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And by drea chaperone

Little did I kno quickly ould lose theiddy as I watched the , the sky shi pink behind thehtened chihuahua

"Cri to kill us"

"You’ve already said that a thousand times It’s too late to worry about it"

"It’s never too late to worry"

I rolled ainst the worn cushion of the jouncing carriage, which wasus fro to sound way toome to death before we even reached our destination, ot to find us before he can kill us And Paris is a big city, mon petit chouchou" I elbowed her in the ribs

"And what is that supposed to ht back

"It e It’s a French--I mean, Franchian--term of endearment And did you know you have seriously pointy elbows?"

Her voice went so quiet that surely the Pinkies in the carriage wouldn’t hear "I just don’t think it’s right, running out on Made to kill her, too, for being a bad chaperone What was so horrible about going to the University of Ruin, anyway?"

We hit a pothole, anda dark brown curl to dangle in h et back to the caravan And Ruin wasn’t horrible; I just wanted an adventure I don’t want to be a boring contortionist in the boring caravan anye, either"

"Back to college?"

I wedged my head onto her shoulder, ers didn’t knoere Bluder from Earth We would be in serious trouble if they found out ere bloodsuckers--not the nice, noruess I never told you I was at university when Iwhen I ended up in Sangland When Criminy found me and saved me I was a student, in my world I hated it"

"Why did you never say? And why did you hate it so?"

I scowled behind et that Cherie had grown up poor and freezing in the forests of Freesia after her family fell out of favor with the Tsarina To her, the caravan was a life of warmth and security And I had taken that fro in the scent of her hair, I felt a rush of love for the first person who’d reached out to me when I arrived in Criry She’d huggedirls When I looked at her, I saw onlyI’d ever had to a sister Golden curls, eyes too innocent for a Bludwoman, pink cheeks, and an upturned nose She looked like an Auised wolf

But to her, the University of Ruin represented untold wealth and opportunity Most likely, no one in her entire family had ever been to university,didn’t have the sort of freedom I had known back home in Greenville, South Carolina I hadn’t spoken , it was true But I owed her a better explanation for why I’d forced her to join me on a risky adventure

"I never told you because I wanted a clean start, wanted to forget how I ended up here Earth is different Safer I guess I thought that once I left ho would be different That I would et a boyfriend and do well in ree in art history would actually get ht life would be as pretty as it looked in the brochures, in the advertise away fro better"

"It didn’t?"

"Nope Kind of the opposite It just entlee watched our whispered closeness with an unhealthy fascination, a creepy glea behind his spectacles My instinct was to flash et us thrown off the carriage, if not killed Instead, I pulled my head away from Cherie and locked eyes with the older , he cleared his throat juicily and looked away The prim nursemaid beside hiirl of about seventeen The girl gave us an innocent, hopeful smile, which I was sure Cherie would return behind closed lips We e, but ere probably ten years older There were benefits to being bludded, after all