Earlier that week, Blaine had accused the Warblers of acting like automatons, which was less an accusation and more a mere statement of fact.

And it hadn't even been a reference to their robotic dancing.

It happened during the last Warblers' Council meeting, where there had been a lengthy discussion about the next song they should arrange and choreograph. For Blaine, the trouble with these conversations was that they always ended the same way. The group would become increasingly indecisive, offering up idea after idea before invariably turning to Blaine to hear his opinion. Then generally whatever he said next would be accepted enthusiastically. Nothing ever changed.

At this week's meeting, Blaine had once again tried to stay out of it as long as he could, hoping that they would surprise him and pick something of their own accord. There were no surprises, of course, and maybe it was the combination of Blaine's frustration and the fact that his father had been making excuses lately and skipping his visits to Dalton that led him to say what he did. The room had gone completely silent after that, and then Blaine had walked out, not being able to look upon the Warblers' crestfallen faces.

Today he left them for a different reason, after standing in the doorway with Trent and watching their uncanny behavior, their strange attempts at trying to achieve individuality. Wes kept banging the gavel, while Rick was doing some kind of head bobbing thing. Nick winked at everyone, and Thad kept brushing off his Dalton jacket lapels. As he surveyed the room Blaine wondered if he should simply withdraw their application for sectionals. Turning on his heels he left, his history with the Warblers weighing on his mind. He needed some fresh air.

Blaine used to find the meetings helpful. The Warblers (and really, all the students) preferred structure. His father had always emphasized that given at least some direction, some boundaries, the students could operate in a way that was satisfying to them. So Blaine had created a council; he'd made up a history even, full of traditions and anecdotes. The inclusion of Pavarotti in the mythology of the group—the pretty yellow bird Cooper had given to him the first time he'd visited him here at Dalton—was particularly inventive, he'd thought at the time. He'd appointed some leaders (Wes obviously) and allowed the group to gel organically. Organically—yes, because there was a way that they responded and changed within the confines of their knowledge bases, he'd watched it happen throughout all these months. They were strikingly real and yet, woefully unreal. He could socialize with them but none were exactly "friends." They approximated the idea of friends, Blaine thought, as he made his way silently across the courtyard.

And that had been enough, especially since there had been so many other things to worry about first. In the beginning (just about a year ago now, Blaine realized) the Warblers could barely harmonize, and their dancing was horrible. While Blaine and his father became obsessed on weekends with tweaking the programming, with finding ways to better help them control their voices and movement—or better hear and reproduce music and rhythm, pitch and tone and phrasing—Wes and David worked to motivate the group, always dangling the prospect of competing one day against other clubs. The introduction of that particular carrot had been Blaine's fault. Talking with Wes and David one day, who'd been struggling with coordinating a group number, Blaine had asked what he could do to help.

"Give us a reason for practicing these things over and over," Wes had said. "You can't just ask us to do things, and then assume we will just because you asked."

"We're not that crude," David added.

"I know," Blaine said. "I know." In fact he hadn't known and even now, often forgot. Back then, he was just beginning to understand how complex the students were, especially the Warblers. The realization had surprised him. "Why don't we work toward competing?" he'd offered without thinking it through. Of course Wes and David had loved the idea.

When Blaine had told his father the following weekend, however, he'd regretted it. They'd been sitting in the headmaster's office, where Mr. Anderson was updating some of the school's security systems.

"Blaine, what were you thinking? You can't possibly make good on that promise," his father said, running his hands through his graying, curly hair. Adjusting his eyeglasses he continued, "Someday when you're older—"

"When I'm older?" Blaine countered. "It's been a whole year since that night, Dad. And I'm doing so much better, and this would really just mean us getting out on stage and I think it would be safe—"

"Blaine. Blaine. Trust me. I know more about the students at your school than you do. Can you imagine what would happen if something went wrong? If there were a malfunction? In public? Blaine—you just . . . People aren't ready for that kind of thing. Do you understand? Maybe because you're with them all the time, you've finally started to get close to them. You see them differently now, like they're friends. I mean, that was part of the point of all this, wasn't it?" His father leaned back in the headmaster's chair. "I'm sorry, son, but no. That simply cannot happen. Besides," he said, leaning closer again. "What I'm doing—what we're doing—is experimental, I've been given permission, you know. I've risked some things to make this world for you. I get that you like to sing and dance, Blaine, but this is . . . This is serious business we're talking about here," he said, tapping the pads of his fingers on the desk for emphasis.

