Chapter Twenty-One
When I suggest breaking into the Archive, I half expect the universe to punish me. But no outraged shout rises from the forest. No giant fist punches down from the sky to crush us. The courts are quiet except for wind rustling nearby trees.
Vik nods. “Let’s go tonight.”
“Tonight?” I mean, from my perspective, the sooner the better—but after all this struggling and waiting, the idea of entering the Archive within hours seems unreal.
“Griffin, Mirabel, and I haven’t gone inside our assigned collections yet,” he says.
“Dr. Langmore handed out the keycards at the end of orientation. The rest of the time was just Mr. Davis demonstrating how to use a digitizer. If we get into the Highwall Collection before Griffin does, he won’t be able to tell if we mess anything up. ”
“Okay, but—what about security cameras?”
“There aren’t any cameras trained on the Archive’s outer door or in the entry room where we had the orientation. Which is weird. Like someone doesn’t want who goes in and out recorded.”
“But there might be cameras inside the collections,” I say.
“Maybe.”
“And without Griffin’s keycard, how do we get into the Highwall Collection anyway?”
“I think,” he says, “we can solve both problems with leaguing.”
“How?”
“The locks on the collection doors are electronic. Electronics can malfunction. Of course, it’s very, very improbable that the lock on the Highwall Collection would malfunction, causing the door to open, exactly when we needed it to. Maybe too improbable a future to locate with regular nav…”
“But not with leaguing.”
“That’s the idea.”
“And you think, if there are cameras inside the collection, we can force them to malfunction with leaguing too.”
“Yeah.”
“But we’ve never leagued twice in a row like that before, with no rest in between.”
“True,” he admits. “And I have no idea how improbable the malfunctions we’re talking about are. It could be too hard. But…do you want to wait and figure something else out?”
I let out a shaky breath. “No. I don’t want to wait at all.”
***
At three minutes to 11 p.m., when the last die-hard studiers are trickling out of the library before closing time, Vik and I skulk into the marble-paved atrium and loiter beside the corniced door with the gold plaque that announces the Victoria Highwall Archive.
Once the atrium is deserted, Vik swipes his keycard over the electronic lock and yanks the door open.
I plunge through, Vik on my heels. The door thunks closed behind us.
I’m inside the Archive.
I applied to the Academy for this moment.
Struggled through the trials, lost sleep, torched friendships, sweated and cried and bled for this moment.
But now that I’m here, I don’t feel triumphant.
I don’t even feel safe. Nausea clenches my gut and terror closes my throat as I wonder: What if I was wrong? What if there’s no cure?
But I don’t have time to dwell on worst-possible outcomes. Vik and I need to get moving.
The Archive is even colder than the atrium, temperature-controlled to preserve old papers.
The entry room is bare save for a massive mahogany reception desk with a Tiffany reading lamp.
In the wall behind the desk stand three heavy doors, each with its own gold plaque.
On the door to the left, the plaque reads MIURA. To the right, LUCASSON.
In the middle, HIGHWALL.
Vik and I circle the desk and stand in front of the middle door. The light in its electronic lock glows a dull red.
“What do we look for in flickerstate?” I whisper. “A green light? A sudden and convenient shower of sparks? The door just…falling open?”
“Any of the above, I guess.” Vik offers me his hand.
It occurs to me—with a strange lurch, like ground I thought was stable shifting under my feet—that Vik and I haven’t leagued, haven’t tried to league, since I dumped him and lied to his face about the reason.
Will we be able to anymore? Or did I break whatever allowed us to reach that place of perfect, balanced fusion?
I hesitate, ashamed, agonized, scared.
Vik waits for me. His outstretched hand doesn’t waver.
Just like that, the ground beneath my feet is still again.
I remember how, before I ever kissed him, he walked into range of that arachnoid beast to give me power.
I remember how, after I broke things off, he agreed without hesitation to risk his Academy spot, his Archive assistantship, his laurels, his future, to help me find a cure.
Vik’s decency, his goodness—they’re so unshowy, so matter-of-fact, as deadpan as the rest of him, that they’re easy to overlook.
But there they are. Solid. A foundation.
The only obstacle to Vik and me leaguing is me. My pride, reluctant to accept his no-strings help. My shame, cringing at how I lied to him.
Maybe he has no reason to trust me anymore. But the thing is, even if he can’t trust me, I can trust him.
I do trust him.
I take his hand. Grip it tight.
“Three,” I whisper, “two, one, go—”
We league.
Our bliss, our relief at seeing our infinite red-gold mansion again—they turn to panic when we see what it holds.
