“Nope. Wish I had, though. This class is killing me.”

“You? I have the worst headache ever.”

He gave her a knowing grin. “Let that be a lesson to you, Little Miss Lush.”

She made a face in return and gave him a light punch. They reached their class’s meeting spot out on the quad and joined in the semblance of a line the others were trying to form. Ms. Malloy arrived and checked everyone off on her clipboard, satisfied no one had been left behind.

“I don’t think this was planned,” said Lissa.

“Agreed,” said Christian. “Which means even if there’s no fire, it might take a while.”

“Well, then. No use waiting around, huh?”

Christian and Lissa turned around in surprise at the voice behind them and saw Avery. She wore a purple sweater dress and black heels that seemed totally out of place on the wet grass.

“What are you doing here?” asked Lissa. “Figured you’d be in your room.”

“Whatever. It’s so boring there. I had to come liberate you guys.”

“You did this?” asked Christian, slightly impressed.

Avery shrugged. “I told you, I was bored. Now, come on while it’s still chaotic.”

Christian and Lissa exchanged glances. “Well,” said Lissa slowly, “I suppose they did already take attendance…”

“Hurry!” said Avery. Her excitement was contagious, and, feeling bold, Lissa hurried after her, Christian in tow. With all the milling students, no one noticed them cutting across the campus-until they reached the outside of guest housing. Simon stood leaning against the door, and Lissa stiffened. They were busted.

“Everything set?” Avery asked him.

Simon, definitely the strong-and-silent type, gave a swift nod as his only answer before straightening up. He stuffed his hands into his coat pockets and walked off. Lissa stared in amazement.

“He just… he just let us go? And is he in on it?” Simon wasn’t on campus as a teacher, but still… that didn’t necessarily mean he’d let students skip out on class because of a faked fire drill.

Avery grinned mischievously, watching him go. “We’ve been together for a while. He’s got better things to do than babysit us.”

She led them inside, but instead of going to her room, they cut off to a different section of the building and went somewhere I knew well: Adrian’s room.

Avery beat on the door. “Hey, Ivashkov! Open up.”

Lissa slapped a hand over her mouth to smother her giggles. “So much for stealth. Everyone’s going to hear you.”

“I need him to hear me,” Avery argued.

She kept pounding on the door and yelling, and finally, Adrian answered. His hair stuck up at odd angles, and he had dark circles under his eyes.

He’d drunk twice as much as Lissa last night.

“What…?” He blinked. “Shouldn’t you guys be in class? Oh God. I didn’t sleep that much, did I?”

“Let us in,” said Avery, pushing past. “We’ve got refugees from a fire here.”

She flounced onto his couch, making herself at home while he continued staring. Lissa and Christian joined her.

“Avery sprang the fire alarm,” explained Lissa.

“Nice work,” said Adrian, collapsing into a fluffy chair. “But why’d you have to come here? Is this the only place that’s not burning down?”

Avery batted her eyelashes at him. “Aren’t you happy to see us?”

He eyed her speculatively for a moment. “Always happy to see you.”

Lissa was normally pretty straitlaced about this kind of thing, but something about it amused her. It was so wild, so silly… it was a break from all her recent worries. “It’s not going to take them that long to figure it out, you know. They could be letting everyone in right now.”

“They could be,” agreed Avery, putting her feet up on the coffee table. “But I have it on good authority that another alarm is going to go off in the school once they open the doors.”

“How the hell did you manage that?” asked Christian.

“Top secret.”

Adrian rubbed his eyes and was clearly amused by this, despite the abrupt wake-up. “You can’t pull fire alarms all day, Lazar.”

“Actually, I have it on good authority that once they give the all-clear on a second alarm, a third’s going to go off.”

Lissa laughed out loud, though a lot of it was due more to the guys’ reactions and less to Avery’s announcement. Christian, in fits of antisocial rebellion, had set people on fire. Adrian spent most of his days drunk and chain-smoking. For a cute society girl like Avery to astonish them, something truly remarkable had to happen. Avery looked very pleased at having outdone them.

“If the interrogation’s over now,” she said, “aren’t you going to offer your guests any refreshments?”

Adrian stood up and yawned. “Fine, fine, you insolent girl. I’ll make coffee.”

“With a kick?” She inclined her head toward Adrian’s liquor cabinet.

“You have got to be kidding,” said Christian. “Do you even have a liver left?”

Avery wandered over to the cabinet and picked up a bottle of something. She held it out to Lissa. “You game?”

Even Lissa’s morning rebelliousness had limits. The wine headache still throbbed in her skull. “Ugh, no.”

“Cowards,” said Avery. She turned back to Adrian. “Well then, Mr. Ivashkov, you’d best put on the pot. I always like a little coffee with my brandy.”

Not long after that, I faded away from Lissa’s head and drifted back into my own, returning to the blackness of sleep and ordinary dreams. It was short-lived, however, seeing as a loud pounding soon jerked me into consciousness.

My eyes flew open, and a deep, searing pain shot through the back of my skull-the aftereffects of that toxic vodka, no doubt. Lissa’s hangover had nothing on mine. I started to close my eyes, wanting to sink back under and let sleep heal the worst of my pain. Then, I heard the pounding again — and worse, my whole bed shook violently. Someone was kicking it.

Opening my eyes again, I turned and found myself staring into Yeva’s shrewd dark eyes. If Sydney had met many dhampirs like Yeva, I could understand why she thought our race were minions of hell. Pursing her lips, Yeva kicked the bed again.

“Hey,” I cried. “I’m awake, okay?”

Yeva muttered something in Russian, and Paul peered around from behind her, translating. “She says you’re not awake until you’re actually out of bed and standing up.”

And with no more warning, that sadistic old woman continued kicking the bed. I jerked upright, and the world spun around me. I’d said this before, but this time, I really meant it: I was never going to drink again. No good ever came from it. The covers looked awfully tempting to my agonized body, but a few more kicks from Yeva’s pointy-toed boots made me shoot up off the bed.

“Okay, okay. Are you happy now? I’m up.” Yeva’s expression didn’t change, but at least she stopped with the kicking. I turned to Paul. “What’s going on?”

“Grandmother says you have to go with her.”

“Where?”

“She says you don’t need to know.”

I started to say that I wasn’t following that crazy old wench anywhere, but after one look at her scary face, I thought better of it. I didn’t put it past her to be able to turn people into toads.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll be ready to go once I shower and change.”

Paul translated my words, but Yeva shook her head and spoke again. “She says there’s no time,” he explained. “We have to go now.”

“Can I at least brush my teeth?”

She allowed that small concession, but a change of clothes was apparently out of the question. It was just as well. Each step I took made me feel woozy, and I probably would have passed out doing something as complicated as dressing and undressing. The clothes didn’t smell or anything either; they were mostly just wrinkled from where I’d fallen asleep in them.

When I got downstairs, I saw that no one else was awake except Olena. She was washing leftover dishes from last night and seemed surprised to see me up. That made two of us.