Darius said he would talk to Miller.

“Maybe there’s something in the boys’ backgrounds that could help.”

Since I hadn’t been attacked, the count was grudgingly willing to let me go without a guardian, which freed up Conrad to talk to Wuller.

My job was to deal with the boys. All two hundred and eighty of them.

“Can’t I just make a school wide announcement?” I asked.

“That won’t work if he’s trying to hide from us,” Darius said, “and there’s no telling what he’ll do once he knows we’re looking.”

“And we might be wrong,” Conrad pointed out.

“That’s also a possibility. Try to be subtle, Emerra.”

I decided to keep the loudspeaker idea as option C. Option A was to sit in the middle of the dining hall and think, really loudly, Can any of you read my mind? to see if anyone reacted.

I had to dismiss that idea too. It spared me from school-wide humiliation, but I wasn’t sure about my ability to stay focused on one thing long enough to catch the psychic, and if he was hiding, then the chances were high all I’d do is warn him that we were on to him.

That left option B: try to nonchalantly ask the students if they’d noticed anything weird…but not, like, the everyday weird you’d expect when you’re living in a psychic academy—weird weird.

Smile. Look interested. But not too interested.

I was about a subtle as a brick.

“Emerra?” It was Eric. “You okay?”

We were at dinner. I was sitting with the musketeers, poking at the food on my tray, and puzzling over how to find a telepath that doesn’t want to be found.

I tapped my fork on my tray. “Yeah.”

Eric scowled at me, and I got the feeling he’d keep on scowling at me until I told him the truth.

“We learned some stuff today,” I said. “I’m still trying to process it.”

“It’s a lot to process, isn’t it?” a voice behind me said.

My legs banged the table when I jumped, making my tray rattle. Now there was a voice I didn’t like having appear behind me without warning.

When I turned, Christopher Norris was smiling down at me with his watery smile. “I heard that you brought a rather interesting guest into the school. I was wondering if you’d be willing to tell me about her. Did you summon her here to investigate the building?”

“What about the building?” Eric demanded.

“The state of our education system always causes me to despair.” As Norris shook his head, his eyes stayed fixed on Eric. “I wonder—would you have struggled so much in history if, instead of wars and kings, we’d taught you something interesting?”

“I did fine in history.”

“I didn’t,” Scott piped up. “What’s interesting?”

“The history of Setlan on Lee is rather piquant,” Norris said.

Scott leaned toward Dustin and whispered loudly, “Piquant? Wha—what does ‘piquant’ mean?”

“It means bitter,” Dustin said. He laid his fork down beside his tray.

“I’m sorry to correct you”—Norris didn’t sound sorry. He sounded almost cheery—“it means pleasantly sharp in taste.”

Dustin raised his eyes to meet the nurse’s, and for the first time, I saw Christopher Norris lose a staring contest.

He withdrew by turning his gaze on me.

“Miss Cole?”

I shook my head to wake myself out of the mental stupor that always crept over me when Norris was around. “Sorry?”

“The pipe smoker. Was she here to investigate the building?”

A stroke of pure and perfect genius struck me.

“It was actually Darius that brought her in,” I said. “You’d have to ask him.”

Norris stared at me.

“Mr. Vasil?” I pointed to the head table. “He’s up there, sitting next to the wolfman.” And neither of them are afraid of you.

His eyes followed the line of my arm. “Ah. Yes. Thank you.” He bowed to me, then set off toward the front of the room.

“What was that all about?” Wes said.

“What’s wrong with the building?” Dustin asked.

I poked a little more viciously at my food. “This place used to be an insane asylum. Norris told me about it.”

“An insane asylum?” Scott’s face broke into a gigantic, disbelieving grin. He laughed. “That’s…whoa! That’s brilliant!”

“I don’t see why,” Eric grumbled. “It just means things haven’t changed much.”

Wes nudged Eric by leaning into him. “You’re crazy to be here.”

“You’re crazy to stay.”

I tried to smile. It hurt, and it was so brittle it cracked in less than a second, but I wanted to give them that smile. Let them think it was cool. Let them laugh about it. They could only enjoy it because they were being thoughtless, but it seemed better to me than mourning for people who were decades beyond the reach of their sympathy.

“Was the witch here to find out if it was true?” Dustin asked.

“Yeah,” I lied.

I wasn’t in the mood to explain all the details. I knew I’d have to do it eventually, but first I needed to stab my already well-punctured dinner.

