She nodded. "Yes, but what they won't tell you is that there is one student who can get through the force field if she wants."

She let that hang there, watching me closely.

"Do you mean me?" I asked.

Normally, when adults at Public were talking to me about rule-breaking I could a.s.sume they meant Lisabelle. But something in Mrs. Swan's tone told me that she wasn't talking about my darkness friend.

"Yes," she said, letting a breath out slowly. "Because you're the only elemental, the force field will recognize you as dominant, and therefore, should you choose, you will be able to interact with it."

"Why would you tell me that?" I asked, leaning forward in my chair. "You don't know me. For all you know I'm the kind of person who will now go say, *Hey, yeah, going through the force field is defying authority. YAY for that. And off I go through the force field.'"

Mrs. Swan smiled at the way I was dramatically waving my arms around to ill.u.s.trate my potential for rule breaking.

"We both know you're not so foolish. I'm telling you because you must know that you can't rely solely on the force field for your protection this semester. If someone should attack you, try to spirit you away . . . the consequences. . . .

"You must understand that the force field will know you as something vital. Should it be necessary, you can use that to your advantage."

Ah, the light bulb was coming on. "So, if someone kidnapped any other student on campus, the force field would stop the student from being taken off the grounds, but not me. Isn't that kind of . . . oh, I don't know, stupid? Given that I'm the only student on campus anyone would try to kidnap?" I demanded.

"There are many people who would like to get their hands on Lanca, actually," said Mrs. Swan, swirling a carrot in a bowl of yellow dip. "Of course, were I those people I would do my best to make sure she came to me unconscious."

I gave a crooked smile. "She's almost as bad as Lisabelle, I know. But she's safe?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Swan, sounding resigned. "The Committee is going to try and work on this little problem, but until they figure it out, under no circ.u.mstances are you to go anywhere near that shield alone." She c.o.c.ked her head towards the wall, examining the clock.

"You should finish getting ready for cla.s.s," she said. "Other discussions can wait."

I nodded. At least she wasn't going to try and give me a curfew or anything. I'd had enough of that in high school. Now that I was in college I intended to do just as I wanted. I did realize as I started to walk away that she might not be telling me everything. I wondered if what she said was true, but there was no real way to test it without putting myself in dire peril. I would have to think about it, maybe tell Lisabelle. She always had helpful suggestions when I wanted to break rules and direct orders. If rule-breaking had been a major in college, she'd be getting straight As.

"Oh, and Ms. Rollins?" Mrs. Swan called before I disappeared back into the hall. I glanced back at my dorm mother. "Yes?"

"Be careful. Princess Lanca would be a crown jewel were she to be kidnapped, but you would be the crown and the kingdom."

I sighed. This semester was getting more and more complicated by the second.

Chapter Ten.

I had had terrible dreams that my first cla.s.s would be with Zervos, but it wasn't. Instead, it was my internship at the Museum of Masks. I hurried to meet Professor Dacer, not wanting to be late on my first day. The Museum was located on the upper floors of the Tower, which meant that I had a lot of stair climbing to do. I had never been there before, having been too preoccupied last semester with things like not getting kicked out of the school, or killed. Now I was preoccupied with learning just what it meant to be elemental. My mother deserved that much, and so did I.

Just because I knew where the Museum was didn't mean I was prepared for what I would see once I got there. First, I stepped through a set of opaque double gla.s.s doors, which got me into a large entry way. On one side was a desk, with a security guard sitting behind it. He smiled and nodded when he saw me.

"Go right on in, Ms. Rollins," he said. "They're expecting you."

He had a soft chin and a rounded nose, with smiling eyes. He looked perfectly at ease, probably not prepared to take down a demon should one try to break into the Museum, but more than capable of scaring away any freshman that might decide to cause some mischief.

I nodded and smiled at him, my feet making no sound on the white marble floor. Over the door hung an inscription, but I couldn't read it even though I squinted up at the silver lettering. It was old, very old, far older than the building in which it hung. There was a deep history here, it was clear, a fact that I would need to remember around someone like Dacer, who had dedicated his life to the place.

Taking a deep breath, I examined the door. But I didn't want to look like an idiot, just standing there and staring at a large wooden object, so I put my hand on the k.n.o.b. Instead of a normal door handle it was a large metal ring, its silver surface mimicking the silver lettering above my head.

I sighed as my fingers touched the cold metal. I would be doing this a lot all semester, so I had better get used to it. I would have to be braver than I felt at that moment.

I pulled the door open.

