SOMETIMES BY MOONLIGHT: A Novella

(Book Two of Never Cry Werewolf)

by Heather Davis

Copyright Info

Sometimes by Moonlight: A Novella

(Book Two of Never Cry Werewolf)

Copyright © 2011 by Heather Davis

Kindle Edition

http://heatherdavisbooks.com

Cover Art by Asha Hossain

All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. This book is a work of fiction.  The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not be construed as real.  Any resemblance to any persons living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is purely coincidental.

Dedicated to the fans of Shelby and Austin. Long may you howl.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

About the Author

Chapter One

Moonlight is dangerous. Even at a lame Swiss boarding school, where everything is as bland as the morning muesli, the moon’s seductive glow holds danger. Long shadows of poplar trees become shimmering specters on the freshly fallen snow. Stone chimneys rise like dark gargoyles overhead. Familiar surroundings seem strange and foreboding. But maybe the biggest danger of all is that moonlight takes away the privacy of the dark, revealing things that are better left unseen.

On a cold night in November, moonlight found the windows of my dorm room at the Steinfelder Academy for Girls. As I had so often that fall, I stared up at the full moon, worrying about Austin Bridges the III, the most dangerous person I knew, and wondering if he thought about me.

It’s bad enough that most people go through their whole lives searching for their one true love, but when you do meet him and he turns out to be a werewolf—a werewolf who disappears on you—things can get pretty depressing. Especially for me, Shelby Locke, former brat camper turned Swiss boarding school prisoner.

Standing before the window, bathed in the melancholy light, I traced the scar on my arm—the scar I’d earned helping Austin escape Camp Crescent, the place we’d met last June. Assisting him with an exit strategy so that his hairy secret wasn’t revealed had come at a greater price than just a flesh wound—it had meant doing time at Red Canyon Ranch, the desert boot camp where I’d spent the rest of the summer.  But just at my lowest point there, Austin had arrived to save me from the boredom and despair of hikes, latrine digging, and endless boot shining.

Unfortunately, when the summer came to an end, Austin jetted back to the never-ending supply of anti-change serum waiting for him in London, and I was packed away to a crappy girls’ school made of stone and surrounded by mountains.

I’m no genius, but I got the message my stepmother, Honeybun, and Dad were sending me: You will finish out high school in a remote Swiss fortress, far from our mansion in Beverly Hills, far from your original hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and any friends you ever knew. We will keep you out of sight and out of mind. You do not exist in our reality.

Honeybun and Dad couldn’t have picked a worse or more isolated boarding school if they’d tried. High up in an old mountain chateau, Steinfelder Academy for Girls was like a prison for embarrassing daughters of the privileged class. A jail for snobs, nerds, delinquents, and the misunderstood. I put myself in the last category because any rule I’d ever broken had been for what I thought at the time was a good cause. Sadly, helping Austin had, in the end, made me seem a bigger delinquent than I’d ever actually been. I found out the hard way that the world doesn’t give you points for good intentions.

It had almost healed over now, the scar on my arm. It was only a faint red crescent, but often when I thought of Austin, it itched. And sometimes, when I stood in front of the dorm window drinking in moonlight, it almost burned. If I had gotten a tattoo on my arm that said, “Austin” it wouldn’t have been as big a reminder of our night in the forest, the night he almost died saving me. You’d think after going through something like that together we’d be inseparable, that even the stone walls of a remote Swiss chateau couldn’t keep him away. But I hadn’t heard a peep from him since I’d arrived at that castle of crapola.

No letter. No telegram. No pigeon with a message tied to its leg. The last time we’d spoken was when we’d said goodbye in the desert. Since then, it was like he’d fallen off the face of the earth. Or maybe it was just me. I’d fallen off into a snow-filled crevasse named Steinfelder.

In the tradition of other “attitude adjustment” institutions, Steinfelder had confiscated our phones and kept us from e-mail access, so it wasn’t like I could contact Austin. Standing in the moonlight, as weird as that sounds, was the only way I’d found to be close to him. It was the way I remembered what we’d shared during a summer that now seemed so long gone.

“Tchk, tchk.” My roommate Marie-Rose made a concerned sound across the room. “Always at the window. Go to bed.” She was bossy for being only five feet tall, but maybe having people call her Rosemary all the time had given her a chip on her shoulder. Well, that and being kicked out of the best ballet schools in Europe.

I drew the lacy curtain, which did very little to shut out the moonlight. “I’m sorry. I can’t sleep.”

“No kidding,” she replied.

Sighting, I switched on the light between our beds.

“Mon dieu!” Marie-Rose squealed, throwing a pillow against her eyes.

“What are you, a vampire? Are you going to burn?”

Marie-Rose lowered her light shield. “No, but it’s two a.m. You really want Mrs. Lemmon to find our light on?”

I shuddered. The last thing we needed was that crotchety dorm-mother-slash-history-teacher on our case. I fished a flashlight out of the nightstand drawer.  “Sorry.  I’ll read a book under the covers.”

“Ah, no,” Marie-Rose said, waving me off. “I can’t sleep now, anyway.” She sat up in bed and rooted around under her pillow. “I’ve been waiting all day to read these magazines my mother sent,” she said, throwing me one of them.

Never having been the most athletic girl in school, I missed the throw and the tabloid fell to the floor, opening to the center spread. A girl with raven hair stared up at me from a glossy paparazzi photograph.

I slipped out of the covers to retrieve the magazine. “Eva’s petit ami,” I said, reading the French headline aloud.

“Eva’s boyfriend,” Marie-Rose translated. “Probably Eva Maleva. You know, the European pop princess?”

I hadn’t heard of her, but there was something captivating about Eva’s eyes. She was definitely pretty. I was about to turn the page when I noticed the guy on her arm—a hood over his face, like he was hiding from the photographers accosting the pair outside Eva’s concert. He had beautiful, full lips, but I could barely make out the rest of his dark features in shadow beneath the hood. And then, amongst all the French gobbledygook beneath the picture, I read a familiar name: Austin Bridges III.

“Oh, crap.” I threw the magazine back on the floor and turned off the light. Austin had a new girlfriend! That was why he hadn’t been in touch.

“Excuse me,” Marie-Rose growled. “I was reading over here.”

“Right. Sorry.” I clicked the light back on.

“Oh, cherie, you’re crying! What’s wrong?”

I wiped my wet eyes against the sleeves of my sleep shirt. “Remember that boyfriend I told you about?” I said in a small voice. “He’s in your magazine with Eva.”

“What? No!” Marie-Rose jumped out of bed and picked up the tabloid. “That’s your Austin with her?”

I nodded, still snuffling. “Apparently, he goes for the beautiful, famous type now.”

Marie-Rose sat down next to me and put her tiny arm around my shoulders. “It is probably not what you think,” she said. “I’m sure Eva is photographed with many people.”

I shrugged out from her grasp. “I told you he hasn’t been in touch for months.”

Marie-Rose’s eyes were kind behind her wispy red bangs. “Until you know the truth about why he hasn’t written, there is no reason to get upset. He will be in many magazines, that boy. It’s hard to avoid when you are the son of a rock star.”

I had to admit, my roommate had a point. The tabloids had always plagued Austin and his family. It was a fact of his life. “And what about that Eva girl?”

“She’s got a different boyfriend every month, if you believe the rumors. Now, we should turn off the lights and sleep.” Marie-Rose climbed under the covers of her bed. “As my maman says, everything will look better in the morning.”

I extinguished the light, and moonlight flooded the room again. Just as my eyes closed, I swear I heard a wolf’s cry off somewhere in the night. But that, of course, was probably wishful hearing.  If I know anything about the night and the moon, it’s that you can’t trust the dangerous tricks they play.

***

You would think, being in Europe and all, that the Steinfelder Academy for Girls would have good food. That world-class chefs, hired to feed the errant girls of the wealthy, would be staffing the kitchen, preparing an array of delicious, unpronounceable foodstuffs. Instead, every meal was almost impossible to choke down. Maybe it was some sort of secret diet plan our parents had us on: we would become so broken down by malnutrition we would become the complacent robots they’d always hoped we’d be. Or maybe the owners of Steinfelder were just horribly cheap.

Anyway, as I sat down to our culinary torture the next night, I was still deep in shock from having seen the picture of Austin with Eva Maleva, perfect European pop princess. Marie-Rose floated down next to me on the bench, her normally serene face showing concern.  If I didn’t already feel like crying, the air was thick with the smell of burnt onions.

I rested my chin in my hands on the long oak table, looking toward the windows, which revealed a darkening landscape. The poplars at the edge of our field were glazed with ice crystals reflecting the fluorescent glow of Steinfelder’s security lights, and in the distance, the chain link fence was a reminder that there was no easy way out of this place. If you somehow made it over the fence, you’d face the extremely steep, icy road that led down from our mountain perch. The duke who’d built this place had wanted absolute solitude. That was our inheritance. Our punishment.

The dining room, always silent before meals, came alive as the first-year students finally arrived at the tables with the food. Our puny server pranced over, giggling, and nearly knocked her domed silver platter onto the floor.

“Whoops,” she mumbled, setting it down with a crash, which slopped juice of some sort onto our table. “Sorry.”

Anxious to get it over with, I lifted the lid and found a pile of steaming something, surrounded by blackened baby onions. “Oh, yum.”

The server girl took the lid from my hands. “It’s sweetbreads and cow tongue. Enjoy,” she said, skipping off back to the kitchen.

I grabbed a serving fork and prodded one of the brown chunks. “What are we supposed to do with this?”

“We eat it. As on every other night.” Marie-Rose took the fork from me and selected a big piece, slapping it onto my plate. Then she served herself.

“Just once, I’d like to uncover a juicy porterhouse steak.”

“Yes, un bisteck avec des pomme frites,” Marie-Rose said, looking down wistfully at her plate. “Alors, I’m going to pretend we are sitting in a bistro on the Left Bank.”

“Good luck with that.” I tried to cut the piece of meat on my plate, but as expected, it was rubbery. I know that some people actually like guts and stuff when they’re cooked right—I’ve watched enough Travel Channel shows to know they’re a delicacy—but this stuff had been boiled to the texture of a Super Ball. Sighing, I helped myself to another hunk of Steinfelder’s dense wheat bread. Then I grabbed the meat platter, spooning some of the baby onions onto my plate.  I would fill up on vegetables, even if they were burnt.

As I set the platter back down on the table, though, I felt something near the rim. Something taped there. Had that been why the server girl had giggled? Without letting anyone see, I dislodged the tiny piece of folded paper and shoved it into my pocket.

I forced down some of the onions and the bread and listened to Marie-Rose’s recap of her Advanced Math class earlier that day. Near the end of her story, the servers came around to clear the table, and I earned a scowl for leaving my meat on my plate. I knew what was next on the menu, a watery pudding dessert, but at least that might kill the taste of Super Ball and blackened onions.

“So, are you going to tell me? What did you find?” Marie-Rose whispered. Always observant, she must have seen me pocket the note.

“I’m not sure,” I said, unrolling the little paper in my lap.

It won’t be long now.

Seriously. That’s all the stupid thing said. Like I knew what to do with that.

Marie-Rose elbowed me in the side. “What is written?”

“Shh.” I passed it to her.

She read it in the folds of her napkin, and then handed it back to me. “What does that mean? Do you know who sent it?”

“Someone in the kitchen, I guess.”

“Maybe it was meant for another table?” she whispered. “But who is A?”

“A?” I unrolled the note again and looked at it more closely. Sure enough, in the tiny script in the lower left corner was the letter A. I turned over the paper, looking for more writing I had missed, but I didn’t see anything. Could A be for Austin? My heart swelled with hope as I stared down at the little missive, hoping I was right.

“And, what do we have here, girls?”

Marie-Rose and I straightened up.

“Nothing, Madame,” Marie-Rose said.

Madame LaCroix, headmistress of Steinfelder, stood at the foot of our table, a beatific smile improbably displayed on her thin lips. “It looks as if you were passing a note,” she said, her voice like icicles down the back of my neck. “Hand it to me, please.”

I crushed the note in my hand, trying as hard as I could to smudge the writing, to break down the fibers of the paper so it was unreadable.

“Come, come,” she said, smiling as if doing so pained her. Her hand shot out, a collection of keys clinking like chimes behind the jeweled bracelet on her wrist.

“We found it,” I said, dropping the note into her palm. “I’m not even sure what it means. Maybe it’s referring to dessert?”

Madame LaCroix donned the reading glasses hanging from the gold chain around her neck and peered down at the paper. She made no comment as she folded it into a crisp square and stowed it in her bosom. “Mesdemoiselles,” she said, turning to address the crowded dining room. “As all of you know, we don’t pass notes here at Steinfelder.” She swiveled back toward us. “I’ll see you two girls after your last class tomorrow for extra homework. And in case you’re wondering, the note is mine. Don’t even entertain the thought of my returning it to you.”

Like I wanted to touch it after it had been stored in her bra. “Um, okay,” I said. “No problem.”

Madame LaCroix sauntered off to yell at a girl who’d fallen asleep next to her dish of pudding.

“Do you think A might be…” Marie-Rose trailed off, making the connection herself.

I shrugged, not sure what to make of the mysterious note, but the thought of Austin made me smile as I forced down the barely edible dessert, which had just landed on our table. Had he found a way to get a message to me in this awful place?

My heart lifted with the thought that “It won’t be long now” meant Austin was coming to Steinfelder. And that I’d find out what had kept him away in the first place.

I just hoped it had nothing to do with Eva Maleva.

Chapter Two

The wind howled with extra vengeance the next afternoon, bringing with it more snow. Beyond the school library’s leaded glass windows, Steinfelder was a world of white. The naked poplars were coated with a frosting that reminded me of powdered donuts, which I would have given my right arm for. But there wasn’t time for daydreaming about American treats. Marie-Rose and I were painstakingly copying the entries for the letters F and G from the massive dictionaries before us. I’d heard horror stories of floor waxing, statue cleaning with toothbrushes, and snow shoveling, so I knew Madame LaCroix had gone easy on us with this punishment. And the library wasn’t entirely cheerless. Over in the corner, a hearth blazed beneath a decorated mantle, so if our penalty afforded us some warmth and light in these dark and drafty November days, I wasn’t complaining.

“Did you see that?” Marie-Rose pointed toward the window.

“See what?”

“I saw a flash of black out in the snow.”

“Probably Madame LaCroix patrolling.” I scratched away at my paper.

“I don’t think it was Madame.” Marie-Rose glanced toward the library doorway, where Mrs. Lemmon, who’d been assigned to supervise our punishment, nodded off in her overstuffed armchair.

“Well, what is it then?”

“I will see.” Gracefully, Marie-Rose floated her way to the window. She’d told me she’d been a pretty good dancer before everything turned to merde at the ballet school, and with her chin tilted to see out the glass and her torso holding perfect posture, Marie-Rose did look the part of a ballerina. All she needed to do was sweep her long red hair into a bun and take her place at the barre.

“So?” I asked, putting a period on the end of my dictionary definition. “What is it?”

“Ah, well, it’s a little dark out there, but I can definitely see something moving near the stone wall.”

I got up from the table, my wooden chair scraping loudly against the stone floor. Oops.  Mrs. Lemmon grunted and rolled her large head to the other shoulder.  I let out the breath I’d been holding and tiptoed over to the window.

Marie-Rose frowned out at the snow. “It’s gone now,” she said. “Maybe it was nothing.” She stepped back over to her chair.

I was dying for something, anything, to relieve the boredom, so I stood at the window, searching the darkening landscape for movement.  The funny thing was, though I didn’t see anything, I thought I heard something. Low, behind the moan of the wind, someone speaking to me…

“Shelby,” the voice said.

“Huh?” My skin prickled with goose bumps.

“Shelby,” it said. “Hear me, Shelby.”

I jumped back from the window, crashing into the library table and sending Marie-Rose’s dictionary flying. The thump of the anvil-like book against the floor seemed to echo across the library.

“What? What’s all this foolishness then?” Mrs. Lemmon sat upright in her chair, glaring at us.

Marie-Rose recovered the dictionary from its landing spot. “Excusez-moi, Mrs. Lemmon. I am so clumsy.” She sank back into her chair, looking down at the table demurely.

I took my seat too, my face warming with embarrassment. I hoped Marie-Rose wasn’t going to get busted for my bumble.

“Clumsy, my foot.” The old woman lumbered over to us, patting at her loose gray bun. “You two were messing about instead of working.”

“We were working,” I said, holding up my paper. “All this time while you were…” I trailed off, realizing too late that it was probably better not to mention Mrs. Lemmon’s nap.

“While I was what?” She lifted her chin, daring me to continue.

“Nothing,” Marie-Rose said.

Mrs. Lemmon’s beady eyes seemed to light up. “That’s right,” she cooed. “Doing nothing but watching you unfortunates serve out your punishment. Let’s pack it in then and I’ll escort you to dinner.”

“We should change first,” I said.

“Dressing for dinner, are we? How fancy.” She waited for us to collect our books and notebooks. “Spoiled brats,” she said under her breath.

I paused, feeling the hair on the back of my neck stand up. If there was anything I was not, it was a spoiled brat. “Actually, I meant that maybe you should change.”

Marie-Rose tugged on my sleeve. “Don’t,” she whispered.

Mrs. Lemmon stepped in front of me so that we were chest to chest. She straightened her posture, rising a good inch taller than me. “Oh, do I need nicer clothes to dine with the likes of you? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

I met her gaze. “No. It’s the drool, ma’am. The drool on your dress.”

Mrs. Lemmon glanced down with horror at her shoulder, where a dark stain spread.

“Go to dinner,” she said between clenched teeth. “Now.”

Marie-Rose and I hurried out of the room. Once we were safely down the corridor, I couldn’t help but smile.

