A compact man with dark hair and a beard made his way around the corner. Mrs. Perkins cut off her previous sentence with a smile. “And here he is now.”

“Ivy.” The headmaster greeted Ivy by name and reached both of his hands out to take hers.

“Headmaster Raleigh,” she returned, in a tone that made me think that under typical circumstances, she’d leave the headmaster off. “I appreciate you making this happen.”

“Yes, well . . .” Headmaster Raleigh plucked his glasses off his face and began polishing them against his shirt. “We think that you—and Tess—will fit in with the Hardwicke family quite well.”

“I know my way around Hardwicke,” Ivy replied, in a tone that made me wonder what experience she’d had with the school—and why the headmaster looked uncomfortable with the reminder. “This is the right place for Tess.”

“And, of course,” the headmaster added, “you can expect us to respect your sister’s privacy. Just as we respect the privacy of all of our students.”

There was subtext there—a warning.

“What happens at Hardwicke stays at Hardwicke,” Ivy said smoothly. “Believe me, I know.”

“Am I early?” a voice piped up from the doorway. I turned to look at the girl who stood there. Ivy and Headmaster Raleigh kept their eyes on each other.

“You are right on time,” Mrs. Perkins told the girl cheerfully, ignoring the tension in the room. “Tess, this is Vivvie Bharani. Since you girls are in most of the same classes, she’s going to be showing you around today.”

Vivvie was an inch or two taller than me with dark brown skin, a round face, and wavy black hair that she wore pulled into loose pigtails. She offered me a hopeful smile. “I know,” she said apologetically. “This whole ‘hey, new girl, go with the total stranger’ thing is kind of cliché, but don’t think of me as your school-assigned buddy.” Her smile brightened. “Think of me as your travel guide to a strange and bewildering country, where the locals are always restless and the bathrooms are impossible to find.” There was an energy to Vivvie, an earnestness that made her very hard not to like.

“And as your travel guide,” she continued, bringing her right hand to her heart, like she was pledging allegiance, “I am morally obligated to tell you that if we don’t leave now, the Hut will be totally sold out of everything bagels by the time we get there.” She paused to let what I could only assume was the seriousness of that sink in. “You cannot possibly be prepared for your first day at Hardwicke with only some things in your morning bagel.”

I glanced over at Ivy and the headmaster, who’d finally ended their friendly little staring match. Then I turned back to Vivvie. “After you.”

CHAPTER 7

The Hardwicke Hut was essentially a student-run coffee shop that didn’t serve coffee.

“Two everything bagels,” Vivvie ordered, with the air of a fairy godmother granting a most elaborate wish. “And do not tell me you’re out,” she told the boy behind the counter. “You are not out of everything bagels. The world would not be so cruel.”

“We’re not out,” the boy replied. “But there’s only one left. The world is a little bit cruel.”

Vivvie put on a brave face. “In that case, Tess will have an everything bagel, and I’ll have—”

“Half of mine?” I suggested. I would have given her the whole thing, but I wasn’t sure she’d take it.

“I knew I liked you!” Vivvie beamed. As we slid over to await our order, a trio of girls started making their way to the counter. Vivvie mistook my registering their presence as a sign of interest.

“The one on the left is Maya Rojas,” Vivvie told me, like this was some kind of nature documentary and she was narrating. “She’s a three-sport captain. As a junior.” Apparently, at Hardwicke, that made Maya a person to know. “The one next to her, with the white-blond hair?” Vivvie continued. “That’s Di. She’s from Iceland.”

“Di?” I repeated. “As in Diana?” That didn’t exactly sound Icelandic to me.

“Errr . . . no. It’s actually short for something else.” Vivvie tried and failed to sound inconspicuous.

“What’s it short for?”

Vivvie hesitated. “It’s Di as in D period I period. And it’s short for diplomatic immunity.” Vivvie had the decency to look a little sheepish. “Di’s father is an ambassador, and her real name is pretty much impossible to pronounce. Plus she never turns down dares. Like, ever.”

A teenage girl with diplomatic immunity and a fondness for dares. That won’t end well.

That just left the third girl. Vivvie didn’t get the chance to tell me anything about her, because a second later, the girl in question spotted us. She cut across the Hut like a homing pigeon.

“Vivvie, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” Without waiting for Vivvie to respond, the girl plowed forward. “I’m Emilia Rhodes.”

“Tess,” I said. For a moment, Emilia and I studied each other. She was tall, with strawberry-blond hair and eyes that walked the line between green and blue. She wore almost no makeup, except for a light gloss on her lips. “So you’re Ivy Kendrick’s sister,” she said finally. “I thought you’d be taller.”

“I’ll get right to work on that.”

Emilia cracked a very small smile. “Hardwicke almost never accepts midsemester transfers,” she said. “Your sister must have pulled some very impressive strings.”

I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”

Emilia might have continued cross-examining me, but Vivvie pulled her attention away. “I saw the news about Justice Marquette online,” Vivvie told her. “Have you heard from Henry at all?”

Emilia gave a brief shake of her head. “Neither has Asher. Henry Marquette isn’t really one for communication. Or sharing. Or the outward display of human emotion of any kind.” Coming from Emilia, that didn’t sound like a criticism. “We’ll hear what happens from the papers before we hear it from Henry.”

Having placed their orders, Maya and Di appeared behind Emilia, like an athletic angel and an Icelandic devil on her shoulders.