With my newly written, neatly folded suspect list—a list I'd gladly sacrificed valuable sleep for—tucked into the hidden pocket in my backpack, I marched down the third-floor hallway of the supernatural dorm, fresh and ready Monday morning. Okay, more like afternoon, but whatever. I was still recovering physically, and now mentally from that stupid dinner that had lasted a little too long.

My feet came to a stop in front of the red door. The same smudge still graced the middle number. This time I wiped it off. Straightening my shoulders, I took one last deep breath before stepping inside.

As expected, my return elicited four interesting reactions.

Kenas stood closest to the door, golden eyes as wide as saucers when they landed on me. Just behind him sat Jaydis. With one leg tucked beneath him and the other hanging off his desk chair, he looked tiny in comparison.

The tips of his tousled dark green hair shone orange in the bright afternoon glow streaming in through the window behind him. But even the shadows on his face couldn't hide his surprise.

Danox barely spared me a glance. White eyes downcast, he turned his head to the side and leaned farther into the pillows on Jaydis's bed.

On the contrary, Haze's gaze bore into me, crimson slowly turning darker. A slight frown was the only other indication that my presence unnerved him. Well, that plus the insane amount of hostility he oozed.

Nice to see you too.

He slowly crossed his arms in front of his chest much like the first time he'd seen me. Except this time, he was wearing more than a towel. And his dark red eyes now took their time scrutinizing me.

No one said a word.

"Are you"—Kenas cleared his throat—"are you here to get your things and leave...or—?"

"Are you staying?" Jaydis, who since I'd met him had barely been able to sit still for longer than a few seconds, didn't move a muscle as he finished the question.

Four sets of distinctly different eyes locked onto my face.

"Oh, I'm staying," I said, straightening my shoulders. "I was just—"

"For Ketea's sake," Danox hissed. He jumped up from his spot on the bed and leaped over Jaydis's desk with surprising agility. Or maybe it wasn't that surprising. He was a shifter after all.

Before I could count to three, he'd shouldered past me and slammed the door behind him. A very unfriendly shifter.

He sure was the least happy not only by my return but by my decision to stay. Maybe I was wrong about him... If he wanted me dead, surely he would be happy I was sticking around. Easier to kill that way.

Or that's what he wanted me to think.

At this point, it was too soon to go making assumptions anyway, but his reaction sure was interesting. I made a mental note to add it to my suspect list later.

"Now that that's settled," Haze said, "pay up."

Pay up?

"Fine," Kenas grumbled, walking over to his nightstand to retrieve what turned out to be a couple of bills. He separated one, swiftly folded it into a perfect paper plane, and sent it Haze's way with a single flick of his wrist. "How you could have possibly predicted this is a mystery to me, but I suppose fair is fair."

Haze caught the little plane right before it collided with his forehead. With a smile much too unsettling, he said, "Somebody had to have faith in her."

They'd bet on whether I would return or not?

"Hey," Jaydis chimed in, "I had faith..." He too retrieved a bill, but instead of folding it, he just crumpled it into a misshapen ball and tossed it on Haze's desk three-pointer style. "It just wasn't enough to convince me," he added and laughed.

These jerks.

I crossed my arms to hide the slight twitch in my hands and put on what I hoped was a bored expression. Glancing between them, I raised my eyebrows and asked, "How much?"

They shared a look.

"Uh, twenty each," Jaydis said, a sheepish smile on his face.

"Easiest forty bucks of my life," Haze sighed, cracking his knuckles.

Wait, forty? That meant...

"Danox didn't bet against me?" I asked.

Jaydis shook his head. "Nope."

Interesting. Either he simply didn't like gambling, or his guilty conscience kept him from betting against me because he knew I wouldn't—or well shouldn't—come back.

Or maybe he just wanted nothing to do with me.

"He hates me, doesn't he?" I asked, strolling over to my niche. My three roomies still didn't move. They simply stared at me, seemingly gauging my reaction. Even Haze couldn't hide the hint of curiosity in his otherwise calculated expression.

"Well," Kenas started, "I wouldn't s—"

Jaydis laughed in true hyena fashion. "Yes, yes, he does."

At least I could count on someone to be honest. Maybe.

"But..." I plopped onto my desk, pulled my leg up, and got comfortable. "Why? He doesn't even know me. None of you do."

"It's not that." Kenas ran a hand through his tousled blonde hair and shrugged. "He wanted to move in with us, but then you got the spot. That's all."

He was lying, he had to be. You didn't hate someone because they moved in with your friends, not the way Danox hated me.