“That was tres stupide!” Marie-Rose scolded. “Now she’ll have it in for you! Are you trying to get us both into trouble?”

“No, but I hate people like that. I can’t help it, okay?”

“You must try.” Marie-Rose’s blue eyes darkened. “The last thing I need is to be expelled from another school. Maman will cut me off completely if that happens.”

“Look, I wasn’t trying to get you in trouble. I’m really sorry,” I said, my smile fading. Marie-Rose’s situation wasn’t hard to believe, or unique. Steinfelder was the last stop for many of us before getting cut off or disowned. Honeybun hadn’t threatened me with anything like that so far, but I’m sure she wanted nothing more than to see that happen. Then she’d have my dad, and his fortune, all to herself.

“Is it so hard for you to endure these idiots for a short time longer? We are only a few weeks away from holiday break. That is the easiest time to try to convince your parents that you’ve changed, that you’d rather be with them,” Marie-Rose said. “Don’t you want to go home for good?”

My heart caught in my throat. “I don’t think they want me there.”

“But there is better than here, no?” Marie-Rose slipped a thin arm around my shoulders.

“Anywhere is better than here,” I said. “Well, most places anyway.”

“Just think, the sooner you go home, the sooner you can call Austin,” Marie-Rose said. “I know he is somewhere, waiting for you.”

“You know, I heard something at the window,” I said. “It startled me.”

“What does that have to do with Austin?”

“Maybe it’s him calling to me. You know, telepathically or something.”

Marie-Rose wrinkled her nose. “What?”

I remembered, although I talked about Austin quite a bit, Marie-Rose didn’t know Austin’s secret—that he wasn’t human. I was alone in wondering how far his powers extended. Could he really speak to me telepathically? He’d never done that before.

“It’s nothing. Just forget it, Marie-Rose,” I said.

“Uh-oh. I see some mischief in your eyes,” she said. “Please, whatever it is, you must forget it.”

“Yeah,” I heard myself say, but I didn’t mean it. Austin could be out there in the woods, calling out to me. We’d always met in the woods before, back at camp. It had been the safest place to meet up. Maybe I would take a look that night, when everyone was asleep. I just wouldn’t let myself get caught.

***

Moonlight filtered into our room that night, and since I had gone to sleep in my clothes, I only had to fumble around a little for my down jacket, boots, and flashlight. After what Marie-Rose had said about leaving her out of it, I didn’t want to wake her. I couldn’t take the chance that Madame would think that she had anything to do with my quest. I, on the other hand, had no choice but to go. A voice I suspected belonged to my long-lost werewolf boyfriend had called to me, and I had to find out if it was really him. I was pretty sure that was in the furry creature’s girlfriend handbook.

The door creaked a little as I inched it open, and with a sigh, Marie-Rose rolled to the other side of her bed. Quietly, I pulled the door closed behind me. The hall seemed longer than I thought. Paintings from Duke Steinfelder’s collection hung on the odd blank space of wall between each door, the faces of his weird relatives watching over all of us as we slept. I tiptoed down the corridor as best I could in my clunky boots.

At the end of the hall, a slice of light cut the darkness. My stomach fell a little as I noticed Mrs. Lemmon’s door was slightly ajar.

“Oh, no,” I heard her voice say. “I’m always up at this hour, Massimo.”

A man laughed.

Oh, gross. Did the old bat sneak a dude into her room? I stood quietly outside her room, waiting to see if it was safe to pass the open doorway.

“My dear Harriet,” the man said in a heavily accented voice. “Mi manchi, bellissima.”

Mrs. Lemmon let out a high-pitched giggle. “Me too, amore.”

I shuddered and peered around the corner of the door, forcing myself to take in the scene. Mrs. Lemmon, wearing a negligee and silky bathrobe, her gray hair loose from its usual bun, gazed longingly into a webcam. I could just see the edge of Massimo’s picture on her monitor, his bushy mustache quivering as he blew her a kiss.

Shaking off the mental image of Lemmon and her Internet boyfriend, I moved down the hallway. I could only hope that lovesick Lemmon was wrapped up enough to ignore my clomping and swishing. Snow clothes weren’t exactly made for prowling.

At the bottom of the stairwell, I paused in front of the picture of the Duke, Johanas Steinfelder, listening to the sounds of the chateau in general and for Mrs. Lemmon’s footsteps, in particular. Johanas stared down at me, an almost disappointed look on his regal face.

“What?” I whispered up at him. “You don’t approve?”

I left his portrait and moved into the hallway. Then I heard something. It was quiet at first, but it grew louder. Footsteps. Crunchy footsteps that sounded like boots on snow.

I swished and clomped as lightly as possible into the lobby, where there was a window looking out onto the front lawn. There was no movement, but the sounds had to have come from outside…

I paused at the front door, my curiosity and longing for Austin fighting against my good judgment. I mean, I didn’t actually know that Austin had sent me the note, or that his had been the voice I’d heard. It was highly likely I was just cracking under the pressure of Steinfelder. But if there was a chance it was him, then I wanted to find out. Still, I wondered why, if he had entered the school to leave the note, he wanted me trudging out in the snow to meet him? Then again, who knew why werewolves, or boyfriends, or werewolf boyfriends did anything they did.

At any rate, it was surprisingly easy to get outside. The massive door was unlocked. I figured that was to make us feel like we weren’t prisoners when we all knew otherwise.

When I stepped outside, the cold felt like a slap. I quickly zipped my jacket and pulled the hood up. I couldn’t hear the footsteps in the snow anymore, so I decided to head toward old stone wall where Marie-Rose had seen movement that afternoon. I kept to the edges of the school, though, away from the security lights. At the corner of the main building I stopped, huffing in the night air and listening. Maybe the voice would come again.

With my eyes closed, I tried to take in all the sounds. The heavy wind and snow had eased, and now I could hear the night birds talking to each other in the forest beyond our fence, which buzzed ever so slightly with its electric charge. I listened to the night, hearing things I’d never paid attention to before.

Clumps of snow fell from one of the building’s overhangs, hitting bushes below. I could hear the Dobermans scratching and whining in their kennel at the guardhouse. And then, there was a sudden screech and a thrashing of wings. Ducking, since it sounded so close, I opened my eyes in time to see an owl near the fence swoop to take a small rat in her talons and fly off into the poplars, her silhouette ghostly in the moonlight.

Filled with a new appreciation for the night, I hurried toward the old stone wall, losing the cover of the building for a moment. I didn’t feel any fear, just the heat of frustration building in my bones. I was risking a lot to come out here in the dark to chase nothing.

Just when I was ready to turn back, though, I noticed a light on in the old well house, about a hundred yards ahead, out of the sight line of the main entrance of the school and the guard station. In its window, a faint light flickered, reminding me of the glow of the small candles Austin used to draw by at brat camp.

I ran as fast as I could in my boots, the moon lighting my way in blue and silver on the snow. I slowed my roll near the door of the well house, breathing in puffs of air. Nervousness chewed at my insides. What would I say to Austin? I would have to confront him about the tabloid photo, of course, and then there was the whole matter of him not writing me all these months. I was going to need to be diplomatic.

Shakily, I reached out for the metal latch of the well house door and pushed it open. In the dim light, I saw the sad little room was nearly bare except for some old sandbags stacked near a makeshift table made from a barrelhead. But the sight of an open sketchbook and pens made me smile. Austin had been there. And I figured if he’d left the candles burning, then he couldn’t be far.

I shut the well house door and sat down on the sandbags to wait. Austin’s sketchbook was open to a portrait of me, done in his signature pen and ink style.  I’d never seen this picture before. When I’d met Austin the summer before, his drawings had been of animals, mostly birds. A picture of a person was something new. I smiled, thinking that maybe he’d missed me enough to want to draw my portrait. That was something, at least.

I studied the picture closely, noting how the moon rose behind me in the background, its beams looking almost alive and casting long shadows on my face. He’d made me more beautiful than I knew myself to be. My normally crazy hair flowed out in perfect waves. He’d made my nose a little more delicate than it was.

Looking at the portrait, though, I started to get angry. If he’d thought enough of me to draw a picture, then why had he waited so long to come to see me at Steinfelder? I mean, I risked everything to break him out of Camp Crescent. And he couldn’t even drop me a postcard?

I was out in the snow a minute later, stomping my way back to the main building. But halfway there, I stopped and turned around. I really did need to wait for Austin. It was one thing to complain about him not showing up, but quite another to ditch him before he had a chance to explain. And I wanted to see him. That was the main reason.

I neared the end of the old stone wall and leaned a hand on it to steady myself. I needed to chill. The situation called for me to be rational and as normal as possible when we were together again. I forced myself to take some deep breaths of the clean, night air, and then I squatted down behind a too-small bush to watch for Austin.

As before, the sounds of the night echoed all around me. Scratching continued in the guardhouse kennels. The night birds, on watch for prey in the snow, rustled on branches. I thought of all those nights I’d spent looking out the window at the moon, never realizing the forest beyond Steinfelder was alive. Never realizing that if you just listened, you could hear everything. I let the symphony of the darkness wash over me.  It was as comforting as lying in a bathtub, listening to the meditative drip of a faucet. I felt myself start to relax.

After a while, my patience was rewarded. I heard the crunch of footsteps as a figure moved across the snow toward the door of the well house. He was back! I rose up from my hiding place and started moving. Ahead of me, the figure ducked into the doorway. I ran across the snow, fueled by my eagerness for the reunion with Austin.

I threw open the door, opening my arms wide to capture him in a hug. “You’re here!”

“EEEEAEE!” the hooded figure in my arms squealed and squirmed out of my grasp.

I stepped back from a visibly angry Marie-Rose. “Sorry. I thought you were—”

“Mrs. Lemmon is up and about the dorm, peeking in rooms. Any minute she’s going to reach our room and we’ll be dead!” She shook a finger at me.

“How did you know I was in here?”

Marie-Rose’s cheeks colored. “Your boots were gone. And, the light was on in here, obviously.” She frowned down at the sketchbook on the barrelhead. “What is this?”

“Austin’s drawings. He must have been here earlier.”

Marie-Rose blew out the candles. “We’ve got to get back up to our room.”

“I want to take the book,” I said.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Do you want Lemmon to find it when she turns beds? She will ask questions.”

Marie-Rose had a point. I didn’t need Lemmon on my case any more than she was already. “Okay, fine,” I said, giving the sketchbook a last, longing glance.

“Well, then? What are you waiting for?” My roommate led me out of the well house, closing the door behind us. “We need to get back up there now.”

“But what about Austin?”

Marie-Rose rolled her eyes. “I am going back to the room. You wait here and get caught. Why did I even try to save you?”

“I’ll just wait another minute. You go. I promise I’ll be right behind you.”

Shaking her head, Marie-Rose sped off toward the back entrance of the building.

“Where are you?” I said to the night, to Austin—wherever he was. I didn’t know how much time I had left and if he was out there, he needed to hurry up and show himself. Glancing toward the school, I watched Marie-Rose slip inside the back entrance. My gaze rose to the dorm windows. A light went on in a corner room, then off. Then the next room’s light went on. Crap. Lemmon really was making the rounds.

I sprinted over to the chain link fence. “Psst—are you out there?” I whispered into the darkness. “Austin?”

I waited for minute, but there was no response. I didn’t understand how he could come all this way, leave his sketchbook for me to find, and then not bother to show himself. It was so frustrating.

Snow began to fall then, big wet flakes that mixed with my tears. I was forced to abandon my mission and run back to the dorm, no closer to understanding what was happening with Austin and feeling like a fool.

Chapter Three

The back stairs were dark, but I bounded up them without hesitation. I’m normally pretty clumsy, but I felt graceful and quick and reached the dorm faster than I thought possible. When Lemmon charged into the room across the hall from us, I slipped in through our door and threw off my coat and boots. Marie-Rose looked like she was about to hyperventilate, but there was no time to explain. I threw my outerwear under the bed and dove beneath the covers.

My head had barely hit the pillow when Lemmon yanked open our door and turned on the light. I peeked at her from between half-closed lids. I was grateful that at least the old bag had thrown a proper bathrobe over her slinky number from earlier. She grunted, either out of relief or disappointment at seeing us in our beds. Then, she turned and flounced out of our room, closing the door with a staccato slam.

I let out the big breath I’d been holding. “Omigod, that was close.”

“Mais, non. I am not talking to you,” Marie-Rose said.

“What do you mean?”

She sat up and pointed a slender finger in my direction. “Shelby Locke, why would you go out after dark?”

“I know, I know. I shouldn’t have done it, okay? That’s why I didn’t wake you up.”

Her cheeks reddened. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Now it was my turn to feel embarrassed. “Sorry. I’m not used to anyone worrying about me.”

“Well, I do worry about you.” She gave me a stern look. “You cry over this boy. You think he’s coming to find you at the school.”

“You saw the note,” I said. “That had to mean something.”

Marie-Rose nodded. “Of course, but you don’t even know it was from him or what it means.”

“But, the sketchbook… that had to be his.”

“Let’s go to bed. Maybe this is enough about Austin for tonight.”

“Enough Austin? Do I really talk about him that much?”

Marie-Rose’s mouth fell open. “Shelby, you talk about him all the time. From the moment you arrived here it’s been nothing but Austin.”

“Oh.” I got out of bed and went over to the closet to swap my snow pants and heavy sweatshirt for pajamas. As I dressed, I thought about Marie-Rose’s observation. She was right. I’d been wrapped up in missing him. And maybe talking about him incessantly was another way I was holding on to us, to what we’d had. Now, I didn’t even know what that was.

I slipped back into my bed. “I’m sorry. I guess you’re right. You know, about me talking about Austin a lot.”

Marie-Rose pulled her ponytail band out and ran a brush through her hair. “Let’s go to sleep. I hear they are letting us video call home tomorrow night. If I have bags under my eyes, Maman is not going to be pleased.”

“Ok.”

She set the brush down on the nightstand and pulled her covers up. “So, was it worth it?” she asked, a quiet curiosity lacing her voice. “To sneak out?”

“I’m not sure,” I said.

Marie-Rose rolled over on her side, looking at me in the dark. “I wonder if it ever is, to risk something for a boy.”

I knew the answer to that one—or at least I thought I had last summer—that yes, it was worth it, especially in Austin’s case. I lay on my back, looking out toward the moon moving slowly across the window. Austin had come for me, sort of. He was out there somewhere, though I had more questions than answers.

And the biggest question of all was if I would ever see Austin again. That’s the one that kept me awake, staring at the waxing moon.

***

It was almost my turn. I stood waiting outside the library door the next afternoon, waiting for Marie-Rose to finish her video call home. A high-pitched sound echoed out into the hallway as my friend laughed nervously. I could only imagine the coal-raking she was getting from her maman.

I passed the time staring at the paintings from the Duke’s collection that lined the hallway’s walls. I assumed they were all relatives of the Duke. Bored looking girls in poufy dresses. Small boys in flouncy shirts. Stern-eyed old people gazing with reproach at all who passed down the corridor, as if we were the ones in funny clothes. Not my kind of art. I liked the modern paintings at the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown L.A. This stuff was strictly Scooby-Doo haunted library.

Another crescendo of fake laughter drifted out from the library. During these video chats, we were only allowed five minutes of talk time, which the school deemed long enough for us to convince our parents that we were being properly fed, clothed and bathed. I glanced down at my watch, noting that Marie-Rose only had another minute of torture left.

My gaze tracked to the paintings again and settled on one portrait in particular—a knight with a two-headed spear tipped with gleaming blades. Covering his chain mail was a flowing blue and white tunic emblazoned with the design of a steed, legs raised in battle. Though the knight had a helmet concealing his expression, he was definitely a scary, intense dude. On a hill in the distance behind him, more riders approached, wearing the same colors. Steely black clouds swirled overhead, giving the whole painting an ominous feel.

“Yikes,” I said.

“It is your turn.” Marie-Rose tapped me on the shoulder. Her eyes were red and raw.

“Geez. Are you okay?”

“Oui,” she said, hurrying off before I could comfort her.

“Locke? Move along.” Mrs. Lemmon beckoned me from the library doorway. “We already have your parents on the line.”

“My dad and stepmom, you mean,” I muttered.

I took a seat at the table in front of the monitor and Honeybun and Dad came up on the screen. I could tell from Dad’s flannel pajamas and stick-uppy hair it was morning there. Honeybun was wearing a thick bathrobe with a lacy collar, but she was in full make-up, of course. They were talking to each other, their expressions very serious.

“Hey,” I said, giving a little wave. “It’s me.”

They looked up, a little startled. “Well, hello!” Honeybun started off, shooting me a dazzling smile via Internet. “How is everything, Shelby dear?”

“Fine,” I said, fully aware that complaining about anything at Steinfelder was totally pointless, and it wasn’t like I was going to tell them about Austin, of course. “It’s, you know, snowing again. It does that a lot here.”

Dad adjusted his little round glasses, staring into the webcam. “Hi,” he said, awkwardly waving. “It’s been, ah, quiet, without you.”

I just nodded.

“Are you making friends?” Honeybun’s voice shifted into its higher register. “Lots of nice girls there, right?”

“Sure.”

Dad cleared his throat. “We, ah, have some news,” he said, staring uncomfortably into the webcam again. “It affects the holidays.”

Oh, god. Christmas break. My mind whirled. They didn’t want to meet up in Antigua after all. We were just going to spend a lame holiday at home. Nice.

“What your father is trying to say is that—” Honeybun suddenly clamped a hand over her own mouth. “Oh, excuse me,” she mumbled, rushing out of the frame.

Dad glanced after Honeybun, then back at the camera. “Ah… Shelby, we were thinking that maybe it would be easier to have you stay at the school over the holidays this year.”

