Twenty-Six

"Tara," someone is saying. "Tara, can you hear me?"

Blurred shapes pass to and fro in front of me, but I can't make my eyes focus. I'm so cold. My teeth knock together in my skull.

"Oh my God, I think she has hypothermia or something," the voice says.

A warm jacket is draped around my shoulders. Someone takes me by the arm, and I let them, my body shuffling forward automatically. We must be in the woods because the world smells like damp earth and rotting leaves.

We walk for what feels like a long, long time. The two people whisper back and forth as they half carry me between them. Vaguely, I recognize them as Wren and Penny.

After a while their voices become more than empty sounds, and I start to piece together what's happening. They found me wandering in the woods without a jacket. I was missing for hours. My feet are bare, except for a pair of dirty, torn socks with blood on them. I'm so cold. I feel like I'll never be warm again.

"I can't believe I fell asleep and lost track of her," Wren says, their voice wretched.

"It's not your fault," Penny says. "You couldn't help it. You did your best."

I blink up at the leafy sky. It must be midmorning, judging by the sun. I don't remember coming to the woods. I don't know how I got here. I don't know how they found me. But I must have wandered a long way because I still don't recognize where we are.

"I should give her my shoes," Penny says. "Look at the state of her feet."

"No, you can't risk cutting up your feet when you're immune suppressed. You might get an infection. I'll give her mine."

"Wren, you wear, like, a size six. Her feet are at least a nine, maybe a ten."

"All you giant feet people," Wren grumbles. "Well, it's not too much farther. Do you think we should drive her to the hospital?"

"Of course we should," Penny says.

"No hospital," I say, my raspy voice interrupting their bickering. "I'll be fine."

They stop in the path, apparently shocked that I'm coherent.

"Tara, are you all right? What happened?" Wren asks, chafing my fingers.

Penny stares at me with enormous, worried eyes.

I shake my head. "I don't know." I don't know whether I'm fine and I don't know what happened. All I know is that I'm exhausted and my soul feels wrung out. My brain feels like someone padded it with gauze.

I try to think through the last few days, the last few hours. I remember watching Isabella write, watching Cicada hurtle toward its ending. Eugenia meeting her lover in the woods, stabbing him in the throat. Going home and laboring for hours and then screaming in triumph as Isabella slithered into a world scented with both her mother's and her father's blood. In the final scene, Eugenia held the baby in her arms, and she was as mighty and vengeful as any god, a dark queen who brought life into the world on her own terms, who would destroy anyone, anything to see her child thrive. The baby girl drank her mother's milk, and Eugenia whispered the child's name like an oath, like a threat, like a spell.

For one moment, Isabella and I were both that child, safe in its mother's arms, cherished, beloved. And then there was a wave of grief, a tsunami of despair. I was obliterated, torn apart. I disappeared into the darkness.

I don't remember anything after that.

"I guess what happened is that Isabella finished her book," I say.

"Tara, I—" Penny starts to say, but then someone yells.

We all turn, and there's Jordan, jogging up the path toward us.

"Hey," he calls. "Is she okay?"

"Thank God, you got my text. Can you give Tara your shoes?" Wren asks. "Oh, and does she have hypothermia, do you think?"

Jordan approaches me warily, as if I'm a wounded woodland creature. He feels the pulse in my wrist and studies me for a moment. "No, I don't think she has hypothermia." He bends to inspect my feet and grimaces. "Come on, then," he says to me. "Put your arm around my neck."

I do as he asks, and he lifts me into his arms. "This will be faster. Let's get you into the warm."

I know I'm supposed to be mad at him—at all of them—but the only thing I can feel is relief. I'm not alone in the dark with Isabella anymore. I lay my head against Jordan's chest and feel the tears start to come. I'm too tired to fight them, and soon they grow into sobs.

"Shh, it's all right," Jordan says. "Everything will be fine." He's so gentle and so good, and I can't quite remember why I thought he wasn't my friend.

I wipe my eyes with a shaking hand and take a shuddering breath, hiccupping around a final sob. "I'm okay," I say, more to myself than to the others.

"How are you this buff?" Wren asks Jordan after a few minutes of silence. "When do you even have time to work out? The rest of us have the muscle tone of jellyfish."

Jordan laughs, and I feel the rumble in his chest. "I do push-ups every morning when I wake up."

"Oh, for God's sake," Penny says. "Have you considered taking up a vice? Allowing yourself an imperfection?"