He'd barely looked my way since we'd first met, and when he did, his eyes were filled with enough hostility to send tingles down my spine. There had to be another reason, and I would find out exactly what that was.

Haze's gaze lingered on Kenas, pretty much confirming my suspicions. Clearly, he hated me too, but not as much as Danox did. Or he was much better at hiding it.

"Why did you bet on me?" I asked him.

He stared at me with hooded eyes just long enough for it to be uncomfortable before replying, "Figured we wouldn't be lucky enough for you to just...disappear." The corners of his mouth curled up into a taunting smile.

If he thought I was about to ask him why he hated me, he would be disappointed. That would imply that I cared, which I didn't. He was a demon, someone who took pleasure in others' misfortune and suffering, of course, he was happy to provoke and see me suffer too.

But did he want me dead?

Any demon violation of the treaty would be dealt with harshly simply because of past actions and reluctance on their side to take part in a united universe. If Haze tried to kill me, the consequences for him and his entire species would be severe. It would be stupid for him to risk it, but maybe he wasn't the brightest.

I smiled, teeth and all. "Maybe you could do me a favor and disappear instead."

His grin widened and an involuntary shiver ran down my spine. "Don't go asking for favors from me now. That won't end well for you, Cupcake."

I raised my hand and yawned into my palm in what hoped was a convincing way. Judging by the way his eyes darkened, it was. Pretending to study my nails, I asked, "Threatening me already, Zee Zee?"

"Why?" His voice took on a soothing tone, but that grin stayed. "Do you feel threatened?"

"You know, maybe if you stuck with the black eyes, lost the flip-flops, and grew some actual horns to match your personality, you might be able to scare a toddler."

The crimson disappeared from his eyes entirely, along with his smile.

Whoops, did I hit a nerve?

Loud crunching drowned out Haze's hushed answer. Jaydis, now holding a bag of cheeseball snacks, popped another one into his mouth.

Noticing both our heated gazes, he shrugged. "What? Entertainment makes me hungry and this"—he motioned at the space between Haze and me—"is better than cable."

Despite my mood, I grinned. There was just something about the seelie's uncaring nature that instantly lightened the mood, which was precisely why he was at the bottom of my suspect list. For now. anyway.

Licking the bright orange nacho cheese dust off his index finger and thumb, he said, "I meant to ask—and don't get me wrong, Ari, I don't mind you moving in with us—but how did you end up here?"

"Yeah," Kenas chimed in, "don't humans only room with other humans?"

Although I didn't need to look at Haze to know his burning gaze was still fixed on me, I couldn't resist glancing over at him. While the color was starting to return to his eyes, the muscles in his jaw were flexing. Yup, still mad.

"I guess, I pissed off the wrong human," I replied, turning back to the other two. Jaydis could probably already guess who I was talking about, so there was no point in lying.

Kenas frowned. "Huh."

As he stood there, massive arms crossed over an equally massive chest, he reminded me of a sentinel. Less gloomy, of course, and much much friendly eyes, but still. The resemblance was there.

There were rumors the sentinels originated from the depths of one of Ardua's highest mountains, but those were never confirmed. Classified information, as Dad liked to say. Whatever.

"Humans have funny ways of solving conflicts," Jaydis said, crumpling the bag.

I searched him for any signs of amusement, but he seemed serious. "How so?"

"Well, for one, you proclaim peaceful conflict resolution"—he snorted—"don't you even have these special mediator people? Anyway," he continued, rubbing his nose, "then you still do this weird stuff where you attempt to make your lives difficult behind each others' backs."

He wasn't wrong. This was Ri in a nutshell. Poster child on the outside, devious and vengeful manipulator on the inside. Kind of like Clarence now that I thought about it.

"At least we—"Jaydis motioned to Kenas and Haze—"settle things face to face."

Face to face, you say? Interesting.

Maybe I should straight up ask them how they felt about poisoning someone and sending them to become an afternoon snack for an oversized guard dog. That should elicit interesting reactions. But maybe I should save that question for another time.

I cleared my throat. "That brings me to my next question." I looked each of them in the eyes briefly, intrigued yellow to guarded gold to hostile red. "What happened to your last roommate?"

For the second time today, they shared a meaningful glance I couldn't decipher. Kenas rubbed his neck, clearly caught off guard by my question. Even Jaydis was chewing on his cheek like he wasn't sure what to reply.

Much to my surprise, it was Haze who broke the silence this time. In a voice much too warm for the menacing glint in his eyes, he said, "He bought himself a one-way ticket to Infernis."