“What? Trapped here in this hell hole?” Blood rushed to my head. “You don’t want to get together? You don’t want to see me for Christmas? You’re just going to abandon me! Dad, this place—-”

“Okay, now. Calm down.”

“Dad! I can’t believe that Honeybun has finally succeeded in brainwashing you!  I can’t believe she’s—”

“Pregnant.”

“What?” The world fell away around me. I stumbled for something to say.

“We’re, ah, going to be welcoming a baby.” There was no mistaking the pride on Dad’s face. “You’re going to be a big sister.”

Big sister. My mind whirled around that factoid. Big sister to the spawn of Honeybun.

“So our Caribbean trip is out of the question, unfortunately. It’s a high-risk pregnancy. Priscilla’s probably going to be on bed rest for most of it.”

“I could still come home,” I said. “Maybe I could help.”

“I think,” Dad replied, “that to keep the stress down for everyone, it’s best to have you stay put.”

“But we won’t be together,” I said, surprised by the sadness I was feeling. “It won’t be like a real Christmas.”

“A real Christmas?” Dad shook his head. “Last Christmas you left our family dinner to attend a house party and the police brought you home. And do I have to remind you of your gift to Priscilla?”

I shook my head. I knew the Plastic Surgery Horrors Photo Book had scared the crap out of Honeybun and nearly ruined her love of medical self-improvement.

“It’s just this one time,” Dad said, his eyes pleading. “Surely, there will be other students who’ll stay over the holidays with you.”

Wait. Light bulb. I remembered that I actually had a reason to like being at school again. Austin had found me. Maybe, with less staff and fewer students, I’d actually get to spend time with him if he visited again. This baby thing might actually be a blessing in disguise.

Honeybun came back into the frame, a fresh coat of red, shiny lipstick on her lips. “So your dad told you our good news?” she said, her smile too sweet, too… something.

“Yeah,” I said.

Honeybun’s chemically injected forehead was trying to let her frown. “You don’t seem very pleased,” she said, as if she wanted some kind of medal for procreating.

“It’s great,” I replied flatly.

She didn’t notice my tone. “I knew you’d be excited,” she said, her face softening. “Sorry about the travel plans. I assured your dad you’d understand.”

I didn’t care anymore about the going home stuff, but the revelation that the spawn of Honeybun would soon be taking over my spot in our house suddenly irked me. I’d be gone—just one more year of high school after this—and then this kid would be the lone child in our house, in my dad’s life. That, more than the loss of Christmas, hit me hard. It almost eclipsed the hope that I’d finally see Austin.

“Well, thank you for understanding,” Dad said. “We’ll FedEx your Christmas presents.”

Priscilla finger-waved. “Ta-ta for now.”

I stepped away from the computer and out the door. Bolting down the hallway, I ignored the judgmental stares of the Duke’s relatives and the sparkling blade of the evil knight. Ominous he’d been, indeed.

When I got to my room, Marie-Rose was curled up in a ball under her covers.

“Hey,” I said, patting the lump.

When she poked her head out, there were brown crumbs around her lips.

“What—are you snacking on something under there?”

Marie-Rose nodded, her cheeks pinking. “The conversation with Maman didn’t go well.”

“The school’s chewy bread can’t be helping much.”

She sat up in bed and held out her hand. “It’s a gingersnap,” she said.

My stomach growled at the sweet smell. How long had it been since I’d caught a whiff of something I actually wanted to eat?

“There’s a new helper in the kitchen,” Marie-Rose said, gesturing for me to take the remaining half of the cookie. “When I passed by the kitchen door, I must have looked awful,” she said slowly. “Frau Blumen pulled me inside and showed me this stash of cookies she’d baked for the staff. I already ate two.”

“You mean to tell me the teachers get cookies while we get watery pudding?”

Marie-Rose nodded.

I bit into the cookie, hoping that it tasted bad, because maybe that would make my irritation fade. But, of course, it was as delicious as it smelled. I chewed it slowly, savoring the spicy flavor.  “This school sucks.”

Marie-Rose sighed. “Yes, but the cookies are good.”

“If we ever got them, they’d be good.”

“How did your video call go?” Marie-Rose asked.

I told her Honeybun’s news and how I’d be stuck at Steinfelder for the holidays.

“Maman will be flying to Rio alone this year,” she said, nodding sadly. “I’ll be here with you.”

“Are there any other kids staying behind over the break?”

Marie-Rose licked crumbs from her fingers. “More than you’d expect. But then, that’s what this place is, right? A place to keep us out of the way?”

I didn’t need to agree. I’m sure she saw it written all over my face.

Chapter Four

If I said I wasn’t watching every second for a sign, a secret note, or something from Austin, I’d be lying. A week had gone by since I’d discovered the sketchbook in the well house and had my conversation with Dad and Honeybun. There’d been no further sign of Austin. What was keeping him away?

From my seat in art class, I had a perfect view to Steinfelder’s rear garden, a snow-frosted graveyard of dead stalks and flower bushes. The cold seeped in through the windows, as it did in most places in the old chateau, and Marie-Rose pulled her wide scarf tighter around her arms, feeling the chill more acutely, as skinny girls do.

I’d never been a ballet dancer, and I’d certainly never been skinny. But lately, I’d noticed that my clothes hung a little looser, thanks to Steinfelder’s bland food. Enough mystery meat and you lose your appetite. It was even harder to choke it down now that I knew about Frau Blumen’s forbidden cookies. I was sure I could smell them baking some afternoons, even from all the way up in our dorm room. I wondered how no other students had found out about them. Maybe there was some way to stage a cookie protest, a kitchen sit-in.

“Good afternoon, class.” Miss Kovac, surely the recipient of the aforementioned baked goods, tapped on her board with a chalk holder.

“My fingers are too cold to hold the pencil,” whispered Marie-Rose.

I slipped off my gloves and passed them to her under the table. “Take these.”

Marie-Rose gave me a grateful look and slipped her tiny fingers inside them.

“Class, we will work on shading today. As you must know, nothing looks real if it is drawn one-dimensionally.” Miss Kovac’s thickly accented voice was as raspy as a chain smoker’s, but she was pretty. Her long brunette hair was tied in a girlish side ponytail with a long, red ribbon and her skin was dewy, like she’d spent a fortune on face creams. An old-fashioned artist’s smock hung on her small frame, covering a simple gray dress. Popular with students, she was the youngest teacher at Steinfelder. I’d never found her very warm, but she did know about art.

“You must use dark and light together to show dimension. Here, you see a line drawing of a box. Watch how I shade it to show the dimension.”  Miss Kovac began to sketch furiously, coloring in the sides until it almost looked real.

Most of the girls nodded, understanding the basic technique. Marie-Rose had a puzzled expression on her face.

“You just color in the flat sides, you know, where the light isn’t,” I said.

“Oh.” She slid her pencil behind her ear and the worried smile slipped away.

“If you will direct your attention to the sketches around the room, you will find many examples of shading, which reveals perspective and depth.” Miss Kovac said, with a sweep of her hand. Instantly, I wondered if she’d once worked as a guide of some sort, perhaps the kind that took bored tourists around the castles of her eastern European homeland. “And now, students, please come and get your paper for today’s assignment. You have thirty minutes to draw the still life I have arranged.”

We all glanced over to a small table right next to mine and Marie-Rose’s, where a cow skull, a vase of flowers, a pile of bricks, and a small metal dagger were placed at odd angles to each other. A sheet served as a simple backdrop.

Miss Kovac walked over and clicked a switch, flooding the table with light. “You may begin.”

“Why do the still life objects never have anything to do with each other?” I whispered. “I mean, a cow skull and a vase? Really?”

Marie-Rose shrugged. “I’ll get our papers,” she said.

Miss Kovac insisted on using thick, textured paper instead of newsprint for sketching. She claimed that you never knew when true greatness would strike. I was surprised Steinfelder let her buy the more expensive paper, considering the lack of other luxuries. Then again, our parents wanted to believe we were getting some culture here and frame-worthy art was proof of that.

“Up, up, girls!” commanded Miss Kovac. “Out from behind the tables. Move about the room. One must observe closely to really see.”

Small groups of students drifted over to check out the still life arrangement. I decided to avoid the crowd and check out the sketches pinned up on the corkboards at the front of the room. There were pictures of trees, buildings, and even flowers.

“Representing dimension is an important skill,” said Miss Kovac, suddenly at my elbow. “The shadow and the light must work together to help us see the truth.” She smiled, showcasing rows of tiny teeth that looked like they belonged in a doll’s mouth. “Do you understand?”

“I think so,” I said, feeling uncomfortable with the way she was smiling at me. I mean, it wasn’t like shading was brain surgery. “If I need any help, I’ll let you know.”

Miss Kovac’s smile faded. “Very well.” She walked toward a group of students inspecting the still life objects. “No touching,” she rasped. “Those are delicate items.”

As I was about to return to my table, something familiar feeling caught my eye. A sketch hanging from a pin in the middle of the corkboard.

“Let’s get to work, class,” Miss Kovac said.

I took a closer look at the sketch. It was a pen and ink picture of the Dobermans from the guardhouse. But that wasn’t what made it seem familiar. The cross-hatching and zigzagging fill-in strokes were almost exactly like the kind Austin used. I knew his drawing style well from looking at his sketchbook last summer, and I’d seen the new portrait of me the other night in the well house. This looked just like those. Had he been here posting pictures? Was there a hidden message in this drawing? Did he want me to go to the guardhouse? I searched the margins of the picture for a message, a signature, something…

“Is there a problem?” Miss Kovac sidled up next to me again.

I turned to see the rest of the class had taken their seats. “Who did this? I mean, who drew these pictures?”

Miss Kovac cleared her throat. “Several people. It is a community art board. Some I have posted myself, some are from you students. Now, if you are through observing, perhaps you could begin working?”

“Sure.” Back at our table, I got out my charcoal pencils.

“Are you all right?” Marie-Rose frowned at me.

I tried to keep my expression normal. “Yeah, thanks.”

“Here.” As Marie-Rose went to hand me my thick drawing paper, its corner clipped my face.

“Ow!” I jumped back, my hand covering my eyelid where I felt the paper cut. At the same instant, my backside crashed into the still life table, sending the whole scene clattering down onto the floor.

“Crap!” I got down on my knees and, using one hand since the other was still covering my eyelid, tried to pick up the stuff. “Sorry about that.”

The room erupted with complaints from the girls who already had a good start on their still life drawing and now might have to start over. Working beside me, Marie-Rose got the table back up on its feet and fitted it with the tablecloth.

“So clumsy!” Scowling, Miss Kovac accepted the cow skull and the crumbly bricks I held out to her.

Marie-Rose bent to collect the flowers and vase, which my one good eye judged to be intact. We almost had everything back in its place. And then, my fingers closed around the handle of the dagger.

My legs wobbled and I felt woozy all of a sudden. As I rose with the knife in my hand, I pitched forward on to our table. It felt like the thing was radiating heat in my grasp, but I couldn’t let it go.

Miss Kovac’s eyes widened. “Release it!” she growled.

“I’m trying,” I said, using my left hand to pry my fingers from the handle of the knife.

It clanked down on to the table. The art teacher walked over and picked it up, hugging it to her chest like it was a precious artifact. “I can’t imagine what you were thinking,” she said, glaring at me. “Playing with the duke’s dagger.”

“I wasn’t thinking anything. I definitely wasn’t playing.” I flexed my right hand’s fingers one by one. They still felt weirdly hot and they were reddening. I met Miss Kovac’s glare. “I’m not sure our parents would like to know that you’re using actual weaponry in your still life arrangement. I think they’d put that in the not-so-safe category.”

Miss Kovac looked about ready to slap me. “Are you questioning my teaching methods?”

“No, I just think maybe a sharp dagger would be on the no-no list,” I replied, squinting at her with my uncovered eye.

“Shelby is not feeling well,” Marie-Rose said, guiding me by the elbow to the door. “I will take her to lie down.”

“Take her to Madame LaCroix’s office,” Miss Kovac said. “That dagger is no plaything.”

“I wasn’t play—”

“Thank you, Miss Kovac,” Marie-Rose said, dragging me out into the hallway before I could say anything else. “Oh, la la. You know how to find trouble.” She pulled my hand away, uncovering my eye. “I did cut you. I’m very sorry.”

I’d almost forgotten about the paper cut on my eyelid since my dagger hand was still throbbing. I looked at the red spreading across my palm like an angry stain.

“What is that?” Marie-Rose’s face had gone pale. “What’s happened to your hand?”

“I don’t know. Maybe some kind of rash or something?”

“From the dagger?”

“I know, right?” It felt weird for us both to be staring at my hand, so I slid it into my pocket. “You don’t have to walk me down to Madame’s office.”

“Okay,” she said. “But make sure you go there.”

I nodded, but I realized there was a better way to use my time. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Austin had something to do with that dog drawing. If he was trying to signal me, there was only one way to find out.

***

“I still don’t understand what you were doing at the guard station!” Madame LaCroix leered at me across the desk, her eyes narrowing. “Let’s start from the beginning again. There is a disturbance in class. You make some dangerous motions with a school artifact. Your teacher sends you to my office. Yet, you end up outside in the snow. Explain, Miss Locke.”

“I was, you know, seeing if you were out there,” I said quickly.

Okay, so my little trip to the guardhouse had been a bust. Instead of Austin waiting for me near the dog kennels as I’d hoped, I’d found Hans, the guard in the dumb fur hat, who was now surveilling me from a chair near the door.

Madame LaCroix leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “You realize that this is an institution of learning, do you not?”

“Um, yeah. Of course I realize that.”

Her smile was not a friendly one. “So you must be aware if you don’t meet our expectations, eventually you won’t graduate on time. At that point, your parents have the option of asking us to retain you another year.”

“Wait. I’m a junior now and I’m seventeen. I’ll be eighteen next year and can do what I want. You can’t keep me here against my will.”

Madame’s eyes flashed with amusement. “True enough. With your substantial savings, I’m sure you’ll be able to take care of yourself without your parents’ money if you should leave our school on your own.”

My stomach dropped. Without your parents’ money? “No one ever said anything about cutting me off.”

Madame tilted her head to one side as a smile spread across her lips. “Oh, believe me,” she said slowly, “parents, especially ones like your stepmother, take recommendations made by headmistresses like me very seriously.”

My mouth dropped open. “So you’re saying—”

“It’s my intention to keep you here as long as possible. Every student is very important to me at Steinfelder.” She reached across the desk to a jar of candies. As she unwrapped one, I could see the diamond and emerald bracelet hidden beneath the cuff of one of her long black sleeves.

I didn’t have to be a genius to understand that the longer she kept students the more money she could gouge from the parents’ bank accounts. “Oh, I get it. You’re doing it for the kids. You care so much about your students you can’t stand to see them go.” I shook my head.

Madame LaCroix let out a throaty laugh. “Yes. Especially ones like you. It’s up to me to shape you into responsible young ladies. No matter how long it takes.” She popped the candy into her mouth and sucked on it for a few seconds, regarding me with those cold eyes of hers.

“Am I dismissed?”

She crunched down hard on the candy. “I’m through with you for the moment. The next time, and I certainly hope there won’t be a next time, I will ring your parents.”

“Right,” I said. The threat of her calling home didn’t really mean anything to me, but not having any money unless I stuck it out at Steinfelder for an additional year after this one sounded horrible. I’d only been there three months and already I wanted to throw myself off a parapet.

“Why are you dawdling? You are dismissed,” she said, waving the back of her hand at me. “Out.”

I rose from the ornate chair, not saying another word. As I closed the door, though, I heard the guard, Hans, speak for the first time, in broken English.

“The dogs no bark,” he said. “Something wrong.”

“That is not my concern,” Madame said. “You are the trainer.”

I left the door slightly ajar and pretended to tie my shoes, listening.

“Something is wrong,” Hans insisted. “The dogs—”

“Do you think I have time to handle your job as well as my own? Your training methods are not my problem. I need to make a phone call. You are excused, Hans.”

I zipped quickly around the corner as Hans marched out of the room, still grumbling. I’d been lucky that Hans had nice Dobies up at the guardhouse. The last thing I’d needed was a dog bite to match my paper cut and rashy hand.

As Han’s footsteps faded in the distance, I slowly opened my fingers again to examine the redness. It was clearly the shape of the knife’s handle now. There was some kind of bad juju on that dagger, all right. I mean, I’d had skin reactions to things like insect repellant and cleaning chemicals before, but they’d never looked like this.

I heard a phone slam down in Madame’s office. Not wanting her to find me loitering outside her door, I hurried down the hallway, passing the glass cases that housed the duke’s collection of antiquities. The cootie-covered dagger, I noted, had been put back in its display area, atop a red velvet cloth. Its blade gleamed under the case’s display lights.

“Don’t even think about it.” Miss Kovac’s rasp seemed to be right in my ear.

“Think about what? As if I’d want to steal some old guy’s knife.”

“It’s very valuable,” she said, swooshing down the hall past me.

“Valuable?” I repeated. “It’s not like it’s made of gold.”

“No,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “It’s solid silver.”

Chapter Five

You know how, in those scary movies, the wind is always blowing and the tree branches are always brushing up against the window? That could never happen at Steinfelder. The duke had planted poplar trees around the perimeter of the chateau grounds, but had wanted the interior grounds bare. In keeping with that tradition, later generations had added shrubbery and the formal gardens, but there were no trees near the building.

So believe me when I say I couldn’t have heard any branches doing their thing against our dorm room window that night, but I had heard something. I got out of bed, careful not to make any noise that would wake Marie-Rose, who was sleeping soundly, a frown worrying her forehead. I pulled back the sheer curtain a little, letting in the glow of the moonlight.

