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the moonlight.
    What was it with this school and pentagrams? I dragged my sleeve across the chalk lines, smearing them, and immediately felt a little better. I took a deep breath, commanding my racing heart to calm down. I was a rational person. So it was dark. So the house was creepy. I was perfectly safe. Nothing was going to leap out at me.
    “Get thee behind me, Satan!”
    I very nearly died, and not just from shock. Only some primal reflex made me leap aside, so that the shining silver blade skewered the air rather than my heart. My dad’s much-hated self-defense lessons—which he’d viewed as essential preparation for an all-boys’ boarding school life—kicked in. I grabbed my attacker’s wrist, digging my thumb in until she dropped the sword, then twisted her arm behind her back to immobilize her.
    Wait a second. Her?
    Long, blonde hair tangled across my face as my captive struggled. “Faith?”
    “Raffi?” To my relief, she stopped trying to stomp my toes into mush. “What are you doing here?”
    “Not expecting to get assaulted, that’s what!” I was suddenly very aware of her lithe body pressed against mine. I let her go in a hurry. “What are you doing?”
    “Raf?” Krystal’s voice sounded faintly from the other side of the house. “Was that you? Are you okay?”
    “Fine!” I called back. “Small misunderstanding. Keep looking, okay?” I turned back to Faith. “Seriously, what the hell?”
    “I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was you!” Faith brushed her hair back behind her ears, still breathing hard. She pointed at the smudged pentagram. “I was looking for whoever did that.”
    “With a sword?”
    Faith’s gaze slid away from mine evasively. “It’s for . . . protection. Anyway, you need to go.” She looked nervously around the garden, as if expecting the bushes to erupt with zombies at any moment. “It’s not safe.”
    “No kidding.” Death threats and attempted stabbings, all in my first day. I hadn’t realized an all-girls’ school would be this crazy. “I don’t want to be here. Your mother kind of made me.” I briefly explained my predicament, grateful when she didn’t laugh. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a map of her garden, do you?”
    “Actually, yes. She keeps the designs on her computer. She takes her gardening seriously.” Faith’s eyes were still skipping from shadow to shadow. “You really need to go now.”
    “I can’t, not without those plans. Look, can you go print me out a copy?” Faith looked dubious, so I added, “You did try to stab me through the heart, you know.”
    “All right,” Faith said reluctantly. She took a step toward the house, then hesitated. “It’ll take me a while though. Maybe you should come in.”
    “Are you nuts ?” The mere thought of the Headmistress catching me with her daughter, alone, in her house, at night . . . I resisted the urge to cup my hands protectively over my groin. “I’ll wait here.” Scooping up the sword, I handed it back to her. “Hurry, okay?”
    Faith bit her lip. Then, to my surprise, she thrust the hilt into my hand. “To keep you safe,” she called over her shoulder as she hurried away.
    I hefted the weapon dubiously. It was a thin, whippy thing, dull on the edges like a fencing saber, but narrowing to a sharp, wicked point that would definitely not be legal in any sporting venue. “Safe from what?”
    Silence answered me. Silence . . . and the growing sense of a watching presence. Try as I might to tell myself it was just my imagination, that there was nothing out there, sweat ran down my spine. I squeezed my eyes shut, determined not to give in to the irrational, rising sense of dread. There was nothing there. Nothing creeping up on me. Nothing—
    A twig snapped right behind me.
    With a yell, I spun around, lashed out with the sword in pure reflex. I caught the briefest glimpse of the Headmistress’s startled face as the weapon hit her solidly in the ribs.
    And the blade