Page 49 of Flickerstate

I think about how long it took the response team to arrive afterDad was swarmed. How few navigators there were, how exhausted they looked. How many calls they must have taken already that day. “Yeah. He sucks.”

She snorts. “As a teacher, I officially deplore your language,” she says. “But… Yes, he sucks. I can only imagine what he plans to say to us in his wretched speech.”

Chitchat over, she makes me handwrite a short essay about why students should always obey beast-manifestation protocol. When she releases me, I smile and wave goodbye and walk slowly to the exit.

Dr. Langmore knows—or suspects—that Vik and I leagued. She gave us detention to question us privately, to find out whetherweknew what we’d done. I’ve convinced her I’m blissfully ignorant. But what happens if she realizes I fooled her?

I’m hyperventilating by the time I push through Admin’s doors. When my shoes hit grass, I run.

Chapter Twelve

The rain has stopped. A florid sunset muscles through bruised clouds on the horizon. Students stroll the campus loop, holdinghands, sharing earbuds, taking pictures of each other. Boring-ass promenades pass for dates when your boarding school won’t let you keep a car on campus, I guess. Kids give me weird looks when I sprint past, but I only slow down when I see the basketball courts.

I text Vik:Usual place ASAP.My plan is, I’ll shoot threes till he texts back. Once he confirms he’s coming, I’ll duck onto the footpath and go wait in the clearing, so no one sees us together. I’d rather gossip not spread that we’re having a clandestine woodland rendezvous after I assured Dr. Langmore that we didn’t, like, hang out.

My phone buzzes:Already there.

The footpath is muddy, churned by Vik’s boots. I squelch down the slope with my arms out for balance. When I enter the clearing, the sun sits speared on the treetops, giving the wet leaves ahallucinatory shimmer. Vik stands in the clearing’s center, head down. He’s changed since clinic, into another faded T-shirt, this one with holes in the collar and an illustration of a leafy maple tree below which sit the words, emphatically capitalized, I’D TAP THAT.

Irritation clogs my throat. He and I just pulled off nav that ninety percent of the world thinks is impossible. Why isn’t he more—

More what, Norah?

This is a transaction. Vik doesn’t owe me anything but what we agreed on.Anythingincludes awe, excitement, starstruck gazing, and a shirt without holes.

“How was detention?” I ask.

He raises his head. Face exhausted, eyes alert. “Langmore interrogated me about leaguing without mentioning leaguing.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That I don’t know how we managed to banish the beasts. Which is true. Technically.”

“Yeah, I pretended to be completely obtuse too.”

A smile ghosts across his face. “Can’t have been convincing.”

I look away, embarrassed, into the shimmering trees. “I’m an excellent actress. We agree she suspects what we did?”

“Yeah. What I can’t understand is why she’s angry. I… I wasn’t imagining how powerful it was, right?”

“We had a thousand eyes.”

He nods.

“How—how did we do it? I mean, what did we do differentlythis time?”

He thinks. “Today, I wasn’t trying to league. I just channeled all my nav to you. And you, you channeled all your nav to me at the same time.”

I nod.

We stand in silence. As usual, his face doesn’t give much away. I’m not sure what he’s feeling.

I’m not sure whatI’mfeeling. A beast almost bit me. Again.

But this time, I wasn’t helpless. This time, I banished it.Webanished it. Because Vik disobeyed a direct order from Dr. Langmore to walk into danger and help me. Because we finally succeeded in doing something that we’d failed at twenty-odd times, something everyone thought was impossible.

Something Dr. Langmore hates.