Evernight Read Online Free Page A

to face it if Lucas were beside me. Maybe it
was crazy to feel like that about a guy I barely knew, but I didn't care. Lucas
had to be here, but I couldn't find him. In the middle of all these people, I felt
completely alone.

As I edged toward a far corner of the room, I began to realize that a few
students were in the same situation as I was—or, at least, they were also new.
A guy with sandy hair and a beach-bronze tan was so rumpled that he might have
slept in his uniform, but being supercasual didn't win you any points here. He
wore a Hawaiian shirt open over his sweater but beneath his blazer, its gaudy
cheer almost desperate in Evernight's gloom. A girl had cut her black hair so
short that it was more like a boy's, but not in a cute, pixie style; it looked
more like she'd haphazardly taken a razor to it. Her uniform hung on her, two
sizes too big. The crowds seemed to part around her as if repelled by some
force. She might as well have been invisible; even before our first class, she
had been branded someone who didn't matter.

How could I be so sure? Because it had just happened to me, too. I was trapped
on the edge of the crowd, intimidated by the din, dwarfed by the stone hallway,
and as lost as it was possible to be.

"Everyone!"

The voice rang out, instantly shattering the noise into silence. We all turned
as one to the far end of the hallway, where Mrs. Bethany, the headmistress, had
stepped upon the podium.

She was a tall woman, with thick dark hair she wore piled on top of her head,
like someone from the Victorian era. I couldn't begin to guess her age. Her
lace-trimmed blouse was gathered at the neck with a golden pin. If you could
think of somebody so severe as beautiful, then she was beautiful. I had met her
when my parents and I moved into the faculty apartments; she had scared me a
little then, but I'd told myself that was because I'd only just met her.

If anything, she was even more imposing now. As I saw her instantly,
effortlessly claim command over this roomful of people—the same people who had
shut me out by mutual, silent accord before I could even think what to say—I
realized for the first time that Mrs. Bethany had power. Not just the kind that
came with being headmistress but real power, the sort that rises from within.

"Welcome to Evernight." She held out her hands. Her nails were long
and translucent. "Some of you have been with us before. Others will have
heard about Evernight Academy for years, perhaps from your families, and
wondered if you would ever join our school. And we have other new students this
year—the result of a change in our admissions policy. We think it's time for
our students to meet a wider range of people, from more varied backgrounds, to
better prepare them for the world outside the school's walls. Everyone here has
much to learn from the other students, and I trust that you will all treat one
another with respect."

She might as well have spray-painted, in giant red letters, SOME
OF YOU DON'T REALLY BELONG . The "new admissions" policy was no doubt
responsible for surfer boy and short-haired girl being here; they weren't
intended to be "real" Evernight students at all. They were only
supposed to represent a learning experience for the in crowd.

I wasn't part of the new policy. If it weren't for my parents, I wouldn't be
here. In other words, I wasn't even "in" enough to be an outcast.

"At Evernight, we do not treat students as children." Mrs. Bethany
didn't look at any one of us in particular; she seemed to look just over us, a
distant kind of gaze that nonetheless took in everything within her field of
view. "You have come here to learn how to function as adults in a
twenty-first-century world, and that is how you will be expected to behave.
That does not mean that Evernight has no rules. Our position in this area
requires that we maintain the strictest discipline. We expect much of
you."

She didn't say what the repercussions would be for failure, but somehow