When Jordan speaks, I can hear the smile in his voice. "Well, I'm friends with you lot, aren't I?"

Wren boos him and Penny laughs. I shiver into Jordan's warmth and listen to the music of their voices as we make our slow and steady way through the woods. I'm cold and achy and miserable, but it's better than it was before, while I was lost inside Isabella's mind. Here, in the warmth of Jordan's arms, surrounded by my friends, I feel almost like myself again. I feel almost safe.

But while Isabella has released me from her hold for the moment, I know she isn't gone. She's still inside me, waiting. Cicada might be finished, but Isabella isn't finished with me. I'm bound to her for the next four years, if not forever.

Still, for a few minutes, I allow myself to feel safe, even if I know the safety isn't real. For a few minutes, I let myself pretend that my life doesn't belong to Isabella Snow.

By the time I'm showered, dressed in warm clothes, and tucked under the blankets in my bed, I realize that I don't want to be at Denfeld Hall. I want to be almost anywhere else but here. Jordan bandages the cuts on my feet, which thankfully aren't deep. Wren brings me a bowl of chicken noodle soup and watches while I eat it. Penny sits next to me on the bed and explains how they looked for me for hours after a senior Magni Viri student saw me walk into the woods at dawn. She keeps reaching out to touch me but then drawing back her hands as if she's afraid.

"What can I do for you?" Penny finally asks. "What do you need?" She looks guilty and helpless.

I can feel the tears near the surface, wanting to break free again. "I don't want to be here," I say miserably. "I can't go back to sleep and let her..." I shake my head. "It was—she was..." The tears roll down my cheeks, irrepressible. "It's like I was gone. And I wanted to be gone. She's too strong for me."

"Is there somewhere I can drive you?" Penny asks.

I cry harder. There's nowhere for me to go. Mom has disappeared. I don't even know how to get in contact with my dad, not that I'd want to. And Robin's parents would never let me stay with them.

Penny scrunches up her face. "Is there someone from campus you know? Someone you trust? Like, a professor maybe?"

I think of Dr. Hendrix's frequent offers of help, but I can't call her, not after how I've been skipping her class and ignoring her emails. Besides, if I tell her what's going on, she'll go straight to O'Connor, and I can't have that. Knowing him, he'd make good on his promises to kick me out and destroy my academic prospects.

Who else is there?

"Mr. Hanks," I say, alighting on the idea with relief. I remember his gruff affection, the quiet sureness of his presence. He did say that if I ever needed help to ask him for it. It's Saturday, so he won't be on campus. But I have his cell number.

I look around for my phone. Penny puts it into my hand.

"Can you give me a minute?" I ask her.

She nods and leaves the room. I know she wants things to be normal between us again, but now that I'm thinking clearly, I'm remembering all the reasons I have not to trust her. Not to trust any of them. They all lied to me. They all betrayed me.

I dial Mr. Hanks. He answers on the third ring.

"Tara?" he asks, surprised and worried-sounding. "Are you all right?"

I gulp down a sob. "No," I say. "No, I'm not all right."

"Where are you?" he asks, alarmed.

"Denfeld. Can you—can you come get me? I know it's a lot to ask, but... but do you think I could stay with you for a little while? With you and your sister?"

He pauses for a long time, and if I were in better shape, I'd be embarrassed for asking. I wouldn't blame him for saying no. It would look strange to people—a female student staying at a school employee's house, and a male one at that.

"Of course you can," he finally says. "But my truck's in the shop today. And my sister's out running errands. Is there someone who could drive you?"

"Yes," I say. "What's your address?"

At first, Penny is quiet as she drives, lost in thought, her eyes on the road. I'm too tired to make an effort, still exhausted from Isabella's ravages. I lean my head against the window and struggle against the urge to fall asleep, watching the endless woods rush by my window. But finally, after I don't know how long, Penny clears her throat.

"Tara? Are you awake?" she asks.

"Yeah," I say, not moving.

"Look, I don't know where to begin. How to say I'm sorry. It's all so complicated."

I pull myself away from the window and look at her. Even in profile, she looks tired and guilty, her shoulders hunched as if the steering wheel is holding her up.

"Did you ever even really like me?" I ask, my voice hard. "Or were you pretending?"

Penny glances at me, her brow furrowed. "Of course I liked you. God, from like the first time I met you, I liked you."

"Why?" I ask, a feeling of emptiness washing over me again. I am nothing, I am no one. I am a vessel for Isabella Snow.

