“LOVE YOU, LILS,” he sent back.

Nobody ever said growing up was easy.

14

Scout could see something was wrong when I walked into class. But it was Brit lit, and Whitfield, our teacher, watched us like a hawk. She took it as a personal insult if we weren’t as enthralled by Mr. Rochester as she was. So she skipped the notes and conversation, and instead pressed a hand to my back. A little reminder that she was there, I guess.

When we were done with class for the day, we headed back to the suite, but I still wasn’t ready to talk about it.

“SRF?” she asked, but I shook my head. I was still processing, and there were things I wasn’t yet ready to say aloud.

We did homework in her room until dinner, and she let me pretend that nothing had happened, that my afternoon hadn’t been filled with questions I wasn’t sure I wanted the answers to.

I took what Foley said about real tragedy to heart. I knew what she meant, totally got her point. But if my parents were members of the Dark Elite, how could things get worse than that? If they were helping some kind of medical work or research for the DE—if they were trying to help people who were hurting kids—how was I ever supposed to be okay with that?

I had no idea. So I kept it bottled up until I could figure out a plan, until I could figure out the questions to ask, or the emotions I was supposed to feel.

Eventually, we went to dinner. Like I predicted, you know what was worse than Thursday lunch at the St. Sophia’s cafeteria?

Friday dinner in the St. Sophia’s cafeteria.

We stood in line, trays in hand, for a good minute, just staring at the silver dish of purple and brown and white and orange mess, grimaces on our faces.

Without a word, Scout finally grabbed my tray, stacked hers on top of it, and slid them both back into the stacks at the end of the line. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to be a few inches taller with, like, crazy long legs, but there’s no way I hate myself enough to put that stuff in my body again.”

I didn’t disagree, but my stomach was rumbling. I’d skipped lunch for my SRF visit. “So what now?”

She thought for a second, then bobbed her head. “Mrs. M,” was all she said, and away we went.

I had no clue what that was supposed to mean. I still had no clue when she dragged me into Pastries on Erie, a shop a few blocks down from St. Sophia’s. (Thank God for Friday nights and a respite from the convent . . . at least during the daylight hours.)

One entire wall of the bakery was filled by a long glass case of cakes, desserts, tarts, and cookies of every shape and size. A dozen people stood in front of it, pointing to sweets behind the glass or waiting to make their orders.

“Pastries?” I wondered quietly. “I was hoping for something a little more filling.”

“Trust me on this one, Parker,” she whispered back. “We’re not buying retail today.” She waved at the tall teenager who was dishing up desserts. “Hey, Henry. Is your mom around?”

The boy waved, then gestured toward a back door. “In the back.”

“Is she cooking?” Scout asked hopefully.

“Always,” he called out, then handed a white bakery box over the counter to a middle-aged woman in a herringbone coat.

“Din-ner,” Scout sang out, practically skipping to the beaded curtain that hung over the door in the back of the bakery.

I followed her through it, the smell of chocolate and strawberries and sugar giving way to savory smells. Pungent smells.

Delicious smells.

My stomach rumbled.

“Someone is hungry,” said a lightly accented voice. I looked over. In the middle of an immaculate kitchen stood a tall, slender woman. Her hair was long and dark and pulled into a ponytail at the nape of her neck. She wore a white jacket—the kind chefs wore on television.

“Hi, Mrs. M,” Scout said. “I brought someone to meet you.”

The woman, who was dropping sticks of butter into a giant mixer, smiled kindly. “Hello, someone.”

I waved a little. “Lily Parker.”

“You go to school with our Scout?”

I nodded as Scout pulled out a chair at a small round table that sat along one wall.

“Cop a squat, Parker,” she said, patting the tabletop.

Still a little confused, I took the seat on the other side of the table, then leaned forward. “I thought we were going to dinner?”

“Keep your pants on. Now, Mrs. Mercier is Henry’s mom. She’s also part of the community.”

That meant that while Mrs. Mercier wasn’t an Adept, she knew Adepts and Reapers and the rest of it existed.

“And,” Scout added, “she’s one of the best chefs in Chicago. She was trained at some crazy-fancy school in Paris.”

“Le Cordon Bleu,” Mrs. Mercier said, walking toward us with a tray of flatbread. “And she enjoys feeding Scout when her parents are out of town. Or when St. Sophia’s serves stew.”

“And when you add those together, you get pretty much always,” Scout said matter-of-factly, tearing a chunk from a piece of bread. “Warm, warm,” she said, popping it between both hands to cool it off.

“Which is pretty much always,” Mrs. Mercier agreed, smoothing a hand over Scout’s hair. “I have three boys. Scout did a favor for my youngest, so I do favors for Scout.”

I assumed that favor was why she’d become a member of the community.

Scout handed me a chunk of bread. I took a bite, then closed my eyes as I savored it. I think it was naan—the kind of flatbread you found in Indian restaurants—but this was hot, fresh, right-out-of-the-oven naan. It was delicious.