“Aren’t you curious, miss—forgive me, I don’t know your name.”

“Because I didn’t tell you.”

Redgrave tilted his head with a slight smile, acknowledging her right not to tell him. He looked so human then—so clever, so good-humored, so breathtakingly gorgeous—that Skye realized if she’d met him without Balthazar’s warnings, she would have trusted him immediately. Completely.

He said, “A mystery within a mystery. And I’m being quite literal now. Within you lies a secret waiting to be discovered. If Lorenzo is to be believed, your blood has unique powers. Unique advantages. Don’t you want to know what they are? Balthazar can’t tell you. It’s not in his nature to understand this. It is in mine.” Redgrave leaned closer, so close they might have been about to kiss. “Only I can give you the answers you want. Only I can explain the line between life and death.”

All the myriad deaths she’d witnessed through her visions over the past month flooded back to her, but one beyond the rest welled up in her mind—one she hadn’t witnessed, but one that had haunted her for almost a year now: Dakota.

Skye jerked back, twisting her face away from him. “There’s nothing I need badly enough to get it from you.”

“As you like,” Redgrave said. “But we’ll meet again. One way or another.”

Her legs shaky, she made her way back to the cozy chairs, where Madison was doing a not very good job of pretending to be absorbed only in her texting. “Sooooo,” she singsonged. “Looks like you made a new friend at the poetry board.”

“He’s not a friend. He’s … some old creep.”

“Not too old. Not looking like that.” Madison stared in wonder as Redgrave strode across the room, turning heads as he went. “Is it just raining hot older guys all of a sudden?”

“Forget it.” Skye snatched up her backpack. “Let’s head out. The game’s starting soon anyway.”

Her heart pounded. Her limbs trembled. But Skye kept taking deep breaths and telling herself she ought to have been relieved. Redgrave really wouldn’t attack when she was in a public enough space. That gave her a lot of safety. More than she’d thought she had this morning. So that was good news, right?

But the questions he’d asked kept ringing in her mind. Did he really understand what was going on with her? Could he give her answers? Was there a way to give him what he needed while keeping herself safe and alive?

As they walked out of Café Keats, Skye glanced over at the poetry board. Before leaving, Redgrave had changed his offering, sliding away the remember and the question mark and putting another word in its place.

Now the line read only join me.

“Hey, Big Blue, it’s all up to you, so hey, Big Blue—PULL THROUGH!”

Cheers and clapping echoed through the gymnasium as Skye and Madison clambered up toward some seats with a group of people Madison knew. Though everyone was friendly enough, nobody went out of their way to talk to Skye, which meant she was soon sitting on the edge of the group, talking to nobody. That was fine with her.

She whipped out her phone to send a message, just as it chimed in her hand. The message was from Balthazar: Good, you’re here. I thought I remembered how boring this school spirit stuff is. Actually, I’d blocked it out, like any other kind of pain.

Skye couldn’t enjoy the joke. Redgrave talked to me.

What? When? Are you okay?

Fine. He came up to me in the coffeehouse and said a bunch of weird—can I just tell you this in person? It’s going to take the whole game to type it.

Meet me by the concession stand.

“Be back in a sec,” Skye said. Madison hardly turned as she waved her off.

While making her way back down the bleachers, Skye glanced at the actual game; there, in the heart of the defense action, was Craig. His hands were splayed wide, and his long limbs covered his hapless opponent like a spiderweb. His dark brown skin already gleamed with sweat—even this early in the first quarter, he was playing all out, going for broke, not holding back.

For one moment, her mind wasn’t in the present. It was in the past—last summer by the river, with the August heat beating down on the two of them tangled, Craig’s body against hers, skin gleaming with sweat as they came together for the first and last time—

Skye pushed the memory away. Already it seemed like something that had happened to somebody else. Or should’ve happened to somebody else.

The quickest way to the concession stand involved cutting under the bleachers. Teachers would stop students who tried, if they were seen, but since one of the teachers on b-ball duty was the person she was trying to meet, Skye figured she was safe. She glanced up to make sure she wasn’t about to hit her head on one of the crossbars, then froze.

He stands on the framework, whole body shaking with fear. He doesn’t want to do this but he doesn’t see any other way out. Maybe this will make it better. Maybe it’s the only thing that can.

Don’t do it, Skye wanted to shout, but she knew it would do no good. He’d gone through with it a long time ago. Her knowledge did nothing to diminish the overwhelming sadness and fear swelling inside her, pushing out her own feelings until she was nothing but a container for this boy’s pain.

The noose is just some strips from his sheets, ripped off and braided together. He ties the knot, makes sure it’s tight, and slips his head in. Their remembered taunts are louder now than his own heartbeat.