Page 100 of Flickerstate

Kids are crammed shoulder to shoulder, but once again, they move aside for Griffin like he’s Emperor of the Universe as he saunters toward the punch.

I turn, scanning the room for Mr. Davis—and come nose to nose with Mirabel.

“Hi,” I say. “You look good.”

She’s taken the Hollywood Glamour theme seriously. She wears a black dress with a high slit. Her chocolate hair fountains over her shoulders. Her eye makeup smokes, her lipstick burns. Lot of look, but it works. Beside her, her date makes a nice accessory: himbo handsomeness, fitted tux. But her expression doesn’t match her outfit. It’s not sultry, it’s stone-cold pissed.

“You too.” Her tone saysdie in a fire.“Candace pick your dress?”

To Mirabel, I’m an intense girl, a try-hard, not a fashion plate.If I dress nicely, someone else must have dressed me. She’s correct tonight, of course, and since I don’t give a solitary damn what she thinks, I’m happy to confirm. “Girl has taste.”

“Griff’s stepsister dressed his date. That didn’t weird them out?”

“I didn’t ask. They approved of the results, anyway.”

Mirabel flinches. Then she pulls back her shoulders and meets mywhat nowstare dead-on. “How does it feel to come so close to the Archive and end up a loser?”

Rage detonates inside my skull, a quick, bright series of pops. Dad’s dying, and I’m dying, and I won’t spend what are maybe my last days letting passive-aggressive bullshit slide.

“I don’t know,” I say. “How’s it feel going to the dance with your second choice?”

She grimaces.

I’m bracing for her cutting comeback when I spot Austin McKeigh, a senior transfer who clearly imbibed a lot too much at some pregame, on a collision course with Mirabel’s shoulder. I notice the punch-filled cup in her hand. “Mirabel, watch out—”

Too late. Austin knocks hard into her shoulder. As she jerks forward, cup tipping, I step sideways. A few drops of punch spatter my skirt; the rest arcs through the air and strikes Griffin’s knees as he returns with my drink.

His pants are soaked. Rivulets drip into his dress shoes. He glances down—and back up, with perfect bored disbelief, at Mirabel. “Throwing your drink at my date? Be less cliché.”

“I didn’t—” Her expression shifts from shocked to humiliated to coolly blank as she decides not to defend herself. Instead, sheturns tail and shoves toward the door, her confused date on her heels.

Suddenly Mr. Davis makes himself known, peeling off a shadowy stretch of wall toward the confused and stumbling Austin with a look of irritation on his sad bulldog face. That’s a piece of good luck: dealing with drunk students should keep him busy all night.

“She didn’t, though,” I tell Griffin. “Austin bumped her.”

“Sure.” He sighs. “My socks are squelching. I have to change.”

“Into what?” I ask.

“I have another tux in my room.”

In his room. Where his keycard isn’t.

If he notices his keycard missing, he could raise the alarm about a break-in at the Archive.

Griffin, catching sight of my face, raises his eyebrows. “You worried about missing too much of the dance? You can stay; I’ll meet you back here.”

I shake my head. “No, I’ll come. Lead the way.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

I lag behind as Griffin forges across the quad toward Lucasson, my fingers skittering over my phone:Accident G headed to roomreturn item use east stairs I will stall.

Vik texts back:We’re not done.

C can let you back in GO.

My pulse beats unpleasantly in my throat. I pocket my phone and stride forward till I’m in step with Griffin. “Sorry,” he says.