Chapter 6

The next morning, I procrastinated too long before my first class, Intro to Transparency, and had to jog across campus to avoid being late. There’d been an empty messenger bag hanging on the door of my wardrobe, which flopped against my thigh as I took the stairs two at a time. Carrying an empty bag felt silly, but by the time I was inside Corporeality Hall, it was too late to second-guess the decision.

The building was interesting, not nearly as modern inside as it had appeared the day before. While the outer walls were all sharp brutalist angles, the inside was still stone and archways. The transition was so abrupt I almost suspected the newer parts were built on the rubble of a much older building after a catastrophic incident. It felt like an improvement. The glass walls made everything glow in the early morning light in a way the other buildings didn’t.

A sitting area was arranged at the top of the stairs, with a leather couch and armchairs crowded with students. They glanced at me as I huffed and puffed past them, but their conversation didn’t waver.

I was the last to get to room 202, which was blessedly easy to find. The building seemed to favor classroom size over number, as every floor had only two wings, which only held a handful of rooms each.

Whatever event spurned the partial rebuild, it hadn’t touched this classroom. It was mostly stone and wood, with tall narrow windows facing the front gate. To one side, I found a large oak desk and a blackboard so tall it had a rolling ladder attached. On the other end was a massive hearth, the flames licking lazily up the flue. Most of the desks were occupied, and I hesitated in the doorway, trying to find an empty spot.

“Seats, everyone,” said a voice in the doorway behind me, making me leap out of my skin.

Turning, I found a stoical man looking down his nose at me. He had on a turtleneck and blazer with glossy salt-and-pepper hair glinting like tinsel in a Christmas tree as it curled against his face and neck. He was handsome in a way that was immediately apparent but also deeply disappointing.

I had to consciously look away, afraid I was gawking. But when my eyes dropped, I realized something even more shocking. His blazer was familiar. I could still feel the scratch of the seams and the warmth of the satin lining against my skin.

When I didn’t immediately move out of his way, he nodded toward a nearby desk, unspoken instructions shocking me back into the present. My body followed the directive, eyes still taking in the coat, as he shrugged it off and hung it on the back of his leather chair.

“I am Professor Faun, and this is Fundamentals of Transparency. If none of that sounds familiar, then I recommend you consult your schedule and relocate as needed.”

His voice wasn’t harsh or even stern. It was entirely blank, as if he were reciting a script.

He seemed oblivious—or, more likely—indifferent to the way many of the students’ eyes scanned him greedily. There had been a shift in the room, where the air had tingled with nervous excitement a moment before it started to feel stuffy. It was as if everyone had become a little more self-conscious all at once.

He fiddled with the stuff on his desk, blinking hard as if trying to clear something from his eyes, When he turned back to us, he offered a tight, practiced smile. “I teach transparency and transformation.”

“Transformation?” someone in the back of the class asked.

“Yes, but for the time being, you only need to worry about transparency.” He reached up, and with a snap of his fingers, he was gone, making a few people gasp in surprise.

When he reappeared, someone else asked, “Is it seriously going to take us a full year just to learn that?”

He nodded. “It’s not quite as simple as flipping a light switch. In fact, there are four stages of transparency.”

After circling from behind his desk, he stepped up onto the bottom rung of the ladder.

“First, we have Stage 1, total visibility, which is where you all currently are,” he announced, the only sound in the room the scratching of his chalk.

Everyone’s eyes were glued to him, seemingly more transfixed by how his shoulder muscles moved under his sweater than by what he was writing.

“Stage 2 is partial invisibility, where only a part of your body becomes invisible. It’s the first thing you will learn, since it’s the easiest.”

The room erupted into a chorus of disbelieving snickers, which Professor Faun ignored.

“Next, we have Stage 3, desaturation, where you might appear as a silhouette or shadow. And, finally, Stage 4, the hardest one, is complete and maintained invisibility.” He stepped down off the ladder, finally turning to us. “Any questions?”

It all sounded straightforward enough, but I remembered the mouse. It had melted in and out of the wall with ease, even though Ephraim had said we existed physically in this world.

I raised my hand.

He looked at me, eyes only meeting mine for a second, before refocusing on the wall over my head. “Yes?”

“Are we going to learn how to walk through walls here as well?”

His brow creased. “No, you exist physically in this world, as Ephraim said.”

“But those weird mice can walk through the walls,” I said, irritated by the implication in his tone.

He froze, eyes glossing over, before he could shake himself out of it. “The mice?”

I sensed I’d made a mistake, but I had no choice but to continue. “Yeah, the ones that glow.”

