“Which brings us to the least sexy word in the English language, kids,” Dad said, kicking back in his chair. “Inbreeding. Avoid it. Think about dating outside the Vale.”

Mum sat with the line of her back so straight that it looked as if her spine was made of steel. Dad rubbed a hand over the curve of her shoulder. “You have a migraine, Claire?”

Mum gave him a faint smile. “It’s not so bad.” Stress brought on Mum’s migraines. Kami wondered how many of her headaches over the years had been about sorcerers and secrets. Mum looked back at Kami and said, “Some families were important once and aren’t anymore. Like the Prescotts. Power fades with time. All power but the Lynburns’. They’re the ones to watch. For your article.”

“Article,” Kami said. “Right.”

Dad reached over and pulled a lock of Ten’s wavy bronze hair. “Do you get the feeling that they’re talking about something other than an article?”

Kami stared at her fork, lying forlornly askew on her plate. “I don’t know what you could mean! You are talking crazy!”

“They are talking about boys,” Dad told Tomo and Ten. “I believe your mother may have concerns about Kami and a Lynburn boy. Possibly in a tree. Potentially k-i-s-s-i-n-g. I couldn’t say.”

Kami stood up from her chair. “Not likely.” And how true that was.

Her dad whistled cheerfully at her as she went out the door. Kami heard Tomo taking up the whistle as she climbed the stairs, and the murmur of her mother’s voice. She went to her bedroom and sat on her window seat, looking out the mullioned window. Through the old triangles of glass, she saw her town on one side. She saw the dark curve of the woods, starting from her home and ending with the manor.

Sorry-in-the-Vale, the Sorrier River, sorry, sorrier, sorcerer. Her town, and now she knew the truth of it. She’d helped shape her town with magic, added something new to the world with her story. Kami had never wanted to do anything but these two things: discover truth and change the world. What she needed to do now, before anything else, was discover all the truth.

The Prescotts, her mother had said. Holly’s family.

Kami found herself trying to figure out exactly when Holly had become friendly with her. She only had Holly’s word for it that Holly had ever been attacked. The Prescotts had once been powerful, her mother had said, and Holly had told Kami about the Prescotts’ grudge against the Lynburns. A Prescott might want to kill, and might choose the time of the Lynburns’ return to do it so a Lynburn would be blamed for the murder. A Prescott might be born a sorcerer. Power might tempt Holly, if she had the opportunity to take it.

Kami rested her cheek against the glass and shut her eyes against all the light and darkness of Sorry-in-the-Vale.

The next day, Kami couldn’t find a single member of her team in school. She didn’t have class with any of them on Wednesdays, but she didn’t see anyone in the cafeteria and her headquarters were deserted.

It gave her room to think.

By the time Kami cornered Holly in the corridor at the end of the day, she had already made up her mind how to behave. She smiled, determinedly bright. Holly smiled back, and Kami wondered if the smile looked a little fixed, a little false.

“How’s it going?” Kami asked.

“Fine,” said Holly. She had the same coloring as Ash. Kami wondered how much more likely it was to be a sorcerer if you had a few drops of Lynburn blood in you. “How are you?”

Why was Holly turning Kami’s questions back on her? Kami thought wildly. Then she told herself to get a grip. “Also fine!” she answered. “Thank you for asking!”

Holly squinted at her, but she didn’t ask Kami if she was all right. Kami found that suspicious too.

“Where’s Angela?” Kami asked in desperation. She didn’t think she could bear to stand here doubting her friend for an instant longer.

Holly’s face shut like a door, leaving her eyes glittering and cold. “No idea,” she snapped. “I’m not interested in where she is or what she does.”

While Kami was still staring, Holly turned on her heel and walked down the corridor. Other people saw Kami getting the brush-off. A wave of murmurs hit her as she turned and walked the other way, trying to pretend nothing was wrong.

Kami ducked into a bathroom as she went, pulling out her phone and calling Angela. She stood in the center of the white tile floor, listening to the phone ring until it went to Angela’s voicemail.

“I’m too lazy to answer messages,” Angela’s recorded voice said, tinny and far-off in Kami’s ear. “Don’t bother leaving one.”

Kami hung up and rang Angela’s home phone. When she heard the soft click of the phone being picked up, she breathed out in deep relief. The breath froze on her lips when Rusty’s sleepy, good-natured voice said: “Rusty Montgomery’s emporium of pleasure. Tell me you’re good-looking and then tell me how I can serve you.”

“Rusty, for God’s sake,” Kami said. “What if it was my mother calling?”

“Your mother is a very nice-looking lady,” Rusty observed. “Though I’m not sure why you think she’d be calling me.”

“What if it was the grocer, then?”

“Mr. Hanley has a very individual but compelling charm.”

Kami could not force herself to laugh. She didn’t even know how to pretend to be normal, not when she couldn’t stop seeing how sweet, friendly Holly’s eyes had turned cold. “Is Angela there?”

“No,” Rusty said, his casual drawl coming an instant too late to be natural.

“Well,” Kami said, “do you know where she is? She’s not answering her phone.”

Rusty hesitated again, the scrape of his breath sounding like another door shutting Kami out.

“Rusty,” Kami said, “Angela shouldn’t be disappearing off on her own. It’s not safe.”

