ON GOOD DAYS AT CAFÉ KEATS, LOCAL BANDS would get up and jam for hours. On bad days, people who thought they were talented got up and proved themselves wrong. Skye and Madison didn’t agree on which kind of day this was.
“How old is she? Like, eighty?” Madison rolled her eyes as she licked a bit of the whipped cream from the top of her drink.
“Probably. What does it matter?” Skye stole another glance at the white-haired woman sitting at the red piano, gently picking out a slow, melancholy version of “You Really Got a Hold on Me.” It was an old song, but one she liked. “I mean, I hope I’m getting out and having fun when I’m her age. And she can really play. So why not?”
“I prefer music from this century,” Madison insisted. After another sip of whipped cream, she said, “Listen, about tonight—the game—I only realized at the end of the day how that’s kind of awkward for you. What with Craig and everything.”
“I’ll be okay.” She kind of had to be, now that Balthazar was going there to guard her. Skye sensed it would be easier to sit through one of Craig’s games with Balthazar as a distraction.
“We’ll sit far away from that girlfriend of his. I can’t stand her. She’s just—vacant, you know? Like, the lights are on but nobody’s home.”
That was clearly an invitation to bitch about Britnee, but Skye didn’t feel like it. Shrugging, she said, “I didn’t really think about them as much today. Maybe I’m getting over him a little. I don’t know.”
Madison’s face brightened with mischief. “I know. You were too busy thinking about our sexy new sub.” Skye felt her face going warm, and she must have blushed, because Madison cackled with laughter. “You were! Somebody’s hot for teacher.”
“I’m not hot for—” That was a lie. But telling the truth was out of the question. “Okay, he’s good-looking. I noticed. And so did you.”
“True, true.” Madison draped her legs over the side of the chintz armchair she was sitting in; they’d gotten the good table with the cozy chairs in the far corner by the poetry board. “Mr. More seems young. Like, really young. I bet he hasn’t been out of college for long.”
A few centuries or so, actually. “Looks that way.”
“So that means he’s only about four or five years older than us.” Deep in thought, Madison licked the edge of her spoon. “If you ask me, that’s close enough to date.”
“But he’s a teacher.” Plus he’s a vampire, which I bet you would never be able to handle. “That’s against the rules.”
“I never heard of that rule.”
“Why would you hear about it? Who else are we going to date? Coach Haladki? Mr. Bollinger?” Skye made a face at the thought.
“Mr. Bollinger would be more interested in Mr. More than in us. We might have to fight him off if we want a piece.” Madison gave Skye a hopeful look. “Do you think Mr. More’s the kind of guy who breaks the rules?”
Laughing, Skye wadded up her paper napkin and tossed it at Madison. “Stop it.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’re not fooling anybody. And I’m going to write a poem.”
Writing poems at the poetry board was a tradition at Café Keats. Most people tried to do something cute or funny; the occasional obscene drawing was quickly wiped by a barista. Every once in a while, one of the poems would actually be good, and that would get to stay up for a few weeks or even months. Skye, no writer, just wanted a few seconds where she wouldn’t have to listen to jokes about Craig or Balthazar.
Though she did want to think about Balthazar—
He’s my teacher now. Does that matter? The rules about the other teachers don’t exactly apply to him. I mean, we were in English class together six weeks ago.
Skye understood that Balthazar wouldn’t consider getting involved with any of the other students. But did she have a chance with him? There had been moments when she’d felt his eyes on her, known he was drawn to her … but only moments.
Briefly the memory of Bianca glimmered in her mind, aquamarine and ethereal, but it faded just as quickly.
No, whatever happened between Skye and Balthazar in the future wouldn’t be about Bianca. It would be only about them.
Also, he’s a vampire. Undead. Blood-drinking. Fang- … um, fang-having. What would that even mean for us, if we got together?
She wasn’t at all sure about that. But she’d spent the last two and a half years surrounded by vampires, however unknowingly; for the most part, they acted like people. Arrogant, sometimes ruthless people, but still. Skye knew that if she’d learned Balthazar was a vampire when she’d first met him, she might never have wanted to get to know him better; now, however, this was just one more aspect of the supernatural strangeness surrounding her, one more quality he had that was as tantalizing as it was dangerous.
As she stepped up to the board, Skye disregarded the colorful chalk in its bucket and instead went to the poetry magnets, which were more her speed. Her fingers plucked the words from their jumble along one side, sliding them into place:
I remember
Soft rose fantasies
At Evernight she’d been Craig’s girlfriend, faithful even in her imagination. Every time Balthazar had walked by her in the hallway, she’d drunk in the sight of him, then tried to go back to whatever she was thinking about before.
But at night in her dorm room, while Clementine snored in the next bunk, sometimes Skye’s fantasies had demanded their due. She’d lie there all twisted up in her sheets, trying to think of the boyfriend she knew she ought to be thinking of, but instead remembering Balthazar: framed by the stone arches of Evernight’s hallways; wearing fencing whites that outlined his muscular frame, mask tucked under one arm; ready with a gentle smile for everyone even though there was always something distant and melancholy in his eyes … something that made her want to take that melancholy away…
Skye felt a guilty flush of longing at the memory—But why guilty? she asked herself. You’re free now. And so is he.
