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I rubbed my shoulder. “You remember it. Why should I pay any attention to the rules if you don’t?”

Tiffany looked down her nose at me. “I can break the rules, Wild Child, because I’ve been at Miss Van Loon’s since I could talk. I’m smart and I’m quick and I’m beautiful. The tutors love me. I have a position and a following. You have nothing. Except a frizz-ball head and the lamest coat in the universe.”

I resisted the urge to check out my reflection. “And what have you got?” I said. “A bunch of stupid stars and shiny hair? Big deal. You can’t do magic. You’re still a mortal in a fairy world, just like the rest of us.”

Tiffany’s face went pink, then white and pinched around the nose. “I can so do magic.”

I laughed. “Isn’t carrying magic talismans against the rules?”

“I don’t need one,” she said tightly. “There are spells mortals can do. Or didn’t they tell you that in the Park?”

They hadn’t, but I wasn’t about to say so.

Bergdorf tugged at Tiffany’s gray wool sleeve. “Um, Tiff? Don’t you think we should be getting back to Urban Myths?”

Tiffany shook her off. “I know what I’m doing, Bergdorf. She’s got to learn her place.”

I’d been mad before. Now I was furious. “I’m up for anything you can do, Tiffany of Park Avenue, except maybe sliding down a drain from the inside.”

Tiffany lowered her voice ominously. “How about summoning Bloody Mary?”

“Sure,” I said. “When and where?”

Best gasped. Bergdorf said, “Tiffany, are you—?”

“Shut up, Bergdorf,” Tiffany snapped, her blue gaze unwavering. “Midnight. During the Hallowe’en Revels. In here. Deal?”

I looked from face to face. Bergdorf and Best looked like sheep when the Hunt’s riding. Tiffany looked like one of the Hunters. Now that it was too late, I realized I’d just broken Rule 13 (Students must not make or accept dares or challenges while on school property), and thought maybe I should have kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t back out now.

“Deal,” I said. Then I turned my back on them and retreated into a stall. Deal or no, I still had to pee.

At the end of the day, Espresso and Fortran and Mukuti and I usually headed for the swing. Espresso and Mukuti taught me hopscotch and jump rope while Fortran tried to see how high he could swing. He said he should be able to go higher than Miss Van Loon’s roof, but so far, he’d only gone level with the top of the trees in East River Park. I thought he was scared to go higher.

Playing mortal games in the rain held no appeal, and nobody was ready to go home yet, so we hung around the front hall, trying to figure out if we could play giant checkers on the squares. While we were talking, Airboy, the changeling from New York Harbor, came downstairs. He sat on the bottom step and watched us with his chin in his hands.

Remembering the scene in the lunchroom, I had to wonder why he was so interested in us all of a sudden. I was about to go right up and ask him when Danskin and Stonewall wandered by.

“Hi, kidlets,” Stonewall said cheerfully. “We’re going to the Mansion. Wanna come with?”

I immediately forgot about Airboy. The Mansion was a café catering mostly to dwarfs and kobolds and other underground Folk, but the kobold who ran it didn’t mind if Van Loonies hung out in the afternoons as long as we ordered milk (which was the only thing on the menu mortals could eat) and didn’t complain about the dirt. Mostly, it was the older kids with a lot of stars who went there. It was an honor for newbies like us to be asked.

Fortran played it cool. “I’ve got an important experiment cooking at home, but I guess I could spare the time.”

Mukuti didn’t know what cool was. “We’d love to.”

Espresso jerked her chin toward Airboy. “What about him?”

Stonewall looked startled, then shrugged. “Why not? Hey, Airboy. Want to join us?”

Airboy’s eyes, long and black and expressionless, rested on Stonewall’s face for a moment, then moved away.

“I guess not,” Stonewall said.

As we walked, we talked about what was up with Airboy. Mukuti said maybe he was under a spell of silence (except during lessons, Fortran pointed out);