate," Shekinah said.

"I still believe the fledglings should be shadowed by a warrior," Ate said stubbornly.

"That would call attention to us," Aphrodite said.

"Not if the warrior covered his Mark, too," Darius said.

This time everyone turned to look at Darius, who was still standing like a very muscular and attractive mountain over by the door.

"And what is your name, Warrior?"

"Darius, Priestess." He fisted his hand over his heart and bowed to her.

"So, Darius, you are saying you would be willing to cover your Mark?" Shekinah said. I felt as surprised as she sounded.

Fledglings had to cover their Marks when they left school-it was a rule of the House of Night. And it made sense. Honestly, teenagers can act stupid sometimes (especially boy teenagers), and no way would it be a good thing for a bunch of loitering fledglings (boys mostly) to be targeted by human kids (or worse-cops or overprotective parents). But once a fledgling has gone through the Change and her Mark has been filled in and expanded, no d.a.m.n way is she going to ever cover it up. It was about pride and solidarity and being grown. But here was Darius, clearly young and not long Marked, volunteering to do something that most vamps, especially most vamp guys, would normally say no way to.

Darius hastily closed his fist over his heart again and saluted Shekinah. "Priestess, I would cover my Mark so that I might accompany the fledglings and keep them safe. I am a Son of Erebus, and protection of my people is more important to me than misplaced pride."

Shekinah's lips curved up ever so slightly as she turned to Ate. "What say you to your warrior's request?"

The vamp's answer came without hesitation, "I say that sometimes we can learn much from the young."

"Then it is settled. Zoey, you will introduce yourself to the Street Cat people tomorrow, but I want you to choose a fledgling to go with you. Working in pairs is a good idea right now. Darius, you will accompany them with your Mark disguised." We all made little bows to her.

"And now, if there are no more questions"-she paused, and her eyes went from Len.o.bia to Aphrodite, Darius, and finally, me-"or comments, I would adjourn this Council Meeting. I will be holding a schoolwide Ritual of Cleansing in the next couple of days. I felt grief and fear when I came within these walls tonight, and only Nyx's blessing can lift such heaviness." Several of the Council Members nodded in agreement. "Zoey, before you depart tomorrow, I would like you to come to me and tell me who is going to join you."

"I will," I said.

"I wish you all blessed be," she said formally.

"Blessed be," we responded.

Shekinah smiled again. With a slight motion of her hand, she gestured for Len.o.bia and Ate to follow her, and the three of them left the room.

"Wow," Damien said, looking more than a little starstruck. "Shekinah! That was utterly unexpected, and she was even more resplendent than I'd imagined. I mean, I wanted to say something, but I was completely flummoxed."

We were hanging around out in the hall while the room emptied of Council Members and warriors, so Damien was barely speaking above an excited whisper.

"Damien, for once we are not gonna give you a hard time about your pain-in-our-a.s.s vocab obsession," Shaunee said.

"Yeah, 'cause it takes some seriously big words to describe Shekinah," Erin said.

"Later," Aphrodite said to me after rolling her eyes at the Twins. "I'm going to see if I can do a little flummoxing with Darius."

"Huh?" I said.

"That isn't the correct use of the word," Damien told her.

"Yeah, you were thinking of another word," Erin said.

"But it, too, starts with an F, which is probably what confused you," Shaunee said.

"Brain-sharers and Vocab Boy-I say a big whatever to you." She started to move off down the hall in the direction Darius had taken. "Oh, and I also say don't be all jealous and p.i.s.sy when Zoey tells you I'm the one she's taking with her tomorrow," Aphrodite said, giving me the look, which clearly meant there was a definite reason she had to go with me. Then she tossed her hair and twitched away.

"Hating her," Erin said.

"Ditto, Twin," Shaunee said.

I sighed. My grandma would say that I was taking one step forward and two backward in the whole getting-my-friends-to- like-Aphrodite situation. I'd just say they were all giving me a headache.

"She seriously bugs, but my guess is you're going to take her with you to Street Cats tomorrow," Damien said.

"Yeah, your guess is right," I said reluctantly. I really didn't want to p.i.s.s my friends off again, but even without knowing Aphrodite's reasons for wanting to go with me, it only made sense. Maybe she had a plan to ditch Darius and find Stevie Rae.

"You could have told us earlier about the psychic thing," Damien said as we started out of the main building and headed back toward the dorms.

"Yeah, you're probably right, but I figured the less I said about it, the less you'd think about it and the reasons I wasn't saying anything more to you guys," I said.

"Makes sense now," Shaunee said.

"Yeah, we get it now," Erin said.

"I'm glad you weren't just keeping stuff from us," Jack said.

"But you still should have told us the Loren stuff," Erin said.

"Actually, when you're done with your grief and whatnot, we'd still really like to hear the Loren details," Shaunee said.

I raised my brows at their identical looks of curiosity. "Don't count on it," I said.

They frowned.

"Give the girl some privacy," Damien said. "The Loren thing was very traumatic for her, what with the Imprint and the loss of virginity and Erik!"

