Page 103 of Flickerstate

“Yeah. See you later?”

Griffin shakes his head. “Dance lasts till eleven. I turn into a pumpkin if I’m not in bed by midnight.”

“All right. Griffin. Norah.” Vik walks past without a backward glance.

I tell myself that his indifference is an act. I mean, he’s my coconspirator in theft. Ineedhim to act cool and casual so Griffindoesn’t notice something’s up. But it still hurts that he can stroll on past without even looking at me, while I’m on a whole weird date with some other guy.

“Shall we?” I say to Griffin, as lively as I can.

Griffin and Vik’s block has the same layout as mine: a large common room with a window overlooking the quad. Griffin disappears into the double. That means Vik sleeps in the single. I peer at his closed door. Behind it is a place I’ve never seen. What furniture has he added to the bed, the desk, and the dresser the Academy provides? A bookshelf, maybe? Has he hung posters on the walls? What color are his sheets? I can’t picture anything. When I try, the bookshelf is short, tall, gone; the walls populate with framed objects and depopulate; the sheets flicker through white, gray, blue, black.

I make myself stop. I go stare out the window. Through the glass, lamps shake out sugary light. Figures in rich fabrics cross the quad, phone screens flashing off velvets and sequins. I observe, but I can’t concentrate. I’ve set two plans running. Which will cross the finish line?

Determination burns cold under my skin. I shudder.

Griffin’s door creaks open. He stands on the threshold wearing dry pants and shoes, an exact match for the ones Mirabel soaked. I wonder idly why he ever felt he needed more than one tuxedo until I notice his face. He’s looking at me. Not like he did when he saw me in the hall, with amused appreciation, but with a certain edge.

“Still want to go back to the formal?” he asks.

I glance over his shoulder into his dark bedroom: sheets slippery smooth and black with the lights off, no bookshelf in sight. Iwonder how many girls he’s asked a similar question, standing in the same spot. I wonder what he predicts I’ll do.

I turn away. “Come on. Let’s go laugh at people dancing.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

After the last dance, students stream into the cold night air, onto the quad, toward the Great Tree. I catch Griffin’s sleeve and pullhim sideways out of the flow.

“Am I taking you home now, or…?” he asks.

I need to keep eyes on Griffin until he goes to bed, to make sure he doesn’t sneak off to the Archive. But I won’t hook up with him for the cause. I’m an awkward eighteen-year-old, not Mata Hari. So I willfully misinterpret his subtext: “I’m not tired yet. Want to walk around?”

“I would, but—” A long yawn cracks his face. He might be angling to get me to his room, but I take his apparent sleepiness as an opening.

Griffin with me or Griffin in bed—either way, he’s not in the Archive. “I’ll escort you home,” I say, “I’m sure you need your beauty sleep.”

At his block, Griffin leans in to kiss me on the cheek. “Night, Norah.”

“Sleep well,” I say.

He yawns, smiles sheepishly, and closes the door.

I jog up to my floor. When I key into my block, muffled opera seeps from Candace and Bree’s room. Bree’s back from studying, then.

I change into sweatpants, a hooded sweatshirt, and my tennis shoes. Then I sneak out of my bedroom—leaving the light on, so if Bree comes back into the common room, she’ll assume I’m home—and into the bathroom, where I scrub my face, shake out my updo, and cover my hair with my hood.

I see no one as I hopscotch through shadows between lampposts toward the library. When I’m inside the atrium, I turn sharply away from the deserted first-floor study fishbowl, to the right, toward the Archive.

I text Candace and Vik:Let me in?

Moments later Vik’s hand pushes the door open a millimeter. “Pretend to swipe a keycard,” he whispers.

Right: If anyone sees me, I need to look like an Archive assistant.

I pass my hand over the lock pad and slide through the door.

I follow Vik, walking briskly, through the entry room to the Highwall Collection. He’s acting so businesslike—and I find that comforting under these bizarre, perilous circumstances, but also infuriating. My life is on the line, and my dad’s life is on the line, and I just went on a convoluted date with a guy who isnotVik, and now I want Vik to feel as terrified, confused, and conflicted as I do.

And I want him to be jealous. Because I’m selfish, I want him to be jealous.