Blaine had tried not to let his father's comments sting too much. "Right, Dad. I get it," he'd nodded, as his father got back to work.

But here Blaine was, seven months later, wondering if he was now playing with fire. As he continued to walk the grounds, he noticed that most of the students were heading inside as the campus quieted down for the day. Above him a flock of geese honked its way past, and he witnessed the leader of the V who'd been taking the brunt of the wind fall back as the next goose pushed forward to take charge. Then the flock kept going: they flew beyond the confines of Dalton. It was that easy.

Blaine blinked in the late-afternoon sun, somewhat bitter at the thought that no creature—not even the geese—cared about his plight. To the world outside, it was as if Dalton Academy didn't even exist. In fact, as expansive as the grounds were, it would be easy for outsiders to drive right past them, since they were surrounded on all sides by evergreens, by spruce and hemlock planted densely enough to block curious eyes. A one-lane road (with curves that served to obscure the line of sight) was the only way in, but an intricately-wrought gate blocked stray cars from trying the route.

The various buildings of the school—the clock tower and main hall, the dormitories, the classrooms—were all located in the center of the property. Surrounding them were the athletic fields, and beyond that, lawns rolling cleanly out to the bases of the trees. To Blaine, who'd explored the entirety of it over the last year and a half, the buildings seemed like an island. Or a castle. And regardless of the beauty of the place, he felt conflicted. He was surrounded by people, but utterly alone. He was completely free to do as he wished, and yet more or less caged as he did so.

Climbing the clock tower near dusk, as he sometimes did, Blaine felt a lot like a character in a fairy tale. When he was just a child his mother used to tell him tales of Juan, endlessly clever. In his favorite Juan story, a king and queen who'd desperately wanted a son gave birth to a monkey. Disappointed, they turned him away, wanting nothing to do with him. But Juan didn't give up so easily, and once he learned of a princess locked away in an island castle, he devised a plan. By the end of the story Juan had proven everyone wrong, and the princess married him for who he was and lived with him in the mountains, even if she was sad about leaving her old life behind. Thankfully Juan could discard his monkey skin—after he did he took the princess home and eventually became king. He shook his head at the fond memory of those tales, and at the memory of his mother.

From the belfry he scanned the tree tops and wondered if his own rescuer were out there. He let himself slide down to the floor, hugging his legs to his chest and resting his head back against the brick tower wall, remembering his father's words from two summers ago. You have to let us protect you, he'd said. Please, let us protect you.

As he felt the light breeze of the early autumn night, Blaine wasn't sure he felt protected at all. He felt kept. Preserved. And those seemed like very different, very troublesome things.

He sat until the breeze made his skin feel cool to the touch, until the last pink streaks left the sky.

It was dark as Blaine finally entered the dormitory; he shut the large doors behind him and engaged the deadbolts. He probably didn't need to bother—there honestly wasn't much need for security at Dalton, regardless of what his father thought. No fights broke out. No insults were hurled. No alcohol was smuggled in for late-night parties. If that made for a rather dull existence, Blaine hadn't really complained. Compared to the days when he was constantly looking over his shoulder, when even the syncopated sound of a group of kids running across pavement caused him to freeze, his life now was quiet and, he had to admit, safe.

Even if it was also completely bizarre.

On nights like tonight, after witnessing Wes's attempts to make the Warbler members behave more like individuals, he felt restless. On nights like tonight, he wandered the upper stories of the dormitories like a ghost, thinking and waiting. Always waiting. And yet he'd come to enjoy the quiet after everyone went to bed, because the facade of Dalton being any kind of real school ended once all the boys closed their dormitory doors. If he were to open those doors (and sometimes he did, out of boredom—he'd pick a corridor and open them, one by one), he would find nothing of consequence. No one socializing or studying. No one playing pranks or breaking out into song. No one watching television or wandering out of their rooms for a late-night snack. Just a hall of darkened rooms where machines sat motionless, recharging themselves.