The conversation passed on to other things. I wasn’t listening. I watched Norris walk up to Darius. The count didn’t look pleased to have the man’s company.

When the nurse motioned toward my table, Darius looked over. Our eyes met before he looked away.

In that brief glance, I thought I saw an ah of realization. The vampire’s aloof demeanor vanished. He pushed back the empty chair beside him. Norris sat down.

God bless that vampire. I owed him, big-time.

I was trying to figure out what his favorite candy might be when the lights flickered.

Everyone in the hall looked up. The lights flickered again.

“Truhurst!” Turner shouted.

“It’s not me!” the boy yelled back.

“Shit,” Eric whispered.

Wes reached out and put his hand on Eric’s arm.

“It’s okay,” Scott said. “It’s only the storm.” He tried to sound indifferent, but his voice was too expressive to hide his nervousness.

Scott wasn’t the only one who was nervous. The whole room had been engulfed by tension. I could feel it piling over me, pressing down. Everyone was silent. All you could hear was the rain and the wind pressing on the outside walls.

A low muttering started at the table next to us.

“Turner!” a boy called. His hand was clamped over the shoulder of his twitching friend.

The teacher ran over. The convulsing boy’s eyes were wide open, unseeing, and he muttered without a break, creating an endless stream of syllables. The longer this went on, the more his body clenched, curling around itself into a stiff, misshapen ball.

“It’s Brown,” Wes said.

Wuller stood up at the head table. “Are you recording him?”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Turner wasn’t. And it didn’t look like he cared. He lifted the boy off the bench and set him on the floor.

Another whisper of endless muttering sprung up on our other side. Everyone’s head turned toward it.

Behind me, Turner said, “It’s starting.”

The room filled with the sound of a dozen chairs being pushed back. The teachers stood up and moved to the main floor. The ones that were already there were heading toward certain students. The targeted boys weren’t muttering yet. I could see one making a disgusted face. Another’s jaw was clenched. One was hiding his face with his hand. One was in tears.

Then, one by one, their expressions blanked, and another whisper joined the stream.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

The boys didn’t answer.

Random trays at every table started trembling. The telekinetics were leaning over, pressing their temples with their palms, eyes squeezed shut.

In the distance I thought I heard Iver’s rough laugh.

Reisig walked down the edge of the room. “Pyros! Move away from your tables!”

Most of them did. Wes ignored the instruction.

“Can we get out of here?” Scott whispered.

My head whipped around to stare at him. I’d never heard such raw fear in someone’s voice before.

“Please,” he said, looking right at me.

I didn’t know what to say.

Three boys stood up. One clutched at the edge of his table as if it was the edge of a cliff. Another was grabbed by his friends. The last one stumbled over the bench he was sitting on. He tried to catch himself, but it was like he was trying to grab onto a world that didn’t exist. His hand reached for nothing and found exactly that. He hit the bench, then rolled to the floor, slamming his shoulder and head as he did.

The lights flickered again. One second of darkness. Two.

They came back on.

“No!” Someone screamed over the river of muttering. “Don’t touch me!”

I looked around. A teacher was reaching for the boy, but he yanked himself away from everyone. His back hit the wall, and his eyes went wide. He slid to the floor.

The lights went off. This time I could see the sallow faces of the students by the light of the pyros’ fires.

I heard Eric: “Wes?”

“I’ve got it,” Wes said. It sounded like he was talking through grit teeth.

I stood up. A cold hand reached out and fastened on my wrist. When the lights came back on, I was looking down at Dustin.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “There’s nothing you can do.”

He peeled his icy fingers off my arm.

“Nothing?” I said.

“It’ll pass,” Wes hissed.

“We can leave,” Scott whispered. “Please! I don’t want to be here!”

“Wes isn’t supposed to leave,” Eric said.

Every lightbulb in the room burst at once. The deafening crack made my heart skip and my body spasm. Glass rained down from the lofted ceiling.

Wes stood up. “That’s a daft rule anyway. We’re leaving.”

Eric and Dustin weren’t even a second behind him.

Scott stayed seated. His trembling was so bad, I could see it by the firelight. I took his hand and pulled him to his feet.

Neither of us let go when he was standing.

Hand in hand, we followed Wes as he dodged toward the east wing.

When the door closed behind us, the darkness was complete. A soft murmur was all that remained of the eerie noises behind us.

“They’ll have to reset the breakers,” Eric said.