He eyed me up and down. “Leave the mice be.”

Before anyone could see the shame heating my face, I dropped my gaze to the table.

“Hey” came a familiar voice to my right. “I’ve seen those mice, too. Is there an infestation or something?”

Nervous chuckles arose as Arlie leaned forward and smiled.

“I can take care of it for ya,” she continued. “I don’t know for certain, but I feel like I’m a real good shot. Just give me a pea shooter, and I’m all over it.”

He didn’t look amused. “I doubt that will be necessary.”

She shrugged and leaned back in her seat, shooting me a wink.

“Is there anything else?” he asked warily, which was met with silence. “Very well, then. We’ll get right into it.”

He approached his desk, and I expected him to sit, but he reached up to his head. Palms pressing into either cheek, he yanked upward, and with a sickening squelch, his neck detached from his shoulders.

The room filled with confused cries as he plopped his head down on the cake tray. His head didn’t even flinch, instead nodding and shaking, as if trying to get comfortable on the porcelain tray.

Cries dissipated into shocked silence, but one of them continued to rise above them all. After a second, I realized that not only was it me, but I was also on my feet.

Something in me was splintering as I stared at the stump of flesh where Professor Faun’s head used to be. A horrible, gnawing dread bit down on me and refused to let go, calling my brain to a memory no longer inside my head.

Before I could stop myself, I was running out of the classroom, my legs propelling me forward of their own volition.

Out in the hallway, I ran the opposite direction from which I’d come before ending up in a back stairwell. Now that my beheaded teacher was out of view, I collapsed onto one of the carpeted stairs to catch my breath.

As the fog of terror faded, embarrassment set in. I couldn’t imagine why I’d reacted so strongly. No one else in that room had run away. Which meant I’d given everyone another reason to think I was hysterical.

Perfect.

“Cracking up already? It’s not even lunchtime,” someone said over my head, making me jump from my place at the top of the stairs.

Looking up, I found a woman standing over me who wasn’t there before. She had on horn-rimmed glasses and a tall beehive hairdo.

“Get spooked?” she joked after a long stretch of silence.

I scooted back, reaching over my head to pull myself up by the handrail.

“Um, yeah, I guess.”

“Sorry, I heard a bit of screaming and assumed Faun was doing his head routine.”

“Routine?”

“Yeah, he’ll try to make you feel bad, but he does it on purpose. He’s into baptism by fire.”

I shook my head. “How kind of him.”

“He means well.” She smiled. “Mostly.”

“This is very embarrassing.”

“Yes,” she agreed, and I finally looked her in the eye. “Regardless, I’d recommend returning to class when you stop trembling.”

“Everyone’s going to laugh at me.”

“So? Who cares?”

“Fine,” I grumbled through my teeth, trying to avoid pissing off two professors in one day.

“That’s the spirit!” She gave me a hard pat on the shoulder and disappeared.

Standing, I listened as the only remaining indication of her presence, the light clacking of her kitten heels, descended the stairs and faded away.

I dipped back into the classroom as quietly as I could manage, finding Professor Faun’s headless body standing in front of a desk, scribbling on a note card and pressing it into a student’s palm.

He didn’t skip a beat as I slid back into my chair.

“As I was saying, I’ll be writing a unique message on each of these cards. You’ll then lay your hand flat against the tabletop, and the first person to accurately tell me what their note says will get a boost in their grade.”

“Why does that matter?” someone asked.

“Because the best in your class at the end of the year gets a prize.”

His monotonous delivery didn’t exactly make it sound tempting.

“What kind of prize?” someone else asked.

“The secret kind.”

Rigel piped up from the back of the class. “How are we supposed to magically see through our hand if we don’t know how?”

Professor Faun continued down the front row, writing on the cards and pressing them into outstretched hands. “I will give you some practical tips, but the key is practice.”

“Then, why the competition?”

He narrowed his eyes at Rigel from where his head sat on the desk. “Do you not value competition? Or dare I say fun if it comes down to it? In my experience, it’s the only way to keep people in their seats.”

That riled a few giggles from the room, which promptly silenced Rigel. Professor Faun continued, as if the interaction hadn’t happened.

When he got to me, I found my eyes glued to the quick effortless movements of his hand as he wrote something on the note.

“Running in terror will disqualify you from now on,” he warned as he grabbed my wrist and planted the note in the center of my palm.

My eyes went to the tabletop, shame swimming with the sudden intoxicating vertigo that came from his touch. It was like my body centered on the spot where our skin met. A devious corner of my mind wondered if he might show me any favor, touch me for a moment longer, or meet my eye.

