I ignored him and opened my locker a third time, keeping my hand on it so he couldn’t shut it again.

“Leave her alone, Lance,” Selene said, coming up behind him. Her expression was cool, and her voice held a sharp edge.

Lance flashed a mischievous smile at her. “Or what? You’ll break up with me and go sit at the losers’ table again? Put on a ball cap and act like a guy? Right. Because that was such an effective punishment last time.”

If sarcasm were butter, you could’ve spread him over toast. I could tell his words had hurt Selene. The sparkle in her eyes wasn’t from an overabundance of happy.

Lance made a kissing gesture at her then turned and strode away. I was so furious I wanted to hit him. I wanted it so badly, I almost saw myself doing it.

Then Lance flinched as if struck. He cupped the back of his head and spun around. “What the hell? Who did that?”

When no one answered him, he glowered at me before stalking off. The back of his neck was as bright as a cherry lollipop. I focused on it, this time actively engaging my telekinesis to try and do it again. I felt the magic leave me and then … nothing. The force of the spell simply evaporated, absorbed into The Will like always.

Selene looked at me, her violet eyes wide. “Did you do that?”

I frowned. “I’m not sure.” Only that wasn’t entirely true. It felt sort of like how I’d made that Milky Way appear in Bethany Grey’s dream, imagination instead of thought. But I’d had such vengeful thoughts hundreds of times before without any results. Somebody else must’ve done it.

I looked around, half-expecting to see my mother. She said she was going to play bodyguard, but she was nowhere in sight.

I noticed Mr. Marrow standing in the doorway to the teacher’s lounge, staring at me with a peculiar expression on his face. He must’ve seen what happened. My stomach sank as I recognized that look, shame washing over me. It lasted only a second before his usual, kind smile came to his face, but I knew that a moment before he’d been afraid. Of me. I’d seen others give similar looks to my mom whenever she did something she shouldn’t be able to do.

I smiled back, then turned around, trying not to think about it anymore. Since the day she’d left me and Dad, I’d promised myself I wouldn’t grow up to be like my mother.

Maybe that was easier said than done.

* * *

When I arrived at history class a few hours later, Mr. Marrow acted normal toward me, which was a relief. I wanted to ask him about Keepers, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask him about phoenixes, too. The brief time I’d spent researching them this morning before school hadn’t told me much. Most of the articles seemed fixated on the immortality of the phoenix, the way they died and rose again from the ashes. Legend said that if a magickind was able to make a phoenix their familiar it would transfer some of its immortal powers to them. I didn’t know much about familiars other than that it was a magical bond between a magickind and an animal where the animal became a sort of magical servant. But I understood why people would want a phoenix as one. Lots of famous magickind had gone on quests to capture one for that very reason, although none had ever succeeded as far as I could tell.

I didn’t have a clue what the phoenix meant in Eli’s dream. The most obvious interpretation was that something or someone was going to be reborn, only I couldn’t see how that fit with Rosemary’s murder. Maybe the phoenix represented an upcoming event unrelated to her death. Or maybe it meant nothing at all. The whole thing was beyond frustrating, like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle in a pitch-black room.

I didn’t get a chance to talk to Marrow. When class ended, he disappeared out the door ahead of everybody else. I hoped it was because he had an important lunch date and not that he was avoiding me.

When school ended for the day, I came back to his classroom. The door stood ajar, but I knocked anyway.

“Come in,” Marrow called.

Trying not to be nervous, I marched straight to his desk.

“Oh, hello, Dusty,” said Marrow. “You weren’t who I was expecting.”

“Sorry, I was just hoping to talk to you.”

“Oh? What about?”

I adjusted the strap of my backpack. “I thought you might be able to help me with this dream-seer stuff.”

“I see.”

“I’ve got all sorts of questions.”

“Such as?”

“I heard you and Lady Elaine talking about Keepers, and she told me that the spell was guarding something, but she didn’t say what. I was hoping you could tell me.”

Marrow leaned back in his chair and tented his fingers in front of him. “Why do you need to know what the spell is guarding?”

The question took me off guard. I supposed I wanted to know mostly out of curiosity, but I sensed that wouldn’t be a good enough answer. Then the reason for why I needed to know came to me. “I think it will help me identify the killer.”

“How so?”

“Because the type of object it is might point to the type of person who’d want it.”

Marrow smiled, a pleased glint in his eyes. “Very good. But I’m not sure I’m the one who should tell you. It’s a sensitive subject.”

I grimaced, unsurprised by his hesitation. “So Lady Elaine said.”

Marrow chuckled. “Yes, she can be quite a stickler for rules. She—” He broke off as someone entered the classroom. I looked toward the door and saw it was the boy I’d met in the library on Monday.