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“You gave me way too many chances. You should’ve just done this.”

He murmured in agreement, moving his mouth to my neck, right below my ear. His fingers threaded through my hair, tingling my scalp. I shivered in a full-on body quake.

Zachary pulled away. “Are we completely mental? It’s freezing out.”

We left everything behind and ran for the car.

It was warmer there, but more awkward, with the emergency brake between us.

“Why’d we get in the front?” I asked him.

“The back’s worse.” He peered into the rear seat. “We’ve never put a living creature there, only briefcases and such.”

I had to admit, it seemed about as roomy as my gym locker.

Zachary touched my cheek. “We have a wee problem.”

“How wee?”

“We can’t be like this in public until after the prom.”

“I know.” I sat back in the passenger seat with a heavy sigh. “It would be sleazy, not to mention suicidal.” Stealing the soon-to-be prom queen’s date would get me killed—socially, if not literally. “So what’s the deal with you and Becca?”

“We’re just friends.”

“Does she know that?”

“I’ll make it clear. What about you and Logan?”

“Just friends.”

“Does he know that?”

“I’ll make it clear,” I said, matching his cadence, if not his accent.

He didn’t laugh. “No more bedroom visits?”

“Only when I’m fully dressed.”

Zachary tightened his lips, considering.

“What’s in your pocket?” I asked him. When he raised an eyebrow, I added, “The thing you picked up in the field.”

“Oh, this?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small metal disc. “A message.”

“It’s a bottle cap.”

“It’s from one of those fancy iced teas with quotes on the back of the lid. People pay extra for the wisdom.”

“People like the guy who plowed that field. He needed some no-littering wisdom. What does it say?”

He flipped the lid over onto the back of his other hand, like in a coin toss. “Oh. Wrong brand, I guess.”

There were no words under the lid, just a black-and-white spiral. “Can I keep it anyway?”

He folded it between my palms. “It’s yours.”

I kissed him again, relieved that nothing was stopping me. Soon the warmth of his mouth made the rest of the world feel that much more frigid, and I shivered harder than ever.

He pulled my coat tighter around me. “I can’t wait to snog when it’s forty degrees.”

“That’s not much of a diff—”

“Celsius.”

I did a rough calculation. “That’s hot enough for bathing suits.”

He let his gaze wander downward. “What’s your bikini look like?”

“I haven’t bought this summer’s yet. Ooh, before you go back to Scotland, I’ll take you to Ocean City.” No, I’d been there with Logan a hundred times. “Or Rehoboth.”

“Anywhere would be brilliant. Now back to the bikini.”

My shiver turned my laugh into a goofy giggle. “You have a request?”

“I was thinking, red’s a fantastic color on you. Besides, I can’t stay by your side every minute. Wouldn’t want ghosts to chat you up while I’m fetching us french fries.”

His words were casual, but the tension in his fingers told me he was thinking of Logan, as I was.

“Maybe we could try Dewey Beach,” I said. “I want to go with you somewhere I’ve never been before.”

By the way he pulled me closer, nestling my head against his shoulder, Zachary told me he understood what I was really saying.

“I promise,” he said, “I will take you somewhere new.”

Before I’d even tossed my book bag on my bed, Logan appeared there, sitting with legs stretched out, like he’d never left.

“How’d it go?”

“Fine.” I let my hair drape down so he wouldn’t see the flush of my cheeks. “It was freezing. I’m dying to get into my sweats and flannels.” I pulled a pair of pajama pants from my drawer. “Can you go somewhere else while I change?”

“Your aunt doesn’t know I’m here.”

“I know you’re here.”

Logan drummed his fingers on the bedspread, looking petulant. “Back in ten.”

After dressing for bed—no sexy silk nightshirt this time—I went to the bathroom, took out my contacts, and scrubbed my face so that all my skin would glow the same.

Logan was waiting when I got back to my room. “Hey, Nicola scored me a
City Paper
interview today. Her post-Shifter intern set it up.”

I put on my glasses. “Be careful who you talk to.”

“I know. The article’s running next week—might even make the cover. I told the reporter I was looking for band members. Since we haven’t set up my new e-mail yet, I gave them your contact info.”

Sighing, I went to my desk and opened my laptop. “Let’s set you up now.”

