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him?"

"I don't know," I said. There was still some debate on that. Turning Keith in had stopped me from being replaced by Zoe, and Stanton was now considering just having me fill in as the local Alchemist since the duties were light. "If someone does, it may be a while."

"So you're the only Alchemist in the area," he repeated, sounding sadder still.

I shrugged. "There are some in Los Angeles."

That inexplicably perked him up a little. "Really? Could you tell me their - "

Lee stopped as his focus dropped to the open yearbook lying at my feet. "Oh," I said, scooping it up. "Just a research project I'm doing on - "

"Kelly Hayes." The cheerful look was gone.

"Yeah. Have you heard of her?" I reached for a nearby piece of scrap paper, intending to use it as a bookmark for the tribute section.

"You might say that," he replied.

I started to ask what he meant, and that's when I saw it. The spread they'd done in honor of Kelly had pictures from all parts of her high school life. Unsurprisingly, most of them were pictures of her playing sports. There were a few from other areas of her social and academic worlds, including one of her at the prom. She wore a stunning blue satin dress that made the most of her athletic figure and was giving the camera a big grin as she wrapped an arm around her dashing, tuxedo-clad date.

Lee.

I jerked my head up and looked at Lee, who was now regarding me with an unreadable expression. I turned back to the picture, scrutinizing it carefully. What was remarkable wasn't that Lee was in the picture - though, believe me, I hadn't figured out what was going on with that yet. What had me hung up was the timing. This yearbook was five years old. Lee would've been fourteen at the time, and the guy looking back at me with Kelly was certainly not that young. The Lee in the picture looked exactly like the nineteen-year-old sitting across from me, which was impossible. Moroi had no special immortality. They aged like humans. I looked back up, wondering if I should be asking if he had a brother.

Lee saved me from questioning, though. He simply regarded me with a sad look and shook his head. "Shit. I hadn't wanted it to happen like this."

And then, he took out a knife.

Chapter Twenty-Four

IT'S WEIRD how you react in moments of immediate danger. Part of me was pure panic, complete with racing heart and rapid breathing. That hollow feeling, the one that felt like a hole had opened in my chest, returned. Another part of me was able to still inexplicably think along logical lines, mostly something like, Yup, that's the kind of knife that could slit a throat. The rest of me? Well, the rest of me was just confused.

I stayed where I was and kept my voice low and even. "Lee, what's going on? What is this?"

He shook his head. "Don't pretend. I know you know. You're too smart. I knew you'd figure it out, but I just didn't expect you to do it so soon."

My mind spun. Once again, someone thought I was smarter than I was. I supposed I should be flattered by his faith in my intelligence, but the truth was, I didn't know what was going on yet. I didn't know if betraying that would help or hinder me, though. I decided to play cool for as long as I reasonably could here.

"That's you in the picture," I said, careful not to make it a question.

"Of course," he said.

"You haven't aged." I dared a quick look at the picture, just to ascertain that for myself. It still baffled me. Only Strigoi were ageless, staying immortal at the age they'd turned. "That's... that's impossible. You're Moroi."

"Oh, I've aged," he said bitterly. "Not a lot. Not enough that you can really spot it, but believe me, I can. It's not like how it used to be."

I was still clueless, still not sure of how we had reached a point where Lee - starry-eyed and lovesick for Jill - was suddenly threatening me with a knife. Nor did I understand how he looked exactly the same as he did in a five-year-old picture. There was only one terrible thing I was beginning to be certain of. "You... killed Kelly Hayes." The fear in my chest intensified. I lifted my gaze from the blade to look into his eyes. "But surely...