Except for the part where he’s a vampire and everything.
With a sigh, Skye composed another line:
Us—caught between never and forever.
She decided she liked that, but before she could keep going, a man’s hand pointed into her poem and slid out the word remember. He pushed it up so that it formed the phrase remember me?
Skye looked over at him, and in the first moment, she didn’t remember him. It seemed impossible that she could have forgotten a man like this. He wasn’t especially tall or short, but everything else about him was remarkable—the perfection of his profile, his gleaming dark blond hair, the warm hue of his skin, his piercing hazel eyes that almost seemed gold. More like the idealized sculpture of a man than any real human being. The crisp white collar of his shirt looked sharp enough to cut. He couldn’t be a student at her school, because he was old enough to be one of the teachers—like Balthazar—
I’ve seen him with Balthazar.
Oh, my God.
Redgrave smiled. “Don’t worry. You haven’t hurt my feelings by failing to know my face.” His accent was odd, not exactly British, not exactly American, hints of something else, too. Hard to place. “You saw me only in the dark, and only with human eyes. My question was sincere.” He tapped his finger on the board, just beneath remember me.
“I’ll scream,” Skye whispered. It wasn’t much of a threat, but it was all she had.
“That would be very silly of you. I’m not hurting you. I’m not even threatening you. I’m just a newcomer in town with an interest in poetry.” Redgrave glanced over the board’s current offerings and sighed. “Not that much of this is recognizable as poetry. I must bring Lorenzo here if I ever wish to punish him.”
Skye wanted to run away, to bolt out of the coffeehouse as fast as she could, but surely that was what Redgrave meant for her to do. If she ran out, his vampire “tribe” would all be out there waiting for her. “What are you doing here?”
“Getting a coffee, strangely enough. And hoping to have a chat with you, now that your bodyguard isn’t on hand.” Redgrave’s smile would, on any other man, have been stunningly beautiful. On him it was menacing. “Balthazar assumes that I won’t attack you here, and he’s absolutely right. I have absolutely no intention of spending so much as one day in the county jail or whatever picayune human lockup I’d be consigned to. So if we’re going to talk, this is the place.”
“We don’t need to talk.” Even getting those words out was hard; Skye’s entire body had gone cold and clumsy, and she could hardly think anything besides the words This man tried to murder me yesterday.
“Nonsense, my dear. I see that you are not without resources. That you understand the nature of the supernatural. So I thought we might be able to speak like rational creatures, and perhaps strike a bargain.”
“A bargain?” She made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Okay, get out of town now and leave me alone, and I won’t kick you in the balls.”
Redgrave really did laugh at that. “You’ve got spirit. You see, I can work with you.”
Her voice shaky, she whispered, “You’re trying to kill me.”
“I think we can come to a better compromise than that, if you’re smart enough to see its value.” He half turned, leaning against the wall next to the poetry board. Skye now thought that, even if she hadn’t recognized him from the day before, she would have known by now that he was a vampire. Redgrave had that eerie grace and confidence familiar to her from the students at Evernight. All around them, the coffeehouse remained loud and bright; the piano music never stopped. “I don’t have to kill you to get what I want. It follows, therefore, that your best chance at staying alive is simply to give me what I want.”
Instinctively, she knew what that was. “My blood.”
He shrugged. “People donate all the time, and for what? A sticker and a cup of apple juice. I can do far better than that.”
“If I let you take any of my blood, you’ll just take it all.”
“Which would make a very entertaining evening for me, but no more than that. Whereas if you stay alive—if your body keeps creating and heating and pumping this miraculous liquid within your veins—I can enjoy your blood any time I please.”
Skye had only a foggy idea of what he was suggesting; she didn’t think she wanted to get a more precise picture. “I’m not your personal Coke machine.”
“Aren’t you curious, miss—forgive me, I don’t know your name.”
“Because I didn’t tell you.”
Redgrave tilted his head with a slight smile, acknowledging her right not to tell him. He looked so human then—so clever, so good-humored, so breathtakingly gorgeous—that Skye realized if she’d met him without Balthazar’s warnings, she would have trusted him immediately. Completely.
He said, “A mystery within a mystery. And I’m being quite literal now. Within you lies a secret waiting to be discovered. If Lorenzo is to be believed, your blood has unique powers. Unique advantages. Don’t you want to know what they are? Balthazar can’t tell you. It’s not in his nature to understand this. It is in mine.” Redgrave leaned closer, so close they might have been about to kiss. “Only I can give you the answers you want. Only I can explain the line between life and death.”
All the myriad deaths she’d witnessed through her visions over the past month flooded back to her, but one beyond the rest welled up in her mind—one she hadn’t witnessed, but one that had haunted her for almost a year now: Dakota.