Logan came toward me. “It’ll have to be one of those free e-mail providers since I don’t—ow!” He put his hand over his face, as if shading his eyes from me.

“What’s wrong?”

He slowly lowered his hand, his violet outline snapping black. “I feel weird. You feel weird.”

“No, I don’t.” That was a lie. Being here with Logan after making out with Zachary? I’d never felt weirder.

“Are you wearing that obsidian necklace Gina gave you?”

I touched my neck, though I knew it wasn’t there. “I gave it to Megan.”

“Maybe it’s your laptop.”

“It never gave you problems before.”

“I’d never been a shade before.” He backed up, near my closet. “Maybe I’m more sensitive now.”

“You were fine here all weekend.” Gripping the sides of my chair, I watched him brighten to violet again. Then I turned back to the computer, relieved. “What do you want as your username?”

“How about ‘Logansghost’?”

A quick search. “It’s taken.”

“Wow. You think it’s a fan?”

I kicked my heel against the chair leg, releasing my irritation. “Think of something else.”

“How about ‘Logansghost’ followed by the numbers of next year?”

Another try. “That works. Why next year, not this one?”

“Class of. It’s when I would’ve graduated.”

My eyes drooped at the corners with all-too-familiar sorrow. Logan was annoying, but he was still dead.

“I’ll need a fan page, too.” He wavered in the corner of my vision. “Can you call Cheryl Titus at
City Paper
and have them print the new e-mail address? That way no one’ll bother you. Except me.”

My fingertip scraped the white
L
on the black key. “What do you want as your password?”

“How about ‘iloveaura’?”

I shut my eyes. “It should have at least one special character and number to keep from getting hacked.”

“How about ‘aura=#1hot’?”

“How about something you can tell Dylan without embarrassing all of us?”

He paced in front of the closet door. “Let’s do … ‘live’ … numbers four six … slash … numbers two zero.”

I typed LIVE46/20. “Was this part of your locker combination?”

“The number four is for the word ‘for.’ Six-twenty is June twentieth, the summer solstice.” He paused. “Only eighty-six days left, Aura.”

I wished I didn’t already know that.

Logan stepped closer, then drew in a hiss. “Ow. Jesus, what is that?”

“What’s what?”

“You look red.” He squinted at me. “Just part of you. Stand up.”

I did as he asked, fighting the urge to flee the room. Logan inched closer, then swiped a hand in front of my body, like a wand-wielding airport security guard.

“It’s your head,” he said. “Did you get red highlights?”

“Caramel, like usual. And that was three weeks ago. Nothing’s changed since last night. It must be you.”

He put a hand to his head. “Yeah. Look, I gotta go.”

“Fine.” I tried not to sound too relieved. “Good night.”

When he was gone, I turned on my overhead light and examined myself in the mirror behind my closet door.

Same hair, full of static from the dry night and my parka hood. I pulled aside the long dark waves to see if my neck looked nibbled on. Not at all.

Same brown eyes, cradled by what seemed like permanent bags. But these days, the swelling came from calculus-related sleep deprivation, not from crying.

Same me. Nothing was different on the outside.

On the inside, of course, everything had changed.

Y
ou and Zach are, like, secret lovers?” Megan whispered across the lunchroom table. “That is so hot.”

“Not lovers.” I glanced beyond her shoulder to where he sat with Becca and her friends. “Not yet.” He’d given me a hello and a secretive smile as he’d passed our table, and I’d resisted the urge to stare as he walked away. Mostly.

“You two’re the last people I’d expect to do this. You guys like rules, and not just for the sake of breaking them.” Megan clinked her bottle of iced tea against mine. “But it’s nice to see you happy.”

“I look happy?”

“You’re glowing.”

“Glowing with guilt, maybe.” I snuck another peek at Zachary, who I noticed had sat across from Becca. When he ate lunch with us, he always sat beside me, close enough to touch my arm when I said
something funny, or to use my utensils to illustrate a new soccer play.

I popped the lid off my own iced tea and peeked under the cap, hoping it would have the same spiral as the one Zachary had given me last night.

Nope—it had a checkered diamond pattern. But there was a spiral on Megan’s cap, lying on the table between us.

“Hey!” Jenna and Christopher arrived, speaking their greeting in unison as usual.