"Why did I like you?" Penny asks.

I nod.

She purses her lips, thinking. "Because you're so earnest."

"What?" I say, almost laughing. It's not what I expected to hear.

"I'm serious," Penny says, smiling. "You bring this incredible focus and attention to everything you do. Like, when you're listening to someone tell a story, you listen with your whole body, taking it all in. When you work on an assignment, you give your whole self to it. And when you kissed me that first time in the cemetery..." She shakes her head, smiling. "It felt like I was the only thing in the world."

"You were," I say.

Penny's eyes go shiny. "Tara, I like everything about you. I like the freckles on your nose. I like the way you walk in those boots you're always wearing. I like how kind you are, how much you care about everyone. I like how you cry when you get mad. I like how real you are, how you're never pretending to be someone you're not. Tara, you are, like, basically, my dream girl."

Her words cover me in warmth, like a weighted blanket. I could curl up in them and rest. But it's not enough. It doesn't excuse what she's done. I rub my face, frustrated. "But you lied to me. You kept things from me," I finally say. "You let Magni Viri ruin my life."

She sighs. "I never planned on... falling for you. For a while, I wished I hadn't. When things got so bad and I wasn't able to tell you anything, I wished that you had been someone else, someone I didn't like so much. That's all I meant."

"What you meant when?"

"When I said that maybe it was a mistake to date you. Because falling for you..." She shakes her head. "God, it made everything so much harder. That's why I've been avoiding you. I guess I was afraid of causing you even more harm."

"Avoiding me caused me harm," I say.

Penny blows out a hard breath. "I know. I fucked everything up."

I stare at her, wanting so badly to forgive her. But there are still so many unanswered questions, so many things I can't let go of. What if I forgive, and nothing changes? Will I just be repeating my relationship with my mom all over again? Allowing her to hurt me over and over, only to keep letting her back in, always wanting to believe that this time she'll be different?

But I never really found the words to tell my mom how I felt. I was never sure she'd listen. Now, after everything that's happened in the last few weeks, after being silenced by Isabella again and again, I don't want to bury those words anymore. I can find them now, after all I've been through. I have to, if I want to be more than a casualty in my own life. I have to learn to stand up for myself, to tell people what I feel, what I want.

I'm quiet for a long moment, thinking over what I want to say. Finally, haltingly, I begin to speak. "I want to move on. I want to forgive you," I say. "But you hurt me, Penny. You hurt me so badly." I take a deep, shuddering breath. "All of you did, but you especially. I—I mean, I opened up to you, I trusted you. That's not easy for me to do." Tears are running down my cheeks again, and I wipe them angrily away.

Penny nods, swallows hard. My chin starts to quiver, and when I'm able to speak again, the words come out strained, half a sob. "And then you—you ripped my heart out of my chest." I gasp in a breath, trying to get my voice under control. "I haven't ever felt so alone. These last weeks have been awful."

"I know," Penny says, her voice anguished. "And if I could find a way to undo it all, I would. I understand if you can't ever forgive me. I'm not sure I would be able to forgive me if I were you. But... well, I really hope you can."

"Me too," I say, almost in a whisper.

Before I can say more, the GPS notifies us of the next turn. It's the road Mr. Hanks's house is on. We're out of time. I wipe the last of my tears away, wait for my breathing to steady.

"We're here," Penny says a minute or so later as she pulls my car up Mr. Hanks's long, rugged, tree-lined drive. His house is about an hour from school, but it feels farther. It feels a million miles away from Denfeld, maybe because instead of sitting down in a valley, it's perched up high on a ridge.

It's an old wooden house that's clearly been lovingly maintained. The white paint is fresh and bright and the flower beds are tidy, even now in late autumn. It's surrounded by a bit of forest in the back. The whole place looks homely and peaceful—the absolute opposite of Denfeld Hall. Just the sight of it makes me feel better.

Penny turns to me, her eyes traveling over my face, unsure of herself, unsure of what to say. "Is this really where you want to be?" she finally asks.

"Definitely," I say as Mr. Hanks comes out the front door and stands on the porch. Instead of his usual work uniform, he's wearing a pair of blue jeans and a flannel shirt. A woman in a Corbin College sweater follows him out to the porch, and I realize she must be his twin. They're the same height and build, and they look almost exactly alike, except that on her Mr. Hanks's features don't look so forbidding. She smiles at us and waves.

When we open the car doors, she calls out to us. "Welcome. Come on in when you're ready!" Then she turns and goes back into the house. I adjust my beanie as I climb out of the car, making sure it covers my hair.