Skye jerked back, twisting her face away from him. “There’s nothing I need badly enough to get it from you.”
“As you like,” Redgrave said. “But we’ll meet again. One way or another.”
Her legs shaky, she made her way back to the cozy chairs, where Madison was doing a not very good job of pretending to be absorbed only in her texting. “Sooooo,” she singsonged. “Looks like you made a new friend at the poetry board.”
“He’s not a friend. He’s … some old creep.”
“Not too old. Not looking like that.” Madison stared in wonder as Redgrave strode across the room, turning heads as he went. “Is it just raining hot older guys all of a sudden?”
“Forget it.” Skye snatched up her backpack. “Let’s head out. The game’s starting soon anyway.”
Her heart pounded. Her limbs trembled. But Skye kept taking deep breaths and telling herself she ought to have been relieved. Redgrave really wouldn’t attack when she was in a public enough space. That gave her a lot of safety. More than she’d thought she had this morning. So that was good news, right?
But the questions he’d asked kept ringing in her mind. Did he really understand what was going on with her? Could he give her answers? Was there a way to give him what he needed while keeping herself safe and alive?
As they walked out of Café Keats, Skye glanced over at the poetry board. Before leaving, Redgrave had changed his offering, sliding away the remember and the question mark and putting another word in its place.
Now the line read only join me.
“Hey, Big Blue, it’s all up to you, so hey, Big Blue—PULL THROUGH!”
Cheers and clapping echoed through the gymnasium as Skye and Madison clambered up toward some seats with a group of people Madison knew. Though everyone was friendly enough, nobody went out of their way to talk to Skye, which meant she was soon sitting on the edge of the group, talking to nobody. That was fine with her.
She whipped out her phone to send a message, just as it chimed in her hand. The message was from Balthazar: Good, you’re here. I thought I remembered how boring this school spirit stuff is. Actually, I’d blocked it out, like any other kind of pain.
Skye couldn’t enjoy the joke. Redgrave talked to me.
What? When? Are you okay?
Fine. He came up to me in the coffeehouse and said a bunch of weird—can I just tell you this in person? It’s going to take the whole game to type it.
Meet me by the concession stand.
“Be back in a sec,” Skye said. Madison hardly turned as she waved her off.
While making her way back down the bleachers, Skye glanced at the actual game; there, in the heart of the defense action, was Craig. His hands were splayed wide, and his long limbs covered his hapless opponent like a spiderweb. His dark brown skin already gleamed with sweat—even this early in the first quarter, he was playing all out, going for broke, not holding back.
For one moment, her mind wasn’t in the present. It was in the past—last summer by the river, with the August heat beating down on the two of them tangled, Craig’s body against hers, skin gleaming with sweat as they came together for the first and last time—
Skye pushed the memory away. Already it seemed like something that had happened to somebody else. Or should’ve happened to somebody else.
The quickest way to the concession stand involved cutting under the bleachers. Teachers would stop students who tried, if they were seen, but since one of the teachers on b-ball duty was the person she was trying to meet, Skye figured she was safe. She glanced up to make sure she wasn’t about to hit her head on one of the crossbars, then froze.
He stands on the framework, whole body shaking with fear. He doesn’t want to do this but he doesn’t see any other way out. Maybe this will make it better. Maybe it’s the only thing that can.
Don’t do it, Skye wanted to shout, but she knew it would do no good. He’d gone through with it a long time ago. Her knowledge did nothing to diminish the overwhelming sadness and fear swelling inside her, pushing out her own feelings until she was nothing but a container for this boy’s pain.
The noose is just some strips from his sheets, ripped off and braided together. He ties the knot, makes sure it’s tight, and slips his head in. Their remembered taunts are louder now than his own heartbeat.
Skye’s eyes widened as she saw him more clearly. This had taken place decades ago—his hair and clothes told her that much—but he looked so familiar. Though there was no relation, no connection, the boy about to commit suicide reminded her of Dakota.
He jumps. The noose tightens, tighter than he’d known anything could feel, and it hurts worse than he’d thought anything could hurt. His body, ignorant of bullies or cruelty or sadness, struggles to live—bursting blood vessels, tensing muscles, contorting in every direction. His neck is a vise of pain that wants nothing more than to open up enough to breathe, but it can’t. It can’t.
She put her hands to her own throat. Though nothing prevented her from breathing, her body wasn’t doing it. Something in her begged her to surrender to the feeling, but she fought against it with every ounce of her will. Once again the boy’s face appeared before her, and once again she thought, Dakota.
“Skye?” Balthazar’s voice was distant. She couldn’t see him. Couldn’t see anything.
I take it back, the boy thinks. I take it back. His legs kick out wildly, seeking a place to stand, so he can get his life again; however broken or sad it is, it’s better than this. But his feet can’t find purchase, and everything in his brain is turning black—
Skye couldn’t see. Couldn’t think. She wasn’t even sure how she knew she was falling.