rs opened o

rt, staring at the spot where the old woman had been. There was nothing there. On

hine'

letter, buried in a signature I hadn't noticed until now. I had memorized the pag

aph

e bus before I cou

nds. A few passengers sat scattered in the dark: a boy in a gray hood with his face turned to the window, a girl reading a book whose pages seemed t

None of them seemed

slide by in a smear of yellow light. Then the lights thinned, then stopped altoget

t midnight, t

the asphalt and into mist, thick and pale, curling against the glass like

the mist

e sky

d in violet and gold and the deep blue of a bruise, as if the sun had been caught halfway through setting and decided to stay there

like them at all. They could never have shown how the light ma

book said quietly, still not looking up. "It's lik

I whi

ifted her eyes, and they flickered pale

ler than any build

their heads as I passed. Beyond them stretched a courtyard of dark stone, and beyond

a stop, and the

t me without a word and vanished into the shadows. Within a minute I was alone, standing in a courtyard that smell

elia

un a

was tall, taller than anyone I had ever stood beside, with dark hair that fell untidily across his forehead and a black uni

me as though I had s

llis. The, um, the scholarship.

ent he did

when it hears something it shouldn't. His nostrils flared. His hand, wh

e was low and roughened, as if he hadn't used it in a

said agai

e didn't smil

and I had to hal

lack roses, their petals beaded with frost. A fountain where the water ran silver in the half light.

?" a girl whisper

actually ca

ned. "

t's a title," he said, wi

you a

id the words as if each cost him some

nversations dropped away. Even the older ones, with their silver rin

at him the way he

sideways and settled on my face, my throat, my hands, as though he were trying to sol

g wrong?" I f

and through his hair, frustr

y w

and for the first time I saw the confusion plainly in his eyes. "You smell human. Mostl

sto

ing w

at me for a

ing in his

room. His pupils narrowed. The air around him seemed to tighten, and I felt it all the way down

flared hot

hear

eard it, vibrating up through the stone and into the soles of my feet. A voice that wasn't quite a voice, rou

i

my heart slamming

He staggered half a step, one hand flying to

u just do?"

outh, but not

that the strange, beautiful boy in front of me had just gone pale beneath his gold

thing that had slept for eighteen years