“Thank you.” Marrow looked back at me. “Try to put everything out of your mind for now.”

Yeah sure, no problem.

“Come on,” said Brackenberry as Marrow walked away.

The sheriff made me sit in the back of the car like some kind of jailbird, but I didn’t complain. My dorm, Riker Hall, was on the opposite side of campus, a good ten-minute walk that I didn’t feel like making in the middle of the night with a killer on the loose.

I sat back and tried to think about nice things, like my dad making French toast on Sunday mornings or how I’d kicked the winning goal at the soccer play-offs last year, back when I’d still been an ordinary. Back when dreams were only dreams.

But all I could see was Rosemary’s dead body.

The car pulled to a stop a few minutes later. Brackenberry got out and opened my door. “Hurry up. I’ve got things to do.”

I climbed out and looked around at the familiar buildings, a mix of stone cathedrals and mini-castles, complete with looming towers, a lot of pointed arches, and walls as thick as bank vault doors. Riker Hall stood to my right, looking like a squat fortress. I didn’t want to go in there and back to my dorm room. What if I dreamed about Rosemary? I didn’t have nearly the amount of power in my own dreams as I did in everybody else’s.

In a pathetic attempt to stall, I asked, “What about my bike? It’s still at McCloud Park.”

“I’ll have one of my boys drop it off later.”

“Oh. Um, thanks.”

“Something wrong?”

I bit my lip. “Well, I guess I’m just surprised I’m not in trouble. I mean, I exposed myself to an ordinary.”

Brackenberry snorted. “Would you prefer I haul you to jail? I can do that if you’d like.” He opened the door again and waved.

“No thanks.” I wasn’t entirely certain he was joking. “I guess it’s just a lucky break or something. That’s kind of unusual for me.”

A wide, unpleasant grin stretched across his wolfish face. “Well, maybe your luck’s changing.”

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

3

Dream Duty

News about Rosemary’s death spread through the student body the next day faster than a Facebook chain post. It didn’t help that there were now werewolf police officers walking the hallways and patrolling the grounds. The atmosphere in the underclassmen’s cafeteria at breakfast hummed with voices, the sound a mixture of fear and excitement. I tried not to listen, but it was impossible.

“She died?”

“Someone murdered her. On campus.”

“I thought The Will stopped stuff like that from happening?”

“First time in who knows how long.”

“I heard that her body was found by that Nightmare girl. You know, Dusty, or whatever.”

Great, so my participation in last night’s events had made it into the rumor mill, too. I didn’t bother correcting the boy even though he was sitting just one table over from me. He’d probably just ignore me anyway. I wasn’t exactly popular at Arkwell, more like the unintentional loner. I’d tried making friends, but most people acted like I was mentally deficient or something. Magically deficient, more likely. Most weren’t outright mean, but it seemed I would be the new girl forever.

My luck from the night before finally went bust in English class. Typical of Monday mornings, our teacher, Miss Norton, was hungover. She was a squat fairy with curly, auburn hair and a broad face. Today her large eyes looked red and puffy behind her wire rim glasses. I suspected she might have done some crying last night along with the usual drinking and I tried not to think what about.

School gossip claimed Miss Norton had a serious Coke addiction. And by Coke, I mean the sugary, caffeinated beverage. Fairies were immune to the effects of drugs and alcohol, but they had a serious sugar weakness. This meant sugar was a banned substance at Arkwell. The vending machines contained only diet, caffeine-free sodas and sugar-free candy and snacks, most of which tasted like cardboard. There were mornings I would kill to get my hands on a Mountain Dew and a powdered doughnut.

“All right, kids,” said Miss Norton after the bell rang. “Let’s form the talking circle.”

Relieved chatter broke out at her announcement, mixed with the scrape of chair legs against the stone floor as we pushed our desks around until they were lined up in some vague circular fashion. I ended up with my back facing the wide, arched windows and my gaze pointed toward the dry erase board in the front of the room. Arkwell might look like a large medieval town on the outside, but the insides were full of modern classroom amenities.

Miss Norton clapped her hands, and the noise quieted down. Then she produced the “talking stick,” pulling it out of one of the huge pockets of the flowery housedress she wore. The stick was roughly the size of a school ruler and as crooked as an arthritic finger. Its surface was made of some kind of pale wood, smooth like glass, and whenever I held it, it seemed to radiate warmth.

“Given the tragic events of last night,” said Miss Norton, “I think instead of discussing the reading assignment, we should take this time to share our thoughts and feelings about what happened.”

Now the class gave a collective groan, myself included. Actually, I was probably the loudest. What was the deal? The talking circle was normally an excuse for Miss Norton to get out of teaching. The free-form, rambling discussions, usually more goofing off than serious introspection, gave her time to nurse her hangover headache. I couldn’t understand why she was making today’s topic about our feelings over Rosemary’s death. Maybe she wanted to make sure everybody left her class feeling as miserable as she did. Wouldn’t surprise me. Fairies were a vindictive lot.