Blaine supposed he could have programmed them differently—he could have made them more active at night. But he'd come to rely on that small pocket of time when no one pretended to be something they weren't. And Blaine? He could just be, even if lately he wasn't sure that was enough.

Because whatever his current life was here at Dalton, it wasn't that of a student, even as "students" walked to and from their classes, or played in the fields, or did homework in the study rooms. He'd been given the tools to create this world, his world. At first he'd welcomed that freedom as a gift. His parents had moved him into one of the dormitory rooms, and he'd let himself get caught up in planning with his father, in programming some of the first inhabitants of his new home. Wes was one of those. Blaine remembered being taken aback when Wes first opened his eyes and said, "Hello. You must be Blaine." And then Wes had extended his hand, even as he sat sort of crumpled on the floor of their makeshift laboratory. Blaine's father beamed at Wes, then Blaine, and offered, "See? Soon we'll have a whole school—and none of these students can hurt you, Blaine. None of them."

As Blaine walked the corridor back to his own room to get ready for bed, he realized that he no longer found his father's words comforting.

A knock at the door early the next morning lured Blaine out from where he'd burrowed under the covers. It was Wes, who pushed past Blaine while carrying a stack of what appeared to be sheet music. Blaine stifled a yawn and asked, "What's all this?"

"Music," said Wes, simply.

"Yeah, but—" Blaine was certain he hadn't told the Warblers about sectionals, especially after walking out on them yesterday, so what was this all about?

Wes was still holding the stack of sheet music in his arms. "You know, people problem solve in different ways."

"Okay . . ." responded Blaine, gesturing for Wes to go on.

"Don't be so quick to judge us." Wes turned and walked to Blaine's desk and placed the pile of paper there. Looking back at Blaine he said, "Remember when we first started learning dance steps? Well—such as they were. We probably looked pretty . . . robotic," he sighed. Blaine knew Wes hated that particular word. "In fact we spent countless hours with you and your father, just trying to make our movements slightly—how did you put it?—sloppy. But differently sloppy," he said, smiling now. "Because otherwise we moved identically, precisely, once we knew what to do."

"I remember," Blaine said, feeling more guilty now about taking his frustrations out on the group.

"Besides, what is personality anyway, but a collection of habits? Emotional habits—we react to things according to patterns that are unique to us. Or, like you saw yesterday, physical habits. Quirks."

"That seems kind of reductive," said Blaine, crossing his arms in front of his body. "And it still doesn't explain why you're here so early in the morning, or why you've barged into my room with that pile of music."

Wes rolled his eyes in response, and pointed at his face as he did so. "See?" he said. "A physical habit. Does it give me enough personality?"

Blaine laughed and said, "Ok. Fine. The music."

"I think," Wes started, "That we need to move beyond being your personal jukebox."

Confused, Blaine countered, "But you guys always accept my suggestions. How is that my fault?"

"It's not," said Wes. "I think the rest of us simply don't have suggestions. Outside of our normal routines, we don't really listen to music. We're not so inclined. You're the one who really knows music, so—"

"You want me to assign different artists to all of you? To give you individual musical tastes?" Blaine sat on the edge of his bed, thinking. In moments like these he was reminded of how easily he could just do things—act on impulse—even if those things were as simple as making song suggestions.

"If it's not too much trouble," said Wes, heading now for the door.

"Well," Blaine stood, making yet another impulsive decision. "I guess that will come in handy, seeing as I registered Dalton Academy for the Western Ohio Show Choir Sectionals."

Wes paused, taking in what Blaine just admitted, then grinned widely and said, "Oh? Very good. I'll be sure to tell the others. They'll be very pleased, Blaine."

As the door shut, Blaine turned back to the sheet music. Realizing what he'd finally, firmly set in motion, he sat down to look through the stack as a task list took shape in his mind.