"Ooooh! I know that pissed off Neferet," Stevie Rae whispered back.

"Absolutely. Shekinah seems okay, or at least as far as I can tell. But see what I mean about her being scarily powerful?"

"Yeah, but it also looks like you might have someone on your side who is actually a bigger deal than Neferet. She did stop the war, which is a good thing." "It is a good thing, but Shekinah also wants to have a major cleansing ritual performed for the school. I'm performing the ritual. Me with my group of uber-gifted fledglings. You know: the Twins, water and fire--Damien, who is Mr. Air--and, to top it all off, Aphrodite embodying earth, of course."

"Uh-oh," Stevie Rae said. "Uhm, Z, does Aphrodite have any affinity with earth anymore?"

"Absolutely none," I said.

"Can she fake it?"

"Absolutely not."

"She tried?"

"Yep. The green candle zaps her and flies out of her hand. She's not just minus earth, she's minus earth squared."

"That is a problem," Stevie Rae agreed.

"Yep. A problem I'm sure Neferet will somehow twist into having happened because there's something wrong with me. Or worse, something wrong with Aphrodite, Damien, and the Twins."

"Dang, that sucks. I really wish I could help." Then she brightened. "Hey! Maybe I can! What if I sneak into the ritual and hide behind Aphrodite? I'll bet if you focus on me when you call earth, and I focus on earth at the same time, the candle will light and everything will look practically normal."

I opened my mouth to say thanks but no thanks--it'd be too easy for her to get caught and then for everyone to find out about her. But then I closed my mouth. Just exactly what would be so wrong about Stevie Rae being found out? Not caught hiding and sneakily being part of a ritual, of course, but just found out. The warm, familiar feeling inside me told me I just might be flailing down the right path (for a change).

"Something like that might just work."

"Really? You want to hide me? Okey-dokey, just tell me when and where."

"What if we didn't hide you? What if we outed you instead?"

"Zoey, I love Damien and all, but I'm really not g*y. I mean, I haven't had an official boyfriend in a really long time, but I still get kinda warm and tingly when I think about how cute Drew Partain is. Do you remember how he was likin' me before I got all dead and crazy?"

"Okay, first--yes. I remember that Drew liked you. Second, you're not dead and crazy anymore, so he would probably still like you--that is if he knew you were alive. Which brings me to my third point: When I said we should out you, I didn't mean as in you being g*y. I meant as in you being you." I made a little figure flutter toward the colored-in scarlet tattoos on her face that she'd carefully concealed before going out in public.

Stevie Rae gaped at me for a little while, looking seriously shocked. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded choked. "But they can't know about me."

"Why not?" I asked calmly.

"Because if they find out about me, they'll find out about the others."

"So?"

"That would be bad," she said.

"Why?"

"Zoey. Like I said before, they're not normal fledglings." "Stevie Rae, what difference does that make?"

She blinked at me. "You don't understand. They're not normal, and I'm not normal."

I looked at her for a long time, considering what I knew--that Stevie Rae had been given back her humanity, and what I half suspected but didn't want to admit--that even though she had her humanity back, she still had dark places within herself that I couldn't understand.

I knew I had to make a decision. I either trusted her, or I didn't. And when it came right down to it, that was really an easy decision to make.

"I know you're not exactly like you used to be, but I trust you. I believe in your humanity, and I always will."

Stevie Rae looked like she might cry. "Are you sure?"

"Totally."

She drew a deep breath. "Okay, then what's your plan?"

"Well, I haven't really thought this through, but it seems to me that the vamps and fledglings should know about you and the rest of the others, especially now that another fledgling has died. We don't know everything we wish we did about you, but we are pretty sure that Neferet somehow created you guys, or at least opened some kind of weird door so you could be created, right?"

"I think so. The truth is, I still worry that the fledglings might be able to be controlled, or at least influenced by her, even though they are different now and she's been leaving us alone."