“She hasn’t told you anything?” Rusty demanded. His voice was suddenly sharp, which Rusty’s voice never was.

Nobody was acting normal. Kami felt disoriented, everything familiar made strange. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” said Rusty.

“Nothing?” Kami repeated. “Though you are a master of deceit, somehow I see through your cunning story.”

Rusty drew in a deep breath. “Look, Kami, Angela is fine. I promise you. I think she’s just gone off to be by herself for a while. She’s a little upset.”

“Angela doesn’t get upset,” Kami said blankly.

Kami had seen Angela at thirteen years old, when her parents went on a five-month trip. Angela had set up an old armchair as a punching bag in their garden and beaten it into rags and splinters before Kami’s eyes. Then she had gone and taken a nap.

Angela got angry and got even with the world by pretending she didn’t care. She didn’t run off to take some personal time and have a little cry.

“Everyone gets upset,” Rusty said, his voice soothing, as if that was likely to calm Kami, as if generalizations ever really applied to anyone. “She probably went for a walk in the woods.”

A walk in the woods, Kami thought. The phone slid a little against her damp palm. “Rusty,” she said. “There is something you’re not telling me.”

“What would make you think that?” he asked.

It was horrible, hearing Rusty’s voice shift into caginess. Rusty was always so simple, as if he couldn’t be bothered to be complicated. The idea that even Rusty was keeping secrets from her was a terrible one. She thought about the Montgomerys moving to Sorry-in-the-Vale, a place where they knew nobody and clearly were not very happy. She thought about Henry Thornton, a sorcerer who had come down to Sorry-in-the-Vale from the city.

“What do you know, Rusty?” Kami asked, dropping the pretense that this was an ordinary conversation. Her voice sounded tinny and desperate in her own ears.

“What do you know?” Rusty shot back, his voice harsher than she’d ever heard it, a man’s voice, not a lazy, charming boy’s. “I don’t know what’s safe to tell you. I don’t want to tell any of Angela’s secrets.”

So, Angela had secrets.

Kami wasn’t even curious; she just felt sick. “Rusty,” she pleaded, “she’s my best friend.”

“I know,” Rusty told her. “But she’s my sister.”

Kami stared at the murky underwater green of the bathroom tiles.

“Maybe you should come over,” Rusty suggested. His voice sounded normal again, which was even more disorienting.

There was a knot in Kami’s throat, tightening with her fear, like a snared animal who only drew the snare tighter by struggling. “Why would I come over if Angela’s not there?”

“Come on, Cambridge. You’re my friend too.” It was the nickname that made her hang up so abruptly she found herself startled by the sudden emptiness in her ear. She couldn’t stand to hear that pet name turned against her.

The phone rang while it was still pressed against her ear. The sound made Kami jump. She turned the phone off with shaking hands and slid it into the pocket of her jeans. She didn’t want to stay in the bathroom, so she turned on her heel and left.

The first thing she saw was Ash, walking down the corridor toward her, his head bowed. The lights in the classrooms were out, only the fluorescent lights overhead illuminating their school at all. In the shadows and stark light, Ash looked more like Jared than ever.

It wasn’t just the light, Kami thought as she drew closer to Ash. It was seeing Ash through new eyes. The first time she’d met him, she’d noticed how perfectly put together he was, always saying the right thing, looking the right way, every word and movement controlled. She had admired that. She hadn’t thought it meant he was hiding something.

But now she knew everyone was hiding something.

Ash’s calm blue eyes were shadowed, dark as the lakes where Jared had almost drowned. He was walking too fast, as though he wanted to get away from something.

Kami kept walking toward him. “Ash?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

Ash blinked and checked his own step. Kami reached him and stood staring up at him. He stood with the lockers in a metallic line at his back, and the look on his face sent a ripple of unease through her.

“Ash,” Kami said urgently, “tell me. I’ll help you.”

Ash stayed frozen, gazing down at her. Then he leaned down and kissed her. His mouth was sudden and hot against hers, catching the gasp of surprise she made. He grabbed her wrists, pulling her toward him and against his body fast. It wasn’t at all like their last kiss. This wasn’t sweet or romantic.

Kami had heard of having your breath taken away, but she’d never lost hers before. It was partly that it was so fast and she was so surprised, and it was partly something else. The kiss went deeper and he let go of her wrists, and she found herself sliding her fingers into his hair, stroking and trying to soothe. He drew away and looked into her face, eyes beseeching, as if he had a question and needed the right answer.

Kami, a little dazed, had a question of her own. “Why did you do that?”

That was clearly not the answer Ash had been searching for. He stepped away from her. Kami’s hand fell from his hair.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked, then he pushed past her and walked away.

No, Kami wanted to shout after him. No, it wasn’t. She wanted to run after him and demand answers herself. She let him go, the front doors of the school swinging open to let him pass, everything in Sorry-in-the-Vale made to obey the sorcerer. The doors fell closed behind him, one last slant of sunlight falling across the floor.

Kami was still trembling, cold all over except for her mouth. It had been obvious Ash was in search of some sort of comfort. She didn’t know how much of her response to him had been about who he looked like, not who he was, and that was a terrible thing to find yourself doubting. It was a terrible thing to do to anyone.