Mr. Hanks walks down from the porch. He nods at me and goes around to the trunk to get my bag. "And who might you be?" he asks Penny.

"She's my friend from Magni Viri," I say. "Penny Dabrovsky."

"Pleased to meet you," Mr. Hanks says, hefting my bag onto his shoulder.

"Can I—can I come in for a little while?" Penny asks.

Mr. Hanks nods.

At first I think she wants to check up on the place, make sure I'll be safe, but then I realize she's limping. Sitting in the car for so long must have made her stiff and achy, not to mention half carrying me through the woods to keep me from dying of exposure. My anger at her softens, and without thinking, I touch her hand as we go up the porch.

She glances at me, relief washing over her features. But then we're inside, and our attention is taken up with looking around.

The inside of Mr. Hanks's house is floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

"Wow," I say. A quick scan tells me there's a ton of history, astronomy, and geology.

"More than one way to get an education. Remember that," Mr. Hanks says. He motions to the right of the front door with his head. "There's a guest room back here you can stay in. Right next to Marla in case you need anything. I'm gonna put your bag in there."

"Thanks," I say, my eyes still on the books.

"We're so glad you're here, sweetheart," Marla says, coming out of the kitchen. She wraps me in a big, welcoming hug. I stiffen at first but then relax into it. Marla holds my shoulders and studies me. "You look like you could do with a bit of feeding up." She puts the back of her hand to my forehead. "You feel a bit feverish too." She smiles sadly. "Never you mind. We'll get you sorted."

"This is Penny," I say, extricating myself from Marla's grip.

Marla hugs Penny too. "I saw you were walking gingerly, honey. What have you girls been up to?"

Penny and I exchange a dubious look.

Marla laughs lightly. "We'll worry about it later. Penny, are you going to stay for dinner?"

"Oh. Oh, I don't know," Penny says, sticking her hands in her pockets.

"You're welcome to. Y'all aren't vegetarians, are you?"

"No, ma'am," I say. "Penny, you should stay," I add. Even if I'm mad at her, I don't want her driving back to campus in pain. Besides, I want to finish the conversation we started in the car.

Penny nods and smiles, and her shoulders come up around her ears in the most awkward, charming kind of way. I feel more of my anger chip away.

Marla looks around us. "Hey, Coy, get your butt out here and give these girls a tour while I fix dinner."

I flinch. "Did you call him ‘Coy'?" That's Eugenia's brother's name in Cicada, a strange name I'd never heard before and had written off as one of the odder, old-timey names. But maybe it's common in these parts.

"You can call me Coy too if you want," Mr. Hanks says. "Now that you're not my employee."

"Oooh, he was sad as an old cow when you went and quit on him, Tara," Marla says, bustling off to the kitchen.

"I wasn't either," Mr. Hanks says. "My sister exaggerates. I do miss your help though. This new boy I hired can't even work a broom. Come on, I'll show you 'round."

He leads us around the house, showing us the kitchen and dining room, living room, bathroom, all the usual stuff. He leads us out of a sunroom attached to the back, which is full of houseplants, and into the backyard. There's a strange sort of little shed in the middle of the yard.

"Look here," he says, a note of pride creeping into his voice. He leads us over to the shed and opens the door, flicks on a light. There's a big piece of machinery right in the middle of the floor. It's a long cylinder painted white, mounted on a complicated-looking metal stand. Parts of it are covered in silver duct tape.

"Oh, a telescope," Penny says. But it doesn't look like any telescope I've ever seen. She approaches it, circling, studying all the pieces. "You made this, didn't you?" she asks, looking up at him in surprise.

He gives a sharp, short nod. "Ground the lenses myself."

"Oh wow, that's impressive," Penny says. She glances at me. "Azar would flip over this."

"Our friend Azar Davani," I explain. "She's an engineering major—and a space geek." I try and fail to suppress a yawn.

"I'll give you a demonstration sometime when you're not about to keel over," Mr. Hanks says, leading us out of the shed and back toward the house. He opens the door to the sunroom for us. "Why don't you girls go relax for a little while? Tara, you can get settled in."

After a few words with Marla, Penny and I head back to the guest room. We collapse onto the bed without speaking, and then we both laugh. We roll over to face each other.

"I've missed you," Penny says, so much longing in her voice I almost reach for her. Almost.

"I've missed you too," I admit, but I know I'm not ready to let her back in. Not yet.

