Page 102 of She Haunts Me Still

“Saskia,” Mallory hisses, grabbing her chin.

Saskia blinks rapidly. “What?”

“That’s it.” Mallory curls her fingers into little fists. “We’re done waiting.”

“What do you mean?” Saskia asks.

“The locks at Thorne Hall are old,” she says. “They’ll be easy to pick.”

Saskia raises an eyebrow. “You want to break into Ezra’s dorm? That’s a crime, Nancy Drew.”

“We don’t have a choice. We have to find out where he is.” Mallory gathers her skirt in her hands, ready to head onstage for her cue. “We’re out of time.”

Mallory finishes up in the dressing room, downing two pills before throwing on a sweatshirt she pulled from her hamper earlier, and dashes into the hall to meet Saskia.

But she barely gets ten steps before someone calls her name. She glances over her shoulder, noticing the light on in Professor Golden’s office.

“How are you feeling about opening night, Ms. Webb?” Golden asks when Mallory appears in the doorway.

Mallory leans against the wall, fighting a sudden wave of dizziness. “Fine,” she answers. “You know what they say: bad dress rehearsal, good opening.”

Golden smiles. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you, as my advisee, but I didn’t want to mention it in front of Ms. Garin the other night.”

Mallory tips her head. “Oh?”

She leans forward at her desk, hands clasped. “I don’t want to make any assumptions about your personal life,” she says, “but I’d like you to know something. There are power dynamics everywhere—in theater, in academia. They’re inescapable. But when someone of authority abuses their power, it isneverthe fault of the person in the lower position. Even if both people are students.” Her eyes narrow. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Mallory goes perfectly still. She nods, cheeks pink. Goldendoesn’t have to mention Ezra for Mallory to know she’s talking about him.

“I’m not saying any of this to embarrass you, Mallory.” Golden fixes her with a pointed stare. “All I’m saying is that things are heavy enough for women in this business without having to carry shame caused by the actions of men. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Mallory meets her stare. She thinks of the humiliation that’s festered since that storm-soaked day in Ezra’s room when she realized she’d offered up her secrets, her heart, her body, to someone who was never going to protect them. How her skin threatened to erupt in hives at the way his father looked at her, like she was something he’d like to devour, too.

“Yes,” she finally says. “I’m done doing that.”

Golden nods, collecting a stack of papers. They thwack the desk definitively as Mallory turns to go. “By the way. What’s that sweatshirt you’re wearing?”

Mallory looks down, and her face warms again. Black fabric. Red cursive letters.The Caligo Group.

She’d completely forgotten she took it from Ezra’s room, didn’t realize she’d grabbed it from her hamper earlier.

“Um.” She pushes a hand through her hair. “It’s a theater society in London.”

“Sounds prestigious. And an interesting name.” Golden ticks her tongue to her teeth. “Caligo. Latin for ‘darkness.’ ”

“Yeah.” Mallory swallows. “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you tomorrow, Professor.”

Mallory isn’t sure what makes her look back. But she does, finding Golden typing into her computer. Mouth skewed to the side. Fingernails rapping the desk.

As if turning over the name of an organization she’s never heard of, questioning whether it exists at all.

Thorne Hall looms in the starless sky like a fortress later that evening.

The night stretches into a blanket of navy, the air quiet and still. As if every tree is watching them slink to the stone patio outside Ezra’s room.

“Are you sure about this?” Saskia asks.

Mallory nods, rooting in her bag for the pocketknife. “Desperate times.”