“For God’s sake, Freddie. It’s just a ride to school.”

She turned and climbed in without closing the door, an obvious invitation—or maybe a command—to follow.

Bad idea bad idea bad idea thudded his heart as he approached the sedan. He hovered in the open door, then took a breath, ducked his head, and climbed in, closing the door behind him with a click that made fresh panic flutter in his chest.

You’re the monster, he thought, followed rapidly, reflexively, by you’re not a monster, and then, in desperation, be calm be calm be calm, because his thoughts were threatening to spiral out.

The car had two bench seats, one facing forward and the other back, and Kate had already claimed the rear bench, so he took the other one. Putting his back to the driver made him almost as nervous as putting his front to Kate, but before he could say anything, do anything, the car pulled into traffic, and moments later Paris’s building vanished from sight. He could feel Kate watching him, but when he went to meet her eyes, they were leveled on his shirt.

“You’re not wearing your medal,” she said.

August’s pulse stuttered. He knew even before he looked down that she was right. There was no prickle of iron, no weight, because the medallion was still on his bedroom floor where he’d thrown it the night before.

He groaned, and leaned his head back on the seat. “My dad’s going to kill me,” he muttered.

Kate shrugged. “It’s okay,” she said, flashing the ghost of a smile. “But make sure you’re home before dark.” He couldn’t tell if she was joking.

The car cut through the streets, a blur of speed, the city tunneling behind Kate’s head. Her nails, usually tapping their short, metallic beat, were curled into her palms.

If she learns the truth, you’ll know.

He watched her chest rise, her lips part.

She’ll tell you herself.

August braced himself, but when she spoke, all she said was, “I want to apologize.”

“For what?” asked August, and Kate gave him one of those looks that wasn’t really surprise. “Oh,” he said, “you mean, for assaulting me in the hall.”

Kate nodded, opened her mouth, then closed it again. He tensed. She seemed to be struggling to find the right words. Was she trying to hold back? Could she? He watched as she fiddled with the medallion around her own throat. It was new, polished silver and bloody red stones. “Look,” she said at last, “growing up the way I have, I guess it makes a person . . .”

“Paranoid?”

Her dark eyes narrowed. “I was going to say guarded. And yes, okay, a little paranoid.” Her hand slipped from the coin. “There’s not a whole lot of trust in my family. I don’t expect you to understand.”

August wanted to say that he did, but he couldn’t, because it wasn’t true. For all their differences, Ilsa and Leo were like family, and so were the Flynns. He trusted them.

“The moment I met you,” she said. “I knew you were different.”

August dug his fingers into his knees, silently begging her not to say more, not to confess to this.

“So am I,” she added.

He held his tongue, focused on his breathing.

“We don’t fit in,” she went on. “Not just because we’re new. We see the world for what it is. No one else does.”

“Or maybe they do,” he cut in, “but they’re too afraid of you to say it.”

Kate gave him a withering smile, and shook her head. “I make them uncomfortable, because I’m a reminder that it’s not real. That it’s just this . . .” she waved her metal-tipped fingers. “Veneer. They’d rather close their eyes and pretend. But our eyes . . .” she trailed off, her dark blue gaze weighing him down. “Our eyes are open.”

And then she flashed a strange, private smile, and he was back in the hall again.

Whoever you are . . . I’m going to figure it out.

August felt dizzy. The things Kate was saying, they were the truth, they had to be, and yet it all felt like a line to reel him in. It was too clean and too messy at the same time. Was she flirting with him? Or trying to tell him she knew? Did she mean what she was saying, or was she saying something else? August felt himself scrambling for purchase as the car filled up again with silence.

“You’re right,” he said at last, throat dry. “About us being different . . . But I’d rather be able to see the truth than live a lie.”

“Which makes you the only bearable person at that school.” Her smile widened when she said it, shifting into that genuine, contagious grin. Watching her, it was like watching a flickering image, two versions that shifted back and forth depending on how you turned your head. He waited for her confession to spill out, but it didn’t.

“I was wondering,” she said, tapping a metal nail against the pendant, “about your marks.”

August swallowed, rubbed his wrist. “What about them?”

“You said they were for sobriety, but they’re permanent.”

“Yeah. So?”

She cocked her head, revealing the silvery edge of her scar. “So what if you relapse?”

He looked at her, unblinking. “Well, that would suck.”

She laughed, but her attention was still fixed on him—she wasn’t going to settle for a brush-off—so he swallowed, trying to find a way to tell the truth. “If I could just wipe them off at the end of the day,” he said, “they wouldn’t mean anything. They wouldn’t matter. And they do. I was in a dark place, once, and I don’t ever want to go back. I’d rather die than start over.” She stared at him, a slight furrow between her brows, and he could imagine her thinking, So this is what it looks like when he tells the truth, and he thought, So this is what it looks like when she believes you.

Which was almost funny, seeing as he’d never lied, but it also scared him, because it was the first time he’d seen her make that face, and the others now looked empty by comparison.

Do you know? Do you know? Do you know?

He could ask her. Force her to answer. But the question was damning, and the car was too small, and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do if she said yes.

The violin case sat on the floor between his feet, and Leo was right—if he tried, he could smell the blood on the driver’s hands, but not on Kate, and she didn’t have a restless shadow, and—