Chapter 16

Relief and disappointment mingled in my brain as I sat on the floor. He hadn’t gotten me expelled, which he easily could have done. But it was also clear he no longer wanted to spend any time with me alone. As much as I understood his reasoning, I couldn’t help but be sad, not to mention embarrassed.

I was nervous about seeing him in class the next day, but when I got there, he was behaving as normal as ever. It was like it had never even happened. I, on the other hand, could barely look at him. Every time he spoke or moved, all I could think about was how his body felt against mine, and a deep angry longing filled me. But when class was over, I lingered until everyone else had filed out before approaching his desk.

“I suppose I should thank you,” I said.

He didn’t look up from what he was writing. “For what?”

The coolness in his voice had me taken aback.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I don’t know why—”

“You completed the objective of our tutoring. Therefore, it is no longer necessary. That is the only reason.”

His words were sharp but even.

This wasn’t correct, but there was no point in pressing.

“Okay,” I said, stepping back. “I am sorry, though, for everything.”

His eyes bore into mine, straining as if he were staring directly into the sun. Then, lightning quick, they darted to my mouth and back up. “Please try not to do anything stupid from now on.”

We stared at each other in silence. Then I turned and left before he could see the shame burning on my face.

Wouldn’t it be better if I’d only embarrassed myself and we could both move past it more or less unscathed? It wasn’t like it could end well, even if he reciprocated my feelings.

I just wished that made it hurt less.

***

On Friday night, roughly four hours before midnight, I snuck out of my dorm to meet Rigel in the archive. This was easier than I’d initially considered, as the only thing enforcing the curfew was Stacy and Ephraim’s pack of thylacines.

Having forgotten Rigel could go transparent before he popped into reality next to me in the narrow tunnel, I had to stifle a scream.

He only rolled his eyes.

“You’re on a campus full of ghosts. Get a grip.”

“Give a girl a little warning,” I hissed, trying to quiet my heart.

He twiddled his fingers in my face and made cartoonish wind noises until I smacked his hand away. “Is that preferable?”

“Don’t we need to start walking or something?” I asked.

He pulled the paper out of his blazer’s breast pocket and shook it out. “Look who’s suddenly all business.”

We walked through the maze, needing to consult the paper each time we hit a fork to keep us on the right path. It wasn’t long until my feet ached and the full scope of his efforts hit me.

“You must really, really like Lindy.” I breathed, trying not to sound too winded as I struggled to match his stride.

He laughed. “I told you I love her. What other proof did you need?”

“I guess I’m impressed.”

“Love isn’t impressive.”

“No one loved me enough to identify my body, so you might be wrong about that.”

“Take it from me—just because someone knows the name to put on the headstone doesn’t mean they ever really loved you.”

I thought about what I’d seen on the piece of paper in his room. “I suppose.”

“I don’t even think we should even get to know about our mortal lives. It feels pointless.”

I raised my eyebrows. “That’s a little rich, given where we are.”

“This is a labor of love, not logic.”

“So, when you get your whole history released, you’re just not going to read it?”

“Not interested,” he said. “I’m incredibly interested in seeing yours, though.”

“Maybe I won’t let you read it.”

“I still will. It’s part of the deal.”

“Stop pretending to be a dick. I know better.”

“Where’s all of this credit coming from?”

“I know it was you who saved me from getting pulled through the fence.” I glanced up to find his face reasonably unsurprised.

“I was wondering when that was going to click.” He smirked. “In fact, you should be embarrassed that it took you this long.”

“There is one part I can’t quite figure out. Why bother going invisible at all?”

“I can’t destroy my reputation as a humorless asshole just for your sake,” he said, scanning the book spines with affected boredom.

“Would you have just let me get pulled apart if you couldn’t have turned invisible?”

“Probably.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Someone else would have helped eventually. It’s no biggie.”

“Most people are fucking weasels.”

I was satisfied with his defensive undertone.

“It’s not impressive to just insult strangers en mass.”

“Maybe you just can’t handle that I’m right. I mean, come on, Ags. No one else was rushing to your aid. That feels like pretty solid proof to me.”

“Maybe it’s just convenient to believe everyone sucks so you can feel superior to them.”

