"Ah, hell," I murmured, already moving toward Stevie Rae. I had a bad feeling about what was going on. A really, really bad feeling.

Stark didn't try to stop me. He just said, "Stay close to me and out of that damn bird's reach."

"Why are you protecting this creature, Stevie Rae? Are you in league with it?" Neferet was standing beside Dragon, who had gotten back on his feet and was literally trembling with the effort it took not to rush against Stevie Rae again. Neferet sounded baffled, but her eyes flashed fiercely, like she was a cat and Stevie Rae was her trapped mouse.

Stevie Rae ignored Neferet. She looked at Dragon and said, "He's not here to hurt anyone. I promise."

"Free me, Red One." The Raven Mocker spoke as I finally reached Dragon and Neferet. He, too, had gotten to his feet, which surprised me because it seemed that the fall should have killed him. Actually, the only evidence I could see of him being hurt at all was a gash in his disturbingly human- looking bicep that was just beginning to weep blood. He was backing slowly away from Stevie Rae, but a weird green bubble had formed around them, and it wouldn't let him get very far from her.

"It's no good, Rephaim. I'm not gonna lie and pretend anymore." Stevie Rae glanced at Neferet and at the crowd of fledglings and professors who had stopped running away and instead were watching her, shock and horror clear on their faces.

Then, setting her jaw and lifting her chin, Stevie Rae looked back at the Raven Mocker. "I'm not that good of an actress. I don't ever want to be that good of an actress."

"Do not do this."

The Raven Mocker's voice shocked me. It wasn't because he sounded human. I'd heard him speak before and knew that, if he wasn't hissing in anger, he could talk like a guy. What shocked me was the tone of his voice. He sounded scared and very, very sad.

"It's already done," Stevie Rae told him.

And that's when I finally found my voice. "What in the hell is going on, Stevie Rae?"

"I'm sorry, Z. I wanted to tell you. I really, really wanted to. I just didn't know how." Stevie Rae's eyes pleaded with me to understand.

"Didn't know how to tell me what?"

Then it hit me--the smell of the Raven Mocker's blood. With a rush of horror, I knew the scent of it. It had been on Stevie Rae before, and I realized what she was talking about, what she'd been trying to tell me.

"You've Imprinted with that creature." I was thinking the words, but Neferet was the one who said them out loud.

"Oh, Goddess, no, Stevie Rae," I said, my lips feeling cold and numb. Disbelieving, I kept shaking my head back and forth like denial could make this whole nightmare go away.

"How?" The words sounded ripped from Dragon.

"It was not her fault," the Raven Mocker said. "I am responsible." "Do not speak to me, monster." Dragon sounded deadly.

The Raven Mocker's red-tinged gaze moved from the Sword Master to me. "Do not blame her, Zoey Redbird."

"Why are you talking to me?" I yelled at it. Still shaking my head I looked at Stevie Rae. "How could you have let this happen?" I asked, and then clamped my mouth shut as I realized how much I suddenly sounded like my mother.

"Holy shit. I knew something freaky was going on with you, Stevie Rae, but I had no clue about a weirdness of this degree," Aphrodite said, coming up beside me.

"I shoulda said somethin'," Kramisha said from several feet away where she was standing beside the Twins and Damien, who were all staring disbelievingly back and forth from Stevie Rae to the Raven Mocker. "I knew them poems 'bout a beast and you and such was bad. I just didn't know they was literal."

"Because of the alliance between these two, Darkness has already tainted the school," Neferet said solemnly. "This creature must be responsible for Jack's death."

"That's a bunch of hogwash!" Stevie Rae said.

"You killed Jack as a sacrifice to Darkness 'cause it gave you control of Kalona's soul. You know it. I know it. And Rephaim knows it. That's why he was up there watching you from a distance. He wanted to be sure you didn't do anything too terrible tonight."

I watched Stevie Rae stand up to Neferet and recognized the strength and the hopelessness I saw in my BFF, because I'd felt both things the times I'd stood up to Neferet, too--especially back when it was just me against her and an entire school full of vamps and fledglings had no clue that she was anything less than perfect.

"He has utterly twisted her," Neferet said, speaking to the regathering crowd. "They should both be destroyed at once." My gut lurched and, with a certainty I felt only when I was being Goddess- led, I knew I had to do something.