"I love being fodder for a messed-up demon with a score to settle," snaps Exie, pacing back across the room. She's been at this for minutes already, and she's nowhere near slowing down. "It's my favorite thing. Even better that my brother came before me; maybe we can both be demon-food together."

"He hasn't eaten anyone," says Clarice, seemingly oblivious to the metaphorical nature of the statement.

"The monster sucks people's brains out. Big difference."

"He doesn't—"

"Do we know if he takes everyone who comes here?" I cut in. "Or is he choosy?"

Exie spins around again. She'll wear a track in the floor at this rate. "I'm sure he at least judges everyone. That's kind of his thing. How many does he take?" She flings both hands up. "Hell if I know. How do you deduce these things before it's too late? Wait to see if he claims another Colson? Tell everyone to lock their doors at night? Can he pass through doors? Was Colson even in control of himself when he left his room to follow us?"

"He may not have been following," I say. "We might just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Does it matter?"

It doesn't, really. But I'm grasping at straws, fighting the wretched hole hollowing itself out beneath my ribcage with every question Exie spins off. I can't even hazard a guess at most of them. It feels like we're sprinting in circles with too many clues and nothing to tie them all together—some lynchpin piece that will bind everything else together and make it all make sense. Maybe it's the red book. Maybe it's the water we haven't found. Maybe it's something I missed in the bible, or Clarice missed in the hymnal, or Mrs. Hardwork said in class... maybe it's in a part of the church that we haven't explored yet, but may not even know exists.

I hate the count of possibilities, and even with the magnitude of what we might be dealing with, I can't shake the temptation to just call it safe when no one except Colson seems to have been taken yet. Maybe the judgment has already passed, and the rest of us were deemed unworthy. For what, I have no idea. That seems to be what's sending Exie into a spiral even as we speak.

"We need to catch him in the act," she says. There's a slightly unhinged look in her eye. "We could stake out beside that staircase, if we assume that any other student victims will be taken there. You said the dove was a book page, right, Des? Maybe that's from the books in the stained glass. Any page might lead us back to that. We can figure out what's written in it. If it's another bible, or the same one, or... I don't know. Something useful to us. More useful than anything we've already found."

I personally think we've made appreciable progress already, but I guess the existence of a cult or the knowledge of who it follows doesn't really matter to someone trying to find out what, exactly, happened to her older brother here. Or maybe Exie just needs to blow off steam. She doesn't seem to want responses to her propositions, which is good, because I don't think a stakeout is a good idea. Knowing what we're up against, I doubt daylight will make much difference to our survival chances. But it'll make a world of difference for my nerves.

"We need to contact someone," says Exie, and stops pacing in the middle of the room.

There's a long pause as both Clarice and I realize she actually expects a response to that proclamation.

"Who?" I venture.

"Someone who'll suspect something if we all go silent. Someone on the outside. What contacts do we have who might actually care enough to raise the alarm? We're up against this school's reputation, but I think I could convince my parents that there's something shady going on here. What about you two?"

"Not mine," says Clarice with a vacant smile. "My father already thinks I'm possessed. Telling him anything will just prove it."

I gnaw my cheek. My parents are a no-go, though they might surprise me if I phrased the letter just right. Right enough to convince them I'm not pranking them, or concocting some elaborate yarn just to get myself out of half a year of boarding school. My older sister is a better bet, but she's halfway across the continent. Too far to take much action if I told her I'm in danger and may or may not need to set fire to a school.

"I wonder if Barnabas knows anyone," mutters Exie. "Or a way to get a letter out. If anyone does, it's him."

"Why can't we just send it?" asks Clarice.

Exie's grim look reinforces my sinking feeling. "I don't think it'll be that easy."

"But we can try."

We're interrupted by the lunch bell. When we reach the dining hall, Exie slips off into the crowd alone. I let her go. I have a feeling our planning will go better if she can burn off some of this energy before we reconvene. When she comes to find us again after lunch, though, she's too pale to be bearing good tidings.

"No mail," she says before I have to ask her.

"As in, there's no mail service to the school?"

"As in, our parents waived all right to speak to or hear from us over the course of the year. If any mail goes out, it's on the school's own volition."

We need to stop calling this place a school.

The fact that Clarice doesn't even look surprised just makes this worse. I'm sure many students here wouldn't be caught off guard by such a stipulation, which makes me feel simultaneously stupid for expecting communications transparency, and all the more ill at ease.

"What were you saying about Barnabas?" I say.

"He's got... contacts," says Exie. Her pause in the middle tells me there's more to it, but I'm not entirely sure I want to know. "But mostly he's just from around here. I asked him about the local geography already; he didn't know anything about this location either. But he might know a way to flag someone down."

