Tempted

then that she’d had kind of a thing for the kid before she’d died and un-died, and I acknowledged to myself that seeing her flirting with him, when I thought she probably had a thing for that red fledgling kid named Dallas, gave me a littlemoment of selfish glee. It might be borderline mean of me, but it would sure be nice if my BFF and I could talk about how to juggle multiple-guy problems.
    “Z? Do ya think that’s a good idea?”
    “Oh, sorry, what?” I realized Stevie Rae had been talking away at me while I’d been hoping she’d accumulate a zillion (or at least two) boyfriends.
    “I said the red fledglings could stay in empty dorm rooms. There should be enough, even if they have to sleep three to a room. We could be sure their windows are covered. It’s not as good as being underground, but it’ll do, at least until this stupid ice storm stops and we can figure something else out.”
    “Okay, then let’s get that going. And while the room situation is being fixed,
we
”—I enunciated the word carefully, taking in my circle plus Aphrodite, Darius, and Stark—“need to have a talk with Lenobia.”
    My gang nodded, everyone apparently clued in to the fact that we needed to quickly be brought up to speed on what had happened at the House of Night while we were gone.
    “You guys are all going to be okay,” I told the hurt kids as my gang said their goodbyes and we started straggling toward the exit.
    “Hey, thanks, Zoey,” Drew called.
    “You really are a good High Priestess—even if you’re not really one yet,” Ian yelled from his room.
    I wasn’t sure his lopsided compliment required a thanks or not, and as I was standing in the entrance to the infirmary, looking back at the kids and thinking that, except for the fact that they’d just battled Raven Mockers and witnessed the murder of a professor, they all seemed so normal.
    Then it hit me.
They seemed normal
. Just the day before, almost everybody at the school, with the exception of my group, Lenobia, Dragon, and Anastasia, had fallen under the charismatic spell of Kalona and Neferet, and hadn’t acted normal at all.
    I walked back into the infirmary hallway. “I have a question for all of you guys. It may sound weird, but I really need honest answers, even if that might be embarrassing.”
    Drew grinned over my shoulder, where I was sure my BFF was standing, “Ask me anything you want, Z. Any friend of Stevie Rae’s is cool by me.”
    “Uh, thanks, Drew.” I managed not to roll my eyes at him. “This question is for all of you, though. Here’s the thing: Did you guys think there was anything wrong with the Raven Mockers, or even Kalona and Neferet, before Professor Anastasia was attacked?”
    Not surprisingly, Drew answered first. “I didn’t trust the winged guy, but I didn’t know why.” He shrugged. “I dunno, maybe because he had wings. It’s just too weird.”
    “I thought he was hot, but those man-bird sons of his were super-disgusting,” said Hanna Honeyyeager.
    “Yeah, the Raven Mockers were gross, but also Kalona was
old
, and I couldn’t figure out how come so many fledgling girls had a thing for him,” said Red. “I mean, George Clooney’s hot and all, but he’s too old, and I wouldn’t want to, like, do him. So I didn’t get why practically everyone else wanted to do Kalona.”
    “How about the rest of you?” I asked the rest of them.
    “Like you said before, Kalona exploded from the ground. That’s just bizarre.” Denio paused, looked at Aphrodite, and then continued. “Plus, some of us have known for a while that Neferet wasn’t everything she seemed to be.”
    “Yeah, you knew it, but you didn’t do anything about it.” Aphrodite’s voice wasn’t hateful or pissed. She was just making a statement, an awful but true statement.
    Denio lifted her chin. “I did do something about it.” She gestured at her bandaged arm. “It was just too late.”
    “Nothing’s felt right to me since Professor Nolan was killed,” Ian said from his room. “The stuff with Kalona and the Raven Mockers was more of that same feeling.”
    “I saw what he was doing to my friends,” T.J. called from the last room down the hall. “They were like zombies and believed anything he said. When I tried to talk to them about anything, like asking how we could be sure he was really Erebus come to earth, they’d get pissed or laugh at me. I didn’t like him from the very beginning. And those damn bird things