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runway.”
    Tango blinked and sat down in surprise. And an unpleasant thought occurred to her. A thought that made her hands itch to be around Riley’s scrawny throat and squeezing.
    Pookas took immense delight in playing pranks — one reason they loved Highsummer Night so much. Riley hadn’t played a serious prank on her in years. She had thought their friendship was past that.
    “Hi!” Cheryl said brightly. “This is my first time flying at night.” She shoved her skinny little arm under Tango’s nose. There was a gaudy gold charm bracelet around her wrist. Cheryl indicated a charm shaped like a star. “Mommy bought me a new charm. See?”
    One of the plastic covers on the armrests cracked under Tango’s grip. Cheryl glanced at the broken plastic, then up at Tango’s face. Tango didn’t look back at her. She was concentrating on breathing slowly and steadily, smoothing out her black anger at Riley.
    CHAPTER TWO
    Who knows upon what soil they fed Their hungry thirsty roots’
    Matt walked down the steps of the fraternity house as if he belonged there, as if he were just another frat boy going out for the night. Miranda looked up at him. “Finished so soon?” she asked sarcastically.
    “I hate summer,” Matt complained. “Practically everyone’s gone away. There can’t be more than a handful of frat boys left in the city.” He jerked a thumb at the dark bulk of the frat house behind him. “This is the third time this week I’ve had to come here.”
    Miranda shrugged. “Kidnap him. Keep him on ice.” “Yeah, sure. And what happens when he’s gone? Do I just get another one?” Matt wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his varsity jacket, leaving a dark streak glistening on the blue leather. Miranda wasn’t sure if he’d ever really played rugby, but Matt liked to cultivate a style he called “collegiate gone savage.” The jacket was worn and stained, the jeans he wore with it tom. Matt seldom took the jacket off, even on the hottest of summer nights. “These boys have parents, Miri, who miss their babies when they’re gone. And they have friends. Too many frat boys go missing or die suddenly, and it gets very hard for me.” He grimaced. “You’re ■■
    lucky. You can feed wherever you want to.”
    “Cry me a river,” she replied. Matt glared at her angrily. Miranda returned his glare, meeting his gaze coolly and directly. For a moment, their wills clashed: Matt seeking dominance, Miranda denying him with the arrogance of experienced, rightful power. Finally, with a snarl and a flash of bared teeth, Matt looked away.
    “Where are Tolly and Blue?” he asked in a hiss.
    “Following someone.” Miranda led him to her car, a black sports model parked down the block, without saying anything else.
    “Who?”
    Miranda remained silent and inscrutable as she started the car and pulled away from the curb. She was more than aware of Matt in the seat beside her, fuming and waiting for her reply. She left him hanging for a few minutes longer. The car slid through the hot Toronto night, whispering from one pool of light below a streetlamp to the next. Like a shadow. Miranda was a shadow, too, tall and lean. Matt might affect a look that recalled the university student he had once been, but Miranda chose to embrace what she was now. She wore black. Black jeans, black, high-collared shirt. Her long, black hair was pulled back and tied at the nape of her neck with a knot of black velvet. A gothic cross cast in dull pewter hung around her neck, her only ornamentation. Her eyes were intense, dark, drowning pools in a strong face that still retained its cafe-au-lait skin tone even after years of death.
    She was a vampire. Why pretend otherwise?
    She had known Matt back in university — they had both been taken the same night, reborn into the world of the Kindred in the same cemetery. Sometimes she wondered if he remembered her from then, when he was important and popular and she was nothing. Maybe that was