I listened for the scratching sound I’d heard a minute before, but it was gone. Maybe I’d just imagined it, or maybe it was one of the noises from the forest that had seemed to become louder over the last few weeks. The Alps really were coming alive with the sound of…something. I let the curtain fall back into place, and then I slid my legs back inside my covers and willed my eyes to close.

Instead, I lay there, blinking at the ceiling. And then my stomach started to growl. All I could think about were the forbidden gingersnaps. I’d barely touched the mushy spaetzle and boiled cabbage dinner they’d tried to feed us that evening. And, down in the kitchen, the cookies were just hanging out, waiting to be consumed by our privileged teachers whenever they wanted. It was so unfair.

With a guilty glance toward Marie-Rose, I slipped out of bed again. Quietly, I threw on yoga pants and pulled a hoodie on over my sleep shirt. The only socks in reach were my fuzzy microfiber ones, but they’d do for Operation: Covert Cookie. My gurgling stomach was totally overruling Madame LaCroix and her threats. I couldn’t see her calling anyone’s parents over a stolen cookie or two, even if I got caught. Anyway, Madame and the other staff occupied the east wing of the building, leaving Lemmon the only teacher monitoring this floor of the dorm. No video chat sounds were coming from her room. I hovered near the door, hearing only her snoring. It reminded me of my dad’s. It was totally the kind of heavy-duty snoring you could ease out of the house to.

As I tiptoed past her door, that old feeling of sneakily won freedom coursed through my veins. Back at my house in Beverly Hills, I had found it pretty easy to slip outside without anyone knowing. It had been especially sweet when Honeybun had been the only one home. In a way, maybe I had been trying to underscore to my dad that she was never going to be a suitable parent. Or maybe I’d just liked the challenge of trying to get away with something, at least for a little while.

In my slippery socks I zipped toward the front stairs, almost crashing into the balustrade. Must calm down. I used the hand railing and forced myself to go step by step, Duke Steinfelder gazing sternly down at me the whole way. I was sure no one ever kept cookies from him when this had been his castle.

I covered the short distance to the kitchen in a few long glides on my microfiber socks, skating across the worn wooden floor. As I rounded the corner to the kitchen, the scent of the gingersnaps seemed to be wafting in the air, calling me. That was the extent of my hunger, that it could smell cookies at one hundred paces.

I eased through the swinging doors ahead of me. Except for the sound of a fan on somewhere, the kitchen was silent. Metal counters that looked more like fixtures from a morgue ran the length of the room and an enormous blackened stove dominated the back wall. Over by the sink area, long windows overlooked the poorly lit side yard of the chateau. The pungent smell of cooked cabbage hung in the air, but underneath I still got the hint of ginger. The cookies were nearby.

I ducked into the pantry and hit the jackpot. On a rolling rack filled with metal trays, gingersnaps rested alongside fresh bread loaves. My stomach growled, claiming victory. I shoved two cookies into the pocket of my hoodie, and then carefully fanned out the rest of the cookies on the tray, hiding the empty spot I’d created.

Out in the kitchen, I leaned against a counter and took a bite of one of the gingersnaps. It was slightly chewy, with just the hint of a crunch on the edges, and it had a little bit of sugar sprinkled over the top. I devoured it in three big bites. Then, as I sat there pondering whether to go for the other cookie in my pocket or to grab another one from the tray, a shadow moved across windows.

I froze.

So did the shadow.

I ducked down next to the sink and crawled over to the Dutch door to take a peek outside. I figured it was probably Hans on patrol, now that he couldn’t trust his Dobermans. I didn’t think he could be bribed with cookies. I was probably busted. Slowly, I rose to peek out the glass half of the door and meet my fate.

And I found myself face to face with Austin.

His gorgeous amber eyes gleamed as he pulled back the hood of his black ski jacket. He smiled widely, his lustrous dark hair falling in waves around his face.

My heart lifted in my chest. I reached up to wipe away any cookie crumbs on my mouth and then waved shyly at him through the glass.

“Open,” mouthed Austin, pointing down at the handle of the door.

“It’s not locked,” I whispered, letting him in.

“Brilliant. And all this time I was trying to figure out if I’d trip an alarm.”

“All this time?” I shut the door quietly. “But weren’t you out in the well house?”

“What? No.” Austin pulled me to him. “It took me weeks to figure out getting through the fence,” he said. “Otherwise, I would have come before.” He bent his lips to mine and kissed me. I drank in his affection like a girl dying of thirst in the desert. He could never kiss me enough.  “Mm, gingersnaps,” he said, smiling as we caught our breath.

“Yeah. I got hungry.” My heart was beating in a strange rhythm as Austin held me in his arms. I lifted my chin against his neck, comforted by the smell of his skin. It was so good to be in his arms again. I almost didn’t care that I wearing a stupid hoodie and yoga pants and had no make-up on.

“How are you feeling, Shelby?” he whispered into my messy hair. The sound of him saying my name, with his British accent and slight growl, made me want to sink into him deeper. I didn’t think there was a sexier voice on the planet. Or that my name had ever sounded better.

“I’m fine now,” I said.

“No, love. I mean, how are you feeling?” He untangled his arms from mine and put a hand under my chin to lift it to the light. His eyes filled with concern as he searched mine.

“I feel fine, I guess,” I said. “Why?”

“You said you got hungry. Are you hungrier than normal lately? Are you hearing things more sharply?”

“I heard something earlier. A scratching sound.”

“Yes. Those were my new friends out in the guard house,” Austin said, releasing my chin.

“They do seem like nice dogs.”

He smiled grimly. “Actually, they’re trained killers.”

“But I was out there yesterday and all they did was whine and scratch at their cages.”

Austin nodded. “Dogs can be charmed,” he said, eyeing me with concern again.

“Well, I heard the scratching noise tonight and then my stomach was growling so I came down here.”

“The hunger,” he murmured.

I patted my pocket. “Yep. Gingersnaps.”

“Oh.” Austin let out a slow breath. “So no meat tonight?”

“Huh? What is this? I mean, are you here to see me or to check in on my eating habits?”

“No, I—”

“And what do you mean about it taking weeks for you to get in here?” I asked, shaking my head. “You sent me the note at dinner. You left your sketchbook in the well house for me to find. You posted the picture of the dogs in the art room.”

Austin’s face paled. “I did none of those things, love. I swear to you this is the first time I’ve been over the fence.”

“No way.”

“I couldn’t get to you, but I called to you in the night,” he said, holding my gaze. “I hoped that somehow you would hear me.”

“I did,” I said. “I heard your wolf’s cry. I heard your voice, too.”

He kissed me again, and I felt warmth moving through my body. His lips were so soft while his arms, encircling me again, were so strong. I never wanted him to let go.

“Those other things you mentioned,” he said slowly. “Someone here at the school must have done them.”

“Why would they do that?”

Austin released me from his embrace and leaned against the kitchen worktable. “I think they were hoping to encourage you to draw me here to Steinfelder.”

“How could I do that?”

“We have a bond stronger than you realize.” Austin began to pace the kitchen. “Who here is aware that you know me?”

I gulped back embarrassment. “Um, like, everyone.”

“Ah.” Austin’s cheeks colored. “You talked about me…”

“Well, of course. I mean, I’ve been sad! What do you expect when you don’t write to me? I started to worry that the summer was all a stupid camp fling or something. And then, I saw you in that magazine with that Eva Maleva chick and I didn’t know what to think.”

“I couldn’t write to you,” he said. “I couldn’t put you at risk.”

“At risk for what? A broken heart? Too late,” I said, hitting him on the arm.

“No, I didn’t want to risk anyone knowing that you associated with me.”

“Oh, I get it, you’ve got to protect your image and Eva Maleva is like, the perfect, glamorous girlfriend or something.”

“No, Eva is—”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

Austin grabbed on to my arms, stilling me. “Listen—she’s like me. She’s our kind.”

“Yeah, rich and famous,” I said. “I get it. I know that I’m not fancy or anything but—”

“Shelby, she’s a werewolf. A cousin of mine, actually.”

“Oh.” I gave him an apologetic smile. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”

He hugged me again, taking in a deep breath. “You didn’t give me a chance to.”

“I still don’t understand,” I said, pulling back to look him in the eyes. “What couldn’t you put me at risk for?”

“For being found out.” He leaned against the counter and regarded me with a serious expression. “I’ve been watching from a distance as often as I could. And I had a friend at the castle in Muldania hack into the video chat system, so I’ve seen your calls home to your parents.”

“Muldania?”

“Our homeland. I finally convinced Dad we should get away from the London paparazzi. He bought the ancestral castle in Muldania. It’s near the border between Romania and Yugoslavia…” His voice trailed off and he held a finger to his lips.

Somewhere, I heard the squeak of floorboards. I glanced toward the door.

“So, you hear it, too?” Austin asked.

I nodded.

“Your hearing is as good as mine now,” he said, his eyes darkening. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Let me see your arm.” He reached out and pulled up the sleeve of my hoodie, until he’d exposed the scar I’d gotten the summer before.

“It’s fine. I mean, it’s ugly, and it itches sometimes, but I guess someday I could have it repaired. My stepmom knows lots of plastic surgeons, after all.”

Austin lowered his head to my skin and kissed the scar. “Love, don’t you see? The scar, your improved hearing, your hunger, your eyes—”

“What about my eyes?” I said.

He led me over to the shiny chrome fridge in the corner of the kitchen. I could see our reflection in it. Austin’s eyes were silvery, reflecting the drops of moonlight around the room. And so were mine.

“Holy crapola,” I said, backing away from our reflection. “That’s a trick of the light.”

“Shelby, that night in the forest at Camp Crescent—”

“You saved my life. That cougar would have shredded me. I would have been serious wildcat chow.”

Austin didn’t smile. “Think back. After the cougar attack. Remember when I was still in wolf form? You bandaged my injured shoulder and I snapped at you.”

“I already forgave you for that. You were hurt. You didn’t mean to do it.”

“Reflex or not, my teeth punctured your skin.”

“I told you I don’t care about the scar. It adds character,” I said with a little laugh.

“Shelby, I’m dead serious. This isn’t funny.”

I didn’t like the edge in Austin voice. “Okay, I’m listening,” I said.

“You’re going to change. You’re becoming like me.” He held my face in his hands. “I’m so sorry, love. It was a terrible accident. I would never wish this on anyone. Especially you.”

“You didn’t, okay? Dude, I’m so not becoming a werewolf.”

“You are. Or at least, you will be. It’s only a matter of time.” Austin froze again, listening to sound of floorboards that I heard, too. “You need to get up the back stairs to your room,” he said, releasing me. “I want you to be very careful.”

“Careful? I told you there’s nothing wrong with me.”

Austin leaned in to give me a last, luscious kiss on the mouth. “You can deny it all you want, but I see it happening before my eyes,” he said. “We’ve got to get you out of here before you change completely.”

I felt my face get hot. “I’m not going to change. And I can’t just bail on this place. Can you imagine what Honeybun and Dad would do if I ran away? They’d freak.”

“I have to go, but when it’s safe to meet, I’ll leave you a true sign, something only you and I know, under your pillow. When you find it, come to the old carriage house that night.” He touched my palm with the cheek of his hand again, and backed away toward the door. “Until then, be on your guard,” he said. “Don’t trust anyone. I know it sounds dramatic, but there really are forces seeking to expose our kind.”

I nearly stamped my foot on the ground. “I’m not your kind. And People Magazine isn’t hanging around Steinfelder, okay?”

Austin gave me a last sad look, blew me a kiss, and eased out the kitchen door.

I crept down the hallway toward the back staircase, fully realizing the need to evacuate. Just as I mounted the first step, I heard the squeak of swinging doors and the click of the kitchen light going on. More stealthily than I thought possible, I bounded up to my room and shut the door.

All the love I’d felt for Austin was swirling around with the scarier feeling that what he’d said was true. I stared into the mirror, trying to summon the silvery eye effect, but it wouldn’t come again. That gave me some comfort. Enough to tuck myself into bed, at least.

But I dreamed of running through thick woods that night. I dreamed of awakening in a wolf’s body on top of a rock cliff, howling at Mother Moon. I dreamed of doing things that were physically impossible for Shelby Locke, human girl. I woke up in a cold sweat, realizing the only thing I could do was to choose not to believe in anything Austin said. If I didn’t believe in it, maybe it would never happen.

With a heavy sense of dread, I forced myself up out of my bed and into the dawn of another day at Steinfelder, not sure of anything anymore, except that moonlight could be more dangerous than I’d ever suspected.

Chapter Six

“Where were you last night?” Marie-Rose stepped into the bindings of her cross-country skis next to me and lowered her sunglasses.

“What?” I worked the zipper of my jacket and then pulled a knit cap on over my sloppy ponytail.

“I woke up and you weren’t in our room,” she said.

“Oh.” I pushed away from the staging area and started gliding down the trail, toward the rest of our gym class. Several of the girls, who’d skied since they were toddlers, were already disappearing around the first bend. Our teacher, Mrs. Einhorn, waved at the stragglers like us to hurry up. Some kind of former Winter Olympian, the lady had us students outside a lot, when most of us would have preferred to run laps in the gym.

I’d never really skied very much, but after a few weeks of Mrs. Einhorn’s instruction, I’d gotten the hang of it. Marie-Rose, whose family owned a ski chalet somewhere, was an expert in both cross-country and downhill. If I hadn’t known her, I might have hated her for her perfectly prissy, annoyingly cute matching pink ski coat and pants. My own skiing get-up was a mish-mash of what I’d brought with me and a few things I’d purchased in town.

“Come on, where were you? And don’t say the bathroom,” Marie-Rose said, catching up to me. “I checked.”

I adjusted my hand on my poles and pushed harder so I could take advantage of the slope of the hill. “You were asleep when I came back,” I said.

“Yes, I was tired of waiting for you. So, tell me.”

We both tucked slightly, riding the downward momentum. “You asked me to keep you out of trouble, so I’m keeping you out of it. I’m doing things on my own.” I didn’t mean for the words to sound harsh, but the look on Marie-Rose’s face showed me I’d failed.

She stroked harder with her legs, passing me on the straightaway and then attacking the lead of the other girls.  Breathing was difficult in the frigid air, but I kept pushing myself, wanting to catch my roommate. The trail led around more trees and to another incline. At last, I caught her on the hill.

“I thought you wanted to be alone,” Marie-Rose said, as we huffed our way upward.

“I was just following your instructions. You told me—”

“I don’t want you to get in trouble! Can’t you see that I’m worried about you?” She dug harder, passing me on the hill for the moment.

“Haven’t you heard? Trouble is my middle name.” I smiled grimly.

We’d caught up to the other girls now, and Marie-Rose threaded herself through the pack like a pro. Our breath poured out in white clouds as we coasted down the slope toward another flat section.

“You don’t have to worry about me, okay?” I told her.

She grunted. “How can I not when every risk you take affects me?”

I didn’t see how that was true, and it kind of pissed me off that all Marie-Rose seemed to care about was that I might get her into trouble. I’d been right not to trust her with everything going on with Austin. She’s probably keel over if she knew I’d seen him.

“Your recklessness is very selfish, you know,” she continued.

My mouth dropped open. Recklessness? She had no idea how hard I’d worked to keep myself in check at stupid Steinfelder thus far. Blood rushed to my cheeks, but rather than saying what I really wanted to, I lowered my chin and skied harder.

Within a few minutes, I’d left Marie-Rose far behind. Fueled by my anger, I pumped my arms and nudged my tired legs onward. I wanted space and distance and quiet. The snow started to fall gently down all around me, slowing the trail, but I kept skiing, gazing up at the big white sky and marveling at the beautiful evergreen trees lining the path. I couldn’t hear anyone else anymore—no chatter from the girls, nor the sound of their skis on the snow. I could only hear the forest.

But then I saw a flash of something moving in the trees. Something all white that blended in with the snow. Drawn to investigate, I stopped and snapped off my skis. Without even thinking, I was suddenly following the creature through the spruce trees.

I thundered down a barely noticeable trail, wanting—no, needing—to get to this thing. Thoughts of Steinfelder gone from my mind, I barely felt my ski boots and heavy clothes as I tore after my target. My breath came in jagged gulps as I dodged the trees and ducked around bushes in my path. The movement of the thing was erratic, terrified, and that only made me want to catch up to it more.

My body was on autopilot, but all my senses were engaged. I paused to sniff air, trying to catch its scent. And the thing raced ahead, a flash of white against the white, white snow and the pale tree trunks. I rushed on, sure I was close. Before long, I reached a frozen pond, barely skidding to a halt in time.

There, on the other side of the ice was an alpine hare, chest heaving, eyes nervous. I’d been chasing a bunny.

“Holy crap,” I muttered, plopping down onto my butt in the snow. “What is wrong with me?”

But I knew. “He can’t be right. He can’t be right,” I chanted like a mantra. I sat there, breathing in and out, fighting against the realization that was coursing through my body. I had chased after a hare. I had tried to catch prey.

I shuddered. “I’m sorry, little guy. I probably gave you a heart attack,” I called out to the hare, who was statue-like on the other side of the pond, waiting, watching. “It’s not normally like me to do that.” I rose to my feet. “I’m just a regular girl, okay?” I dusted the back of my snow pants off, trying to pretend that I wasn’t freaking out.

The hare’s nose twitched a few times, and then he dashed away into the brush.

My head pounding, I moved slowly through the trees, back toward what I thought was the direction of the trail. I could hear the voices of the other girls in the distance, so I was pretty sure I was headed the right way. But more than that, I could smell them. Perfume, sweat, sunscreen, shampoo. The scents radiated out to me like a beacon. My wolfy senses were fully engaged.

By the time I got to the edge of the path, tears were welling in my eyes. Austin was telling the truth. It was just a matter of time before I was a slave to the moon. Before I wouldn’t let that alpine hare live to hop another trail.