Wes ignited his hand and held it up like a torch.

“Come on,” he said.

I tried to figure out where we were going, but I got distracted when I felt Scott squeeze my hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said under his breath.

I slowed down so we’d be closer together. “For what?” I whispered back.

“You must think I’m a baby.”

I pulled him closer. “You’re talking to the girl who had to be carried outside by a wolfman.”

“I don’t know what happened.”

I couldn’t see his face well, but his voice sounded choked. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he was crying.

He went on, “I’ve never been that scared before.”

“If I told you I totally get it, would you believe me?”

I thought I saw the flash of teeth in the firelight. He was smiling again. The world was a better place when Scott was smiling.

“Do you think the wolfman will carry me outside?” he asked.

“He’s not here right now. Would you settle for a piggyback ride from a bald chick?”

His grin was all the warning I had. I braced myself, and less than a second later, he put his hands on my shoulders and boosted himself onto my back.

“Tally ho!” he said, pointing over my shoulder.

“Yee-haw!” I said.

I ran, as well as I could, to catch up to the other three. They had stopped to wait for us. As I galumphed into the light of Wes’s fire, Scott and I caught sight of their incredulous expressions. We both laughed.

“What?” Scott demanded.

“Really?” Eric said.

“I’m yon fair maiden in distress!” Scott cried.

“And I get to be a knight!” I said.

Wes laughed. Dustin shook his head.

“You’re not a knight,” Eric said. “At best you’re a knight’s horse.”

“What? Just because I can’t dead lift someone who’s almost as big as me?”

Wes turned to Dustin. “Is it true they shoot a horse if it collapses?”

“No piggyback ride for you,” I said.

Scott tapped my shoulder. “Onward! Don’t let these knaves distract you.”

The knaves led out. For some reason I was walking slower than normal.

Minutes later, we stopped in front of a door in the middle of a hall. Scott jumped down. I was still trying to figure out what door and which hall when Wes reached out with the hand he wasn’t using as a torch and tried the handle.

“It’s locked,” he reported.

“Are you sure?” Dustin asked.

Eric reached out next. The handle caught where it had for Wes, but Eric tightened his hand around the knob and kept turning. It gave way under his grip.

“It’s not locked,” Eric said as he pushed the heavy door open. “Wes is just weak. No one locks this door.”

It was one of the tower rooms. Thick drops of rain beat off the tall windows that stood like soldiers in the angled walls, creating a protective semi-circle around us. There was no furniture. Nothing but a small staircase that wound around the outside of the room. Eric, Dustin, Scott, and I all sat down on the floor and nestled into the curve of the staircase.

Wes climbed up the stairs until he reached the first sconce. He pulled a candle from it, brought it back down, and lit the wick. We watched the melted wax build up at the top of the candle. Then Wes tilted it, allowing the wax to fall onto a greasy stain already on the floor.

“You’ve done this before?” I asked.

“This is our get-away-from-everyone cave,” Scott explained. “The common rooms can get crowded sometimes.”

Wes stood the candle up by pressing the end into the wax, then shook out the fire on his hand. That done, he scooted back to lean on the wall with us.

The long silence and the candle’s steady, gentle light coaxed out the worst of our fear. The less I could feel my anxiety, the more my curiosity gnawed at me.

“What happened back there?” I asked.

The boys were all watching the flame. Eight small sparks of orange were reflected in their eyes. Scott shuffled his feet so he could hold his knees up to his chest.

Eric answered me: “We don’t know.”

“The psychic powers all start to go off at once,” Wes said. “We don’t know why. Wooly calls them ‘birthing pangs.’”

“It’s all a part of the process,” Eric sneered.

“What does it mean?” I said. “Birthing pangs?”

Scott leaned closer to me without looking away from the tranquil light. “This has happened three times. Each time, something happens that night, and we get a new psychic. Usually a powerful one.”

My stomach felt hollow and breezy, like a wind was whistling through a cave. “No one told us about this.”

“It’s not usually this bad,” Dustin said.

Eric added, “And Wuller’s smart enough to know it would upset people, so he’s been hiding it until we’re already a part of the precious Torr.” He let his head drop toward his chest. “I fucking hate this school.”

“No, you don’t.” Wes tried to use a light voice, and he forced a smile.

Eric looked up. “Yes, I do.”

“Eric,” Scott said pleadingly.

