I twisted around to look at the back of my legs, only to see a long run inching up my left heel. “That’s not my fault!” I protested.

“Thank you, Lynette,” the headmistress said soothingly. “Would you give us a moment alone?”

Mrs. Lynch gave a stiff nod and stepped outside.

“Please,” said Headmistress Von Laark, “have a seat.”

I sat in an upright leather chair across from her, staring at her brooch, which looked something like a bear. On top of her desk sat an hourglass filled with white sand, a globe, a stack of papers, and a small pile of books. Behind the desk, a narrow spiral staircase was carved into a stone wall, probably leading down into the bowels of the building.

Headmistress Von Laark smiled. “So, you snuck out after hours to meet a boy?”

I swallowed and nodded. “Just a friend.”

“How did you get out?”

I couldn’t tell her about the chimneys, or they’d block them off for good. “I waited until Mrs. Lynch was on a different floor.”

The headmistress gave me a curious look. “I see. And you ran away when she saw you?”

I nodded. “But I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t thinking. It was dark and rainy. I couldn’t really see her.” I paused. “Please don’t expel me,” I said softly.

The headmistress laughed. “I would have done the same thing.” The second Siamese cat leaped onto her desk. “Have you met my darlings?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“This is Romulus.” The cat sauntered across her desk, meowed, and curled around the hourglass. “And this is Remus,” she said, stroking the cat in her lap. “Aren’t they handsome?”

I nodded. “Very.”

The headmistress leaned back in her chair. “So, tell me about this Dante Berlin.”

I must have looked puzzled, because she continued, “You two are dating, no?”

“No. We’re just friends.”

Von Laark put a finger to her lips. “Hmm,” she murmured. “Are you sure?”

I swallowed. Even if the headmistress had somehow found out about us, the best I could do was deny it. “Yes.”

She gazed at me pensively, her blue eyes fixed on mine. “Professor Mumm tells me you’re excelling in Horticulture. She says you’re the best student she’s had in at least a decade.”

I blushed. “It doesn’t feel that way. There’s still so much to learn.”

She clasped her hands on her desk. “You’re just like your mother. Very modest.”

“You knew my mother?”

The headmistress nodded. “I was a professor of Philosophy here when your mother was a student.”

Questions flooded my head. What was my mother like? What were her friends like? What did she look like? And had the headmistress also had my father as a student?

“Incredibly sharp, your mother. Your father too. And ambitious. You never would have guessed they were from wealthy backgrounds. Always so humble.”

“My father was wealthy?” I didn’t know. His parents had died when I was a baby, and I had only met my four aunts, who were each fussy, overweight, inclined to hats, and generally auntlike.

“Why, of course. You weren’t aware? The Redgrave fortune. Redgrave Architects? They specialized in custom-made foundations, cellars, enclaves, wells, and so on. Quite artful, actually. Tragic that it’s a dying form.”

“I... I didn’t know. He never told me.”

“Robert was a private boy,” she murmured. “Clearly you take after him. Professor Mumm told me that just last week you identified the only form of shrivel root in the field, and were also able to identify the appropriate soil and plot for it to be planted in.”

It was true.

“Very impressive for someone your age,” remarked the headmistress.

“Thanks.”

“Well, I suppose if you have nothing else that you want to tell me, we have nothing more to discuss today.”

She waited a moment, but when I said nothing, she smiled. “Go then, and enjoy your youth.”

Grateful for the reprieve, I stood up. Something about her demeanor was unsettling. Maybe it was her cats.

“Oh and, Renée, tell me, when is your birthday?”

I turned just as the headmistress put on a pair of reading glasses.

“August twentieth. Why?”

“A Leo,” she said, smiling. “How fitting.”

Just before I turned, a file on her desk caught my eye. It was a manila folder partially covered in papers. It was labeled Dante Berlin. I thought back to the day I’d met Eleanor, when she’d told me she’d asked her brother Brandon to check my file in the headmistress’s office. Quickly, I glanced around the room, looking for a filing cabinet. I didn’t see one, though I knew it had to be there somewhere.

“Is there something wrong, Renée?” the headmistress probed.

“No,” I said quickly. “Nothing.” And I stepped into the hall.

To my surprise, Dante was sitting outside on a bench, in a collared shirt, his blue tie loose around his neck. I wanted to stop and talk to him, but knew I couldn’t in front of the headmistress. We made eye contact as I passed, and Dante gave the beginnings of a smile when the headmistress poked her head out the door.

“I’m ready for you,” she said in a firm voice.

I walked by slowly, and as Dante stood up, our hands brushed against each other, his skin cold against mine. The door shut behind him, and I was left alone in the hallway. There was a folded piece of paper on the bench where Dante had been sitting. I flattened it out to find the following words written in Dante’s neat handwriting:

Meet me in front of the library at 7 p.m.

Folding the note into my pocket, I left for class.

“I talked to Minnie,” Eleanor said as she closed the door. I was sitting at my desk, trying to read the footnotes of The Iliad in the dim light of my candle.

I sat up straight. “And?”

She hefted her bag onto the desk. “Disaster.”

“What happened?”

“I cornered her in Art. We were working on portraits. I made sure to sit next to her so we would be partners. While I was sketching, I asked her about what happened last spring with Cassandra. That was my first mistake. She got all weird and hunched over, and her face wouldn’t stay still.... It ruined my portrait.”