“Hello, Grace,” she murmurs in a low voice. “You can borrow one of mine until you can find one of your own online. And since you look like the shy type—despite your association with Katmere’s most notorious student—I won’t make you stand up and introduce yourself to the class. But know that you’re welcome here, and if you need anything, feel free to stop by my office hours. They’re posted by the door.”

“Thanks.” I duck my head as my cheeks start to get warm. “I appreciate it.”

“No worries.” She gives my shoulder a comforting squeeze as she heads back to the front of the room. “We’re excited to have you here.”

Mekhi leans over as I pick up the book and says, “Act two, scene two.”

Thanks, I mouth back just as Ms. Maclean claps her hands.

Then, in true drama queen–style, she throws her arms wide and says in a booming but perfect iambic pentameter:

“Something have you heard

Of Hamlet’s transformation; so call it,

Sith nor the exterior nor the inward man

Resembles that it was.”

We spend the rest of the class discussing Hamlet’s shift from perfect prince to total downer. With Ms. Maclean doing her drama thing in the front of the room and Mekhi making sly comments in my ear every couple of minutes, it’s a lot more fun than it sounds. Mekhi may look intimidating, but he’s way more chill than Jaxon—and also really funny. It’s easy to be around him, and I end up enjoying class a lot more than I expected to, especially considering I’ve already read the play once this year.

In fact, I enjoy it so much that I’m a little disappointed when the bell rings, at least until I remember that I’ve got art next. Art’s been my favorite class pretty much since elementary school, and I’m excited to see what it’s like here. But it means heading out to the art studio, and that means a detour to my room, where I can put on at least a couple more layers to protect myself from the cold.

It’s only a ten-minute walk to the studio, so I don’t need to put on everything I did the last two times I went outside. But I do need a heavy sweatshirt and a long coat—plus gloves and a hat—if I don’t have any plans to get frostbite. Which I definitely don’t.

I just hope I have enough time to make it to my room and out to the art studio before the next bell rings. Just in case, I speed up a little, hoping to make it to the main staircase before the masses.

“Hey! What’s your rush, New Girl?”

I glance over at Flint with a grin as he comes up on my left side. “I have a name, you know.”

“Oh, right.” He pretends to think. “What is it again?”

“Bite me.”

“That’s an interesting first name…and a phrase you might want to be careful saying around here.”

“And why is that exactly?” I lift a brow at him as we weave our way through the halls. Unlike earlier with Jaxon, the whole parting of the halls thing is currently nowhere in effect. In fact, traversing the school with Flint is an awful lot like playing this old video game my dad used to like, where you have to race to get the frog across the street before one of the eight million cars going by splats it on the pavement.

In other words, it’s a normal high school hallway. I can feel myself relaxing a little more with each near-collision.

“You’re actually going to pretend you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

Flint studies me, then shakes his head when I look back at him, brows raised in a definite WTF. “My mistake. Never mind.”

There’s something about the way he says it that has an uneasy feeling sliding through me. It’s the same feeling I got when I saw Jaxon and Lia outside without a jacket yesterday.

The same feeling I got when Flint fell out of that tree and walked away with only a few bruises.

The same feeling I got when Lia was chanting in tongues in the library, even though she had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned several of the Alaskan languages.

“I’m not dense, you know. I am aware that something isn’t quite right here, even if I don’t know what it is yet.”

It’s the first time I’ve acknowledged my suspicions even to myself, and it feels good to give voice to it all, instead of letting the thoughts fester below the surface.

“Are you?” Suddenly Flint is right up in my face, his whole body only inches away from mine. “Are you really?”

I don’t back down, despite the sudden desperation in his voice. “I am. Now, do you want to tell me what it is?”

It takes a minute, but when he next speaks, the worry is gone. And so is everything else except the teasing drawl that’s as much a part of him as his amber eyes and muscles. It’s like the warning never happened, even before he says, “Where’s the fun in that?”

“You’ve got an odd definition of fun.”

“You have no idea.” He wiggles his brows. “So what are you up to anyway?”

I stare at him. “Do you ever finish any conversation without starting another?”

“Never. It’s part of my charm.”

“Yeah, just keep telling yourself that.”

“I will.” He walks several more feet with me, happily bopping along to a song that’s only in his head. “Where are you going? The classrooms are back that way.”

“I’ve got to go to my room and grab some warmer clothes. I have art next, and I’ll freeze if I go outside like this.”

“Wait.” He stops dead. “No one told you about the tunnels?”

“What tunnels?” I eye him suspiciously. “Are you messing with me again?”

“I’m not, I swear. There’s a whole network of tunnels that run under the school and lead to the different outbuildings.”

“Seriously? This is Alaska—how did they dig tunnels in the frozen ground?”

“I don’t know. How do they drill in the frozen ground? Besides, summer is a thing.” He gives me the best Boy Scout look in his repertoire. “I promise. The tunnels are real. I just can’t believe the omnipotent Jaxon Vega forgot to mention them to you.”

“Are you kidding me? You’re going to start in on Jaxon now?”

“Of course not. I’m just saying, I’m the one telling you about the tunnels and keeping you from freezing off all the important parts of your anatomy. He could have mentioned them to you before sending you out into the cruel, cruel winter.”

“It’s fall.” I roll my eyes. “And are we going to do this every time we talk about Jaxon?”