She must read something of my thoughts because her face falls. "I'll keep saying I'm sorry as long as I have to, until I've earned your forgiveness. I'm sorry for letting O'Connor do this to you. I'm so sorry for not telling you from the beginning, for letting it go on so long. I'm sorry for hurting you. For all of it."

I nod. "Can you just... go over it all again? Why you lied to me. Help me understand."

Penny's expression opens, a bit of hope creeping into her eyes. "It's like we told you before, we were scared. Isabella killed Meredith, and we were afraid that if you knew the whole truth, you'd resist her and she'd kill you too."

"But if you'd just warned me before I joined Magni Viri—" I start, unable to let that idea go. If they had stopped me from joining, if they had told me what I was truly signing up for, none of this would have happened, would it?

Penny lets out a long, regretful sigh and pauses as if gathering her thoughts. "When O'Connor told us that Isabella had already picked you and there was nothing we could do about it, we did try to argue with him... at first."

"You did?" I ask, grudgingly surprised. That can't have been easy. My own confrontations with O'Connor have been awful.

Penny nods. "Yeah, but the more we pushed back, the madder he got. He said that if we tried to keep you from joining, it would mess up the whole system, that Magni Viri would fall apart without everything in place as it should be. That if we thought dealing with our ghosts was hard now, it was going to get nearly unbearable as Isabella disrupted the other ghosts' equilibrium.

"And when that didn't work, he started in on the personal threats. He asked if we wanted to lose our scholarships, our futures. He laid it on so heavy that finally we accepted what he was saying. We thought we didn't really have a choice. I think it felt too hard not to believe him, you know? Like, it was in our best interest to believe him and go along with his plan."

That part stings. That they chose to believe O'Connor for their own sakes. But I get it too. Would I have behaved any differently with my own future at risk? Besides, I'm not entirely sure O'Connor was lying. It does feel like Isabella marked me for her own.

"I swear, we did everything we could to keep you safe. We watched over you. We did it in shifts, someone always keeping an eye out for you."

"So you spied on me?" I ask tiredly.

"No, not all!" Penny says. "It's not something O'Connor told us to do or anything. We just wanted to make sure you were safe. And we wanted Isabella to know we were watching too, that you weren't alone."

"I felt alone."

"I know," Penny says, something in her voice twisting. Tears brighten her eyes. "But you're not alone now, not if you don't want to be. I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere." She meets my eyes, her gaze fierce and protective, almost possessive.

I know I could hold on to my anger, that I could withhold forgiveness. I'd be well within my rights. But I also know that it's what Isabella would want me to do. She'd want me to stay alone, isolated, resentful, angry. Just like her.

I don't want to be like Isabella. I don't want to keep a wall between me and the person who cares about me more than anyone else does. I'm tired of being alone, and Penny is right—I don't have to be. With a shuddering breath, I reach out for her hand.

Penny's tears finally overflow and trace their way down her cheeks as she laces her fingers in mine. "Thank you," she says. She brings our clasped hands to her mouth and brushes her lips over my knuckles, featherlight. We hold each other's gaze for a long moment.

I cross the distance between us until our bodies lie pressed together, my lips inches from hers. "I forgive you," I say. And then I kiss her, long and deep, for the moment forgetting everything except the relief of being held in her arms. At home, at peace.

But when we pull away from each other, all my worries come rushing back. "Will she be able to get to me here?" I ask, taking off my beanie. My hair is a constant reminder of Isabella's power over me.

Penny considers. "No. No, I don't think she will. Or at least, not like before. The ghosts need the proximity to Denfeld and all the Magni Viri students. It's why most of us don't go home for the holidays, why we do summer school. Or at least that's what Quigg told me. The nearness to Denfeld is super important. That's partly why we do the Sunday night parties in the cemetery, to sort of tighten the bonds between us and the ghosts. To keep the connection strong."

She bites her lip. "You're not going to leave for good, are you? You're not going to go home?"

"I don't have a home to go to," I admit.

"What? What do you mean?"

I hide my face in the pillow. "After I realized about Isabella... I tried to call my mom and ask to go home. But she—she's gone. Moved, quit her job, changed her number. She doesn't want me to find her."

"Jesus, Tara," Penny says. She scoots closer to me and wraps her arms around me again. "I'm so sorry."

I let Penny hold me. The tears rise to my eyes, but I'm about cried out at this point. I just lie close to Penny's warmth and breathe in her woodsy smell. I let myself be comforted.

