“Hey, Frederick.”

He looked up and saw Colin jostling through the crowd. He caught August by the sleeve and pulled him out of the current. “I’ve got you.” His gaze flicked down, and he saw August’s forearm where the sleeve had pushed up. Those expressive eyes went wide. “Oh, nice tattoos, dude. But don’t let Dean see them. He’s crazy strict. I wore a temporary one on my face one time—I think it was a bee, I don’t remember why—and he made me scrub it off. School policy.”

August tugged his sleeve back down, and Colin stole a glance at the sheet in his hand. “Oh, perfect. We have English together. I thought I saw your name on the roster. I check all the rosters ahead of time, just to see who I’m up against, you know?” August did not know, and he couldn’t tell if it was his influence making Colin so chatty, or if the boy was just naturally that way, but he suspected the latter. “Anyway, come on,” Colin tugged him toward a stairwell door. “I know a shortcut.”

“To where?”

“To English, obviously. We could take the hall but there are too many damned freshmen!” he bellowed. Several smaller students glanced wide-eyed at him, and the teacher in the skirt shot Colin a dark look. “Get to class, Mr. Stevenson.”

Colin only winked at her and stepped into the stairwell, holding the door for August, who wasn’t sure if he was being helped or abducted. But he didn’t want to be late for the first class of his life, so he followed anyway. Just before the door banged shut, he thought he saw Katherine Harker walk past, the students around her parting like a sea.

When people talked about the first day of school, they used terms like “fresh start,” and “new beginning,” and always made a point of saying it was a chance to define—or redefine—yourself.

In Kate’s eyes, the first day was an opportunity, one she’d taken advantage of it at each of her previous institutions, and those first days felt like an education unto themselves, leading up to this. Her first day at Colton was a chance to set the tone. A chance to make an impression. She had the added advantage of being on home turf; people here might not know her, but they all knew of her, and that was better. It was a foundation, something to be built upon. By the end of the week, Colton would be hers. After all, if she couldn’t rule a school, she didn’t deserve to run a city.

Kate didn’t actually care that much about running a school or a city. She just didn’t want Harker to look at her and see weak, see helpless, see a girl who shared nothing but a few lines of his face, a shade of blond. She wanted him to look at her and see someone who deserved to be there. Because she’d be damned if she’d let him send her away, not this time.

She’d fought her way here, and she’d fight to stay.

I am my father’s daughter, she thought as she walked down the hall, arms at her side and head up, medallion and metallic nails glinting beneath the lights (she thought of the monstrous teeth shining in the footage, and it gave her strength). Eyes followed her through the halls. Lips moved behind cupped fingers. To every side, the students swarmed and parted, rushed forward and drew back like a wave, a flock of starlings. All together. All apart.

“You have to break them early,” her father once said. Of course, he’d been talking about monsters, not teenagers, but they had a lot in common. Both had hive minds; they thought—and acted—in groups. Cities and schools were both microcosms of life, and small schools came with their own delicate ecosystem.

St. Agnes had been the smallest of the bunch, with only a hundred girls, while Fischer, her first private school, weighed in at a considerable six hundred and fifty. Colton Academy was four hundred strong, which was small enough to feel intimate but large enough to guarantee at least a modicum of resistance.

It was natural—there were always those who wanted to challenge the ruling power, to stake their own claim to authority or popularity or whatever it was they were after, and Kate could usually pick them out within the first few days. They were a disruption to the hive mind, those few, and she knew she’d have to deal with them as soon as possible.

All she needed was an opportunity to establish herself.

And to her surprise, one presented itself almost immediately.

She’d known there would be whispers about her. Rumors. They weren’t inherently bad. In fact, some of them were practically propagandistic. As she moved through the halls between classes, she cocked her head, catching the loudest ones.

“I heard she burned her last school down.”

“I heard she’s been to jail.”

“I heard she drinks blood like a Malchai.”

“Did you know she axed a student?”

“Psychopath.”

“Killer.”

And then, as she stepped into her next class, she heard it.

“I heard her mother went crazy.”

Kate’s steps slowed.

“Yeah,” continued the girl, loud enough for her to hear. “She went crazy, tried to drive them off a bridge.” Kate set her bag down on a desk, and ruffled through it absently, turning her good ear toward the girl. “I heard Harker sent her away because he couldn’t stand to look at her. She reminded him of his dead wife.”

“Charlotte,” whispered another girl. “Shut up.”

Yes, Charlotte, thought Kate. Shut up.