The Museum of Masks was not what I was expecting it to be, to say the very least. I had expected something clean, clear and white, like the rest of the Tower at Public. This was anything but. Oh, there was plenty of light, because one whole side of the ma.s.sive room that stretched out before me was made up of windows. I was at the very top of the Tower, after all, which meant that the Museum would be laid out in a circle, but it looked like the circle had been subdivided into several rooms. The one I was in was very large.

The floor was covered by a ma.s.sive carpet, a mix of deep reds, blues, greens, whites, browns, and blacks: the colors of the paranormals. There didn't appear to be any pattern; it was as if someone had taken different large cans of paint and simply splashed them around.

The room was completely silent, but that was fine; the a.s.sault on my eyes was overwhelming enough. Had there been noises to take in as well, I might not have been able to handle it.

I remembered once watching a movie with my mother, some period drama where there was a ball in some fancy hall. All the women wore pretty masks that covered their eyes and cheeks. Many of the men also wore masks, and although those were bigger, they too had covered nothing larger than the men's faces.

That's about what I had pictured the masks in the Museum to look like.

My imagination was an epic fail.

Some of the masks were small, about the size of a face, but others were . . . enormous. Like, taller than I was and wider than the doorway I had just walked through. Apparently paranormals of years past had been very large indeed. There was still a lot I had to learn about the world I had so recently joined.

"Well, don't just stand there gawking like an idiot, come in," said a frustrated voice from somewhere in front of me. "I trust you met Jeff?"

I stared at a man who could only be Dacer. Like most of the other vampires I had seen he was tall and thin, with pale skin and black eyes. Unlike every other vampire at Public, Dacer didn't limit himself to black clothing. Instead, today he was dressed in a blinding lime green suit, and pink shoes.

Oh, my.

When he continued to stare at me as if I had started off as a fascinating specimen under his microscope but was fast becoming dirt beneath his feet, I snapped out of my embarra.s.sing reverie and managed to stammer, "Jeff?"

Dacer gave a gusty sigh. "The guard at the door?" His foot tapped impatiently and I had the terrible feeling that I was disappointing him.

"Um, oh yeah, well, I saw him. He said I could come in. I can, can't I?" I asked, worried now and totally shocked by this colorful vampire in front of me.

Dacer threw up his hands in one frantic motion. One landed on the top of his maroon, yeah, maroon hair.

"Well, obviously," he said, "what good would an internship at the Museum of Masks be if you never actually went inside the Museum of Masks?"

Before I could answer, he gave me a large wink and turned around. As if he had been shot out of a gun, he sped down the room and towards the corner from around which he had appeared a moment ago.

He came to a halt, like a train that had put on the brakes but couldn't stop right away. He had gotten momentum going and was going to power through. Turning to look at me, he raised an imperious hand, which I could now see was well manicured in a light purple color, and said, "Come."

Obviously, I went, thinking all the while that Sip was going to love this.

Lisabelle not so much.

I liked him already.

Chapter Eleven.

I followed Professor Dacer into another gallery of the Museum. I shouldn't have been surprised that this one was even more unusual than the last, but of course I was. Dacer flitted around, which made it even harder for me to take everything in. He knew the room intimately and moved with an a.s.surance that only came with time and mastery of a s.p.a.ce. This guy was a vampire? How was that possible? Maroon hair, green suit, purple nails, and of course the pink shoes just topped it all off. How could I never have noticed him around campus before?

As if he could hear my thoughts he said, "I don't usually leave the Tower. Well, except to go home in the evenings. Some of the other vampires are not so understanding. But one of my all-time favorites" - he clasped his hands together again for emphasis - "the Princess Lanca, visits often."

Lanca had never said anything to me, but just like her looking tired it was none of my business. I wondered if I could ask Dacer how Lanca was doing once I had been working with him for a few days.

"So, anyway," said Dacer, "this is the gallery for pixies. You might notice a theme, and you must remember that there are strong protections on these masks. Only approved people can touch them without very strong magics, so be careful. Luckily, I've approved you."

A quick stab of panic ran through me at the challenge of pointing something out to one of my professors, but I immediately realized that there was an obvious theme. Many of the masks were either a shade of green or had green on them, and the majority of them were small. Well, most pixies were on the small side, Cale being an exception. Obviously, there would be many visual cues for me to follow in the Museum of Masks.

I told Dacer what I could see.

"What else do you see?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. He wanted me to dig deeper.

Carefully, afraid he would stop and yell at me, I stepped closer to the masks, looking for clues to what he meant.

"Many of them are smooth," I commented, "like gla.s.s. They appear very stylish. Just like the pixies."