The Erik part of Damien's mini-lecture had come out as a very odd squeak. I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong with him when I noticed that his eyes had gone huge and round and were fixed over my left shoulder and behind me, where I heard the distinct sound of a side door off the main school building closing. With a terrible sinking in my stomach, I, along with the Twins and Jack, turned to see Erik emerging from the wing of the school we had just been pa.s.sing, which, of course, held the drama room.

"Hi, Damien, Jack." he gave Jack, his ex-roommate, a warm smile, and I could see the kid almost wriggling with pleasure as he gushed a big h.e.l.lo back.

My stomach, naturally, tried to turn itself inside out at this reminder of one of the many reasons I liked Erik so much. He was popular and totally to-die-for handsome, but he was also a truly nice guy.

"Shaunee, Erin," Erik continued, nodding at them. The Twins smiled, fluttered their lashes, and said hi in unison. At last, he looked at me. "h.e.l.lo, Zoey." His voice had changed from the easy, friendly tone he'd used with everyone else. He didn't sound hateful, though. Instead he sounded cool and polite. I thought this might be an improvement, but then I remembered what a good actor he was.

"Hi." I couldn't say anything else. I'm not a particularly good actor, and I was scared my voice would sound as shaky as my heart felt.

"We just heard you're going to be teaching drama cla.s.s," Damien said.

"Yeah, it makes me a little uncomfortable, but Shekinah asked, and it's really not possible to say no to her," he said.

"I think Professor Nolan would be glad you're going to do it," I blurted before I could make my mouth shut up.

Erik looked at me. His blue eyes were absolutely expressionless, which felt completely wrong. Those same eyes had shown me happiness and pa.s.sion and warmth and even the beginnings of love. Then they'd shown me hurt and anger. And now they showed me nothing at all? How could that even be possible?

"Did you gain a new affinity?" His tone wasn't outright hateful, but his words were definitely clipped and cold. "Can you speak to the dead now?"

I felt my face get hot. "N-no," I stammered. "I just . . . well, I just thought Professor Nolan would like it that you're here for her students."

He opened his mouth, and I saw something mean stir in his eyes, but instead of speaking he looked away from me and off into the darkness. His jaw tightened and he ran a hand through his thick, dark hair in a gesture I recognized as one that he automatically did whenever he was feeling confused.

"I hope she does like it that I'm here. She was always my favorite teacher," he finally said without looking at me.

"Erik, are we going to be roommates again?" Jack asked tentatively into the increasingly uncomfortable silence.

Erik blew out a long breath and then gave Jack a quick, easy smile. "No, sorry. They've put me in the professor building."

"Oh, that's right. I keep forgetting you've been through the Change," Jack said with a nervous little giggle.

"Yeah, sometimes I almost forget myself," Erik said. "Actually, I better get to my new place-I have boxes to unload and lesson plans to figure out. See you guys later." He paused, and then his eyes flicked to mine. "Bye, Zoey."

Bye. My lips moved, but no sound came out.

"Bye, Erik!" Everyone else called as he turned and walked quickly away from us and back toward the professors' part of the school.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

My friends babbled about nothing in particular while we walked the rest of the way to the dorms. Everyone studiously ignored the fact that we'd just run into my very ex-boyfriend and that it had been a really awkward, really awful scene. Or at least for me it had been awkward and awful.

I hated feeling like this. I'd caused Erik to break up with me, but I missed him. A lot. And I still liked him. A lot. Sure, he was acting like a b.u.t.t right now, but he'd caught me having s.e.x with another man-well, another vampyre, actually. As if that mattered. Anyway, bottom line is I'd caused this mess and it was incredibly frustrating that I couldn't fix it, because I still cared about Erik.

"What do you think of him, Z?"

"Him?" Erik? h.e.l.l, I thought he was amazing and frustrating and . . . and I realized Damien hadn't been asking me about Erik when he frowned and gave me a get a clue look. "Huh?" I said brilliantly.

Damien sighed. "The new kid. Stark. What do you think of him?"

I shrugged. "He seemed nice."

"Nice and hot," Shaunee said.

"Just the way we like 'em," Erin finished.

"You spent more time with him than we did. What do you think of him?" I asked Damien, ignoring the Twins.

"He's okay. But he seems distant. I suppose it doesn't help that he can't have a roommate because of d.u.c.h.ess. You know, that dog is really big," Damien said.

"He's new, guys. We all know how that feels. Maybe how he deals with it is being distant," I said."It's odd that a kid with such an amazing talent is unwilling to use it," Damien said.

"There could be more to it than we know," I said, thinking about how cool and confident Stark had acted when he'd been standing up to the vamps about his dog, but then that nonchalance had changed when Neferet made him think that she wanted him to use his talents to compete. He'd gotten weird then, maybe even scared. "Sometimes having unusual powers can be scary." I spoke more to myself than to Damien, but he smiled at me and b.u.mped his shoulder against mine.

"Guess you'd know about being unusual," he said.