He’d given me his blazer, after all. It didn’t feel out of the question. But he moved on without so much as a sideways glance, and I kicked myself for thinking that way. It was as presumptive as it was childish.

I did my best to focus on the back of my hand. It remained as solid as it had ever been, and I wondered if we were being pranked.

“All right,” Professor Faun began as he finished off the final note, “anyone having any luck on their own?”

Silence.

He walked back to his desk and sat. “The first time is always the hardest. It always gets easier once you can convince your brain that it’s possible.”

The room fell back into silence as everyone returned their attention to their hand.

I, unfortunately, couldn’t think about anything past the professor. Giving me the blazer was probably perfunctory, something done to avoid the scene of a naked woman running amok through campus. I only wanted to believe it was anything more because he was attractive. He probably didn’t even recognize me with all my clothes on.

After concentrating, something actually changed in the contours of my hand. At first, I noticed an odd milkiness, like my skin was being watered down, revealing the vague pattern of the woodgrain below. Then the edges of the square paper came into view, along with the jaunty script. My hand was just opaque enough to keep the words from being legible. But from what I could see, I thought I knew what was written.

Don’t follow the mice.

My head shot up, reeling from my ability to read the words, no less what they said. But I couldn’t muster the courage to announce it. I didn’t want to revisit the way his face had fallen when I’d asked about the mice, like I was foolish.

I glanced around casually, finding most of the other faces in the class downturned and strained with concentration. But there was one set of eyes poised to meet mine. Rigel was looking up, and our eyes connected before I quickly turned.

After a silent eternity, pocked by the occasional nervous breath, class was finally dismissed. I was so focused I felt the shadow of Professor Faun’s body before I heard the chairs scraping back around me.

In his hand was a fistful of wadded up notes, and I mechanically peeled mine off and handed it to him. I’d hoped for an explanation, but embarrassment overshadowed my disappointment as I headed for the door with everyone else.

“Agnes,” I heard from the desk, and when I turned, I found his head on the cake tray. “Thank you for rejoining us in a timely manner.”

“I’m really sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

“You’ll need a much stronger constitution if you expect to graduate.” His lip curled, distaste only flashing across his features before he consciously smoothed it back out. “I am not the worst thing you’re going to see here. Trust me.”

“Like I said, I’m really sorry. It was like my body was doing it without permission from my . . .”

My voice tapered off as I realized my misstep.

But he only cleared his throat. “Just make sure it doesn’t happen again, please.” His body came to stand next to me. He pulled his head off the tray and affixed it to his neck, as if nothing was out of the ordinary. “Your next class has probably already started.”

The words hit me like a broken spell, and I turned on my heel, hurrying out the door. When I got to Object Manipulation 101, I was the last person again. I’d still beat the teacher, which was a relief.

The classroom was circular, desks lining the edges of the room and facing inward. The center of the room held only a metal tub, large enough for a few people to lounge in without feeling crowded. But everyone was looking at what hung over it.

A large metal cage, much like the one around the tree the day before, was fixed to the ceiling over the tub.

I hurried to the last remaining seat. But as I sat, a sudden gasp sounded, causing me to look up. Standing directly in front of my desk, as if appearing from thin air, was the woman from the hallway.

“You’re late,” she muttered to me, the tone teasing, before turning her attention to the rest of the room. “I am Professor Algenette, leading practitioner of Object Manipulation. How is everyone adjusting?”

The class murmured nervously, and she smiled.

“Very well. It takes time to get used to everything.” She stepped toward the center of the room. “Can anyone tell me what they think this is?”

We all followed her gaze to the cage on the ceiling. I expected the question to be rhetorical, but to my surprise, someone answered.

“It’s a throughline.”

My eyes went to the seat across the room where Rigel was leaning, mouth curled in satisfaction.

“Very good.” Even Professor Algenette seemed surprised. “Do you also know what it does?”

He leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his desk. “It’s a spot where our world and the mortal world meet.”

As if showing off, an odd popping sounded from the cage over our heads. Our eyes rose just in time to see a plastic pen push its way through the ceiling. It hit the metal bars as it fell into the tub below with a loud clang.

Rigel continued, undeterred. “They form in the mortal world in places of natural symmetry, anchoring the worlds together like pins in fabric. It’s common to find them in places where sidewalks meet grass or where the edge of a bed meets a wall, which probably explains a lot of those classic monster under the bed stories.”

The professor beamed. “Well, you certainly don’t waste any time.”

“No, I do not,” he agreed.