“Oh my God,” Megan said, “that belt buckle is a thing of beauty.”

Jenna tapped the silver skull buckle with her long black-lacquered nails. “Do you not love it to death?”

While Megan was admiring Jenna’s accessories, I switched our bottle caps so I could have the one with the spiral, feeling like an obsessive dork.

“Aura, what the hell?” Jenna said as she slid into the chair next to Megan. “I thought for sure Zach was going to ask you to the prom the other day in the courtyard.”

“No, he—” I shut my mouth without telling them he’d asked (and un-asked) me Friday night. No way I’d admit being that stupid. “He just wanted to show me his driver’s license.”

“Now that he’s taking Becca, bizarre as that is, we made you a list of consolation prizes. Chris?”

Beside me, Christopher nudged my arm with a sheet of paper. “Pick your top three and I’ll drop some not-so-subtle hints.”

I examined the list of guys, all of them juniors on Christopher’s varsity lacrosse team. None of the names made me gag, but none of them made me glow, either. “Thanks, but I’m skipping the prom.”

I was greeted with a chorus of “What!?”

Megan ripped open her bag of Old Bay–seasoned potato chips. “Aura, don’t even think about it.”

“You cannot
not
go,” Jenna said.

“It’s a free country.” I squeezed the bottle cap in my hand. “Besides, I’ve decided the prom is so establishment. You guys should boycott, too. It would be totally punk.”

“My dress is totally punk,” Megan said. “Prom punk. We’re going.” She patted the list. “Pick a dude.”

“Why would they want to go with me?”

Jenna snorted. “Maybe because you’re hot?”

I knew what she really meant. Ever since people had found out that Logan and I had gotten semi-kinky after his death, guys had the wrong idea about me. They figured if I’d take off my clothes for a ghost, I’d do it for anyone who breathed. Especially on prom night, the national holiday for hookups.

I folded the list, creasing the paper hard, as if to smother the possibility of a non-Zachary guy expecting me to kiss him good night—or more. “I’ll get back to you.”

“By tomorrow, okay?” Jenna pointed at the paper. “Those options won’t last.”

I shoved the list deep into my bag.
Good.

As Zachary walked into our seventh-period history class, he set a book on the corner of my desk. “For our project, what we talked about last night.” Then he went to his seat by the window, not waiting for my reaction.

I picked up the book, a tourist guide to Ireland’s historical sights. One of the four photos on the front was a bird’s-eye view of New-grange. It showed the passage tomb’s enormous flat-topped mound, ringed with a brilliant white-quartz wall and covered in lush green grass.

I lingered on the photo, thinking of my mother. Had she carried a book like this on her travels? Had she pored over it on the flight to Dublin, daydreaming of the places she’d see?

A folded index card stuck out of the section labeled Accommodation. On the card’s outside fold was Zachary’s neat print:

Read the bit in the book first.

He had highlighted the caption under a photo of a small, ivy-draped stone castle. The entry read:

Twenty kilometres from Newgrange, the snug but luxurious Ballyrock contains ten charming suites, two on each floor, outfitted with twenty-first-century comforts while maintaining an air of medieval mystery. Enjoy tea on a private balcony or cozy up with your beloved in front of an open hearth.

Recommended for over-eighteens, as Ballyrock is not BlackBoxed and is confirmed to be haunted by a dozen or more ghosts.

I unfolded the index card. Here Zachary had written in a tight, slanted script. Had he made it barely legible on purpose, so no one could read it over my shoulder? Seemed like something he’d do.

Aura,

I dreamed of you last night.

A shiver zinged through me. I imagined his voice rolling the
r
’s, and dropping the
t
’s as if they didn’t exist.

You slept in this castle, surrounded by ghosts who all wanted your time, who all wanted your eyes on them. But none came into your room, because I was sleeping beside you. And when you woke, your eyes were only on me.

Someday I’ll take you to this place. I promise I’ll keep away the ghosts.

Z

I folded the note, then pressed it against my stomach to soothe the jitters. Afraid to look at Zachary, I stared at the photo on the page, wishing I could jump into it with him right now. The way the fog folded around the turrets made me think of how his arms had wrapped around me last night, and how they might wrap again, inside that very stone building.