Elise ignored the curiosity of fellow students in favor of asking them to pass her food — her stomach had started complaining as soon as she'd been close enough to smell breakfast. She piled her plate high with flapjacks, bacon, and ham; she took too many servings of scrambled eggs, fried eggs, soft-boiled eggs; she poured orange juice into one glass and milk into another; she selected four different kinds of toast, slathering them with butter and honey or jam.

This feast went into her mouth and down her gullet in hurried, methodical bites. By the time she'd finished her first helping, half the students at her table had yet to finish theirs. The food eased some of her tension, but not all. Elise Ellsworth had friends and those friends didn't seem to be waiting for her. Worry coiled inside her. Where could they be? Did they not care that she'd returned? Were they as cold as her family was, abandoning her in a time of need? Where was Willow? The coil tightened.

A chime rang. She twisted around, following the source of that noise to the staff table in the distance behind her. The president had stood from her seat, the white of her clothes burning in the daylight filtering from above.

"If I may have your attention," she said, in a voice that somehow carried through to where Elise sat, "I should like to say a few words on this special occasion." Her face seemed to focus on Elise for a moment. "And make no mistake, today is a very special occasion."

The muttering in the Refectory turned to a hushed buzz.

President Wong spoke. "As I'm sure you have all noticed, Miss Elise Ellsworth has returned to us this morning in renewed health —"

Elise sank down as hundreds of stares shifted her way. As always seemed to be the case when embarrassed, her face grew hot. Her pounding heartbeat drowned out most of what Wong next said. She caught a word here and there, but not much else. Fixing her gaze on the wall behind the president, she could've been mistaken for paying attention. Her stomach gurgled impatiently at the interruption, though.

When Wong finished speaking, she insisted that everyone clap to give Elise a hearty welcome. Elise's face was no longer just hot: it burned. The clapping had been so anemic at Hall Seven's table that it merited — by presidential decree — a second and more enthusiastic round of torture. The fire crept towards Elise's chest. The president wasn't without mercy, thankfully. Once the applause finished, she told everyone to hurry along with their breakfasts, as lingering inside would be a waste of what promised to be a pleasant September Saturday.

No need for Elise to be told twice. She dug back into her food, eating as fast as propriety allowed. A neighboring student had just passed the flapjacks to her again when the inevitable interruption struck.

"I just don't understand it," said a loud girl down her side of the table. "The first one, well, who didn't have it out for that thing? But Ellsworth? Why risk it?"

"Well, it's obvious, isn't it?" answered an obnoxious, cultured voice from the other side of the table. The girl who owned it looked a bit like a fashionable crane, with her beaky nose and narrow build. Her eyes were so dark they looked black. She smiled when she noticed Elise looking her way. Her face might've been arresting if she ever managed to blunt her sharp cruelty. "Someone is after Rambling's trash. Throwing it over the stairs isn't all that effective, but it's a clear effort to clean up this town."

The message couldn't have been clearer. Elise didn't flinch. She didn't push away from the table or sneer or grow teary-eyed. To do anything like that would've been to show weakness, and she wasn't weak. Instead, she pretended that anger wasn't roiling sickly inside her and speared some eggs with her fork.

"It's for the best, really," the crane-girl continued. "Upstarts should know their place." The golden-haired young man at her elbow plucked on the sleeve of her cardigan, whispering something to her. She shook him off. A smug smile crept over her thin face. "And those who share sympathies with Addies, well, they're the worst of the worst. Just look at Ellswor —"

"You're wrong, Adesso."

Now that was a familiar voice. It was a little huskier than it'd been the other night, almost rasping, but Elise knew it. Marek had spoken. She leaned forward so that she could see him; only three people separated the two of them.

The Adesso girl sniffed disdainfully and turned her hateful gaze on the boy who'd dared interrupt her. "Please, you're only saying that to defend yourself."

He said, "I defend the truth, and the truth of it is that you're wrong." Marek looked little different by day than he had by night. Paler, perhaps, his skin like unblemished pinkish-white stone under the morning sunlight. The only unusual thing was his lack of eyeglasses.

"Oh, keep going," Adesso said, "this should make me laugh."

Marek, who had a slim book in one hand and a fork in the other, went on without looking away from his page. "First," he said, "Ellsworth is a natural Ex. Second, the other girl, she was an Addy." He set his fork aside to pick up a piece of toast. "And third, Addy sympathies are a stretch as a motive for murder, attempted or otherwise." He finally looked at Adesso, said, "To put it in smaller, more understandable words: you're wrong," and tore off the corner of his toast with fine, white teeth.

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What other girl? No one had told Elise about another girl. She set her fork down, all desire to eat gone.

Adesso rolled her eyes so theatrically that it looked as if they might keep on spinning forever. Others at the table, though, they had been listening to Marek. Some of them looked as if they agreed with him, or at least found him funny.

The golden-haired boy next to Adesso spoke. "Stop talking," he said. "You sound more like an ass than you usually do."