Just days ago, I'd have balked at the prospect of collaborating with another student again. But I've met Barnabas, and at least he's not an ass. That's more than can be said about most students in this school. And with our new knowledge of our enemy, safety in numbers feels a little more appealing.

"Where does he hang out normally?" I ask.

"Common room. We might be able to catch him there."

There's usually a gaggle of popular kids starting drama in the student common room between the end of lunch and the start of afternoon classes. There are no classes today, but I still saw alpha students there this morning. Barnabas seems to have an "in" with them, which I will never understand the appeal of. But they all seem to like him despite his work with Exie. Maybe they don't mind her, either. Or maybe they just don't know.

We're on our way to the common room when a scream sets fire to every nerve in my body. 

Exie whips around. Students around us freeze like startled rabbits. The sound came from the direction of the dorms. It's followed by another sound. Someone is sobbing, loudly, from behind an open dorm door. Exie grabs my sleeve and attempts to run towards it, but she just wrenches her arm. 

"Come on!" she hisses.

My body has ceased to obey me. Exie yanks my sleeve again. We can't go that way. If another student's been taken, the demon must still be around.

A teacher appears in the open door. Several students have clustered around it, but though several duck and weave to see past the guarding adult, none of them freak out like they could be. Like they should be, if there's a body in there. The teacher speaks gently to them, herding them away. A few linger around that end of the hallway, whispering to one another, but most do actually leave. 

Exie drops my arm. A moment later, my narrowed vision sees the back of her, striding away towards the open door. I want to call out. To scream for her to get back. But my voice won't work, so I stumble after her instead. Exie walks quickly; I don't catch up to her until we're almost at the doorway. Clarice is already there. The teacher shuttles us away, too, but not before I get a glance past him into the room. A single student sits on a bed, having some kind of panic attack.

"I want to go home," he sobs, hugging himself and rocking like a children's toy. "I want my parents. I want to go home."

The rest of the room is empty. There's no body. The bed opposite the boy is made up tidily enough that for a moment, I wonder if he's gotten a single room like Exie has. Then I spot the bag on the bedside table. I know that bag. I watched Colson II empty bones from it into a classroom dustbin the morning after his apparently fake death and resurrection.

Exie takes my sleeve again. It takes only a fraction of her former effort to pull me away from the door. My legs have gone from stone to jelly. Only a stubborn determination not to slither to the ground in front of half the student population keeps me on my feet.

"I don't envy him," says Clarice, with a glance over her shoulder. Her voice and face remain serene, as though commenting on the weather.

I don't either. I wouldn't sit within a league of Colson II if given an alternative. Rooming with him sounds like a recipe for several kinds of mental breakdown. But nobody died. The teachers must have been in there comforting that student already. I still can't walk properly, so Exie drags me all the way to the common room. I haven't entirely regained structural integrity in my legs by the time we reach it, and am not quick enough to dodge as someone strides past me in the doorway. My shoulder clips theirs, knocking both of us off-course.

"Watch it," the other student growls.

Never have I been more thankful for the blessing of an obstructive personality. The still-surreal world around me sharpens somewhat, and a surge of energy hardens the bone jelly softening my limbs.

"Go kiss a frog, prince charming," I reply, before even turning around. The student stops walking.

Exie steps back, staring at me with what can only be described as horror. She glances around her, then steps back again. Her flagrant spurning of association with me spawns another angry flash that clears my head the rest of the way. I turn around.

Okay, I might regret this one. One of the top popular kids stands behind me, watching me like he can't quite believe what I just said to him.

I fake a pretty smile. "Oh, I'm sorry. Did I just expose a frog fetish?"

"That's funny, coming from someone with an odd affinity for windows," says another voice. The co-lead of the popular kids—I still can't tell if the two are dating—glides up beside her partner in crime. "Or are your little displays just your way of grappling with your own mediocrity?"

"I'll take confident mediocrity over being so insecure, I'd glean self-worth from cheap power squabbles in a school of raving lunatics."

The girl nudges her companion. "Aw, look, Gil. Even she admits it."

"Are you sure that's not just an illusion of self-awareness brought on by a bout of medical delusion?" The boy is still looking me directly in the eye. He's reverted to his usual deadpan. "That, or it's everyone else that's gone crazy. As happens, of course, in a school designed to restore sanity."

I'm ninety percent sure that's sarcasm. That hunch is bolstered by the girl's response.

"Yes, so frequently," she giggles. "Des, wasn't it? Tell us, I'm curious. Who's crazy here?"