Someone else piped up from near me, asking, “Why’s it in a cage?”

Professor Algenette spun on her heel to face the other student. “It’s in a cage to protect all of you.”

“Will it hurt us?”

“No, but there is a reason you are all trained and not just set free on the mortal world as you are. There are things you need to know, which leads me to our course syllabus for this year.”

She walked up to the tub and scooped up a pen before turning back to Rigel. “What’s your name, son?”

“Rigel.”

“Well, Rigel, catch.”

She tossed the pen underhanded toward him, and he reached out a long arm to catch it. But just as the pen met his skin, it went straight through him, sailing back and skittering along the floor.

The pen settled underneath someone’s seat, and when they reached for it, they were just as unsuccessful. It wasn’t until Professor Algenette plucked it off the ground that it moved.

“This”—she held the pen up over her head—“is from the mortal world. As it stands right now, you have no way of manipulating it. That’s where I come in.”

She walked back over to her desk and tossed the pen into a box. “Now, I will be handing out something for each of you, and I want you all to try and see if you can move it at all.”

She handed out little wooden boxes, each holding some random small item. Mine had a little glass marble, but when I tried to pick it up, my fingers slipped right through it.

“Make sure you’re always sitting down when you practice,” she called over our heads as we all dug our hands around in the wooden boxes. “If you drop it, I doubt you’ll be able to pick it back up.”

“Are we not allowed to get a new one?”

“Of course, I’ve got plenty. It’ll just be wildly embarrassing, so I’d advise against it.”

Laughter fluttered around the room, but most people were so fixated on their item that there was very little talking. A few people tried to dump their object into their hands, but that resulted in Professor Algenette picking it up for them and all the verbal prodding that came with it.

When class ended, Professor Algenette told us to practice as we hurried out of the building.

Outside, I nearly tripped over Arlie, who was hunched over on her knees in the grass, grumbling angrily to herself.

“What are you doing?” I asked, crouching next to her and letting my bag slide off my shoulder.

“I dropped my stupid mortal doohickey, and now, I can’t pick it up.”

I laughed. “Professor Algenette did say not to open the box unless you were sitting down.”

“Oh, really? Did she? I totally haven’t been replaying those words in my head the whole time I’ve been doing this.” She huffed. “So, are you going to help me or what?”

“Only if you stop being a bitch.”

“No deal.”

“Whatever,” I said, leaning next to her to find a plastic ballpoint pen sitting in the grass.

Hoping our combined effort would be enough to roll it back into its wooden box, we tried to grab it simultaneously, but we were unsuccessful.

“Should I just go back in and get a new one?” she asked.

I laughed. “Do you think that’s a new record?”

Her face twisted in distress. “God, I hope not.”

An annoyingly familiar voice cut through our giggling.

“Breaking the rules already?”

“Piss off,” Arlie grumbled, keeping her eyes on the pen and away from Rigel, who was towering over us.

“Are you telling me you don’t want help?”

Arlie and I exchanged a glance, silently begging for him to be full of shit. But he didn’t wait for an answer, simply using the toe of his leather shoe to push the pen into the box.

He smirked. “See? Easy peasy.”

“What? You want a standing ovation?”

“I’m a humble man. A simple ‘thank you’ would suffice. Though you can kiss my shoe if you’d like.”

He extended his foot toward my face, and I smacked it away, causing him to stumble back.

“If you want people to be impressed by you, maybe you should try being tolerable.”

His smile grew, and he narrowed his eyes. But instead of saying anything, he raised his hand, flipping us the bird quickly before the limb suddenly disappeared. One second, it was there, and the next second, his sleeve appeared entirely empty. Once he’d given us an eyeful, he turned on his heel and sauntered away across the grassy slope.

“What the hell?” Arlie muttered. “How did he learn that so fast?”

Before I could answer, I was on my feet, following him.

I didn’t care that he could do it. I did care, however, why he’d kept it a secret. He clearly sought praise.

“Rigel,” I called, and he turned, face satisfied, as if I’d followed through on a plan of his.

“Yes?”

“If you completed today’s task in class, why keep it a secret?”

He leaned in conspiratorially. “I wanted to know what everyone else had written first.”

“Why?”

Winking, he tapped the tip of his nose. “Sometimes, the most important information isn’t what you’re offered but what was never intended for you in the first place. I’m not someone who indulges in instant gratification.”

I pursed my lips. “What did yours say, then?”

“Yours first.” He insisted, but when I didn’t yield, he chuckled. “Very good, Agnes. Sometimes, it pays to play the long game.”