When it got late enough that my eyes were drifting shut, I packed up my stuff to head back to my room.

“You can sleep here if you want,” Scout said.

I looked up at her from my spot on the floor, a little surprised. I’d slept over before, when Scout had had trouble sleeping after her rescue. But I hadn’t done it in a few days, and I wondered if everything was okay. “You good?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. We’re teenagers,” she reminded me. She uncurled her legs, then bent over the side of her bed and pulled out a thick blanket in a boxy plastic wrapping. It was the same one she gave me every time I bunked over. “We’re not setting a precedent here or anything.”

“And they definitely don’t do bed checks or anything.”

“M.K. thanks her lucky stars for that,” Scout muttered.

“Seriously—that is grade A disturbing. I don’t want to think about the extracurricular field trips she’s taking.” I hitched a thumb toward the door. “I’m going to go throw on some pajamas.”

“Go for it.” Scout punched her pillow a couple of times, then snagged a sleeping blindfold from one of the bedposts. She slid it on, then climbed under the covers.

“Nice look.”

She humphed. “If I’m asleep when you come back, let’s keep it that way.”

“Whatever. You snore.”

“I am a very delicate sleeper. It complements my delicate beauty.”

“You’re a delicate dork.”

“Night, Lils.”

“Night, Scout.”

I woke up suddenly, a shrill sound filling the air. “What the frick?”

“Whoozit?” Scout said, sitting up in bed, the sleeping mask across her eyes. She whipped it off, then blinked to orient herself.

I glanced around. The source of the noise was one of the tiny paper houses on her bookshelves. It was fully aglow from the inside, and it sounded like a fire alarm was going off inside it.

Scout let out a string of curses, then fumbled out of bed. And I do mean fumbled—she got caught in the mix of blankets and comforters, and ended up on the floor, half-trapped in quilts, before she managed to stand up and pluck the house from the bookshelf.

“Oh, crap,” she intoned, lifting up the house to eye level so that she could peer into it. When she looked back at me, forehead pinched, I knew we were in trouble. “That’s my alarm. My ward got tripped.”

11

I stood up and walked toward her. “What does that mean, ‘My ward got tripped’?”

Scout closed her eyes, then pursed her lips and blew into the house’s tiny window. By the time she opened her eyes, the house was silent and dark again, as if its tiny residents had gone back to sleep.

She put it carefully back on its shelf, then looked at me. “Daniel’s been teaching me how to ward the basement doors—it’s supposed to keep the nasties out or send out an alarm if they make it through. You know, since they kidnapped me and all.”

“I do recall that,” I agreed supportively—and wondered if that was what she’d been working on in her room.

“This house was keyed to the vault door in the basement—the big metal one with the locks and stuff?”

“So the house is, what, some kind of alarm?”

She nodded, then grabbed a pair of jeans from her closet. “Pretty much. Now, go get dressed. We’re going to have to handle this.”

My stomach knotted, nerves beginning to build. “What do you think it is?”

She blew out a breath. “I don’t know. But I’m guessing it’s not going to be pretty.”

Unfortunately, I guessed she was right.

We’d both pulled on jeans, shirts, and sneakers to make our way downstairs. We’d decided we didn’t want to be captured by Reapers or rescued by Adepts—or worse—in silly pajamas. The school was quiet as we moved through the hallways, probably not a surprise since it was nearly two o’clock in the morning. On the other hand, I half expected M.K. to jump out from behind a corner. I figured her being out on some secret rendezvous was only slightly less likely than the possibility that we’d soon be staring down half a dozen creeping monsters.

We made it through the Great Hall and labyrinth room, then through the door that led to the stairs. We stayed quiet until we’d made our way into the locked corridor that led down, after two staircases and a handful of hallways, into the basement. I’d taken this route before—the first time I’d followed Scout on one of her midnight rambles, actually. And we all knew how that had ultimately turned out.

“Do we have a plan of action here?” I quietly asked, tiptoeing behind Scout.

She adjusted the strap of her messenger bag. “If I’m as good as I think I am, we don’t need one.”

“Because your ward worked.”

“Not exactly. This was only my first time warding, so I’m not expecting much. But I also worked a little magic of my own. And if that works—I am officially da bomb.”

“Wow. You really went there.”

“I totally did.”

“What kind of magic did you work?”

“Well, turns out, Daniel’s a protector.”

“You are seriously stalking him, aren’t you?”

“Ha. You’d be amazed what you can find on the Internet. Anyway, a protector is a guardian angel type. His magic’s all about protecting breaches. But his magic works more like an alarm. I like to be a little more walk and a little less talk. A little less conversation and a little more action.”