Snapping his book shut one-handed, Marek straightened up. "You should work on your insults, Romilly. I've heard better ones." His hand retreated with the book, and returned seconds after without it. Maybe he'd put it in a pocket. He chewed up another mouthful of toast. "As I was saying before I'd been rudely interrupted, Adesso is wrong, wrong, wrong, which, of course is what usually happens when she opens her gaping maw" — his mouth twitched — ''apart from the times that she has something stuck in it."

Snickers rippled along both sides of the table, as did gasps. Elise couldn't remember who she was, but she certainly knew what Marek had been implying. No matter how awful Adesso was, there were certain things that you just couldn't say about a girl. But part of Elise smiled inside at what he'd done.

Romilly thumped his coffee cup down, shaking the utensils beside his plate. "I'm warning you, Marek."

The last of the toast disappeared into Marek's mouth. When he'd finished it, his lips pressed together into what might've been a smile. "It's more likely that the victims were targeted for their looks, not how they got their powers." He trailed his fingers over the napkin he'd left on the table next to his plate. "Slender, pale, dark-haired." His gaze, green as a cat's, flickered toward Elise. "If there's a killer, he has a type."

Elise drew in a harsh breath. This was more than any hints Marek or Gerver had given her. People thought someone had tried to murder her, and felt comfortable enough about the idea to openly discuss it over breakfast. There'd been more than just her, too. Another girl, one who sounded like she had been murdered, not just the victim of an accident. Everyone referred to that nameless "victim" in past tense, so something terrible must've happened. Elise hadn't been given a single clue about that, not by anyone, not until now. And Marek, he didn't sound like he had when he had helped her out all those nights ago. Sure, he was standing up for her, but he seemed so different now, so inhumane, discussing her as if she wasn't right there listening.

She returned his gaze, waiting for him to show the faintest bit of warmth. He turned back to his book without giving her any. Stabbing her with the nearest bread knife would've been kinder.

Suddenly bloodless beneath his pale pink skin, Romilly stood. "I've lost my appetite." He threw his napkin down on his plate.

"You seem to lose a lot of things," Marek said, with a malicious gleam in his eye.

Romilly slammed his fists onto the table. His nostrils flared. "You son of a bi —"

Something touched Elise's shoulder and she cried out. Everyone looked at her again, but this hardly mattered. A new boy with camera around his neck and a mop of dark, curly hair had come out of nowhere to get her attention. He dropped his hand from her shoulder apologetically.

"Who are you?" she blurted.

"Sorry about that," he said. "Willow had warned me about your memory, but I didn't think ..." He shook his head, and stuck his hand out at her again. "I'm Ian, Ian Sherman. We both work on the Herald, Rambling's newspaper."

He looked nice. Harmless, even. If she could stand, she wouldn't have had to look very far up to meet his warm brown gaze. "We're friends?" she said, just as someone at the table started whispering about amnesia, that they'd heard rumors, but hadn't thought that Ellsworth had really lost her mind.

"Yep," he said. "Gerver sent a nurse by the newsroom to tell us you'd finally been sprung from the cooler."

She glanced at Marek, trying to see his reaction, but he was gone. Her gaze sought and found Gerver at the next table over; the professor nodded at her once, then continued pushing food around his plate. She examined Ian's face again, hunting for any sign of a lie. The only thing she found was a scattering of freckles on his light brown skin.

"Are you sure we're really friends?" she said, just in case.

"Surer than sure." Ian smiled. "You're one of my favorite people, Ellie."

Across the table, Adesso pretended to retch. Some of the other girls on her side tittered at the act. Not for long, though. Romilly dropped back into his spot beside her. "Stop it," he told her, "you're worse than Tucker with all those lousy jokes, Abriana."

Adesso bristled. "Tucker! I'm nothing like that worthless little tart."

"I meant her brother."

Ian laughed. He had the good sense to turn his mirth into a cough. "C'mon," he told Elise, as Adesso and Romilly continued to argue, "let's agitate the gravel. Everyone's waiting for your happy return."

No matter how nice he seemed, she still hesitated. "Why aren't they here?"

He made no attempt to hide his embarrassment. "Uh, we didn't know you'd be leaving the clinic today. We're neck-deep in deadlines and arguments right now, too. And, to be honest, I didn't tell anyone what the nurse said and made my way down here for a little peace and quiet." Her skepticism must've been obvious, because he added more. "I know it's gotta be hard for you to believe me, so let me show you something."

From an inside pocket of his navy blue uniform jacket, he removed a wallet. Inside it was a photograph of six people crammed in close to a camera, grinning or pulling faces. She recognized Ian, Willow, and herself — that last one only through many minutes spent gazing in mirrors trying to make her reflection seem less like a stranger. As for the three other people, she had no idea who they were. But in the photo, Ian had an arm slung around one of her shoulders and she had looked happy. If they hadn't been friends, she didn't know what they had been.

"Okay," she said, "let's go."

Getting back into her wheelchair brought more attention on her. She pretended not to see it, and eventually got off the bench. Ian offered to push her along, but she told him that it was all right — she needed to get used to doing things for herself. And so she did, all the way out of the Refectory.