Marie-Rose slid up next to my abandoned skis as I emerged from the trees. “Oh, Shelby. Don’t cry,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s not you. It’s… nothing.” I wiped at my eyes.

At that moment I knew, more than ever, I was alone with my secret. Alone until my werewolf boyfriend came to the rescue. I really hated the thought of counting on anyone to save me. I was used to getting myself out of sticky situations, taking care of myself. But I couldn’t ignore the facts:

The moon’s pull would strengthen.

My hunger would grow.

And then everyone, even Marie-Rose, would be at risk.

***

I forced down the watery chicken soup and dumplings they force-fed us for lunch that day, my mind reeling with worry. What was going to happen to me? What if Austin didn’t get me out of there? How much time did I actually have left before I was a full-on werewolf?

I was still hungry after the lame meal, of course, so I hid in a bathroom stall and scarfed down the last gingersnap from my hoodie’s pocket. For the moment, the sweet, spicy taste took my mind off the horrible feelings I was having and lifted my mood. I had almost stopped feeling sorry for myself by the time I took my seat in Mrs. Lemmon’s European history class, my least favorite hour of the day.

Marie-Rose slid a sharpened pencil across my desk and gave me a smile. She obviously thought all my angst was because of our earlier fight. Though I had plenty of my own, I accepted the pencil with a smile and opened my notebook, ready for the upcoming torture. I wished I’d thought to save half the cookie for Marie-Rose. It wasn’t her fault that she was terrified of getting in trouble. And if she knew what trouble I was in for, she’d freak for sure. It was better for us to make up and for me to pretend everything was normal, even though it was so not.

Mrs. Lemmon swept in a full minute after the bell and slammed her bag down on the table at the front of the room. “Ladies!” she snarled. “I am very disappointed in your theme papers.”

Her sharp blue eyes flashed from behind deep folds and her eyebrows pulled together as if on a drawstring. Since Honeybun had come into my life, I kind of hated plastic surgery, even if it had been the source of my dad’s fortune. That said, Dad’s wonder drug, Re-Gen, would have worked wonders on old Mrs. Lemmon’s wrinkles.

The old bat seemed to guess I was studying her. She poked a shriveled finger in my direction. “Shall I start with you, Miss Locke?”

I shrugged and Marie-Rose elbowed me in the gut. “Um, sure?”

Mrs. Lemmon stooped over my desk, her gray wool skirt touching my rashy hand. “I think you would have done a much better job on Napoleon Bonaparte if you’d actually opened the text book. He died an exile on the isle of St. Helena.” She released my paper, which floated down to my desk. No one in class needed binoculars to see the red ink glaring from the top page.

“Er, thanks.”

She retrieved another paper from her desk. “And Miss Genereau,” she said, maneuvering herself in front of Marie-Rose’s. “In a treatise on the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, you might have mentioned that his death sparked World War I.”

Marie-Rose slumped in her chair. I could tell she was hoping that Mrs. Lemmon wasn’t going to let Maman know of her failure.

“There is but one triumphant effort in the entire stack.” Mrs. Lemmon took a seat on the edge of her desk and held up a paper with a bright red “A” marked on it. “It belongs to Miss Patricia Sherman.”

The whole class turned to stare at the slight, curly haired girl at the back of the class.  The daughter of a Chicago stockyard tycoon, Patricia didn’t say much in class, but you got the feeling she was always listening. On hearing her name mentioned, she turned a rosy shade and pretended to doodle in the notebook on her desk.

Mrs. Lemmon began to read aloud:

“Johanas Steinfelder, distant cousin of Sigismund of Habsburg, founded Steinfelder castle in 1440, during the Old Zurich War and before Sigismund was excommunicated by the ruling pope. His riches were acquired by his battles in nearby lands. Included in his conquest were parts of Bulgaria, the river valley in the Carpathian Mountains, and the small country of Muldania. His battle insignia, the steed rearing in attack, is well known throughout Europe as a sign of an ancient brotherhood and can be found on many artifacts throughout Steinfelder castle.”

Muldania. My brain sorted through all the history texts I’d read in Lemmon’s class, trying to come up with where I’d heard that country mentioned before.

Mrs. Lemmon droned on, oblivious to Patricia’s reddening face and the bored yawns of the rest of the class. “The chateau, fortified with stone and iron battlements, was considered impervious to attack, but the duke was ever vigilant, fearing retribution from the forces he’d decimated in Muldania. The duke died here in 1494, an old man lost in visions of evil creatures who were out to exact revenge.” The old lady set down the paper on Patricia’s desk and moved to the map on the wall. “The only question unanswered is why the Duke had set out to conquer such far away lands. And that, so far, has remained unrecorded in history books.”

She pointed at the border between Romania and Yugoslavia and it suddenly hit me. Muldania. Austin’s homeland where he said his dad had just purchased the ancestral castle. The duke had had some part in driving the werewolves out. Of driving us out.

Wait a second. Why exactly was I here at Steinfelder? I wracked my brain for how Honeybun had found out about this school.  It suddenly seemed too great a coincidence that the duke had tried to eradicate werewolves and that I’d ended up at his chateau. What had Austin said about there being forces working to expose the werewolves? What if someone at the school was doing just that? Maybe this whole time they had been using me to bait Austin and would kill him here, continuing the work of the duke.

Even if whoever the spy was didn’t know my wolfy secret yet, I felt like both Austin and I were in big danger if I didn’t get out soon.

Chapter Seven

Every night after dinner, while all of us girls gathered in the main hall before the giant fireplace to study or play board games, Mrs. Lemmon took a bath. The old bat soaked for at least an hour, using all our hot water, and then emerged, looking even more prune-like, in time to call us all upstairs for lights out. If you were unlucky enough to have waited to take your shower before bed, it was ice cube city.

But that night, I wasn’t complaining. Citing a stomachache, I excused myself from the game of Scrabble Marie-Rose and Patricia had roped me into and went upstairs. If I was going to have a chance to contact Austin, now was the time. Mrs. Lemmon’s laptop was the only easy portal to the outside world, and while she scrubbed her ancient hide, I’d make my move. I wanted Austin to know what I’d found out about the duke. And though we’d discussed a way for him to let me know when to meet him, we hadn’t devised any signaling method on my end. I didn’t think this kind of information could wait, so the laptop it was.

I poked my head into Lemmon’s room and was rewarded with the sound of rushing water coming from behind the closed door of the en suite bathroom. I also heard her cackling, so I figured she was probably chatting on her cell phone with Massimo, her long-distance paramour. That was great news, because he wouldn’t be online waiting for her when I logged on. With a last glance over my shoulder to make sure the hall was empty, I pulled Lemmon’s door closed, but not all the way.

Her desk was covered with papers, like she’d been using it to grade earlier. I was careful not to move anything as I sat down in the chair. When I powered up the Mac, a security screen popped up, requesting a password, so I scanned the room for clues.

On the wall above the desk a small bulletin board held photos of gardens someplace, England, maybe, and photographs of three little blond girls, whom I assumed might be her grandchildren. Taped near the bottom of the board was a business card for a local bakery. Behind me stood a perfectly made bed, covered with a knitted afghan. A small vase of silk hydrangeas and a hand mirror decorated the simple dresser. A rocking chair waited near the window.  No clues there.

Mrs. Lemmon’s crusty laugh sounded again.

“Okay, how about Massimo,” I said, typing it into the computer, which rejected it. “Harriet+Massimo,” I muttered. Nope. I wondered how good she was at remembering passwords, being that she was about a million years old and was probably new to computer stuff anyway. And, on that thought, I picked up the keyboard and found a Post-it taped underneath.

I smiled, typing in “Lemmon_0907972!#@” a password probably created by the administrator of Steinfelder’s secure network. “Sucker,” I whispered, as her computer came to life.

I headed right over to the video call program and typed in Austin’s name, looking for his profile. Nothing. He wasn’t set up on the site, which wasn’t a huge surprise, since he was hiding from paparazzi and the public half the time. I quit that site quickly, and headed over to my e-mail program. I heard the water turn off in the other room. Lemmon was done filling her tub. There wasn’t much time so I hammered out a quick e-mail:

A -

Check out the ownership of Steinfelder. Can you please meet me tomorrow night? Urgent.

xo,

S.

After I hit send, I deleted the browsing history, hoping that would be enough to head Lemmon and anyone else who might have been watching the web activity off the trail. At least for a little while. I logged off and powered down.

As I got up from the desk, I heard movement in the hall. I dropped down to the floor and crawled over to peek out the crack of the door. Marie-Rose’s worn ballet flats were heading toward Lemmon’s room. Someone was right behind her. I backed away from the door and slid under the bed.

“I’m not sure where she is, but she couldn’t have gone far.” I heard Marie-Rose’s small voice pleading as she entered Lemmon’s room.

Whoever she was addressing stayed out in the hallway not saying a word.

Meanwhile, Marie-Rose’s foot inched toward my hand, nearly crushing my fingers. I clamped a hand over my mouth, hoping I wasn’t breathing too loudly. If Marie-Rose noticed me under the bed, she might tell this teacher and I’d be toast.

“She’s not in here either,” Marie-Rose said, swiveling back toward the doorway. “Shelby said she had a stomach ache and was going up to bed. That’s all I know.”

“This is unacceptable,” the person in the hall growled, a phrase so common here at Steinfelder, this teacher could have been anyone, well, except for Lemmon, who was in the bathtub.

I heard Marie-Rose start to sniffle. “I don’t know how she slipped away. Please, it’s not my fault.”

A lump formed in my throat. Marie-Rose was going to be held responsible for my sneaking off? I considered sliding out from under the bed right then and surrendering. But, I didn’t actually do it. I wasn’t that crazy.

“I’m doing this job very well,” Marie-Rose said in a defiant tone. “I’ll find her.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. A job? What the heck did that mean? Watching me was a job?

I heard a huffing sound of protest and then Marie-Rose left the room. As soon as I was sure they were gone, I crawled out from under the bed. I could hear the sound of water draining from Lemmon’s tub. She’d be out any second. I hurried into the hallway, just in time to see Marie-Rose disappear around the corner.

I dashed down the back steps and into the kitchen. While the cook’s back was turned, I grabbed an empty cup from the cupboard and filled it with cold tea from a pot sitting on the counter. I paused outside the swinging doors, calming myself down. Then, I strolled toward the living room, where everyone was gathered.

“There you are!” I heard Marie-Rose call. “I was worried about you.” She rushed over, her frown full of sisterly concern.

“Oh, were you looking for me? I had to get something to ease my stomach,” I said, taking a sip of tea. “I’m going back upstairs to bed now.”

Miss Kovac and Madame LaCroix stood at the foot of the front staircase, below the picture of Duke Steinfelder. They wore almost matching scowls.

“Good night,” I said with extra cheer.

Miss Kovac put her hand on my shoulder as I tried to pass. “Shelby, wait,” she said, reaching her other hand toward the middle of my back. “You have a, how do they say, dust-bunny?”

I felt my cheeks color, but I kept on moving. “This place is full of them,” I said nonchalantly. And then I took another step, and then another, until I was in my room. Although now I wasn’t sure of how safe I was, even there.

***

Marie-Rose slunk into our room that night, just a few minutes before Mrs. Lemmon called for lights out. I was already in bed, flipping through the Swiss history book I’d borrowed from Patricia after hearing her paper in class. I wanted to read anything I could about Duke Steinfelder now. I wanted to know about his connection to Muldania, and what that might mean for Austin and his family. For me.

“Hi,” Marie-Rose said.

I shut my book and rolled over so I faced the wall.

“Does your stomach still hurt?”

“Yeah,” I said. And actually, I wasn’t lying. My stomach was turning over and over, probably from a combination of the foul-tasting bratwursts we’d had for dinner and stress.

“Sorry,” she said.

I rolled back toward her as she clicked off the light between our beds. “Why do you feel responsible for me?”

“What?”

“Earlier on the ski trail, you said what I do affects you. What did you mean by that?”

Marie-Rose pulled her covers up higher over her flowered pajamas. “A friend worries.”

“But about the affecting part…”

She gave me an uncomfortable smile. “I told you before, if my roommate gets into trouble, then I, by association get into trouble.”

“So you say.”

“Oh, you no longer believe in the horrors my maman will inflict? You think I am making them up?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Marie-Rose’s face eyes went stony. “I have pressures on me you cannot imagine,” she said. “And I know you weren’t in the kitchen the whole time tonight.”

“What difference does that make?” It was hard to keep the anger from my voice.

“Just be careful,” she said. Before she rolled on her side away from me, I saw the slightest bit of fear on her face. And I smelled it, which is a very weird thing to say about a roommate’s emotion, but there it was. My nascent wolfy senses were completely activated. What was she afraid of? Or who? Maybe that was the better question.

She couldn’t be afraid of me because she didn’t know about my situation, and anyway, I still had a few weeks before the full moon would come again to Steinfelder. A few weeks before all would be revealed. By then, most of the other students would be home with their families. I shuddered, imagining what would happen if I were going home to Beverly Hills only to turn furry for the first time.

Marie-Rose’s breathing changed as she drifted off into sleep. I lay awake for a little while longer, watching the shadows and knowing that I was destined to be a part of them eventually. I had to talk to Austin. I could only hope he’d gotten the e-mail from Lemmon’s laptop and would try to meet me the next night.

***

The chocolate cake is decorated with Oreo crumbs and my favorite gummy worms in that funny cake-that-looks-like-a-garden-patch way. The summer breeze blows my hair all around me and the rose beds of our house in Beverly Hills are in full bloom. Sunshine streams down onto the patio, reflecting sparkles from the crystal plates and glasses. Honeybun laughs as she cuts Dad a huge slice of cake. Next to the glass table, a little boy rocks in a baby chair, a fistful of chocolate and frosting smeared around his lips.

As I lift another forkful of the confection to my mouth, Honeybun smiles with delight. She’s made the cake herself, the mothering instinct for me finally kicking in. The birthday candles abandoned on the side of the cake plate are coated with buttercream frosting, and I pick them up one by one, licking the sweetness from each.  I smile at Honeybun, the chocolate mellowing me out and a feeling of comfort, almost like love, welling up inside of me. This is my family. I set down the last candle and reach out for more cake with my fingers, forgoing the fork. I want to consume it, to drown myself in the chocolatey goodness, in the love.

“Locke.” I hear a guttural whisper that doesn’t belong on my patio. “Locke!” It comes again, and then there is a tug on my elbow.

I try to shrug whatever it is away. I want to stay at the party. I take another scoop of chocolate cake with my fingers, right from the center, making sure to get a few gummy worms. Honeybun giggles and claps her hands together, so happy I am literally digging her cake. My dad looks at all of us—his family—and beams with pride.

Slap!

I opened my eyes.

Mrs. Lemmon was staring at me intently, her hand raised. “I’m sorry, dear. You were sleep… walking, I guess you would call it,” she said.

I rubbed my stinging cheeks and felt wetness. I pulled my hands away, realizing they were smeared with something dark. “Where am I?”

Mrs. Lemmon put an arm around my shoulders, surprising me with her gentle touch. “You’re in the kitchen.” There was a tenderness in her voice, which made me wonder what was really going on.

I stared down at my hands again, turning them over in the pale light coming from the bank of windows. I couldn’t tell what was on me, but it didn’t smell like chocolate cake. “What is this?”

“Ah, yes.” Mrs. Lemmon released me. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said, handing me one of the cook’s kitchen towels.

I took it from her, still unsure of what was going on. “Should we turn on a light?”

“No need to wake anyone with lights. It’s one o’clock in the morning, Shelby.”

“It is?” I lifted my semi-dried hands to my nose and sniffed at the heavy, metallic odor. “Blood?” I said, the alarm in my voice unmistakable.

Mrs. Lemmon nodded and reached out for the empty plastic tray on the kitchen table. “Found you eating some of the cook’s raw steaks for the staff lunch tomorrow,” she said. “Looks like maybe two or three, you had.”

“Omigod.” I rushed over to the sink and began scrubbing my hands with soap. Austin’s words, “Don’t trust anyone,” were ringing in my brain like a fire alarm. I was covered in blood and Mrs. Lemmon had caught me.

“Now, let’s not panic,” Mrs. Lemmon said, bringing the empty tray over to the draining board. “I’ll tell the cook I came down for a glass of milk and found the tray toppled over at the bottom of the walk-in, the steaks coated in filth. God knows the dirty bird never sweeps out the thing. She’ll believe it.”

I ran my hands under the tap, watching the bloody water swirl down the drain. But my shock at the realization I’d been sleep-eating was nothing compared to the shock of Mrs. Lemmon’s kindness. At any minute I expected her to flip on the lights and scream for Madame LaCroix.

“I, uh, thank you,” I mumbled, stepping back.

She nodded and patted me on the cheek. “You been sleepwalking your whole life, then?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

Mrs. Lemmon rinsed the meat tray in the sink. “My first husband, Eddie, he did it all the time. He’d make phone calls and not remember them. One time he cooked a roasted chicken dinner, complete with mash and English peas.” She gave me the first smile I’d ever seen on her face. “You can live a perfectly healthy life. Eddie did, at least until he was shot down in a Royal Air Force plane. But that had nothing to do with his sleep habits.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, you know, about Eddie.” I dried my hands on a clean towel and watched Lemmon scrub down the tray with bleach.

She didn’t look up at me as she worked. Maybe she didn’t want me feeling sorry for her about Eddie. “That should do it,” she said, setting the tray in the empty sink to dry.

“Mrs. Lemmon, I don’t know how to explain this. I don’t know what’s happening to me,” I said, halfway telling the truth.