In almost every near future, Mr. Davis walks into the entry room, followed by a middle-aged woman in a navy sheath dress.
As soon as they see us, the woman spins and legs it back through the door as if afraid we’ll recognize her.
“We were just—” Mr. Davis babbles. But then he looks harder at me.
Grasps that I’m not Mirabel, not an Archive assistant.
I’m one of the losers. An interloper. And he yells for security.
In a very few futures, Mr. Davis and the unknown woman don’t notice us—because we’ve stopped, dropped, and rolled under the reception desk.
Without needing to speak, Vik and I dive out of flickerstate and roll under the desk.
A second later, the door to the Archive beeps, clicks, and unlocks.
The desk, though big, wasn’t built to fit two tall seniors beneath it. Vik’s on his back, knees bent. I’m crushed to his chest, mouth hovering over his, our noses almost brushing. Heat flushes my neck. I turn my face from his.
Footsteps click across the marble. They circle the desk. Two sets of shoes come into view, Mr. Davis’s scuffed loafers and a pair of black pumps with red bottoms.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” the woman asks. Despite her smooth, radio-friendly voice, her words have a jittery edge.
“It always works,” Mr. Davis says. As usual, he has a doleful, Eeyore delivery, but right now I catch a trace of smugness too. He has something that the woman with the red bottoms and the radio voice wants badly, and he enjoys controlling her access to it.
But her access to what? What always works?
Another beep and click. The door to the Highwall Collection sighs open.
Wedged beneath the desk, I strain to see anything—any clue, any secret—through that open door.
All I see are Mr. Davis and the unknown woman stepping down into darkness.
The door swings shut.
***
I want to howl.
I want to jump up and kick the Highwall Collection door.
I want to do something, anything, to vent my rage and frustration at coming so close to the Archive’s inner chambers—and being thwarted. Again.
But I’m a hothead, not an idiot.
So I shove aside my crushing sense of failure.
I ignore my flushed embarrassment at Vik’s nearness and warmth in the dark.
I steady my breath, slide into flickerstate, and spy on the next ten seconds’ possibilities.
If Vik and I break for the exit, will Mr. Davis pop from the Highwall Collection and bust us?
Will a student straggler, leaving the library just after regular hours have ended, spot us bursting through the forbidden door into the atrium?
According to flickerstate, likely not.
When my eyes clear of phantom fire, I turn my head to Vik, our noses do brush, and I am forcibly reminded—through my nerves and existential despair—that I’m sprawled atop him like he’s an exceptionally muscular, lanky sofa.
“Well?” he whispers.
“Uh,” I say. “Yeah. Clear coast. Let’s go.”
***
We slip from the dark library, flee across the deserted quad, and stop under the Great Tree, panting.
“Shit,” I say. “Shit, shit, shit. That was almost so bad. That was almost so bad.”
Vik shoves both hands through his hair. “Maybe rushing in with no plan wasn’t our best idea.”
“Who was that woman?”
“She’s a donor,” Vik says. “I recognized her in flickerstate. They ran a photo of her in the school paper a couple weeks ago. Her family foundation is paying to renovate and expand the freshman and sophomore dorms.”
“You read the school paper?”
“Don’t you?”
“Absolutely not. You think Mr. Davis is allowed to sneak donors into the Archive after hours?”
Vik shakes his head. “Something hinky’s going on.”
“What do we do?”
“We shouldn’t try another head-on attack without a strategy.
” A thoughtful line creases the skin between his eyebrows.
“Give me a day. Tomorrow after class I start in the Miura Collection. I’ll do recon.
Check the layout, see when the Archive’s most likely to be deserted.
Then we can come up with a better plan. Okay? ”
I don’t like waiting. Not with Dad edging closer to a precipice every moment. But Vik’s right: We jumped the gun, and it almost ended in disaster. We need to pause and gather information.
“Okay,” I say grudgingly.
After that anticlimax, we walk toward Lucasson in silence.
We’re nearly there when I notice we’re striding in rhythm, our feet striking the ground, left, right, at the same time. Is this physical attunement a side effect of leaguing or just something that’s ours, that’s us?
Yearning strangles me. I avert my eyes from Vik, long and lean in my peripheral vision, to keep from spinning toward him, falling into him.
You can’t, I remind myself desperately. It wouldn’t be fair. You’ve pulled him in too deep already. Don’t make it worse.
You’re dangerous.
And you might die on him.
When we reach the Lucasson stairwell, I bolt upward, taking the stairs two at a time, without saying goodbye.
***