I shrugged. “The only other person who can do that is Sabine. But this nightmare didn’t feel like her and she hasn’t claimed credit, which seems to be a point of pride with her. So who else could it be?”

Nash scowled as he thought, and I saw the exact moment understanding washed over him. “Shit. It was Sabine. Well, it was Avari using Sabine. If he can possess a hypnos, he can possess a mara, and he’d have access to anything she can do while he occupies her body. The tricky part would be catching her while she sleeps.”

“Uh-oh.” Avari was getting too strong, too fast, and we had no clue how to stop him. “Why didn’t she say anything?”

“I don’t think she knows. If she did, she’d tell me,” Nash insisted. “She’d be beyond pissed, and out for blood.”

I couldn’t blame her there. Avari was using Sabine, just like he’d used me. As badly as I hated to absolve her of any guilt, she was a victim in this—a selfish, deluded, boyfriend-stealing victim, but a victim nonetheless.

“What I can’t figure out is how he even knew she was there to use…” Nash wondered aloud.

Crap. “Um…that part’s my fault.” I shrugged miserably at the realization that I’d accidentally dragged the mara into this, then blamed the whole thing on her. “He masqueraded as Alec a couple of times before we figured it out, and one of those times, he heard me and Emma…complaining about Sabine.”

Nash’s eyebrows rose, like he might ask for details, then he apparently thought better of it. “Okay, I guess that’s understandable.”

“So, if he can possess her and feed through nightmares, or possess Alec and feed through any kind of sleep…would that give him enough energy to power this blitz?”

“I doubt it. He’d probably recoup the energy possession requires by feeding while he’s in the host body, but that’s not going to be enough for something this big.” Nash’s widespread arms took in the whole school.

“So, how is he running this thing?”

“Well, once he got it started, it would be self-sustaining. The chaos he causes would bleed through even stronger than regular human energy, and he could easily feed from it. But as for how he got it going in the first place…” Nash could only shrug. “I don’t know. But we have to make it stop.”

I KNEW FIFTH PERIOD was going to suck the moment Mrs. Brown turned off the lights. Because of the chaos—which everyone had noticed, but no one could explain—she’d decided to ditch her lesson plan in favor of something requiring a little less concentration from her half-traumatized students. The class let loose a universal groan when she pulled out an old documentary on the history of French architecture.

It was allI could do to keep my eyes open when the monotonous narration began.

THE NARRATOR DRONES ON about art nouveau, complete with pictures and clips of buildings I’ve never even heard of. I don’t care about art nouveau. I don’t care about art old-school, either. I care about staying awake and surviving another school day, so I can find and eliminate the source of the pandemonium.

And suddenly, my exhausted mind finds that word hilarious. Pandemonium roughly translates to “all demons,” and that seems weirdly fitting, considering Avari’s relentless intrusion into my life, and into my body, and now into my school.

All demons, all the time. That’s what my headstone will read, if Avari ever gets his way.

Mrs. Brown stands at the front of the room, and for a second, I’m convinced she’s read my mind. Or noticed that I’m not paying attention. But instead of yelling at me in French, she stares at the back of the room, her eyes oddly unfocused.

And that’s when the scream explodes from my mouth. It’s too hard and too fast to stop this time, and I am strangling on the vicious sound. Choking on it, as it scrapes my throat raw.

I taste blood on the back of my tongue and everyone stares at me. I can’t hear the film anymore. Can’t hear whatever they’re shouting as some gather around me and others back away. I can only hear my own screech.

No one notices Mrs. Brown. No one else is watching when she collapses, and finally I understand. She’s dead, and her soul cries out to me, clinging to the life she no longer has, begging to be held in place.

I want to help her, but I can’t. Not without damning someone else. So I try to close my mouth, but the scream is too strong, and my jaw too weak. I claw at my throat in desperation. My fingers come away bloody, and there is a new layer of pain. But still I scream, and now I can see Mrs. Brown’s soul, hovering over her body, a slowly swirling grayish form—just a representation of her actual soul, Harmony explained to me once. You can’t see a real soul, and you probably wouldn’t want to, she’d insisted.

But then the fog rolls in, and the real terror begins. Gray mist rises all around me. My heart trips over some beats, skipping others entirely. The fog obscures dingy floor tiles and scratched desk legs. I slap one hand over my mouth, but the sound leaks out, anyway. Thirty sets of shoes disappear into the gray. I try to back away from it, but there’s nowhere to go. It’s everywhere.

NO! I won’t cross over. I won’t!

But the scream has a mind of its own. The scream wants me to go and the fog is too thick to fight, so I close my eyes and pretend it’s not real. And only once my voice fades to an ineffective croak do I open my eyes again.

This time when I scream, nothing comes out.