Page 118 of Flickerstate

I close my eyes and sense Dr. Langmore beside me, smiling.

I twist and—with my whole strength—elbow her in the face.

Bone splinters bone. Dr. Langmore staggers, hands latticing over her nose. I kneel and fumble at the metal band around Bree’s neck. When I find a clasp, I snap it open. Her head lolls. I unbuckle her wrist restraints.

I’ve started on her ankles when pain explodes at the back of my skull.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

When I come to, the room is upside down. Gravity swells my head with blood.

I’m hanging from the Cruciform.

Gawking down at the ceiling, I see tree roots. They snake through the domed concrete around the burning light. The Cruciform room sits beneath the Great Tree. No wonder the tree always creeped me out. It was a secret monument tothis. Dr. Langmore could pass it by, see students sitting in its shade, and gloat at how she might suck their futures dry if she decided to.

I try to kick, to flail. Restraints hold me tight.

Behind me, a heavy object—a body?—thumps to the concrete. Dr. Langmore must be dropping Bree to the floor.

Footsteps.

Dr. Langmore’s god-awful nude heels enter my field of vision. When she crouches beside me, her face and shoulder loom. Fat redcomets streak her cream silk blouse. She’s stripped off her suit jacket and balled it up against her nose. She reaches for the Cruciform’s metal neckband with her free hand.

“How did Miura die?” I blurt.

She grabs the band. Locks it around my neck.

“Is that how you’ll kill me? Steal my futures with this machine till I snuff out somehow?”

“What did I do,” she asks, muffled by her jacket, “to convince you I was such a monster?”

“Hit me over the head and strapped me to a literal inverted cross.”

She actually laughs—a soft chuckle ending in a pained hiss. Hilarity’s no good for her nose. I feel sourly satisfied; now’s not the time for her to reveal a well-hidden sense of humor. “Be that as it may…”

“You convinced me before that. When you kidnapped my blockmate. No, before—last year, when you made Griffin nav Vik blackout drunk so you could kidnaptheirblockmate, right? And, what, Jake escaped the next morning somehow? He might have beencooperative, and curious, and desperate, but he was also brilliant. Even with your interference, he must have figured out pretty fast the Cruciform was bad news. That was the emergency call you got during my interview. Did Griffin call you, or did someone else? Who’sinon this?”

“How did you figure out so much?” Dr. Langmore sounds mildly impressed. If a metal band weren’t circling my neck, I’dlunge and bite her smug face.

“You convinced meagain,” I continue, “when you navved me toward this machine. Younavvedme. You interfered.”

She suppresses an eye roll. “The taboo against benevolent interference is nonsense. People need guidance to grow in the right direction. Their choices need—pruning. Like bonsai. You, Ms. Yang, even Mr. Souza—you can see reason. Secretary Tully can see reason. Ultimately,everyonecan. That’s what you and the Cruciform will help me accomplish, Ms. Sullivan. A little guidance. A little pruning.”

She reaches beyond my field of vision. When I see her hands again, they’re shaking a little. And they hold two syringes.

“No.” I glance around desperately, looking for help, but Vik and Candace are still locked in silent battle with Griffin and Mr. Davis. “No, no—”

The first syringe descends. Above my collarbone, I feel a sting.

Her hand shakes harder. As the second syringe approaches, she drops it. It shatters on the concrete floor.

I don’t know what she’s injected me with. Bree seemed completely out of it. That might have been something else, like maybe Dr. Langmore smothered Bree with a chloroform-soaked rag when—but no, Dr. Langmore’s not strong enough to carry Bree’s limp body through the Archive, down the secret passage, to this place. Griffin is, but he couldn’t have done it without someone noticing, not even at night. One of them must have navved Bree too. Bree must’ve been curious enough about the Archive that when, say,Griffin offered to sneak her in under threat of expulsion, she took the chance in a few fringe futures. Those few would’ve been all the opening Griffin needed. But she was out of it before Dr. Langmore and Griffin manhandled her onto the Cruciform, which means…

I lose track of what it means.

Reality stretches. Objects glow and stutter, throwing off solid images. Vik, Candace, Griffin, and Mr. Davis, locked in combat, spawn shiny overlapping silhouettes, a giant fan of cloth and flesh and light. I can’t see past them; they’restupendous—

No. Concentrate.