Page 104 of Flickerstate

But, hey, life isn’t about what I want. It’s about what I can survive.

He taps his knuckles on the door.

Candace opens it. “I found something else.”

She leads us down steep concrete stairs to an even chillier basement level: the Highwall Collection itself. It’s a deep, wide room lined with floor-to-ceiling metal shelves bearing big cardboard boxes labeled by number. In one corner looms an oversize document scanner and a V-shaped book scanner. The sole light is a dim bulb in a cage over one of the work desks pushed up against the wall. On the desk, an open box sits with beige folders spread out around it. A chair is pulled out opposite the mess.

Candace drops into the chair. She opens a file, revealing a stack of papers and a leather-bound notebook. “Take a look.” She flips through the notebook and hands it over.

I take it carefully. Across a two-page spread extends a dizzyingly complex diagram in precise black ink of some weirdmachine. It looks like a mecha Vitruvian man doing a headstand. In the upper corner float tiny words:Alternative to leaguing? Discuss with LDS.

Through my constant terror shines a glimmer of hope, of awe. I’m holding a notebook handwritten bytheVictoria Highwall. I’m so close to her secrets.

But will I understand them if I find them? I stare at the diagram. I can’t see how this spiky thing could be an alternative to leaguing.

“May I?” Vik takes the notebook gingerly. “It’s a schematic, but…”

“But objects can’t amplify nav,” I say. “I’ve read about this. All the prototypes Highwall and Miura designed failed.”

“As far as we know,” Candace says. “Who’s LDS?”

“Laura De Soto,” Vik says.

“Who?”

“It was in the unauthorized Highwall biography Jake left behind.” Vik shakes his head. “The textbooks talk about Highwall like she pioneered nav by herself. But she had collaborators, and she ran an interdisciplinary lab—postdocs, grad students, undergrad grunts. Laura De Soto was a PhD in statistics who did some of the math to prove nav altered probability. She was also one of a handful of people in the lab who could navigate.”

I study Vik’s unsettled face. “Highwall’s the big name, but we knowsomeof her collaborators—Miura, Lucasson. I’ve never heard of De Soto. What happened to her?”

“Car accident.” Vik bites his lip. “I only remember De Soto because the biography has this long, paranoid chapter about every collaborator of Highwall’s who died young.”

“Is it so surprising they died young?” Candace asks. “Some of them studied beasts. If they were beast-chasing and got bitten…”

She falls awkwardly silent.

I speak with forced matter-of-factness. “I’m not sure how much this schematic tells us. ‘Alternative to leaguing’ doesn’t let us know whether Highwall wanted to league but couldn’t or…hadleagued but found it…unsuitable for her goal.”

Candace rubs her eyes. “As far as clues go, it does open more questions than it closes.”

“Is this the only mention of leaguing we’ve found so far?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“What about bites?”

“Lots of mentions of bites,” Vik says. “And beasts. No cures.”

“But when we came in, Candace said—” I turn to her. “You said you found somethingelse. What was the first thing?”

Candace and Vik share an uncertain look—loaded, a little afraid.

“It’s not—” Vik squares himself. “We don’t think it belongs in Highwall’s papers.”

“A misfiling?” I ask.

“We don’t know.” He reaches across the table to a fat accordion file holder made of thick Academy-green paper and lifts it for my inspection.

I take it from him. It’s heavy. There are maybe a hundred folders inside the accordion file. Each folder’s tab bears a name. I flip through the first half dozen tabs without recognizing any of the names. Then one jumps out at me.