“I don’t feel superior. I am superior. There’s a difference.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

He shot me a wink. “That’s the spirit.”

We made it to the end of his directions before midnight with a few minutes to spare. When it struck, we stood, staring off into the forked tunnels in anticipation.

When the mice came, we took off, though he was obviously much faster than me. He made it a few tunnels ahead when the mice finally diminished and I caught up, finding him in the middle of a tunnel, not at the end of one.

“Did you lose them?” I panted, wondering why he would stop short.

He shot me a look. “No, genius, this is where they were coming from.” Grabbing a handful of books and pulling them free, he revealed a void of darkness hidden behind.

“I can’t believe it,” I said, dropping to my knees next to him.

Together, we pulled out books and removed the shelves until the space was large enough for us to crawl through. We came out on a stone platform in a dark room. A meager, warm light shone from below, and I crawled to the edge of the platform, finding something glowing in the center of a circular room far below us.

As our eyes adjusted to the darkness, a spiral of stone steps appeared, circling to the bottom where a glowing light was emitting. Along the walls were books, all with blank spines.

I got to my feet, pulling out the first one, finding a name and birthdate but no death date. “Rigel, some of these people are still alive.”

He descended the stairs and pulled out books to check their covers.

Having to watch my footing instead of searching alongside him, I followed. At the bottom, I realized what the circle of light was. A well.

I approached it hesitantly while Rigel continued to paw through the books. The light was incredibly bright close up, but somehow, it didn’t hurt to look at. In fact, it was nice, almost soothing.

“Agnes,” Rigel called, shaking me out of my trance. “I don’t think all of these books are for the living.”

He’d been sorting through the rows of books again. But this time, he pulled one free and held it out to me. My chest squeezed painfully at the sight of it. Did he find my history already? I wasn’t sure I was mentally prepared. But when I took it and read the cover, I sighed, both in relief and disappointment.

Arlie Renee Beaumont

I opened it to find exactly what I’d expected. Soccer, playing bass in a band, and dying suddenly of a congenital heart condition in her senior year of college.

“This is her,” I concurred, looking up at him and smiling. “Where did you find it? I bet the other unreleased histories are nearby.”

“Bad news,” he said, still picking through the shelf where Arlie’s history had been. “There aren’t any more. In fact, the organization seems entirely random.”

I glanced around the large room, the ceiling so high I couldn’t even see where we’d come in.

“Rigel, there’s probably millions of books in here.”

“That sounds about right.”

“And were supposed to, what, sort through all of them until we find two?”

I expected him to finally doubt the intelligence of this quest. But he didn’t miss a beat with his reply.

“I guess we better start looking.”

“Please tell me you’re kidding.” I stared at him, dumbfounded. “Why are you actually considering this?”

Rigel, the one person I could always rely on to be brutally logical above all else, had lost the plot.

He remained completely unfazed. “Because we’re finally getting somewhere. I consider this a move in the right direction.”

I waved a wide circle over my head. “You don’t consider this a lost cause?”

“I don’t see an alternative. Do you?”

And with that, he began looking through the books while I gazed on in mild horror. Out of some kind of social pressure, I humored him for the evening but only because I was sure he would come to his senses once we were above ground.

Luckily, our window of time was so narrow we were ascending the stairs back up into the catacombs relatively quick.

“I can taste success already,” he said as we piled the books back up in front of the doorway.

I couldn’t burst his bubble. He was positively giddy, walking so fast I struggled to keep up. I could guess he was itching to report the findings to Lindy and probably reap some reward I would have to hear about through the wall. But I had a feeling he would be surprised.

I was readying myself to use the hours to break it to him that, unless Lindy was as desperate as him, this news probably would not be taken as well as he thought. She didn’t strike me as the type of person who spared feelings.

Before I could find the words, I heard something in the tunnel.

“Rigel,” I hissed, grabbing him by the arm and jerking him to a stop.

I pressed my finger to my lips, listening hard over the rising thrum in my chest. He was still so distracted that his face twisted up in frustration until he registered the noise as well.

We weren’t alone in the tunnel, and whoever it was, they were coming right for us.