“Your mother means that we knew we needed to be here.” Mr. Tierney was the one his daughter took after, with the same dark hair and pale eyes. “We need to talk to you about this business with the teacher.”

Said teacher, still sitting on the sofa, now felt acutely embarrassed. Before Balthazar could begin making any kind of explanations or excuses, though, Mrs. Tierney gave them all a big smile. “Well, hello, Craig! Good to see you again. And you’ve got all your friends over, honey.”

“They’re trying to make me feel better,” Skye said, “because all that stuff about the teacher is just Madison Findley’s gossip. Ask Principal Zaslow yourself tomorrow.”

Craig grinned, at ease with people he must have known well for years. “Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Tierney. I see you guys still keep hot chocolate on hand for the needy.”

“We try,” Mr. Tierney said. Their jokes seemed a little hollow to Balthazar—as if her parents were trying hard to come across as happy and easygoing, but couldn’t quite pull it off. Still, he would try to cut them some slack, now that he saw how comforted Skye was to finally have them near. “Why don’t you introduce us to everyone else?”

Skye said, “Well, this is Balthazar. He’s … in history with me.” Balthazar hoped he looked much younger with his glasses off. “And that’s Craig’s new girlfriend, Britnee, and—and that’s—um—that’s Charity.”

Charity looked cornered; she knew she needed to come across as a perfectly normal teenager, but clearly had no idea how to pull it off. She was casting around for something to say; God alone knew what she would come up with. Before Balthazar could start talking and cover the awkward moment, Charity blurted out, “I love Justin Bieber.”

“Oh, I remember that feeling!” Mrs. Tierney chuckled as she patted Charity fondly on the arm; Balthazar could see his sister resisting the urge to bite. “For me it was Shaun Cassidy. I used to sleep with his LP under my pillow.”

Mr. Tierney said, “As good as it is to see all of you, I think we need to talk with Skye for a while.”

“We’re going,” Balthazar said, rising to his feet and taking hold of Charity’s arm; her gaze toward Mrs. Tierney had only grown more pointed, and he gave her his best don’t eat the nice people look. “Skye, I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Soon,” she repeated. The night hadn’t scarred her; her cheeks were rosy again, and her smile had never been as bright.

Craig and Britnee offered them a ride, but Balthazar refused it. As they drove off, he and Charity walked into the forest; the driving sleet of earlier had turned into light, gentle snow.

“Where will you go?” he said.

“I don’t know. I always used to find Redgrave when I didn’t know what to do. Now… I’ll find out.” Though she still spoke in a childlike tone, Charity made more sense than she had in a long time. Balthazar wondered if—just possibly—Skye’s blood had been powerful enough to work a permanent change in his sister. If she remembered enough of her living self, of the girl she’d been before the savage attack that killed them, she might be different from now on. Maybe that was too much to hope for, but for the first time in nearly four hundred years, he dared to dream.

He warned her, “Constantia’s still out there. She’s going to try to take over.”

“Should we stop her?”

“I think we should avoid her.”

“I don’t like her,” Charity said. “She pulls hair.”

“Among other things.” Balthazar realized, with increasing concern, that Constantia was the most likely candidate to become the head of the vampires coming to Darby Glen. And she would be a formidable enemy—one capable of predicting Balthazar’s moves, who knew many of his hideouts and habitations as well as he did. One capable of rallying most of Redgrave’s tribe to join her instantly. One who already knew Skye’s face and would never, ever forget it. Tonight’s victory, sweet as it had been, was only the beginning of a longer battle.

Charity gave him a brittle look. “I’m still going to get you back someday.”

“You’ll try.”

She laughed, as if it were now all one great game between them. Perhaps, from now on, that was what it would be. “You’ll see!” Then she ran away from him at full speed, a zephyr of frost in the woods for one split second before she vanished completely.

Balthazar didn’t chase her. The truth about whether or not Charity had changed would come only when she chose to find him again.

Chapter Thirty

SKYE KNEW THE DANGER WAS FAR FROM OVER, but she couldn’t think about that yet. Right now she just wanted to be where she was—on her living room sofa, between her parents—and who she was—the daughter they had forgotten, remembered at last.

As she took the last swallow of her hot cocoa, she watched her parents, both of whom were checking their phones … which was kind of annoying, but the bill was up for a vote tonight. What mattered most was that they’d finally dropped everything to return to her. Between this and seeing Dakota earlier, it was as though she’d gotten her entire family back tonight. Skye couldn’t stop smiling.

“Ohhhh-kay,” Mom said, finally putting her phone on the coffee table. “Now, what’s up with this teacher?”

“Nothing,” Skye insisted. By now, in her head, “Mr. More, the history teacher” was just a fictional character Balthazar had played; it was as easy to deny this as it would’ve been to deny that she’d had a hot affair with Harry Potter. The real Balthazar—the one she loved—was someone else entirely. “He never did anything inappropriate. He just let me talk to him about things. About … about Dakota.”