Hunted

Instead to overcome

Night leads to Spirit

Blood binds Humanity

And Earth completes.

“That makes my head hurt. I mean, more than it already does. I ca

“Do you have a clue about this?” I asked Damien.

“I think it’s giving us directions on how we can make Kalona flee, or run away,” he said.

“We know what ‘flee’ means, Mr. Vocab,” Erin said.

“It’s kinda depressing that it says flee instead of kill,” Jack said.

“Kalona can’t be killed,” I said, speaking the words automatically. “He’s immortal. He can be trapped. He can be chased away, although it boggles my mind to think about what might make him run. But he can’t be killed.”

“Those five thingies together, in a place of power, make him run,” Jack said.

“Wherever that is, and whatever they are,” I said.

“They’re people who represent each of those things. Or at least that would be my first guess. See how they’re capitalized? That usually means they are proper nouns, or names,” Damien said.

“They’re names,” Kramisha said.

“Do you know anything else about it? Can you tell who they are?” Damien asked.

Kramisha shook her head, looking frustrated. “No. It’s just when you said that they be people, I knew you was right.”

“How about the next one?” Damien said. “Maybe it’ll help us make sense of this one.”

I turned my attention to the other sheet of paper. The new poem wasn’t long, but it made my skin crawl.

She comes back

Through blood by blood

She returns

Cut deep now

Like me

Humanity saves her

Will she save me?

“What were you thinking when you wrote this?” I asked Kramisha.

“Nothin’. I was barely awake. I just wrote the words that come to me with both of ’em.”

“I don’t like it,” Erik said.

“Well, it doesn’t help us with the other poem, that’s for sure. Actually, I think it&rsq1awl.

“But who’s speaking? Who is this ‘me’ that’s asking if I’ll save him or her?” I was feeling weaker and weaker by the moment, and the long strip of my wound was throbbing in time with the beat of my heart.

“It could be Kalona,” Aphrodite said. “That’s who the first poem’s about.”

“Yes, but we’re not so sure Kalona ever had any humanity in him to lose,” Damien said.

I carefully kept my mouth shut, even though my first impulse was to say that I did think Kalona had not always been like he was now.

“On the other hand,” Damien continued, “we know that Neferet has turned from Nyx, which could also mean that she’s lost herself, or her humanity. It could be referring to Neferet.”

“Ugh,” Erin said.

“She has definitely lost her damn mind,” Shaunee said.

“Actually, doesn’t it make the most sense that it’s that new undead kid talking?” Erik said slowly.

“You may be on to something,” Damien said. I could practically see the wheels in his mind turning. “The ‘Cut deep now / Like me’ part could be metaphorical for his death. Zoey’s wound is definitely life threatening, and they’ve certainly both been drawn to the House of Night because of blood.”

“And his humanity is missing. Like the rest of the red fledglings,” Aphrodite said.

“Hey, I don’t know what you talkin’ ’bout. I got me plenty of humanity,” Kramisha said, clearly offended.

“But you didn’t have your humanity when you first rose, did you?” Damien said.

His voice was so clinical that Kramisha’s feathers instantly unruffled. “No. You right about that. I had no damn sense about me at first. None of us did.”

“Sounds like a good guess about the meaning of the second one,” Damien said. “And because we have Kramisha on our side, her gift with words gives us a glimpse into the possible future. The first poem…I don’t know. I’ll think about it. What we need is to spend some time brainstorming possible meanings—time we don’t have right now. But that’s really inconsequential. We should still appreciate Kramisha.”

“Hey, not a problem,” Kramisha said. “It’s all part a bein’ the Poet Laureate.”

“The who?” Aphrodite said.

Kramisha fixed a sharp look on Aphrodite. “Zoey made me the new Vamp Poet Laureate.”

Aphrodite opened her mouth, but I beat her to speaking. “Actually, let’s have a quick vote of my Prefect Council on whether Kramisha should be our new Poet Laureate.” I looked at Damien. “What’s your vote?”

“Yes, definitely,” Damien said.

“I say 6 V O Dt tyes, too,” Shaunee said,

“Ditto. We’re due for a female Poet Laureate,” Erin said.

“I already gave my yes vote,” Erik said.

We all looked at Aphrodite.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” she said.

“And I can promise Stevie Rae will vote yes, too,” I said. “So it’s official.”

Everyone smiled at Kramisha who looked totally pleased with herself.

“Okay, so, to summarize,” Damien said, “we’ve pretty much decided that Kramisha’s first poem is outlining a way Kalona can be forced to run away, even though we don’t really have a good understanding of the details provided in the poem. The second is saying that Zoey’s return to the House of Night might somehow save Stark.” Erik said.

“Yeah, that’s what it sounds like.” I handed the pieces of paper on which the poems were written to Aphrodite. “Would you put those in my purse, please?” She nodded and folded them neatly, tucking them into my cute little bag. “I wish both poems had come with more instructions,” I said.

“I think you should start by paying special attention to Stark,” Damien said.

“Or at least she should be on her guard around him,” Erik said. “The poem does mention being cut, and right now that’s way more than a poetic metaphor.”

I listened while Damien semi-agreed with him and I looked away from Erik’s penetrating gaze and right into Heath’s sad brown eyes.

“Let me guess. Stark’s another guy, isn’t he?” Heath said.

When I didn’t answer, he took a long drink from the bottle of wine.

“Well, uh, yeah, Heath,” Jack said, sitting next to Heath on the bed and looking concerned. “Stark is a fledgling who, I guess, was kinda a friend of Zoey’s before he died and then un-died. He was a new kid, so none of us had gotten to know him very well.”

“But you knew things about him no one else did. Like that his gift from Nyx was that he never missed any mark he aimed at, right?” Damien said.

“Yeah. I knew stuff about him no one else knew, except Neferet and the professors,” I said, trying not to watch Heath guzzle down the bottle of wine and avoiding Erik’s sharp gaze.

“I didn’t know that about his gift, and I’m a professor,” Erik said.

I closed my eyes and leaned heavily back on the pillow. “Then maybe that was more info Neferet kept to herself,” I said wearily.

“So why would he tell you about something that was top secret?” Erik said.

A

“Well, let’s s:

As my friends—well, all of them except for my “consort” and my possible “mate”—mumbled apologies, I kept my eyes closed and wondered just how badly I wanted to get all healed up, because it seemed, once again, I found myself in a “situation” that involved three guys. And that wasn’t even counting Kalona.

Well, hell…