Homeroom was indeed tough to get through, but he managed to get the class talking among themselves about The Crucible, which meant he was at least relieved of the burden of having to say one thing while his brain was thinking another. Particularly given what his brain was thinking.

Balthazar knew he was doing a bad job of not looking at Skye; it seemed impossible not to watch her, to see her long dark hair and remember how it had felt against his skin, or to fix his gaze on her lips and remember kissing her. Fortunately the class was too preoccupied in trying to derail the conversation from school topics to notice, he thought.

“My, you’re in a good mood today,” Tonia said to him in the teachers’ lounge. “I’ll let you out of dance duty early again if it makes you this happy each time.”

“You let him?” Nola said, stirring a cupful of creamer into her coffee.

“I left about twenty minutes early, that’s all,” Balthazar insisted. The coffee in the lounge was crap—the coffeemaker purchased by the school board was of no brand he knew, or wanted to know. And yet today the brew seemed to taste great. “Besides, why can’t I just be in a good mood?”

Rick put one finger to his cheek, pretending to consider it. “Because it’s mid-February, and the sky is the color of the stuff that clogs up drains, and we’re in the dead center of a semester that seems like it’s never going to end?”

“And yet I’m feeling fine.” Balthazar shrugged. “Can’t help it.”

“Freak,” Nola said good-naturedly as she headed out into the halls.

“Hey, since when does honors history do The Crucible?” Rick said. “That’s my turf, buddy.”

Balthazar took the joke as it was intended. “You could always do Rent instead.”

Rick sighed. “I wish. When it comes to doing any play that’s even the slightest bit ‘risky,’ this school board has its head up its—well, let’s just say, the same location where I think they got this coffeemaker.”

Balthazar had to laugh, and for the first time he realized he’d miss being here … well, a little bit.

As he headed into study hall at the end of the day, he was already weighing the merits of spending the hour texting Skye with various plans for their evening versus brainstorming a way of living in Darby Glen without having any public presence Black Cross would be able to detect. That would have been easier if he hadn’t spent the past month and change as a schoolteacher; going underground, usually simple enough to do, would be complicated now. But he’d manage somehow, if that was what Skye needed—

“Hey, you.” Rick met him at the entrance to the library, cutting off that train of thought. “I’ll take this shift, okay?”

“What do you want me to chaperone this time?”

“You catch on fast. Actually, though, Zaslow wants to see you.”

Balthazar frowned. “What about?”

“Didn’t say. She’s got on her grumpy face, though, so brace yourself.” Rick waved good-bye before he retreated to the safety of the library.

While Balthazar walked toward the principal’s office, he wondered if leaving the dance early, even with permission from the other chaperones, was definitely against the rules. He wasn’t too worried about it in any case; it was difficult to get too anxious about your boss’s opinion when you were undead.

Nothing about it bothered him much until he walked into Principal Zaslow’s office and saw Skye sitting in one of the chairs, tears in her eyes.

Even before Zaslow said a word, Balthazar thought, Damn it. They found out.

“Mr. More, I’m afraid a student has come forward with some troubling allegations,” Zaslow said. She folded her blue-framed glasses on the desk in front of her. “Miss Tierney, you may go. I’ve already spoken to your parents; they’re on their way home.”

Oh, great, now her parents show up. “Is everything all right?” Balthazar said, keeping his voice steady but looking appropriately concerned.

“Good-bye, Miss Tierney,” Zaslow said, firmly dismissing her. Skye walked out without looking back at Balthazar once—exactly the right way to play it, he thought—and he didn’t stare after her.

Already Balthazar’s mind was racing. He had spent so much time worrying about the supernatural obstacles they were up against that he’d never seriously considered the more literal roadblocks they could face. If Skye’s parents chose this inconvenient time to become present in her life again, remaining near her would be even harder. If people were now watching him around Skye, or if he was fired before he had backup on the scene at school, it would make it that much more difficult to protect her—just as things had become much, much more dangerous.

“Now that we’re alone, Mr. More,” Zaslow said, “let’s cut to the chase. Are you sleeping with Skye Tierney?”

“Of course not,” he lied. He would have to lie. I’m not really a substitute teacher; I’m a vampire was not a great defense.

“Another student reported seeing you together leaving your house in the wee hours of the morning.”

Madison, he thought, remembering that flicker at the window. “That student is mistaken. I admit—I, ah, did have some company this weekend. Female company, I mean. And I must not have been as discreet as I needed to be.” Balthazar tried to look merely sheepish, rather than horrified. “Come to think of it, she’s around the same height, same coloring—I can see how someone might be confused if they saw us together from a distance.”