“Don’t you worry yourself about it. I’ll be discreet. This kind of problem can be very embarrassing.” She shook her head. “And I see what they feed you girls. I’d be craving a bit of iron myself if I were a student. Especially around that time of the month.” She gave me a sympathetic smile.

“Huh?”

“I heard you had stomach problems earlier, Locke. It’s not hard to put two and two together when you’ve been working with girls for this many years.”

“Oh. Right,” I said, playing along. “You’ve been at Steinfelder forever probably?”

Mrs. Lemmon’s posture straightened. “Steinfelder, no. I’ve just come here this term, like you. But I’ve got a long history in the schools,” she said.

“You’ve given your whole life to help students. That’s, you know, a really cool thing to do.”

I saw another glimpse of the smile, and then Lemmon grabbed a spray bottle and spritzed the kitchen table. I picked up a rag and swabbed up the little blood spatters.

“You know, it’s always you brash ones that need a little kindness,” Mrs. Lemmon said, throwing our dirty towels in the hamper near the door. “There’s something painful in your lives that make you girls the way you are.”

I just shrugged. Maybe Lemmon had a point, but I didn’t want to talk to her about anything painful in my life. That wasn’t exactly my style.

Mrs. Lemmon put her hands on my arms and looked deep into my eyes. “I just want you to know you’re not alone, dear.” With that, she turned and left me to the quiet of the kitchen.

I was astounded by what had just happened. I had no idea that inside Lemmon’s crusty exterior there was a heart. Still reeling from our interaction, I got a glass of water to wash out the awful taste in my mouth. I had been eating raw meat. Holy crap.

I had interrupted Austin doing that same thing at Camp Crescent last summer. The scene must have looked horrific to Lemmon, what with me gobbling down the steaks, blood running down my face. I glanced down at my hands again, grateful that at least, unlike Austin, I hadn’t been fully transformed into a wolf during my feast. I’d just been hungry. So hungry I’d dreamed of cake while I chowed down on raw meat. This was bad. Really bad.

Wait—raw steaks? The staff got steaks? The injustice of Steinfelder’s menu apparently reached far beyond baked goods. Sighing, I put my glass in the sink. As I turned to leave, I saw Marie-Rose standing by the door.

“What are you doing down here?” she whispered.

“Getting water,” I said, passing by her and out the kitchen door.

She followed me up the stairs, reaching out for me on the landing. “Shelby, wait!”

“No, I don’t want to wait. And why are you always hanging around, anyway?”

Marie-Rose’s face fell. “I’m just—”

“You’re concerned. I get that. Okay, I’m going up to bed.”

I walked down the hall toward our room and collapsed into bed, feeling pretty low. But as I adjusted my pillow, I found something underneath it that made my heart rise in my chest. A packet of gummy worms. A sign from Austin that took me back to the night at camp he’d brought me gummy bears the nurse had given him. On the bottom of the plastic packaging, there was a number eleven, written in black marker.

I stuffed the candy back under the pillow as Marie-Rose wandered in. Ignoring her sheepish look, I went to the window. Out at the end of the white-covered field, I saw a fast-moving shadow that had to be Austin’s. As I watched, he disappeared behind the guardhouse kennel. I felt a tiny swell of hope, knowing he’d meet me the next night at eleven in the old carriage house.

I wanted him to hug me and tell me everything was going to be all right. I wanted him to tell me he’d figured out a plan. And I prayed he’d have some serum on him that would keep me from going totally Lycan before the next full moon.

Chapter Eight

Saturday is supposed to be relaxing—a day you can sleep in, eat a lazy breakfast, see your friends, and go to the mall, but, of course, that wasn’t the case at Steinfelder. Every Saturday started the same as any other day, with soggy muesli cereal eaten at long, wooden tables precisely at seven a.m. Even though it was the last meal before most of the girls left for winter vacation, that morning’s breakfast wasn’t any different than the normal slop. Truthfully, I hadn’t expected they’d get a fancy send-off, but I was hungry again. Really hungry. I would have (almost) killed for a pancake.

“You look awful,” Marie-Rose said, lifting a spoonful of cereal to her mouth.

“Thanks.” I refrained from saying she’d look awful, too, if she’d sleep-eaten raw meat and had to deal with a roommate who was a constant shadow.

“I just mean that you need more rest,” Marie-Rose added, as if that made her comment any less annoying.

“Uh, okay.” I nearly sighed in relief as Patricia from our history class took a seat across from us. I slid Patricia the book I’d borrowed. “Thanks, it was helpful.”

“There are more like it in the library,” she said, smiling.

Marie-Rose had followed our exchange. “Interested in school now?” she asked.

“Seriously. Can you just leave me alone?” I hissed.

Her face turned red and she got up from our table and took a seat at the next one over.

“Is there a problem?” Madame LaCroix’s voice called out over the noise of the dining room. “I thought you and Marie-Rose were good friends,” she said, gliding up next to me.

I studied my cereal. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Whatever the problem is, I hope you will sort it out in a respectful way. I would hate to have to resolve your difficulty for you.”

“Yes, of course,” I said in my sweetest tone.

Madame LaCroix gave me a stern look, like she couldn’t tell if I was making fun of her or being serious. When she stalked off toward the staff dining room, I picked up my bowl of cereal. Marie-Rose didn’t look up as I slid down onto the bench next to her.

“So, can you just tell me what’s going on and we can end this weirdness?”

She took another bite of cereal, chewing it thoughtfully.

“I heard you from the hallway outside Lemmon’s door,” I said, fibbing about the location. “I heard you say you were doing a job. What does that mean?”

Her eyes got big. “I’m not supposed to tell you.”

“Well, either you tell me or I’m going to find a way to call Maman and complain,” I said, bringing out the heavy artillery. This was getting serious.

Marie-Rose set down her spoon with a clunk. “I’m looking out for you. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Why did you call it a job? Is someone paying you?”

“I, uh…” Marie-Rose dabbed at her damp forehead. “I can’t tell you.”

“But how can we be friends if you’re keeping this from me? I mean, were you ever really my friend to begin with? Or is this all fake?”

She turned on the bench to face me. “But of course I am your friend. That’s why I’m doing this. You get into trouble. I’m watching over you. I’m keeping you safe.”

“Safe from what?”

Her forehead creased with worry. “From yourself,” she said, but she didn’t explain.

“I think you’re the one who needs to watch yourself.” I dropped my spoon into my bowl and got up from the bench. Passing a first-year server, I thunked the bowl down onto the tray she carried and stormed out of the room.

My mind was reeling with thoughts of who might have hired Marie-Rose as my babysitter and why, at a school for messed-up girls like me, I’d be singled out for special watch. But wait—what if this didn’t have anything to do with my not following the rules? Marie-Rose could easily be working for someone who had a much more sinister motive than keeping me out of Mrs. LaCroix’s office.

It suddenly occurred to me that this could be a really bad thing for me and for Austin. Marie-Rose could absolutely not know he was coming to meet me. She’d been watching me—maybe she’d really been watching for him.

I realized this meant my friendship with Marie-Rose really was over. I’d lost the one confidante I’d found at Steinfelder. And my only friend.

***

“Not heading home, eh?” Mrs. Lemmon took a seat in an armchair in the library that afternoon.

“No, ma’am.” I returned her smile and went back to flipping through the pages of the book in front of me, another history of the Middle Ages in Europe. But then I heard laughing, so I glanced out the window and saw girls building snowmen and chasing each other around the yard with snowballs. The last bus had pulled away an hour ago, so these girls were all holiday shut-ins like me, but somehow they were having fun.

The scene reminded me of our snowy winters back in Milwaukee, before Dad invented Re-Gen and our fortunes changed. Living in Beverly Hills with Honeybun the last few years, I’d missed real winters, although here in isolation at Steinfelder, I hadn’t found the snow any comfort, not like it had been in the Midwest. But, then again, nothing had been the same since Milwaukee. Or since my mom had passed away.

Winter had been Mom’s favorite season. We’d spent so many of them making our house full-on Christmassy, with a holly wreath on the doors and popcorn garlands on the tree. She’d been an expert at making snow angels and knew just how many marshmallows a cup of hot cocoa should have. It so wasn’t fair that she was gone.

I felt my face getting hot, so I focused on the book in front of me, letting the thoughts of winters past drift away.

Over near the fireplace, Mrs. Lemmon opened a bag and took out knitting. I hadn’t known her to be crafty, but she looked like a pro, wrangling the yarn around the needles. “You seem quite interested in the history of the castle,” she said, gesturing toward my stack of books.

“I guess Patricia’s paper kind of inspired me,” I said.

The blaze in the hearth crackled, filling the room with warmth. Above the mantel, yet another portrait of the Duke stared down at us, firelight reflected in the shiny paint.

“He was quite a character,” Mrs. Lemmon said, pointing up at the Duke. “Ran with a rather colorful group claiming to be on a mission to protect the continent. Several principalities financed his campaigns, hiring him to drive out whatever element they didn’t like or understand.”

“A mercenary,” I said.

“Of sorts, yes.” She frowned down at the red yarn in her hands, making a clucking sound at the back of her throat.

“What are you knitting?”

Lemmon held the project up so I could see. It had a few lumps and bumps, but it wasn’t too horrible looking. “I’ve been working on this scarf for weeks and can’t seem to get it all put together right,” she said. “I don’t know that I’ll be done in time for Christmas.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to buy one?”

She laughed. “Yes, of course. The point is that you make something for someone and it means more. You’re thinking about them with each stitch, you see.”

“Oh, okay. I get that.”

“Do you have a list of Christmas presents to buy? We’ll be taking some of you into town tomorrow to buy a few things.”

“I don’t know about sending presents. My family is kind of wrapped up in stuff,” I said slowly. “My stepmother’s having a baby.”

Mrs. Lemmon’s eyes brightened. “Well, maybe you might like to learn how to knit, then? You could make the little tyke a blanket.”

I had such a longing for my family at that moment, my heart seemed like it was going to burst. I was going to have a little brother or sister, and whatever my situation, they were my family. At least they were at the moment. Who knew what would happen once they found out the truth about me? They surely wouldn’t want an animal around the baby. Hot tears trickled down my cheeks.

“Oh, dear. I’ve hit a soft spot,” Mrs. Lemmon said. “I’m a brash one too, you see.”

I gave her a watery smile. “No, it’s a kind offer, thank you. I’m fine.” I wiped my face with my sweatshirt sleeve.

“Well, you let me know. It fills the emptiness of winter, knitting does.”

“Who is your scarf for?”

Mrs. Lemmon’s cheeks flushed and she gave me a pointed look. “A friend, Locke.”

“Oh.” I got it. Massimo. I let her keep her secret as she knitted away, and turned my attention back to the book in my hands.

I turned page after page, learning about how Duke Steinfelder had persecuted the unsavory folks in foreign lands, killing off diversity. About how he’d died, terrified of retribution from awful creatures. The book had a reproduction of the painting from the hallway, the one of him mounted on the gray horse, ready for battle. Ready to drive people out for a price. Maybe people like Austin and his family. Like me.

With all that had happened lately, I’d almost forgotten I wanted to know how I’d come to be here at Steinfelder. I needed to know.

“Mrs. Lemmon,” I said, “I am worried about my stepmother. You know, with her being on bed rest for the baby. Do you think you might allow me a quick video call? I know it’s not the normal time…”

Mrs. Lemmon set down her knitting needles and consulted her watch. “It’s against rules, Locke.”

I gave her my best puppy eyes. “Please, I’ll be quick.”

“Well, considering what you’ve been through this week, maybe it’d be a good idea,” she said, getting up from the chair. “There’s no one else about. Let me go get the computer from Madame’s office.”

A few short minutes later, I was sitting in front of a laptop screen, looking at a sleepy Honeybun. Mrs. Lemmon, giving me some privacy, retreated to the hallway door and picked up her knitting again.

“Your father’s still sleeping,” Honeybun said, yawning. “I’ve been online for hours looking at cribs. There’s so much to do.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Everything okay there? Do you want me to wake your father?”

“No, I just wanted to talk to you this time,” I said.

She smiled at me, and I almost felt guilty, seeing how bright and wide her grin was, like she was genuinely happy we were chatting. That I wanted to talk to her alone. “So, what’s up, sweetheart?”

I groaned inwardly at the word “sweetheart” but forged ahead. “So, what I’ve been wondering, because you know, there are lot of girls from lots of different places here at the school, is how did you find out about this place? I mean, why am I here?”

Honeybun’s smile faded into disappointment. “Oh. I thought you wanted to have some kind of a girl chat. You know, about… girl stuff.”

I heard in her hesitation the wish that we were talking about mother-daughter stuff, not just girl stuff. I felt a little punch in the gut. Was Honeybun actually wanting to get along? To be a real parent? It was a little too late for that.

“Well, you know, there’re no boys here, so there’s no girl stuff to talk about, really,” I said.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Honeybun replied. “I should have told you before, but that friend of yours from camp, Austin, he tried to reach you here at the house after you left. Very charming. You father told him where he could write you. I hope he’s been in touch.”

I shrugged. Talking with her about Austin seemed pointless and maybe, with everything going on, dangerous. “Listen, I want to know how you found out about Steinfelder.”

Honeybun tried to frown at my changing the subject. She rubbed at her creaseless forehead as if the effort hurt her. “I don’t see why that’s important.”

“Did you get the brochure from Red Canyon Ranch? From Camp Crescent? From a shrink you know?”

She let out a deep yawn. “Shelby, I still can’t understand why you need to know.”

“Just tell me!”

Mrs. Lemmon poked her head around the corner, a finger to her lips.

“Sorry. I don’t mean to yell. It’s just that things are getting weird here—”

“Oh no, what did you do?”

What did I do? Nothing yet, I wanted to say. But I held my tongue. “I’d just like to know where you got the brochure.”

Honeybun cast her gaze to the enormous rock on her wedding finger. “We got a special invitation in the mail.”

“An invitation?”

“Yes. It was invitation from the school, with your name on it, saying you’d been handpicked to attend. It was super fancy, like they’d taken the time to research you, to make sure you were their kind of girl. I’m not sure how we got on the school’s mailing list or who recommended you, but when I read about the tradition and the history, it sounded really great. I thought you might soak up some European culture. California can be so, you know, California.”

“Was there a signature on the invitation? A return address?”

“Well, just the school information, I suppose. It wasn’t signed by anyone.”

“Oh.” I felt my shoulders slump. “Okay, great.”

Honeybun’s eyes took on a dreamy look. “You know, I always wanted to see Europe. Back when I was in high school in the Valley, I dreamed of seeing those capitals. I thought maybe you’d get a chance to do the things I never had the chance to do,” she said, her voice softening.

“Really? You weren’t just sending me far, far away?”

Honeybun chewed her lower, plumped up lip. “Shelby—”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I know it hasn’t been easy.”

“For either one of us,” she said with a nod.

“Okay, well, if you find that invitation, save it for me,” I told her. And then we clicked off, neither one of us saying goodbye.

Mrs. Lemmon came back into the room with her knitting bag. “Well? How did it go?”

“It’s never quite what you expect,” I said.

“Now that’s the truth right there,” she replied. “It never is, indeed.”

***

I chewed my gummy worm slowly. It was a red one, my favorite, but actually any flavor tastes good when you haven’t had a gummy in months. I checked my watch again—ten minutes to eleven. I dressed quickly, retrieving the snow clothes and boots I’d left in the bathroom’s linen closet after dinner. It seemed quieter and quicker to dress in the girls’ loo then in our room, especially since Marie-Rose had been my shadow again, all night. I zipped up my jacket, fully prepared to head out into the snow, and crept down the back staircase to the kitchen, where the exit closest to the path to the old carriage house was located.

As I was about to open the kitchen’s back door, I heard the staccato sound of heels on wooden floors. I slid into the pantry to wait until the noise passed. Peeking out, I saw the reflection of candlelight flickering on the glass windows above the sink, and I heard a cough. I ducked back inside my hiding place as the back door opened and whoever it was went out onto the porch. A second later, I smelled tobacco burning. Someone was outside for a forbidden late night smoke, blocking my exit in the process.

Since I was in the pantry already, I grabbed a couple of gingersnaps and put them in my coat pocket. Then, I got down low and made my way out into the kitchen. I snuck a glance out the window. Miss Kovac was smoking and whispering in a foreign language into her cell phone

I was about to make my move out of the kitchen when she suddenly clicked the phone shut and stubbed out her cigarette. There was no time to go anywhere, so I climbed underneath one of the metal worktables and held my breath. She closed the back door behind her as she entered the kitchen. Then she stopped, candlestick holder in her hand, and sniffed the air. As she circled the table I was under, I was sure she could hear my heart beating. I willed myself to be still, not to move a millimeter in my noisy snow pants.

Miss Kovac raised her nose to the air again and then walked quickly over to the pantry. A second later she emerged with three cookies in her hands and hustled out the kitchen door. So, I wasn’t the only one raiding the cook’s secret stash.

I exhaled with relief as I unfolded myself from under the table. Then, realizing it was after eleven and I was late, I zipped out the back door. I ran as fast as I could while keeping to the shadows of the neglected garden. When I reached the carriage house, I slid along the side wall, searching for the door. It was heavy and creaky, but I got it open and stepped into the inky darkness.

“Austin?” I called.

A flashlight switched on over in the corner. I half expected to see my shadow, Marie-Rose, or some other unwelcome figure step out of the gloom, but it was just your average werewolf hottie. “Good evening,” he said, jumping over a rusted out car with ease.  “I’d about given up.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

Austin set the flashlight on a wooden crate and gave me a half smile, the little dimples at the side of his face creasing. Seeing Austin’s silvery Lycan eyes, I felt a familiar rush of fear, but now it was tempered by the knowledge that my own eyes had that same quality, or at least the beginning of it.

