“Hmm?” Andrew started an email with a very solid lie to his dad—or probably his secretary—about why he’d lost his phone and needed a new one. It wouldn’t involve forests. Or breaking rules. And definitely not monsters.
“Did you mean”—Thomas sounded quiet—“to write your notes… in mirror reverse?”
Andrew looked up.
Thomas slid the pages back to him, but his expression had gone carefully blank, a useless precaution against Andrew, who knew him well enough to dissect it.
He didn’t even know how to write in mirror reverse. He hadn’t… he didn’t know—
He scrunched the papers and stuffed them in his satchel.
Silence sat between them: Andrew frozen while his brain spun in dizzying spirals, Thomas chewing his pen and watching Andrew from the corner of his eye.
Then he yawned and peeled from his seat. “I can’t work under these conditions. I need a sandwich. Let’s get sandwiches.”
Relief melted Andrew. Good, they’d ignore this. “It’s an hour till dinner.”
“Well, I’m hungry now. C’mon, the dorm kitchenette always has bread and fruit and stuff. Wait, you guard our study spot and I’ll bring it back. Peanut butter and jelly sound good?”
Andrew hunched over his laptop. “I’m not hungry.”
“Irrelevant.” Thomas stretched, cracking his neck and making a huge effort to act unconcerned. “Let’s eat now and skip the dining hall. Okay?”
It was manipulation. Andrew would’ve skipped dinner anyway, and this meant Thomas would get to oversee him eating—which meant Thomas had, in fact, noticed Andrew avoiding meals. He should be annoyed, but he only had energy for a small frown, which Thomas returned with a grin so mischievous it was impossible to stay mad at him. He took off, humming to himself.
His absence felt like an electrical surge turned off, as if Andrew didn’t exist without Thomas in the room. He couldn’t focus on his essay, and his skin felt too tight, his neck prickling like someone watched him from between the shelves. Plenty of students packed the library this rainy afternoon, but everyone was focused on their own work. No one was looking at him, right?
He twisted suddenly to catch them out.
Yellow eyes blinked behind the stacks.
Then vanished.
Andrew rubbed his face. He knew he was overtired. But still, it had been…
Nothing. Monsters only escaped the dark if Thomas failed to catch and kill them, and there had been nothing in the forest for days.
He forced himself to stare at his laptop screen before he heard familiar footsteps. He brightened, turning to greet Dove—but she swept past with an armful of books and hurried for the upstairs studios.
“Dove?”
She didn’t pause. Maybe she had earbuds in.
Andrew scrabbled after her. He should convince her to study with them. Avoiding her because he and Thomas heldtoo many secrets felt like working with a punctured lung, and he didn’t want to grow used to the pain.
Andrew turned a corner of shelves and stumbled into the librarian. She gave a startled laugh as he grabbed her arms to steady her and stammered an apology.
“That’s all right, darling,” she said. “While you’re here, I have a book you would like.”
“Oh, thanks… um, thanks, Ms. Ye. I’ll come back?”
Not waiting for an answer, Andrew took the stairs two at a time, but when he reached the halls, all the studio doors were shut. He hesitated, chewing his lip, not wanting to knock and have strangers’ eyes boring into him, pitying or annoyed or mocking. He hated being looked at, asked questions. He hated figuring out what to say.
Only one door lay ajar at the end of the hall, so he slipped toward it—Ms. Poppy’s art classroom. Dove never took art, but he could snoop on Thomas’s new projects since he’d started drawing again.
Andrew didn’t see anyone inside, so he pushed the door a little wider and crept between rows of art tables before he heard voices. He went still.
Two people sat cross-legged on the carpet ahead, tables pushed back to make room for the mess they’d tumbled all over the floor. It looked like a rainbow had vomited across their laps. Shredded and knotted fabrics tangled with a huge box of embroidery thread and sewing supplies. Two girls bent their heads together as they sorted the fabrics. Andrew was about to fling himself out of there, but they looked up and caught him.
