I shake my head. She sighs. “Wallingford Preparatory takes great pride in seeing our students placed into the world’s top schools. Our students go on to Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Caltech, Johns Hopkins. Now, your grades aren’t all we might hope for, but your SAT scores were very promising.”

I nod my head. I think of Barron dropping out of Princeton, about Philip dropping out of high school to take his marks and work for the Zacharovs. I don’t want to wind up like them. “I’ll start that list,” I promise her.

“You do that,” she says. “I want to see you again in a week. No more excuses. The future’s going to be here sooner than you think.”

When I walk out from behind the divider, Sam isn’t there. I guess that he’s having his conference. I wait a few minutes and eat three butterscotch cookies they have put out as refreshments. When Sam still doesn’t emerge, I stroll back across campus.

The first night in the dorms is always strange. The cots are uncomfortable. My legs are too long for them and I keep falling asleep curled up, then straightening in the night and waking myself when my feet kick the frame.

One door over, someone is snoring.

Outside our window the grass of the quad shines in the moonlight, like it’s made of metal blades. That’s the last thing I think before I wake up to my phone shrilling the morning alarm. From a look at the time, it seems like the alarm has been ringing for a while.

I grunt and throw my pillow at my sleeping roommate. He raises his head groggily.

Sam and I shuffle to the shared bathroom, where the rest of the hall are brushing their teeth or finishing their showers. Sam splashes his face with water.

Chaiyawat Terweil wraps a towel around himself and grabs a pair of disposable plastic gloves from the dispenser. Above it, the sign reads: PROTECT YOUR CLASSMATES: COVER YOUR HANDS.

“Another day at Wallingford,” Sam announces. “Every dorm room a palace, every sloppy joe a feast, every morning shower—”

“You enjoy your showers a lot, do you?” Kyle Henderson asks. He’s already dressed, smoothing gel into his hair. “Think about me while you’re in there?”

“It does make a shower go faster,” Sam says, undaunted. “God, I love the Wall!”

I laugh. Someone whips a towel at Sam.

By the time I’m clean and dressed, I don’t really have enough time for breakfast. I drink some of the coffee our hall master has brewed for himself in the common room, and eat raw one of the Pop Tarts Sam’s mother sent.

Sam gives me a dark look and eats the other.

“We’re off to a good start,” I say. “Fashionably late.”

“Just doing our part to keep their expectations low,” says Sam.

Despite having spent the whole summer going to bed around this time in the morning, I feel pretty good.

My schedule says that my first class today is Probability & Statistics. This semester I also have Developing World Ethics (I thought Daneca would be pleased I chose that for my history requirement, which is why I haven’t told her), English, Physics, Ceramics 2 (laugh if you must), French 4, and Photoshop.

I am studying the slip of paper as I head out of Smythe House and walk into the Finke Academic Center. Probability & Statistics is on the third floor, so I make for the stairs.

Lila Zacharov is walking through the hallway in the Wallingford girl’s uniform: jacket, pleated skirt, and white oxford shirt. Her short blond hair shines like the woven gold of the crest. When she sees me, the expression on her face is some kind of mingled hope and horror.

I can’t even imagine my own face. “Lila?” I say.

She turns away, head down.

In a few quick steps I’ve grabbed hold of her arm, like I’m afraid she’s not real. She freezes at the touch of my gloved hand.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, turning her roughly toward me, which is maybe not an okay way to behave, but I’m too astonished to think straight.

She looks like I slapped her.

Good job, me. I’m a real charmer.

“I knew you’d be mad,” she says. Her face is pale and drawn, all her usual ruthlessness washed from it.

“It’s not about that,” I say. But for the life of me, in that moment, I have no idea what it is about. I know she’s not supposed to be here. And I know I don’t want her to leave.

“I can’t help—,” she says, and her voice breaks. Her face is full of despair. “I tried to stop thinking about you, Cassel. I tried all summer long. I almost came to see you a hundred times. I would sink my nails into my skin until I could stay away.”