Stylish and vapid, which was why Camilla was the pixie poster child.

"Very good," said Dacer, nodding with approval. "These were made when masks were first invented in the 1590s. During that time period, naturally the pixies wanted to have the best AND look the best. This is what they came up with, because of course if the mask was going to be magic it required certain properties, such as not breaking at the slightest provocation. That is, it had to be st.u.r.dy, and making something both pretty and st.u.r.dy is more difficult than just making it st.u.r.dy. Any carpenter will tell you the same."

I nodded my understanding.

Dacer clicked his pink heels together and clasped his hands behind his lime green clad back. "Follow me."

This professor was kind of amazing.

The next room made me gasp again, even though I was becoming accustomed to being surprised. This was the fallen angel room. It was entirely white, except that there was a very large sketch of wings covering the three walls that weren't windows.

"Wow," I breathed. Dacer nodded.

"Fallen angels and their descendants, the more pure the better, are the best at utilizing the powers of their masks. Many of their masks, as you can see, are made of feathers."

"Either white or black," I affirmed.

"Yes," he said. "Women are white-feathered and men are black. Not that we couldn't already tell men from women, but that's just how it is. Now, fallen angels are strong and can fly and are obviously very hard to kill, because of the angel blood that runs through their veins."

"So, naturally, the masks either enhance or diminish those powers?" I said without thinking.

A large smile spread across Dacer's face. "That's exactly right."

It occurred to me that it would be almost comical to see the graceful angels on campus wearing a bunch of bird feathers on their faces. Keller would still look good, though.

"Are you coming?" Dacer yelled. I gave a start. He had already gone on to the next gallery.

I hurried to follow. This gallery was different. Everything about the room screamed vampire. The walls were red, with black dripping down randomly. I gulped. The masks in this room were grotesque. Many looked like they were painted with dried tomato, which could only have been blood. My stomach felt queasy as I stared around. The masks were also in odd shapes. One was a square, and another was made up of two large ovals.

"Many of these masks," said Dacer, who was now watching me closely, "were made in reaction to the pixies' desire for beauty. The vampires desire power and to inspire fear. Beauty is irrelevant to most of us. They made masks that would accomplish both. There wasn't anyone they didn't want a reaction from. It worked." He said the last bit almost fondly, as if he was proud. I supposed he should be.

"My father was the first vampire to make masks and fill them with power," said Dacer. "I have a couple of his masks, but they're on display in the first room." He looked reverently back that way. Obviously his father's legacy was very dear to him.

"What can they do?" I asked in a small voice. Not because I wanted to know; I really didn't. But if I was going to be here I wanted to do it right.

"That one," said Dacer, pointing to the one with two ovals, "can poison the blood that we feed on. The result is that there is no vampire food supply."

I knew that any blood for a vampire would do, which meant that an animal, or a willing human donation, could feed their hunger. But wherever it came from, they must have something. Without it they would wither and crinkle away, much like leaves turning from summer to fall.

"How can it do that?"

Dacer shrugged. "A simple spell is cast, ensuring that any blood consumed in the area will cause illness. Then, the blood consumed becomes deadly. Even vampires who do not drink it are in trouble, because where will they get their food? It must be fresh blood, so it can't exactly be trucked in from Florida like humans do with oranges."

My stomach was starting to turn over again. "So, if someone got hold of that mask, they could poison all the blood at Public?"

"Yes."

Charming.

"Is there a counter mask?" I did remember something about that. It wasn't like paranormals just made masks with unchecked powers. There was usually a mask to balance out the good with the bad.

He pointed to the mask next to the double oval, which was red and shaped as only one oval. "They're a pair."

"So, if something happens to that one?"

Dacer gave me a curious look.

"The vampires are in trouble," he said simply. I don't know why I cared so much. It was probably because I didn't like the idea that there was such unchecked danger lurking nearby, and if I was going to intern here it made sense that I know as much about the danger as possible.

When I started moving towards the next gallery I felt a smile involuntarily spread across my face. As I stepped through the door to the next room I knew why.

The elementals.

This room was in the middle of all the others, which meant that it was circular and bigger, and that it didn't have any windows. But there was no lack of light. The walls were broken up evenly into four different components, the same four I had started to see around Astra so often.

"And of course here is your own heritage," said Dacer softly. "I had hoped to get to show it to you."

I glanced at him, fighting back tears that came without my even knowing why. The masks of the elementals, my masks, were beautiful. They shone and sparkled in all directions and I wanted to look everywhere at once. My ring had started to hum, and when I glanced down at it I found myself smiling in return. It pulsed in greeting.