I follow his lead and tuck my weapon cylinder into the pocket of my vest. The pocket isn’t as big and loose as Jackson’s and Luka’s, and the outline is still clearly visible through the cloth. I poke at it, trying to make the shape less obvious.

“I’m not worried about that,” he says. “I’m more worried about your sword.”

“Crap. Forgot about that. What do we do?”

He walks around behind me and I feel him undoing the sheath; then I feel the weight lift off me.

“Don’t turn around,” he says.

I hear a swoosh, like a belt pulled quickly through a loop. I turn around. Jackson’s standing there with his pants undone, hanging way low on his hips, baring most of his dark-gray boxers. He slides the sheath of my sword down his pant leg. He’s holding the bottom of his T-shirt up and I can see smooth, gold skin and ridged muscle and the thin line of light-brown hair that trails down his belly. With a gasp, I turn away.

“Told you not to turn around,” he says, and I can hear the smile. There are faint sounds as he finishes what he’s doing—I’m guessing buckling the sword to his thigh—then, “I’m decent. Shirt safely in place.”

Echoes of what he said to me the night he climbed in my bedroom window to prove to me he wasn’t a shell. Weeks ago. A million years ago.

I feel like I’ve known him my whole life.

“We’re lucky Glenbrook isn’t a school with a metal detector or we’d be screwed,” Jackson says.

“If we get caught with weapons, Ms. Smith is going to be pissed. We could get suspended. Expelled.”

“That’s your biggest worry right now?” Jackson asks with a short laugh.

“No,” I whisper, thinking of all the things that could go wrong. But they’re too big, too terrible to think about, so I focus on the small, the less important.

“Steer the nightmare, Miki. Clear your mind. Think of this like a kendo competition. We go in. We fight. We win. Doesn’t matter that you’re a girl and they’re boys, faster, stronger. Doesn’t matter that some of them look at you like you shouldn’t be there, like you don’t have a right. You fight. You win.”

He’s right. Doesn’t matter that the Drau are faster, brutal, deadly. What matters is that I’m deadly, too. The fact that I’m still alive proves it. So I do what he says. I take a couple of deep breaths. Focus. Visualize.

“So what now?” I ask. “You said we go in . . . but Luka gave us the all-clear sign. There are no Drau inside the dance.”

“Not yet.” His expression is ruthlessly neutral. And his answer makes my stomach churn.

“Maybe they’ll go somewhere else. The science room. The roof. The weight room. The—”

“They won’t,” he says. “You know that. You feel it here”—he splays his fingers over my abdomen—“and here.” He shifts his hand to my chest, over my heart, over the tattoo of the eagle. “Courage,” he whispers. “You have enough of it to fill an ocean, Miki.”

“Why here? Why are the Drau here at Glenbrook?”

Jackson shrugs. “Maybe coincidence. Maybe they’re going for something that matters to us.”

I swallow and force the words past my too-dry lips. “Maybe the Committee chose this battleground. Maybe they’re trying to make a point. Keep us in line.”

I desperately want him to shoot down that possibility, but he only tips his head toward the open double doors to the dance. “We’ll keep them safe.”

My next exhalation is a shuddering sigh, but the one after that is smoother. I nod.

We stop at the ticket table and Jackson somehow manages to smile at Maylene like the world isn’t about to come apart, like the Drau aren’t about to ramp up their game. Like my heart isn’t slamming against my ribs, my palms damp. He chats with her. Gets our tickets.

And despite the mission jitters, I can’t help but notice the way Marcy’s looking at him. I glance at Jackson. His head’s turned toward her. His expression gives nothing away. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. And it doesn’t matter. Marcy ogling Jackson is so far down my list of issues right now, it barely ranks high enough to scrape mud off my boots.

So why is it giving me the creeps?

My gaze slides to Kathy, sitting at Marcy’s side. Her head’s down as she counts bills from the cashbox, then slips a paper clip on to hold a small stack of them. She’s a shadow eclipsed by Marcy’s light.

I stare at them both, considering impossible things. That Marcy’s a shell. That she scouted the school in advance for her Drau masters.

No time to tell Jackson what I’m thinking as we head into the dance. I’m not even sure I would tell him if we weren’t overwhelmed by sound and the crush of bodies. The whole idea’s so out-there. So crazy. And right now, we need to be dealing with facts and tangible threats rather than wild suspicions.

The music’s loud. The dance floor’s packed. People are clumped in groups, the space limited not just by bodies, but by costumes.

I see faces I recognize and some I don’t because they’re hidden behind makeup or masks. We push our way through the throng, searching for Luka. When we find him, Jackson points to a relatively uncrowded corner. He takes my hand, tucks me behind him, and starts pushing his way through the mass of bodies. I let him take point mostly because he’s bigger and broader and something about him makes people move aside.