I remember sitting on the steps in my mother’s house last March, begging Lila to believe she’d been worked. I remember the slow way the horror spread over her features. I remember her denials, her final defeated agreement that we shouldn’t see each other until the curse ended. I remember everything.

Lila’s a dream worker. I hope that means she’s sleeping better than I am.

“But if you’re here—,” I start, not sure how I can finish.

“It hurts not to be near you,” she says quietly, carefully, like the words cost her something. “You have no idea how much.”

I want to tell her that I have some idea what it feels like to love someone I can’t have. But maybe I don’t. Maybe being in love with me really is worse than I can imagine.

“I couldn’t keep—I wasn’t strong enough.” Her eyes are wet and her mouth is slightly parted.

“It’s been almost six months. Don’t you feel any different?” The curse should have begun to fade, surely.

“Worse,” she says. “I feel worse. What if this never stops?”

“It will. Soon. We have to wait this thing out, and it’s better if—,” I start, but it’s hard to concentrate on the words with her looking at me like that.

“You liked me before,” she says. “And I liked you. I loved you, Cassel. Before the curse. I always loved you. And I don’t mind—”

There is nothing I want more than to believe her. But I can’t. I don’t.

I knew this conversation would happen, eventually. No matter how much I tried to avoid it. And I know what I have to say. I even planned it out, knowing that otherwise I couldn’t say the words. “I didn’t love you, though. And I still don’t.”

The change is immediate and terrible. She pulls back from me. Her face looks pale and shuttered. “But that night in your room. You told me that you missed me and that you—”

“I’m not crazy,” I say, trying to keep my tells to a minimum. She’s known a lot of liars. “I said whatever I thought would make you sleep with me.”

She takes a quick, sharp breath of air. “That hurts,” she says. “You’re just saying it to hurt me.”

It’s not supposed to hurt. It’s supposed to disgust her. “Believe what you want, but it’s the truth.”

“So why didn’t you?” she asks. “Why don’t you? If all you wanted was some ass, it’s not like I’m going to say no. I can’t say no to you.”

The bell rings somewhere, distantly.

“I’m sorry,” I say, which isn’t part of the script. It slips out. I don’t know how to deal with this. I know how to be the witness to her grief. I don’t know how to be this kind of villain.

“I don’t need your pity.” Dots of hectic color have appeared on her cheeks, like she’s running a fever. “I’m waiting the curse out at Wallingford. If I’d told my dad what your mother did, she’d be dead by now. Don’t forget it.”

“And me with her,” I say.

“Yeah,” she says. “And you with her. So get used to the idea that I’m staying.”

“I can’t stop you,” I say quietly as she turns away from me and heads for the stairs. I watch the way the shadows move down her back. Then I slump against the wall.

I’m late for class, of course, but Dr. Kellerman only raises his bushy eyebrows as I slink in. I missed the morning announcements on the television suspended over the blackboard. Members of the AV club would have explained what lunch was going to be and when after-school clubs were meeting. Not exactly thrilling stuff.

Still, I’m glad Kellerman decides not to give me a hard time. I’m not sure I could take it.

He resumes explaining how to calculate odds—something I am pretty good at, being a bookie and all—while I concentrate on trying to stop my hands from shaking.

When the intercom on the wall crackles to life, I barely notice it. That is, until I hear Ms. Logan’s voice: “Please send Cassel Sharpe to the headmistress’s office. Please send Cassel Sharpe to the headmistress’s office.”

Dr. Kellerman frowns at me as I stand up and gather my books.

“Oh, come on,” I say ineffectually to the room.

A girl giggles.

One thing’s in my favor, though. Someone just lost the first bet of the year.