“I missed you.” Austin wrapped me in his arms, and it suddenly didn’t matter that it was freezing in the carriage house or that things were crappy, or that I was going furry. It only mattered that he was here with me. “It’s so hard to be away from you,” he added, making my heart flip in my chest.

I fell deeper into his embrace.  “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Did anyone follow you?” Austin whispered as he stroked my hair.

“I don’t think so.”

He gazed into my eyes, and then he lowered his lips to mine, until we almost touched. He hovered there for a few seconds, in the place where I could feel the heat from his lips, his soft breath. I wanted him to close the distance so badly.

And when he finally kissed me, I forgot about Steinfelder. I forgot about my Lycan woes. I forgot everything. When people say that you can lose yourself in a kiss, they aren’t lying. And for that moment, I was completely, happily lost.

It’s just a shame you can’t stay lost. You can’t stay outside reality forever. No matter how hard you might try.

Chapter Nine

I checked my watch again. Eleven-twenty. Most of the last few minutes we’d spent kissing, which is never a bad thing, but I felt the urgency to return to my room.

“Love, I know we’ve got to get you back,” Austin said, like he was reading my mind. “It was hard enough for me to plant the candy last night. Even without locks, that place is formidable.” He dipped his head to kiss me again.

“Well, there is an armed guard.”

“Very true,” he said, planting another kiss on me. “So, now on to business.”

I covered my tingly mouth and giggled. “This wasn’t business?”

He smiled broadly, his teeth white and sparkling. “If we had time, I’d hold you in my arms all night. You know that.”

My insides warmed again. “Yeah.”

“I have to tell you a few things,” he said. “Number one, there’s someone on the inside. My father’s people set it up. For security reasons they won’t tell me who it is, but someone is definitely watching over you.”

“Watching over me?” I suddenly thought of Marie-Rose—had I misjudged her?

Austin nodded. “And about this place—”

“They invited me special,” I said, and then I filled him in on what I’d learned from Honeybun that afternoon.

“That makes sense. This Duke Steinfelder—”

“He’s a bad dude,” I said. “I read all about him. That’s what I wanted to tell you. That’s why I risked sending you the e-mail.”

Austin nodded. “I’ve been looking into it too, and so has my dad. He’s long suspected that descendants of Steinfelder’s group, The Seven Horsemen, might try to take root here, where their hatred began.”

“But why do they hate werewolves?”

His eyes darkened. “To them we’re aberrations. Mutants. They hate anything different, especially what they don’t understand.”

“So that’s what you meant about the forces that seek to destroy our kind,” I said, repeating what he’d told me the other day. “The Seven Horsemen.”

“Precisely. And about that,” he said with a deep pause. “About your being our kind…”

“It’s not true? I’m not going to go furry?” I clapped my hands together.

“We don’t know that yet.”

“Well, maybe the serum can stop the change if I take it now. Did you bring some with you? I mean, I’m having some symptoms,” I said, my face heating as I told him all about the midnight meat run.

Austin’s eyes were downcast as he said, “Love, I have some bad news.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Our chemist says you can’t take the serum until you’ve had the change completely one time. You can’t do it until it’s confirmed you’re Lycan. There are tests we can run back at the castle, but it’s too risky to let you take any serum now. If we’re wrong and you’re not—”

“I just told you I was eating raw steaks in my sleep!”

Austin reached out his hands, grasping on to my shoulders. “You’ll die if we’re wrong. The serum will kill you.”

“Oh.” I blinked at him in the near dark. “Well, that sucks.”

“Yes. I can’t let that happen. I’m not going to risk losing you.”

“So what do we do now?” I said.

“We wait until we see an opening, and then we spring you from this place.”

“Wait? You just expect me to hang around school like everything’s hunky-dory and then turn into a wolf and maybe attack people?”

Austin looked like I’d punched him in the face. “Is that what you still think of me—of us? That we attack?”

“No, I mean, well, I don’t know. How do we know what my wolf will do?” I reached out for him but he’d taken a step back. My heart constricted in my chest. The last thing I wanted to do was to put Austin down, but I really was concerned about the attack factor. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

Austin’s jaw was set in a firm line. “I’m aware of all the messages you’ve heard about wolves, about werewolves, but they’re not true. I thought I convinced you last summer. I thought you understood. We’re a very evolved species.”

I felt tears welling in the corners of my eyes. “I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. I’m just trying to understand what I’m about to become. I’m scared.”

“I’ve never known you to be scared of anything,” Austin said, his voice a low whisper. “You’re one of the bravest people I know. Come here.” He looped his arms around me again and pulled me to his chest. “I never meant for any of this to happen. You have to know I wouldn’t wish becoming what I am on my worst enemy. You know how much I hate this. I’ve always loathed what I am.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said, still feeling like crying. “You didn’t mean to do it. Your wolf part didn’t, I mean.”

I let him hug me, and I pressed my lips against his neck, feeling the rush of his blood, hearing his heartbeat.

“Shelby,” Austin said, in a low voice. “I may not have meant to do it, but it happened. And when you turn for the first time our bond will grow even stronger. Do you understand what I’m telling you? You’re my… mate. We will be together forever.”

“Really?” Tears rushed to my eyes. “But, wait—you said you didn’t mean to do it—”

“I’m not saying that I wouldn’t have done it later, if you’d asked me,” he said. “I just didn’t see how you ever could want something so terrible. And now, you have no choice, love.”

“Together forever,” I repeated. Because of the bite, I was going to belong to Austin, whether I wanted to or not. But the truth was, I did want to belong. I wanted us to be family for each other, the family I would no longer have once this all came out. Beverly Hills and Lycanthropes just didn’t go together. And now that Dad would have a new kid, there was even less of a chance he would want a wolf girl like me around, anyway.

Austin looked me in the eyes again. “I know this is hard,” he said. “All I ask is that you stay strong. I promise it won’t be much longer until you’re out of here for good.”

“But what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Sit here and wait for you to rescue me? Couldn’t we both jump the fence tonight?”

Austin sighed. “Well, first of all, there’s the matter of your parents—you can’t simply run away and cause an international incident. There’d be a massive Shelby hunt, which would only make things worse. Secondly, we need to figure out a way no one will know you’re with us.”

“Right,” I said bitterly, “we can’t have the trail lead to you. We just let old Shelby rot here until she goes furry. And save the Bridges dynasty.”

Austin’s eyes flashed a warning. “Don’t take this lightly, Shelby. Taking out either one of us here at Steinfelder would be easy compared to snapping you up in the middle of Beverly Hills or picking one of my family off in the London streets. I never thought I’d be thankful for the paparazzi, but without them, we are much easier targets.”

“Targets? We’re actually targets?”

He nodded grimly. “You remember the so-called hunting accident my mother had when I was a boy? A few weeks after it happened, my father got a postcard in the mail, a plain white card with a medieval shield of arms on one side—the insignia of the Seven Horsemen. They had something to do with Mum’s death. Dad could never prove it, but he’s always been sure.”

A chill rippled through me. “So they could be watching us right now, waiting for a moment to kill you. What are you even doing here?” I hit him on the shoulder.

“I’m bloody well here for you,” Austin said, rubbing where I smacked him.

“Well, you won’t be if you get shot!”

He reached up to touch my cheek. “Don’t worry about me. I’m a fast runner.”

“So am I. I’m going with you tonight.”

“No. You’ll stay. I’ll find a way to get you out. Summon your patience.”

“If you haven’t noticed, I’m not very patient.”

“Please try to be this once,” he said, slowly moving his lips toward mine.

In his kiss, I sensed his real fear for me. When he pulled away, I wrapped my arms around him, not wanting him to go.  He untangled himself from me and planted a kiss on my forehead before turning away. As he closed the door of the carriage house, he glanced back at me one last time, eyes glittering.

He didn’t say I love you, but I felt it in that look just the same. I was his and he was going to protect me. It was going to be hard to be patient with all the worry swirling around in my heart and head. I just wanted us to be together, away from this awful place.

I waited until Austin’s footsteps faded, and then I pushed open the carriage house door. His boot tracks led toward the front of the school, but snow was falling again and would cover them before long. I retraced my steps to the kitchen. Once I had my snow clothes off and stowed in the girls’ bathroom again, I tiptoed down the hallway to my room. As I got under the covers, Marie-Rose moaned in her sleep but didn’t wake up.

I shut my eyes and tried not to think about all that had happened. About all the danger we were in, about how this school, this whole thing, had been a big setup. I focused on Austin, on the fact that we’d be together soon.

And my eyelids were softly closing when I heard the first gunshot.

***

In nightgowns and pajamas, every girl at Steinfelder crowded into the living room and tried to peer out into the darkness. Several of the girls came from families with private security forces and knew all too well the sound of high-powered rifles. There had definitely been shots fired.

As gossip buzzed around the room, I sat away from the group, in an armchair, shivering under a blanket. I couldn’t get warm. I was too worried about Austin. The shots had to have been directed at him. I tucked the blanket tighter around my legs, willing my shaking to stop. I just knew that he was out there in the frigid night, bleeding or worse. And I was probably the next target.

Madame LaCroix, wearing a bathrobe that looked like a Chinese tapestry, set down the walkie-talkie in her hands and clapped to get our attention. “All right, girls. Back to bed! I’ve had a report from Hans at the guardhouse that all is well. You are all safe. I repeat, you are all safe. Now, let’s go.” She made a shooing motion, as if that would wrench the girls from their posts near the windows.

“But what happened?” asked Patricia, frowning at her. “I mean, aren’t you going to tell us what the shots were about?”

“Hans saw an intruder,” Madame said. “Whoever it was is long gone.”

“And did he hit the intruder?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“There was blood at the scene,” Madame said with a curt nod. “The local police will be out here to investigate tomorrow morning. We will learn more in the daylight and relay to you students the need-to-know facts. The important thing is that you are all safe and sound. No need to request calls home. No need to write worried letters. Everything is fine.”

But I knew it wasn’t. All I could think about was Austin. I got up from the chair, the blanket still wrapped around me. Our tired-looking teachers prodded us up the stairs. I paused at my doorway, but Mrs. Lemmon put a hand on my shoulder and guided me inside.  She gave me a last look before she turned out the light and closed the door.

The barest hint of moonlight filtered through the window. I glanced up at what was left of that big full moon that had led me to Austin a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t stem my tears any longer.

Marie-Rose perched on the edge of her bed, looking for a moment like she wanted to say something. Maybe she wanted to tell me the truth about what was going on with her. Or maybe she wanted to ask me why I was I was crying. But after a moment of sitting there, she got under her covers and turned out the light.

She had the decency to let me begin my night of worried, dreamless sleep.

Chapter Ten

I woke up with a feeling of dread in my bones, deeper than anything I’d ever felt before. I was filled with the fear that I would never see Austin again.

I hadn’t slept but a few moments the whole night. And my dreams of running after prey and singing to Mother Moon were replaced with dark, tumbling nightmares wherein I was trapped in a wolf’s body with no knowledge, no home, no guidance. Those nightmares led to paralyzing realizations as the morning dawned.

I was going to be a werewolf orphan. I was going to change alone.  And then what would I do? I had no access to serum. I didn’t even know where, exactly, Austin’s family castle was. Would I just show up in Muldania in the hopes that they would help me?

I went down to breakfast, moving as slow and fecklessly as a zombie. Seated in front of my bowl of cereal, I ignored the gossip flowing through the room and buzzing around our table. It felt like my life was over. Really over.

Around eight o’clock, when most of us were hanging out in the living room again, Madame LaCroix swept in with Hans and a handsome, blond man in uniform.

“Girls, we have a report on the incident,” she announced, and then she turned to the policeman, smiling. “Herr Eppler will give us an overview, so that if any of you, or your parents, have questions, you will know what to say.”

Of course Madame LaCroix’s main concern was for Steinfelder’s cash flow. One whiff of a shooting at the academy and all of us would be gone, along with our parents’ money.

Herr Eppler cleared his throat. “There is no imminent danger. Security detected an intruder and fired his weapon to deter the perpetrator.”

“I sent off several warning shots,” interjected Hans.

The policeman gave Hans a pointed look. “On investigation, we found a blood trail. The perpetrator was hit at least once.”

Blood trail. The words echoed in my mind. Was Austin out there hurt, hiding in the woods? Had the shock of the bullet forced him to change into his wolf self? Was he even alive? Panic rose in me like a terrible wave. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine he was out there, recovering from a mere graze, but the truth was that he could be dead. And my fears of losing him, of losing us would be coming true.

Next to me, Patricia raised her hand. “Who was it? This perpetrator?”

“I saw a dark figure,” Hans said. “A man, I am pretty sure, moving fast near the fence.”

I couldn’t help but ask, “Was he armed?”

Hans glowered at me. “There are clearly posted signs for several kilometers around the perimeter of Steinfelder, warning intruders they will be shot. This has always been a deterrent, up until now.”

“You shot an unarmed subject?” Patricia gave him a funny look. “I don’t see how that is ethical.”

Madame LaCroix tut-tutted. “This is private property. Trespassing is not taken lightly here.”

“We Swiss have well-armed citizens. Our right to defend ourselves is an important part of maintaining our neutrality,” said Herr Eppler.

“If we’ve exhausted all the questions, I think we should return to our normal activities,” Madame LaCroix said.

“Just stay away from the fence,” I muttered.

Hans gave me a sideways smile. “Exactly.”

“Gentlemen, thank you. Teachers, let’s have a brief meeting in the staff dining room,” Madame said, before stalking off.

The gathering dissolved, some girls retreating to the library, others going to hang outside for awhile. I curled into one of the armchairs near the living room fire, pondering my options. There were three choices as far as I could see. I could go out into the woods to search for Austin and possibly get shot by the overzealous and now probably paranoid Hans. I could rally some help from the outside—Muldania. Or I could run away from Steinfelder altogether. Maybe I would do all three.

For my second and third options, I needed to get to a laptop or a cell phone and my passport. All of those things were in Madame LaCroix’s office, and she and the teachers would be wrapped up in a meeting for the next few minutes. I glanced over to Marie-Rose, who was helping Patricia with a crossword puzzle. I didn’t know if she was watching over me for Austin or the bad guys, but I didn’t need a shadow now, not when it really counted.

I got up with my water glass, pretending to walk to the kitchen, but took a turn down the administrator’s hallway. As I passed the display case of Duke Steinfelder’s collection, I shuddered with the knowledge that the silver dagger must have been used to kill werewolves.

When I reached Madame’s office, the door was open. I ditched my water glass and went straight to the desk. It was tempting to try the laptop first, but I figured finding my passport would be pretty easy. One of her desk drawers was locked. I tried to picture her key ring in my mind. I didn’t remember there being a small key like the one this drawer called for, so it had to be hidden nearby. Madame definitely underestimated her students’ bravery. She’d assume no one would be dumb enough to break into her office and rummage in her desk.

I pulled open the unlocked drawers and felt for keys taped beneath them. Nothing. And then my eyes lit on the candy jar on the desk. I found a tiny key there, taped to the bottom of the lid. When I opened the locked drawer, I found the typical contraband: chocolate bars, some cigarettes, and a couple of cell phones. I pocketed one that looked like it could be mine and relocked the drawer.

“Where are you, passport?” I murmured, moving out from behind the desk.

Against the far wall, beneath another portrait of the duke, stood a file cabinet. That might make more sense for official documents. The drawers were locked, of course. I tried a few more hiding places for a key, but came up empty. Then I spied Madame’s very sharp mother of pearl letter opener. I’d learned many things at Red Canyon from the kids on the brat camp circuit, but picking a simple lock was by far the most useful. The important thing was to try to damage the lock as little as possible so that no one knew you’d worked it over.

By the time I jimmied it open, the lock’s keyhole was a little bent around the edges, but still worked fine. I rifled through the drawer. There were thick files of notes on all the students, and I was really tempted to pull mine, but there wasn’t time. At the back of the manila files, I found a shoebox filled with passports. I slid mine into my pocket and relocked the file cabinet drawer just in time to hear someone coming down the hallway. I’d never been more thankful for my improved senses.

“What are you doing skulking around here?” Mrs. Lemmon said, meeting me near the glass cases in front of the office. Her tone wasn’t unkind, but there was an edge to it.

“Oh, me?” I glanced up into her wrinkled face, willing her not to ask any more questions. “Just bored,” I said.

Mrs. Lemmon cocked her head and gave me an appraising look. “This is a section of the building where you could get into real trouble. I should report you to Madame LaCroix right now.” She walked over to Madame’s office and pulled the door shut with a click.

“But you won’t, right?” I asked softly.

“Locke!” Miss Kovac stalked up to us, her eyes narrowed. “Is there a problem?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Lemmon said. “I caught Locke lollygagging around the glass cases.”

My mouth dropped open at the lie. Mrs. Lemmon was covering for me.

“The dagger!” Miss Kovac whirled around to check it was still there, which, of course, it was.

“I didn’t touch it. Really,” I said.

Mrs. Lemmon pointed at me. “Off with you now, before you get into mischief,” she said. “You don’t want to miss the shopping trip to town today.”

Behind her, Miss Kovac gave me a tight smile.

I rolled my eyes, as any annoyed kid would do, and walked way.

“If ever someone deserved that dagger,” I heard Kovac mutter.

“Now, now,” Mrs. Lemmon replied. “None of that talk in front of the students.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood up, but I didn’t turn around. I didn’t even pause. The last thing I wanted either of them to know was that I’d heard anything at that distance. No matter how awful it was.

When I got around the corner, I pulled the stolen phone out of my pocket and hit the power button. I need to try to call someone, anyone, for help. My first thought was my friend Ariel, whose family knew Austin’s. Even if she didn’t know the family’s dark secret, maybe she’d have their number in Muldania.

