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"Madison!" He put his hands behind his back, the better to conceal the knife "Good "

"Sorry to intrude, Mr More" Madison didn’t look sorry; her eyes darted around the bit of his carriage house she could see, the gesture of the perpetually nosy "My dad reht that the coffeepot in here broke and we hadn’t gotten around to putting in the replaceher in her arms "Meet the replaceood around now" Balthazar didn’t respondto joke about, so he could laugh to cover the sound of his sliding the knife onto his table

"They said you took Skye hoet hot in the gym, and just after you come in from the cold--you know" Which made no sense, but hopefully Madison would skip over it "Just dropped her off at the house She should be in class this ood Hey, want me to set this up for you?"

She’d taken one step inside before Balthazar’s hands were free to collect the coffeeot it But seriously, thanks for bringing it by"

"Well, okay" Madison hesitated a ain "See you in class!"

"Don’t be late!" he called cheerfully as he shut the door That was a teacherish sort of thing to say, right? At that moment he was too relieved to worry about it rave and the others would really have knocked on the door if they’d co to do violence

He suspected they wouldn’t knock on his door the night they came to kill him

Balthazar walked into his first class just before the bell, so all the students were in their seats Though he gave the roolance he hoped was professional, his eyes searched for Skye first of all--

--and found her Instead of looking crushed by last night’s events, as he’d feared she would, she gazed back at him evenly Serene, almost As if she didn’t have a care in the world And she’d dressed accordingly

That skirt … that cannot possibly pass the dress code

Skye’s outfit wasn’t outrageous; her sweater was slightly oversized, even, and the colors were all blacks and dark grays and pluhts, al over one of the students in front of the rest of the class is definitely not professional, he told hi, everybody We’ll be diving into chapter one today--though I haven’t had aht"