Chapter One

It was the first day of school, which meant it was my last chance to escape.

I didn't have a backpack full of survival gear, a wallet thick with cash that I could use to buy myself a plane ticket somewhere, or a friend waiting for me down the road in a getaway car. Basically, I didn't have what most sane people would call "a plan."

But it didn't matter. There was no way I was going to remain at Evernight Academy.

The muted morning light was still new in the sky as I wriggled into my jeans and grabbed a warm black sweater — this early in the morning, and this high in the hills, even September felt cold. I knotted my long red hair into a make-shift bun and stepped into my hiking boots. It felt important to be very quiet, even though I didn't have to worry about my parents waking up. They weren't morning people, to say the least. They'd sleep like the dead until the alarm clock woke them, and that wouldn't be for another couple of hours.

That would give me a good head start.

Outside my bedroom window, the stone gargoyle glared at me, fangs framing his open grimace. I grabbed my denim jacket and stuck my tongue out at him. "Maybe you like hanging out at the Fortress of the Damned," I muttered. "You're welcome to it."

Before I left, I made my bed. Usually it took a lot of nagging to get me to do that, but I wanted to. I knew I was going to freak my parents out badly enough today, so straightening the covers felt like I was making it up to them a little. Probably they wouldn't see it that way, but I went ahead. As I plumped up the pillows, I had a sudden strange flash of something I'd dreamed the night before, as vivid and immediate as though I were still dreaming:

A flower the color of blood.

Wind howled through the trees all around me, whipping the branches in every direction. The sky overhead churned, thick with roiling clouds. I brushed my windswept hair from my face. I only wanted to look at the flower.

Each rain-beaded petal was vividly red, slender, and bladelike, the way some tropical orchids are. Yet the flower was lush and full, too, and it clung close to the branch like a rose. The flower was the most exotic, mesmerizing thing I'd ever seen. It had to be mine.

Why did that memory make me shiver? It was only a dream. I took a deep breath and focused. It was time to go.

My messenger bag was ready; I'd loaded it up the night before. Just a few things — a book, sunglasses, and a little cash in case I needed to go all the way to Riverton, which was the closest thing to human civilization in the area. That would keep me occupied for the day.

See, I wasn't running away. Not for real, where you make a break and assume a new identity and, I don't know, join the circus or something. No, I was making a statement. Ever since my parents first suggested that we come to Evernight Academy — them as teachers, me as a student — I'd been against it. We'd lived in the same small town my whole life, and I'd attended the same school with the same people since I was five years old. That was just the way I wanted it. There are people who enjoy meeting strangers, who can strike up conversations and make friends quickly, but I'd never been one of those people. Anything but.

It's funny — when people call you "shy," they usually smile. Like it's cute, some funny little habit you'll grow out of when you're older, like the gaps in your grin when your baby teeth fall out. If they knew how it felt — really being shy, not just unsure at first — they wouldn't smile. Not if they knew how the feeling knots up your stomach or...

On the first day of school, not long after dawn, the procession began.

The first few students arrived on foot. They stepped out of the woods, simply dressed, usually with just a single bag slung over one shoulder. I think some of them had walked all night. Their eyes searched the school hungrily as they came closer, as though hoping they would immediately be granted the answers they sought. Even before I saw the first familiar face—Ranulf, who was more than a thousand years old and didn't understand the modern era a bit—I knew who the students in this group were. These were the lost ones, the oldest vampires. They didn't make trouble for anyone; they sank into the background, studying, listening, trying to compensate for the centuries they'd missed.

Lucas had slipped in among these last year. I remembered the way he'd appeared from the fog in his long black coat. Even though I knew better, I kept searching the face of each student who arrived on foot, wishing I could see his face again.

At breakfast time, the cars started to arrive. I was watching from the hallway of the classroom area, just a couple of stories up, so I could see the ornaments on the hoods: Jaguar, Lexus, Bentley. There were little Italian sports cars and SUVs big enough for the sports cars to park in. I could tell that these were the human students, because none of them came alone. Most of them had their parents with them, with a few younger brothers and sisters along for the ride. I even recognized Clementine Nichols, who had a light-brown ponytail and freckles across her nose. To my surprise, Mrs. Bethany met most of them in the courtyard, holding out her hand as graciously as a queen receiving courtiers. She seemed to want to talk to the parents, and she smiled warmly at them as though they were making friends for life. I knew she was faking it, but I had to hand it to her—she was good. As for the human students, the longer they hung out in the courtyard and stared up at Evernight Academy's forbidding stone towers, the more their smiles faded.

"There you are."

I turned from the scene below to see my father, who had pried himself out of bed early for the occasion. He wore a suit and tie, like a professor should, but his rumpled, dark red hair revealed more of his true personality. "Yeah," I said, smiling at him. "I just wanted to see what was going on, I guess."

"Looking for your friends?" My father's eyes twinkled as he stood by my side and peered out the window. "Or scoping out new guys?"

"Dad."

"Backing off as requested." He held up his hands. "You seem a little happier about this than you did last year."

"I'd almost have to, wouldn't I?"

"Guess you would," Dad said, and we both laughed. Last year, I'd been so anti-Evernight that I'd tried to run away the day the students arrived—it seemed like a lifetime ago. "Hey, if you want some breakfast, I think your mother's got the waffle iron fired up and ready to go."

Even though they usually stuck to drinking blood from the clandestine shipments the school provided, my parents always made sure that I ate the real food I still needed. "I'll be up in a sec, okay?"

"Okay." His hand rested on my shoulder for a moment before he turned to leave.

I took one last look at the courtyard. A few families continued milling around or dragging in suitcases, but the third and final wave of students had begun to arrive.

They each came alone, in rented cars. There were a couple of taxicabs, but most of the cars were hired sedans or limousines. When the students emerged, they were already dressed in their tailored uniforms, their hair...