I glanced down at the screen of the phone again, waiting for the power to kick in, but nothing happened. My heart sank as I realized the thing was completely out of power. And the charger was probably at the bottom of Madame LaCroix’s drawer.

***

A few hours later on our shopping trip into the town of Steinfelderburg, I stared up at the Departures sign in the tiny train station, looking for any name that could be Muldania written in German. I needed to get far enough away from school so I could figure out my next move. And with any luck, I’d be able to find a cheap phone charger in town before I left.

I felt the small bundle of bills in my pocket again. We’d each been given the money sent by our parents for Christmas shopping. My dad had only sent a hundred Euros. It wasn’t nearly enough to buy presents and pay to ship them back to the states, but a hundred Euros might save my life, and maybe Austin’s.

I walked up to the ticket window. “Hi, do you speak English?”

“Of course,” the man said, reluctantly turning down the page of the paperback in front of him. When he shut the book, I saw it was an American romance novel.

“So, uh, I need to buy a ticket to Muldania,” I said.

He squinted at me. “What did you say?”

“Muldania—it’s by Yugoslavia.”

“Yes, I know where it is, Miss.” He turned to a keyboard and typed away. “There is one train. It leaves tonight. The price is two-hundred-and-five Euros.”

“Oh. So, what other trains leave today?” I said in as casual a tone I could muster. “I have, like, a hundred Euros,” I admitted.

He wrinkled his nose. “Do I understand that now you don’t want to go to Muldania?”

“Yes. I mean, where can I go for one hundred Euros?”

“One hundred?” he said, scratching at his stubbly chin. “There is a train to Salzburg, Austria. It departs in one hour. Eighty-five Euros one way.”

I glanced at the map behind his head. Austria was, at least, in the right direction. “That’s good. I’ll take it.”

“So to confirm, you want to go to Austria, not Muldania?” He raised his eyebrows at me. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah. My, uh, grandma has a house in Salzburg,” I fibbed. “She wants me to come there for the holidays. She’s pretty lonely and I don’t get to see her often.” I shoved the money through the little slot and gave him a smile.

He shrugged like he didn’t really care, printed out my ticket and then went back to reading his book. I sighed with relief. In a little while, I’d be on my way out of town.

The train station’s gift shop looked out toward the town’s main shopping drag. There were a few students milling about outside the beautifully decorated window, but I kept out of sight. Unfortunately, their technology section was pretty crappy. Not a charger in sight. When I got to Austria, it’d be morning in America. I’d find a pay phone and try to phone my friend Ariel, whose family knew Austin’s dad. Maybe she’d be able to help me get in touch with him. It was worth a try, anyway.

Near the door, I paused in front of a Christmas display, thinking about my dad and what kind of present I would have sent him if I hadn’t been forced to spend my gift money on a train ticket. I picked up a snow globe that featured Santa Claus and a sack of gifts and shook it, watching the sparkly flakes swirl around and land at his booted feet. My heart constricted in my chest. I wasn’t going to see Dad for the holidays, and when he found out I had run away from school, who knew what he’d think of me, or where we’d stand. Then again, how was he going to feel when I told him I was a werewolf?

I sucked in a deep breath and stepped out onto the street.

Marie-Rose stood near the door, eating something from a paper bag. “You didn’t buy the snow globe? It was really pretty.”

“Nah.” I shrugged.

“I bought some cookies for us. I feel badly about the last few days. I want us to be friends.” She held out the bag, and I got a whiff of gingersnaps.

“Hey, those smell just like the ones at school,” I said.

“They should. They’re from Frau Blumen’s bakery.” She pointed with the cookie bag toward a shop down the street.

I glanced at the storefront and the Blumen Bakery sign and saw something that made my blood freeze in my veins—the raised steed insignia of The Seven Horsemen. Forcing myself not to panic, I reasoned that maybe it was something the whole town displayed. But when I glanced from shop sign to shop sign, only hers showed the coat of arms. The Seven Horsemen were alive and well in Steinfelderburg, and Frau Blumen wasn’t afraid to let everyone know she belonged to the group.

“Wait a sec—that’s how you got the cookies the first time,” I said, taking a step back from Marie-Rose. “Omigod! Frau Blumen’s the one that hired you to watch me.”

Marie-Rose cheeks turned pink. “Why would you think that it was her?”

“Just tell me the truth. I won’t tell anyone that I know, okay?” I said. “If you’ve ever really been my friend, you have to tell me.”

“You’re right.” Her eyes were downcast. “It was her—and Kovac.”

“The sketchbook,” I murmured. Kovac probably faked Austin’s sketchbook. It had been her drawing skills that had seemed so familiar on the art room wall that day, and she was certainly obsessed with the duke’s silver dagger. As far as the note, Frau Blumen, with her access to the kitchen, could have written it and taped it to the tray. They’d done things to make me long for Austin, to draw him out into the open at the school. He’d been right about everything, and it had cost him his life.

“I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. They just wanted me to make sure I knew where you were all the time. Let them know if you were trying to sneak out or cause any trouble. Tell them if I saw any sign of your Austin hanging around.”

“But why would you do that?”

“I needed the money in case Maman goes through with her threats to cut me off, Shelby. And I was watching over you like a good friend would, anyway. It’s no big deal, right?” Judging by the concerned look on her face, I figured she had no way of knowing she’d helped the ones who’d probably killed Austin, who were going to try to kill his family, and maybe me.

“Well, actually,” I began, considering how much to tell Marie-Rose, when an arm suddenly looped through mine.

“I need to show you something in the yarn store, Locke. The perfect color for your baby sister or brother,” Mrs. Lemmon said as she yanked me down the street.

“Uh, can it wait a minute? I was talking to Marie-Rose.”

“Nonsense, that conversation can wait.”

“You don’t understand. I really, really need to talk to her.” I tried to pull free, but Mrs. Lemmon gripped me tightly.

“Come on now.”

Together, we barged through the yarn store’s door. The scene inside overwhelmed me. The colors all seemed to swirl together, and I felt a little faint.

“Now, do you know the sex yet?” Mrs. Lemmon said, dragging me to the wall of neat shelves and baskets.

“No, I—”

“Well, not to worry. You can do just about any color. In fact, I bet they have some special shades in the back.”

I looked at her, trying to read what I felt in her tone. Then, I glanced out the yarn shop’s front window and saw Marie-Rose suddenly swarmed by Miss Kovac and a woman in a baker’s apron who had to be Frau Blumen. Marie-Rose really was working for the bad guys!

I couldn’t breathe. I glanced around the shop, feeling trapped. They were going to find me and kill me, just like they had Austin. I was dead almost-wolf meat.

“Shelby, in the back. Are you listening to me?” Mrs. Lemmon’s hands were on my shoulders, turning me around physically.

And then I saw what she was trying to show me.  The open door.

Chapter Eleven

“Go now, there isn’t time!” Mrs. Lemmon pulled a plastic sack from her knitting bag and thrust it at me. I looked at her, trying to understand what was happening. “Damn it, girl, run!”

My feet obeyed. I zipped out the back of the yarn shop, realizing that it was just down the block from the train station. I could hide a while, and then pop onto the train. Mrs. Lemmon, whatever her motive was, would stall Miss Kovac, and then I’d get on the train to Austria. The old bag had just saved my life!

Tears started to roll down my face as I jogged down the brick alley, dodging a fat cat sleeping on a broken chair and a recycling bin. I could see the side door to the train station at the end of the alley—I was almost there. But just as I was about to cross the lane, a black car pulled up, nearly smacking into me.

I jumped back and looked down the alley for another escape as a mustachioed man in dark glasses stepped out of the car. “Shelby?” he said.

I didn’t answer. All I knew was this guy and his sedan were in the way of my freedom. I was about to go all TV cop and roll across the hood of the car, but he reached out and snared my wrist.

“Shelby Locke?” he said again, a heavy accent lacing his pronunciation.

“Let me go!” I struggled to get free, but his grip was tight and unyielding.

“In the car,” he said.

“I’m not going anywhere with you!”

With his free hand he reached out for the door handle. “Inside,” he commanded, throwing me into the back seat.

It was dark in the car, way too dark. The tinting on the windows was probably illegal.  Then again, kidnappers probably don’t worry about those little details. I slid across the leather seat, intending to get out on the other side, but quicker than I could have imagined, we were pulling away. The auto locks engaged with a sharp click, but I pulled on the door handle anyway, out of desperation. I was trapped again.

“I am sorry to be so strong with you,” he said.

“You’re going to be sorry,” I said, reaching forward to swipe at him just as a clear glass partition rose in front of my face. “You have no idea who you are dealing with!”

He laughed then, a strange but familiar laugh. Even through the glass, I could hear him dial a phone and then start speaking in a foreign language. He was calling whomever he was working for. Great. I really was dead meat.

“What is going on?” I yelled when he clicked the phone shut. “Are you part of the Seven Horsemen? Are you going to kill me? Where are you taking me? Can you just let me know? Because I’m getting sick of this crap. I have people sneaking around, spying on me, probably killing my boyfriend. This is not okay!”

“Promise you will not try to strike me again,” the driver said via an intercom.

“Yes, fine. I won’t try to hit you.” My fingers were crossed, but he didn’t need to know that.

He lowered the partition, and I could see out the front windshield that we were leaving the town and heading toward a mountain highway. “I am a friend,” he said, turning his head slightly, so his bushy mustache stood out a little.

“A friend?”

“The bag,” he said. “Look inside.”

I had almost forgotten about the plastic bag Lemmon had shoved into my hands in the yarn store. I reached inside it and pulled out a change of clothes, my make-up bag, my toothbrush, and a pack of gummy worms. Mrs. Lemmon had packed stuff for my getaway! She had known the shopping trip would play out like this, that this black car would show up in the alley.  She must have arranged it all.

“You’re working for Mrs. Lemmon?”

“Sì, Harriet.” The driver winked at me. “Mi amore.”

“Wait… you’re Massimo? Lemmon’s Internet boyfriend?”

“Sì,signorina.” His eyes flashed with a silvery glow.

“Holy crap. You’re a werewolf?”

“No, no,” he said with a dismissive wave. “I prefer blood. Sono un vampiro.”

“A vampire?” Mrs. Lemmon’s boyfriend was an Italian vampire? I felt no fear, only relief. He drank blood, but he wasn’t a bad guy. At least, I didn’t think so.

“The Bridges are my friends.” Massimo lowered his glasses and focused on driving as we gained speed up the mountain highway.

“But wait! We can’t leave town,” I said. “We have to go to the woods and find Austin.”

“No need,” he said. “It is too late.”

“Too late?” My heart crushed in my chest.

Massimo nodded and we barreled around a big curve in the road. The tires slid a little on the icy pavement. Ahead, I could see signs for an airfield.

“Wait a second. I can’t leave like this. Not with—”

“Harriet will make the excuses for the school and your family,” Massimo said.

“No, we have to go back. You don’t understand!”

“Tutti va bene, signorina,” Massimo said as he drove the car through a guarded gate and onto the tarmac, where a small jet was powering up. The car skidded to a halt and Massimo popped out of the car. The back doors unlocked and I stepped out onto the airstrip.

Massimo, keeping his sunglasses on, reached for my hand. “Come. The plane must depart.”

I stared at him for a moment, waiting for him to burst into flames in the sunlight, but maybe that only happens in the movies. The old vampire guy led me toward the jet, and all I could think about was that I was leaving Austin behind. That he was out in the woods, bleeding to death or already dead and I was abandoning him.

“I can’t,” I said, balking at the door of the plane.

“You must,” Massimo said as he kissed me on both cheeks.

Tears were streaming down my face. “No.”

“Non ti preoccupare,” Massimo said. “Don’t worry.”

Maybe that meant that he was going back for Austin, or maybe that meant that it wouldn’t matter anyway. He pushed me forward, toward the steps of the plane.

“Wait. Can you thank Mrs. Lemmon for me?” I said.

“Certo.” He nodded. “Arrivederci, Shelby.”

“And there she is!” a loud British voice boomed as I entered the plane. A tall guy with long, salt and pepper hair and a scruffy beard grabbed my hand and jerked me into a chair. The chains on his leather jacket jingled. “Took old Massimo long enough to collect you. He’s slow for the bloodsucker variety,” he said. “Best buckle your seatbelt, love.”

I glanced around the interior of the plane. It was finished in wood and the seats were made of butter yellow leather. I blinked at the scruffy guy. “I’m sorry, what’s going on?”

“Fuzz Bridges,” he said, strapping himself into the seat across from mine. “I’m sorry our introduction is such a crude one.” He extended his hand.

I shook it, trying to understand. “You’re…”

“Austin’s dad,” he said.

“Oh, thank goodness! Fuzz, we’ve got to go find Austin! He’s out there in the woods probably—”

“Oi, I’m back here!” came a voice from the rear of the plane.

“Surprise.” Fuzz grinned, his teeth white and sparkling. “You’ve got a quick minute and then we’ve got to take off. The Horsemen will be on our tail soon.”

I ran to the back section of the plane, where I found Austin sprawled on a couch. My heart swelled in my chest. “I thought you were—”

“I know,” Austin said, his voice weak.

I sat down on a corner of the couch and studied him. His face was pale, and he had a gash above his right eye. I lowered my lips to his and kissed him lightly.

“I told you not to worry. That I’d figure out a plan,” he said.

“You were shot by a stupid boarding school guard. That wasn’t part of the plan.”

He laughed, which made him wince. “No, it wasn’t.”

Gingerly, I peeled back the blanket covering him and saw bandages on his chest and shoulder.

“I assure you, it’s not as bad as it looks,” he joked, wincing again.

I pulled the blanket back up over him. “I’m so glad you’re okay. I was trying to figure out how to save you and how to get myself out of there. Luckily, Mrs. Lemmon ended up helping me escape.”

Austin nodded.  “I told you there was someone on the inside. When Dad first heard about your being sent to Steinfelder, he contacted his European publicist, Massimo, who convinced his girlfriend Lemmon to take the job there. They thought we’d blow her cover if we knew it was her watching over you. Lemmon contacted Massimo last night after the shooting, and he rang Dad. They flew here immediately and found me in the woods.”

“Thank goodness for private planes,” I said, glancing around.

Fuzz’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “That’s enough now, lovebirds. Take your seats, please.”

I went to get up, but Austin caught my hand. “I’m going to be fine,” he said. “Now we have to worry about you.”

“So… I’m really going to turn?”

“Looks like it,” he said. “But at least you’ll be in Muldania, with us. With me.”

I kissed Austin again, but my heart wasn’t the least bit light. The change was ahead of me, but more than that, The Seven Horsemen were working to drive the werewolves out of existence. I didn’t understand what they hated about Lycanthropes, especially Austin’s family, who were good people, who didn’t kill randomly, who actually contributed to the world. But now that I was becoming one of them, I was a target, too.

I strapped myself into the seat at the front of the plane near Fuzz. After a quick takeoff, we started chatting. I tried to laugh at his jokes. I told myself to be happy I was finally meeting Austin’s family and he and I were both safe. But the worries in my mind weren’t fading.

“You’re going to love Muldania,” Fuzz said, handing me an icy can of soda. “It’s beautiful, even in the winter. And the hunting, well, it’s superb.”

My eyes must have given me away, because then he said, “Don’t worry, sweetheart. It’s not so bad being our kind. And you’ve certainly brought a smile to my son’s face.”

“Yeah?”

In Fuzz’s scruffy face I saw kindness and warmth. “Indeed. I think it was love at first bite,” he said with a hearty laugh.

“Ugh, that’s the kind of joke my grandma makes.”

Fuzz looked taken aback. “Now you’ve hurt my feelings,” he said, clutching his chest.

“Oh, geez. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Father, leave her be!” Austin yelled from the back of the plane.

His father laughed again, throwing his head back. “Sorry, only having a bit of fun. I like a giggle now and then.”

“Yeah, my dad’s a joker too. A quiet one, though,” I said.

Fuzz’s smile faded. “Don’t you worry. We’ll figure that out, too.” He patted my hand. “Maybe we’ll have him and the whole family out to the castle, even.”

“Oh, well, maybe not,” I said, and then I filled him in on Honeybun and Dad.

And after that, I kept going. I told him how I worried about the changes coming with the arrival of my little sibling. And how I couldn’t imagine my dad accepting me when he found out all the werewolf stuff. And how I’d never really felt like I belonged there in Beverly Hills with them to begin with.  I told Fuzz stuff I hadn’t said to anyone.

“Shelby,” he said after I finished, “this gift of ours may seem an unusual one, but it brings with it freedom like you’ve never known.” He paused for a moment, glancing out the window, and then turned back to me. “When you’re one of our kind, my dear, you’re free to be who you’re meant to be, under the moon or not. You must hide the wolf at times, but you need never hide the real you or how you feel. Not among our kind, anyway.  We live freely in the truth of ourselves.”

As we flew on toward Muldania, I leaned my head against the window, imagining what my new life would be like. I pictured the stone castle, a safe haven for the pack. I thought about my growing bond with Austin. I envisioned myself in my wolf’s body. And for the first time, I felt a surge of excitement.

Moonlight may have the power to reveal things that are best left unseen, but perhaps some of those things deserve to be brought into the light. And maybe hiding the truth of who you are or how you feel isn’t really living. Suddenly, becoming a werewolf didn’t seem like such a bad thing. Not if it offered the freedom Fuzz spoke about.

I decided right then I would welcome the moonlight.

I would embrace it, danger and all…

# # # #

About the Author

Heather Davis is the award-winning author of the novels Never Cry Werewolf, The Clearing, and Wherever You Go. She lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest. You can find out more about her work, including future books in the Never Cry Werewolf series, at www.heatherdavisbooks.com

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

About the Author