CHAPTER THREE

HEADMISTRESS NORTH-cutt’s office looks like a library in a baronial hunting lodge. The walls and built-in bookcases are polished dark wood and lit by brass lamps. Her desk is the size of a bed and is made of the same wood as the walls, with green leather chairs resting in front of it, and degrees hanging behind it. The whole thing is designed to be intimidating to students and reassuring to parents.

When I’m shown in, I see Northcutt is the one that looks uncomfortable. Two men in suits are standing beside her, clearly waiting for me. One has dark sunglasses on.

I check for bulges under their arms or against their calves. Doesn’t matter how custom the suit is, the fabric pulls a little over most guns. Yeah, they’re carrying. Then I look at their shoes.

Black and shiny as fresh-poured tar, with rubbery flexible soles. Made for running after people like me.

Cops. They’re cops.

Man, I am so screwed.

“Mr. Sharpe,” Northcutt says. “These men would like to have a conversation with you.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. “About what?”

“Mr. Sharpe,” says the white cop, echoing Northcutt. “I’m Agent Jones, and this is Agent Hunt.”

The guy in sunglasses nods once in my direction.

Feds, eh? Well, federal agents are still cops to me.

“We understand that we’re interrupting your school day, but I’m afraid what we have to talk about is sensitive enough that we can’t discuss it here, so—”

“Wait a moment,” Northcutt interrupts. “You cannot take this student off campus. He’s underage.”

“We can,” says Agent Hunt. He’s got a slight accent. Southern.

Northcutt flushes when she realizes he’s not going to say more than that. “If you walk out of here with that boy, I will contact our lawyer immediately.”

“Please do,” Agent Hunt says. “I’d be happy to talk with him.”

“You haven’t even told me what this is about,” she says in an exasperated tone.

“I’m afraid that’s classified,” says Agent Jones. “But it has to do with an ongoing investigation.”

“I don’t suppose I have a choice?” I ask.

Neither agent even bothers to answer. With a slight pressure against my back, Agent Jones steers me out of the room, while Agent Hunt gives Northcutt his card, just in case she wants to follow up with that lawyer.

I see her face as we leave. Northcutt’s not calling anyone.

Someone should warn her never to play poker.

They bundle me into the backseat of a black Buick with dark tinted windows. My mind is running through all the bad things this could be about. Clyde Austin’s credit card and my hot laptop come to mind. Plus there’s all the hotel employees who let us slide. And God only knows what else Mom has done.

I wonder if the Feds would believe that Austin assaulted me, although the bump on my head is nearly gone. I wonder if there’s a way to convince them I’m the one who’s responsible for whatever crimes we’re talking about. I’m still underage. At seventeen I’d probably get sentenced like a kid. Most of all, I wonder what I can give up that will make them leave my mother alone.

“So,” I say experimentally. “Where are we going?”

Agent Hunt turns to me, but with his sunglasses on it’s impossible to read his expression. “We have some confidential materials to share with you, so we’re taking you to our resident agency in Trenton.”

“Am I under arrest?”

He laughs. “No. We’re just having a little chat. That’s all.”

I glance at the doors. It’s hard to tell if I could flip the lock myself and jump. Trenton’s a big enough city for traffic. Stop and go. Red lights. They can’t take the highway straight to the building. If I could get the door open, I could probably run for it. Use my phone. Warn someone. Grandad, probably. He’d know what to do.

I shift closer to the door and snake my fingers toward the lock. I press the window button instead. Nothing happens.

“Do you want the air turned up?” Agent Jones asks, amusement in his voice.

“It’s stuffy in here,” I say, defeated. If the window controls don’t work, there’s no way a lock will.

I watch the scrubby landscape slide by until we come to the bridge. TRENTON MAKES, THE WORLD TAKES, it says in big block letters. Then we go over it. We take a couple of turns and park behind an innocuous office building. We go in the back way, one of agents standing on either side of me.

The hallway is tan-carpeted and sterile. All the doors have keypads above the locks. Otherwise it looks like a dentist might rent space here. I don’t know what I was expecting, but not this.