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The note was in Arabella Crossvixen's handwriting, which should have been the first clue. Dining hall. Four o'clock. Happy birthday. She had written it herself in cursive, with a little heart over the i in my name, and I had read it so many times in the corridor that I could recite it backward. I stood outside the double doors with the paper in one hand and my other hand on the silver moon at my throat.
I hesitated before going in.
My deal with Alpha Arnold had two rules. Protect Angeline. Stay out of trouble. A party thrown by Arabella Crossvixen was trouble with balloons.
Angeline had looked gray in the kitchen. Gray and sweaty, with that tea towel draped over something she didn't want me to see. But Angeline had been sickly her whole life. She went gray when it rained. I asked if she was okay, she said she was fine, and I shrugged it off the way I always did.
So why was I still standing here?
Never mind.
It was my eighteenth birthday. Eighteen was supposed to mean something.
Three years ago, I sat on the edge of my mother's bed with a bowl of broth I was pretending she would finish. She had been tired for years. Nobody had named it. The healers said it was a weakness of the blood, which is what healers say when they haven't decided what to call it.
"Look at me, Melica." Her hand was cold when it closed over mine. "The closer you get to eighteen, the stronger she'll be. Maein isn't weak. She's waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"For you to be strong enough."
I laughed, because it was easier than the other thing. "Am I not strong enough? I thought patience was a virtue."
"Melica." She smiled, and it took a lot out of her. "When she comes, don't make yourself small. Promise me."
"You need to rest."
"I need you to promise."
I promised. I tucked the blanket around her before going to bed that night. It was one of the last good nights I had with her.
I wasn't stupid. I knew Arabella hadn't turned into a better person overnight. It wasn't that I thought they had changed. It was that I hoped I had. If Maein finally woke up, if I stopped being the girl who carried the bags, maybe the world would look at me and treat me a little less harshly. Slightly less. I wasn't greedy.
And if it was a trap, I knew what kind. They would throw the cake in my face. They'd give me an ugly one with something rude on it, and they'd laugh, and I would wipe the frosting off my chin with as much dignity as a girl can manage. I could survive that. I'd survived the koi pond. That was the worst they could do, right?
If it's a trap, I told myself, at least I'll be stronger now.
I pushed the doors open.
"Happy birthday!"
The whole room yelled it. Streamers. A banner across the far wall with my name spelled correctly, and I was more suspicious of that than of anything else. Arabella came toward me with her arms out and a smile too wide for her face.
"Melica! Happy birthday!"
She had never once said my name without a verb attached. Melica, move. Melica, fetch. This was just my name, wrapped in a bow, and it was the most frightening thing I'd ever heard.
I let myself believe it anyway. For about four seconds, I let myself think that somebody had decided to be kind.
Then I looked around. Adrian stood by the cake table in a dark suit, dressed for a funeral, probably mine. Calix Montbeau was against a pillar again, because apparently the academy had built them for him, and he gave me that same slow look I'd gotten in the valet lot. I assumed he'd come for the entertainment. At the back of the room, near the door, Angeline stood with her hands clasped and no thermos. She looked at the floor.
Maein stirred under my ribs, a small, sulky pulse. She was still bothered, and so was I.
Not now, I told her. If you're going to come out, pick a better time.
Two girls wheeled in the cake. Three layers, blue piping, a ring of sugar roses. It was a beautiful cake. This is a lot of trouble just to make me feel stupid.
They sang. Badly. Somebody was flat on purpose. Is that the prank?
A single violet candle burned in the center. It smelled like burnt sugar and iron, with something green underneath, like crushed leaves.
"Make a wish," Arabella said sweetly.
I closed my eyes.
I didn't wish for Maein. I didn't wish for a boy. I wished for someone to walk the whole way with me. No fifty meters. No basement lot. Just the curve of a road, with someone on the other side of it, keeping pace. I don't want to be alone anymore. If this prank leads me to my death, at least let me be with my parents.
I blew out the candle.
I pictured my mom and dad holding my hands when I was young. I got first place in the Lycan History Quiz Bee. Out of all the kids on the block, I was first. They hugged me so tight. I could almost feel them again.
Before a tear could fall, the smoke curled up into my face. It was warm. Suddenly my parents' hug felt tighter. It was suffocating. I opened my eyes, and the room tilted by about a degree.
I tried to hold on to the edge of the table. Did they just try to drug me? No. It can't be. Drugging a student ended in a hearing. It would have gotten them expelled, and their parents in trouble. They couldn't possibly have risked their reputations just to make fun of me.
It's too much risk. I was running out of breath.
Arabella leaned in close, her voice honey. "Breathe, Melica. It's rude to waste a candle." She fanned the smoke toward my face with one hand.
"It's not working fast enough," one of her friends whispered.
"Make her breathe more."
I was still on my feet. But I knew I would lose my grounding any second now. Whatever they put in isn't working as fast as they wanted. Are they really trying to kill me? The edges of the room had gone soft. I looked around and saw Angeline.
She wasn't looking at the cake, but at me.
There was no surprise on her face. Angeline had never been able to hide surprise, not once, not about anything. What I saw instead was worse. She looked like someone waiting for a verdict she already knew.
The gray face in the kitchen. The tea towel. It's the herbs. For my nerves. The smell of a church.
I had asked her whether I should go. She told me yes.
People can change, she said. You should go.
Adrian didn't move. Of course he didn't.
I think I was about to say her name, but I didn't get the chance.
It started under my sternum, where Maein usually slept. Something older and much more stubborn, a heat that came out of the center of me and went outward in every direction at once.
My hands hit the floor. They weren't hands anymore but furry white paws.
The tables were smaller. The ceiling was farther. I could smell every person in the room, Arabella's perfume, somebody's fear, Calix's wolf, sharp and startled. Everything was low and wide and bright, and I was white. When I turned my head, I caught my own gold eyes in somebody's phone screen.
The room went silent.
Then a whisper. "That's not real."
"White. She's white."
"That's a bedtime story."
A cup hit the floor. Arabella took a step back. Maein, who had never obeyed a command in her life and who could not be made to sit for a ranking, stood in a room full of Alphas with her ears forward and her feet planted and did not move.
I could feel it ending, though. My mana was going out of me like water through a cracked cup, and I had maybe a minute.
Then the doors banged open.
Steven Highvern, who walked everywhere, was running.
He was shouting something. My name. He sounded scared in a way I'd never heard from him. Of course. The smoke was very thorough. It knew exactly what I wanted to see.
Then something in my chest pulled.
Three times, in three directions, like someone had tied three ropes to my ribs and yanked. A silver light ran across the floor from my wrist and split into threads. One went to the pillar. One went to the cake table. One went to the door. I could feel Calix, and Adrian, and Steven, and for a second they all felt exactly the same, and I couldn't tell which of them was real.
Damn that smoke.
I was burning, but it wasn't from the candle. My knees felt wobbly, and I couldn't speak to save my life.
Maein folded back into me. My legs went. I braced for the floor.
It never came.
Familiar arms caught me, warm and solid. He placed one under my knees and one behind my back. He smelled like woodsmoke and cold rain.
That smoke was very good. It even smelled right.