“It’s fine for you! You can leave whenever you want!” Eric nodded to Wes and Dustin. “Both of you can!” His eyes narrowed. “But why would you want to? The king and his peasants. Wuller’s favorite freak.”

Wes’s smile vanished, replaced by nothing. His face was impassive.

“You want to leave?” The question spilled out of Dustin. His fingers pressed into his crossed arms.

“Of course I do!” Eric said. “Do you think it’s fun, waiting around to see if you’re going to be next? You sleep in the same room with him!” He stabbed the air, pointing to Osborn. “Aren’t you afraid you’re going to wake up on fire some night? Or not wake up at all?”

Dustin’s eyes darted over to his roommate.

Wes said, “I haven’t lost control like that since January.” It sounded like he was chipping each word off a stone.

“How comforting.” I had no idea you could put sarcasm into a shrug, but Eric managed it. “In the meantime, Scott and I are stuck. Do you think I have any choice in the matter? You think his mom can afford a different boarding school?”

“Lay off,” Scott said softly.

Everyone went quiet. Eric’s anger dissolved when he saw the rage peering out at him from the orange sparks in Scott’s eyes. No one moved. There was a strange animal in our midst. No one knew what it would do if startled.

Scott went on, “Don’t you ever fucking make it out like this is her fault. You think she wouldn’t take me home the moment I told her something was wrong? She asks me every time she sees me—Are the kids treating you okay? Do you have friends? I’m choosing to be here, Eric.”

He finally broke eye contact. The wild animal was gone. Scott looked back at the candle and took a deep breath. We all did.

“I’m sorry—” Eric started to say.

Scott rushed to cut him off. “Don’t worry about it.”

Wes scooted closer to the candle and held up his hand. The flame flexed toward him. “Why are you staying, Scott?”

“Maybe it’s because I’m surrounded by such a nice group of muppets.”

I tried to keep back my laugh, but it came out as a snort.

“A Muppet?” I pulled out my best imitation: “‘Hi Ho! Kermit the Frog here!’”

Then I giggled. Wes chuckled, and the other three boys smiled.

Wes raised a finger. The flame followed it. When he jerked it up, part of the flame jumped into the air before disappearing in a roll of smoke.

Despite their smiles, I could sense the tension, still out there, beyond the light of the candle. Eric was the most vocal about it, but we were all feeling it. Almost everyone in the school was feeling it, and it followed them no matter where they went.

They’d always be looking over their shoulders.

“Hey.” The crack in my voice surprised me. I cleared my throat before I continued. “Guys, do you know if any kids are hiding their powers?”

“A few of them,” Wes said. He rolled the flame in a circle.

I found it hard to deal with how carelessly he announced it.

Demonstrating the brilliant insight I’d long ago come to expect from myself, I said, “Does Wuller know?”

Eric scoffed. “Obviously not.”

“Who are they?”

“I heard about a couple of clairvoyants.”

“Fields is a clairauditory,” Wes said. “He said he didn’t want to get put away as a schizophrenic.”

Scott explained, “The ones that can hide it sometimes do. Why give up one of their free periods for something that’s probably only going to happen once?”

“How many boys are we talking about?” I asked.

“A couple dozen?” Scott said.

A couple dozen that they knew about. That meant there were at least one-hundred and thirty boys already affected.

I shook my head. “That’s not the kind of thing I meant. I’m talking about a boy who’s hiding a normal power—a…a constant power. This wouldn’t be a one-off.”

Wes sat up. When his attention left it, the candle flame shrank back to normal. “I doubt it. To hide your powers, you’d have to be either really lucky or have a lot of control. New psychics don’t have that kind of control.”

And what if he’s been struggling with his powers all his life? I thought.

Wes used both hands to warp the flame. It spread between his palms like taffy.

“Make it look like a duck!” Scott said.

“That might take some work.” Wes flexed his fingers, trying to shape the flame.

I tried to sound respectable: “As the responsible adult, I’m morally compelled to tell you that you’re not supposed to play with fire.”

“Au contraire!” Wes made the flame swirl up like a corkscrew. “I need all the practice I can get.” He gave Eric a look. “I don’t want to accidentally light my roommate on fire or anything.”

Eric returned the look with one of his own.

“Is that still your flame?” Dustin asked.

“It’s the candle’s.” Wes turned to me. When he spoke, he sounded almost as pompous as Wuller. “Emerra, I’m pleased to tell you, I can control flames other than my own.”

I smiled at him. “Good for you, Wes.”