Aaron Reisig was waiting for me near the stairs. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels, and yet, he still managed to look tense.

That didn’t necessarily mean anything. When Darius was uptight, he tended to make everyone around him tense. Everyone with an exposed neck, anyway.

Reisig looked up when he heard me coming.

When I was level with him, I opened my mouth to ask if he knew what was going on, but he spoke first.

“This way.”

He set off down the hall. I had no trouble matching his slow pace.

“Darius made it sound like I should hurry,” I said.

Reisig took three steps before he answered. “He’s worried you’ll miss the chance to see what’s going on.”

“So…should we hurry?”

The instructor shrugged. It was another three steps before he said, “Why you, Miss Cole?”

“Why me what?”

“Why was he so insistent that you needed to see him?”

My mouth clamped shut and my brain skipped into overdrive as I tried to catch up to a conversation that I wasn’t a part of.

“I have no idea,” I admitted.

I could feel Reisig looking at me out of the corner of his eye. It was not a comfortable feeling.

“I thought they sent you because you were young enough to get along with the boys,” he observed.

At least I could speak to that.

“Well, they certainly didn’t mind taking advantage of it.”

To my relief, Reisig stopped asking questions. I didn’t want him to press any further (you can only hide so much ignorance), so I kept my mouth shut.

Darius was waiting for us in the hall. When I saw him, I picked up the pace. Reisig mimicked me.

The count nodded his approval when I reached him. He opened the door and held it wide, but when Reisig tried to follow me in, he was stopped by Darius’s up-raised hand.

The count said, “I would prefer if you remain outside, Mr. Reisig.”

“Why?”

“Privacy.”

“Jolie is my student, Mr. Vasil. He’s under my care.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“It isn’t his privacy I’m concerned with. I’ve already talked to Wuller. He insisted that there should be one representative from the school in the room, but he elected to fill the position himself. You need to remain out here.”

Reisig’s forced smile couldn’t quite hide his frustration, but he nodded and turned away.

Darius put a hand on my arm to usher me into the room. He made sure the door was completely closed behind us.

“Darius—” I started to whisper.

He put a finger over his lips, then motioned for me to walk further into the room.

The room was small and dark. The mullioned window let in enough light to see by, but the clouds dimmed it until it could only highlight the shadows. Wuller was standing off to the side, hands clasped together, still beaming, but silent. There was a bed in the room, and I could make out a figure on the bed. Behind the bed…

I staggered back into Darius.

“Holy—!”

I was able to cut off the cuss word that had leapt to my mouth, but I turned and clawed at the vampire’s suit coat, trying to get a grip on something, because it sure wasn’t going to be my heart rate.

Darius took me by the shoulders. “It’s all right, Emerra. Take a deep breath.”

Yeah. Okay. A deep breath. It took a few tries, but I managed.

“Darius,” I whispered, on the verge of tears, “what is that thing?”

“You can see something?”

“Yes!”

“What does it look like?”

I turned around. The thing hadn’t moved. It was still standing behind the bed, watching us. It didn’t seem threatening.

I stepped away from the count and crept toward the bed to get a better look.

The thing was a person. An all-white person. Not Caucasian white. Paper white—snow white would be more accurate. There were lines of pearlized blues and delicate grays that prevented the figure from looking like a flat plane of color. And there was something wrong with the figure. Either someone had turned its opacity down to ninety-eight percent, or it was made of solidified fog. If I’d been brave enough to try to touch the thing, I was sure my hand would sweep right through it.

My eyes moved from the white figure down to the boy on the bed. They had the same clothes. The same face.

“Is he dead?” I asked.

“No,” Wuller assured me.

“It’s his ghost,” I said.

Darius corrected me. “It’s his soul. Mr. Jolie is a psychic. His power is astral projection. And you, Miss Cole, have finally been able to confirm it beyond a doubt.”

Wuller’s pleased chuckle filled the room.

I raised my eyes to Jolie’s soul. He could see me. I was as sure of that as I was that I couldn’t touch him. When our eyes met, a violent shiver shook me.

“Darius, do you need anything else?” I asked in a rather croaky voice.

“No. You can send in Mr. Reisig.”

Wuller stepped away from his corner. Even his hushed voice could fill a room. “I’ll let Reisig finish timing the event. Do you plan on staying here, Vasil?”

“If you don’t mind, Headmaster.”

“Not at all! I’m glad you got the chance to see this. It was more than we could have hoped for. Are you sure—”

“No notes,” Darius said firmly. “I’ll write a testimonial that can be left in Jolie’s file and leave the full report with the local Torr.”

“Ah. Well, I understand.”

I let Wuller open the door for me. I didn’t want him to see how bad my hands were shaking.

Reisig turned to us as we came out of the room.

“Mr. Reisig!” Wuller boomed. “Thank you for your patience. I’m sorry to bar you out like that. It was selfish of me. But your student is waiting for you, and the stopwatches are as you left them.”

“What happened in there?” Reisig asked.

Wuller’s inscrutable smile was so pronounced, I wondered why he didn’t just wink and get it over with. “You better get inside.”

As the door closed behind Reisig, the headmaster put a friendly hand on my shoulder. “As for you, Miss Cole—you look like you could use some tea.”

I laughed and put a hand over my eyes. There was a lot of nervous relief in that laugh, along with some honest delight. I lowered my hand to my hip and said, “How many days have I been in Britain, and this is the first time anyone has ever offered me tea!”

“Were you disappointed?”

“Heartbroken.”

“Then we must rectify the situation immediately! Let’s go back to my office.”