"You can sleep if you want to," she says into my hair. "I won't let anything happen to you."

"Thank you," I whisper. I close my eyes. I lie still, listening to Penny breathe, and before long, I'm asleep.

Someone knocks on the half-open door. Marla sticks her head into the twilight-hued room, her features lit by the hallway light. "Girls, dinner's ready if you're hungry."

I lift my face out of Penny's hair. "Thanks, Marla. Be right there."

Marla smiles gently at the way Penny and I are twined together. "I'm sorry to wake you. You two looked so peaceful." There's a wistful quality to her voice.

"It's all right," Penny says, slowly and painstakingly sitting up. "Thank you for letting me stay for dinner."

Marla winks at us and disappears.

The table is piled high with Southern food: cornbread, pork chops, collard greens with ham. There's even a pecan pie. I haven't eaten food like this since coming to Corbin.

The four of us eat in silence for a while, too occupied with the meal in front of us to bother speaking. The food tastes so much like home that tears sting my eyes.

"Good?" Marla asks us.

"Marla, you're a wizard," Penny says. "I didn't even know I liked Southern food."

"Where are you from, honey?" Marla asks.

The two of them carry the conversation, talking about Pennsylvania and food traditions. I am content to listen, to soak in this atmosphere of safety and warmth and wholeness. Penny puts her hand on my knee, and I twine my fingers through hers. Mr. Hanks shoots me little concerned looks, probably worrying over what might have happened to bring me to his door. I wonder how long he'll let me stay before he asks why I'm here.

By the time dinner is over, I'm swaying in my chair from exhaustion.

Penny says she had better get started on the drive back to campus. I walk her to the door, a little awkward on my bandaged feet. "You sure you'll be all right driving back alone?" I ask. "I'm sure they wouldn't care if you want to stay the night."

She shakes her head. "I'll be fine. I have to take my meds, and there are some things I need to do."

"You need to get back to your ghost, don't you?" I ask, seeing what she's carefully avoiding saying. "It's the bat researcher who had a heart attack over the summer, right?"

Penny nods. "Yeah, Dr. Coppola." She hesitates. "I'm sorry. I wish I could stay, but—"

"No, don't worry about it. We'll talk tomorrow." There's so much Penny and I still need to say. So much she needs to tell me. But tonight I'm glad to leave it be, to leave everything be.

"You'll be all right here, yeah?" Penny asks.

I nod. She kisses me, and before I can say anything else, she's headed down the porch steps, moths flying around her head. "Call you in the morning," she says. And then she's gone, the taillights of my car disappearing into the dark. I watch until I can't see the faintest glimmer of them.

I sit in a rocking chair on the porch and listen to the nighttime sounds, not quite ready to go inside yet. I expect to feel lonely, but I don't. I just feel tired. Tired and in need of rest.

After a while, Mr. Hanks comes out and sits in the rocker next to mine. "It'll be nice to have you stay here, Tara. Gets awful quiet with only Marla and me."

I smile at him. "How'd you get such a nice sister anyway?"

He laughs. "Well, we had to share a womb, you know. Maybe the niceness got poorly distributed."

"Nah. You're a lot nicer than you let on. Thank you for helping me. I really needed it," I say.

"You can stay as long as you want. I mean that. And you don't have to tell me anything unless you want to."

"I do, it's just... maybe tomorrow. Is that okay?"

"Absolutely," he says. He stands up. "You get some rest. You'll feel better in the morning."

Once he's gone, the night descends again. I think about Penny driving through the dark on her way back to campus. I think about the others, all of them moving around Denfeld Hall, doing their work—or doing someone else's. I think about Isabella's ghost—untethered, searching for me, itching to get back into my skin. I shiver and pull my sweater closer around me.

I still don't know how I ended up in the woods this morning. Why Isabella sent me wandering there without a coat or shoes. I remember writing the last line of Cicada. But after that, it's all gone. Maybe she wanted a walk and couldn't be bothered to protect me from the cold. Maybe she wanted to remind me of her power over me. Or maybe she felt as lost as I did after Cicada's bloody ending.

I take a deep breath of the night-scented air. I'm so glad I'm not at Denfeld tonight. And I'm not sure I'll ever go back again.

Mr. Hanks is right: there's more than one way to get an education. Having a college degree isn't the only way. And Magni Viri sure as hell isn't.

Maybe I need to find my own path.

But for now, I mostly need a place to recover from Isabella Snow.