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"I--uot back to randfather or any of the Monitors that Dante and I were still together, they would bury him

"I like that name," she said

"What do you know about the Royal Victoria Hospital?" I asked, trying to direct the conversation back to Zinya

"Dante," Anya said, letting his naue "Where do I know that na on my tea, when I realized that she probably knew his na at Gottfried

Anya stopped chewing "Oh ?"

I wiped my mouth with a napkin "I--um--no"

"It’s true," she said in awe "You still see hierous here" When I didn’t say anything, Anya moved her chair closer "Are the rumors true? Did he really plot to kill the headhts, I looked down at my biscotti, which I had broken up into cruht last spring I’d always liked having secrets, the kind I told ht It was like I was spilling a part of myself into them, and forever after ere connected I now understood that real secrets were lonely They planted themselves inside of you and expanded, until you felt like that was all you were--a lonely little secret, isolated in your experiences "He didn’t kill the headmistress, but other than that, I can’t talk about it," I said "I wish I could"

Anya studiedthe true answer on my face, and then sank back in her chair "Don’t worry," she said "I won’t tell anyone"

"Thanks," I said softly, watching the stea

Anya paused for a moment and then clasped her hands on the table "So what about your visions, then? Should we figure out a way to follow them?"

"I have to think about it," I said Dante’s voice echoed in er myself "What if it’s exactly the opposite, and the drea the?"

Anya rolled her eyes as she put on her coat "You dreamed of a bed in the Royal Victoria Hospital What could be a safer place than that?"

She had a point As we stepped out into the street, I turned to her "Wait I never even asked what Zinya told you"

Anya hesitated, and then began fidgeting with a tassel on her purse "It’s bad luck to tell so about that when I told you mine--" I started to say, but Anya cutyou, Renée It’s bad luck" She pushed a red wisp of hair away froe my mind"

We didn’t make it to the hospital for another week As classes picked up, Anya and I were too busy with schoolwork to plan anything, and we decided to postpone our trip till the weekend In the , but the days and nights passed without a sign of Dante

Before class on Monday I traced er around the peri in front of the rew pink after a hot shower I liked to knoas still there, to be re dressed, I walked two blocks away from campus to the dépanneur, a convenience store, where I picked up a copy of the daily newspaper and scoured the pages, searching for deaths, disappearances, ht have to do with the Undead And even though I knew that if Dante had been discovered and buried by the Monitors, it wouldn’t be in any newspaper, it made me feel better just to look

A boy held the door forat him as I took a seat at the far end of the table Just as I shoved the paper beneath the table, leaving it open to the obituaries so I could read when the professor wasn’t looking, I heard a voice behind me

"Any news from the outside?"

Brett pulled out the chair next tohis blazer over the back Fro about Dante

"No," I said, giving him a sad smile

"I haven’t talked to you in a while," he said, lowering his voice "How is everything going?"

I shrugged "I’ve been better"

"Yeah I hear the girls gossiping at dinner I wouldn’t listen to theh People here, they don’t knohat it’s like Most of them have never even met an Undead Just keep your head down and do what you have to do Everything else will take care of itself"

"Thanks," I said, appreciating his words more than he knew

Monsieur Orneaux, our Latin professor, was already seated at the head of the table, his back upright, his eyes dark and heavy He was a gaunt id expression that rarely changed, regardless of what mood he was in He seemed to dislike everyone, but held a particularly vehee A language of strategy, of ancient wars, of pagan gods and sacrifice, and later, of the clergy It is a language that has always belonged to the afterlife" He had a way of drawing out each syllable, as if the words had turned sour in his e, so its people The Undead are a miserable lot"

I didn’t think I had to pay attention because, unlike last year, I was now practically fluent in Latin I foundvocabulary words I had never learned before; conjugating verbs without even having to think So instead, I glanced down at the newspaper on top ofand skimmed an article on the deaths of two tourists in British Coluhts "What do the Undead fear most?"