Colton was deep in the heart of the library, looking for a place to work, when he heard it. A single sniffle. He faltered a step, straining his ears against the archival hush. Beneath the crinkle of pages, he heard it again—a hiccup, the sound halfway to a sob.
He would have kept on—it wasn’t the first time he’d come across someone crying in the stacks—if it weren’t for the phantom pull at his chest. Taut as fishing wire, it reeled him in. He pushed deeper into the maze of books, peering down the nearest row. A napping couple lay sprawled atop a bed of navy-blue research binders. Nearby, a weary-looking underclassman sat dwarfed beneath an imposing stack of leather annals. The next several sections were empty. Spelled asleep, gilded motes suspended in animation where the sun fell through the deep-set windows.
Seven rows down, he found who he was looking for.
Lane, perched cross-legged on the floor, her face buried in her hands. She was dressed all in gray and girdled in shadow, the dark preening at her feet like a sad, sorry kitten. Instantly, that infernal ache carved into his bones. His molars ground together hard enough to crack. He knew he’d be expected to walk away. He knew it, but something in the slump of her shoulders kept him rooted to the spot. Raising his arm, he coughed once into his fist. Lane rocketed up, dashing at her tears with the back of her hand.
“Oh.” Her face fell. “You.”
“I came to tell you to keep it down.” He pressed a finger to the spine of a book, feigning interest in the title. “There’s a noise ordinance in the library.”
She rubbed at the upturned tip of her nose and said nothing. Her total lack of a rebuke made his jibe fall flat. She looked as vulnerable as he’d ever seen her, swimming in a rumpled hoodie and joggers, sprigs of lavender springing from her bun.
He couldn’t leave, but he couldn’t stay, either. Not where anyone could happen upon them. Peering through the shelves, he reassured himself that no one was watching before dipping his chin in the direction of the hall.
“Follow me.”
Lane’s nose crinkled in suspicion. “Why?”
He didn’t say. He only shouldered his bag and left, hoping she’d pursue.
By the time he reached the quiet cloister of study rooms, the tight wire of his chest had snared into a tangle. It left him short of breath, his teeth gritted. Lane stood just behind him, hugging her knapsack in front of her like a shield. Leering up at him through red, puffy eyes.
“I don’t have a study room booked,” she said.
He slipped a key out of his pocket and brandished it between them. “TA perk. Come on.”
They filed inside one after the other, Lane giving him as wide a berth as she could manage. The door snicked shut behind him with a brittle click. He slipped the key back into his pocket. Several paces away, Lane stood braced before the whiteboard easel like an alley cat, hackles raised.
“What are we doing here?”
“I’ve got a paper on multiversal ethical theorems.” Tossing his backpack down next to hers, he dropped into the nearest seat. A notebook stuck out of Lane’s open knapsack, spiral bound and unfamiliar. He side-eyed the pinched scrawl and said, “You can feel free to keep crying, if you find that sort of thing productive. At least in here you won’t draw an audience.”
He didn’t look up from his sideways perusal of the unfamiliar handwriting as Lane dragged out a chair and plummeted into it with far more force than the action necessitated. Jabbing an aching finger at the notebook, he asked, “What’s this?”
Lane looked where he was pointing. “Adya’s Latin notes.”
“And why do you have those?”
“Because,” she said, digging her thumbnail into a lewd drawing someone had chiseled into the table, “mine are useless.”
Leaning forward, he dragged the notebook toward him. The instant he glanced down at it, he wished he hadn’t. The top of the page was normal enough—the declensions of nouns, a list of vocabulary. Halfway down, the ink blotted. The beginnings of a phrase took shape.
Non omnis moriar.
Dawoud had written it forward. She’d scribbled it backward. She’d looped it upside down.Non omnis moriar. Non omnis moriar.Colton’s stomach went cold. He set the notebook down, metal spiral clicking wood.
“These seem pretty useless, too,” he said, striving for a detachment he didn’t feel. When he glanced up at Lane, it was to find her a thousand miles away. Chin balanced on her fist. Staring out the wide oriel window on the eastern wall. Sunlight turning her eyes to liquid viridian.
“Wednesday,” he said, softer than he’d meant to. Slowly, her gaze slid his way. “Why don’t you just tell your professors the truth?”
“I’m not embarrassed about it,” she said, “if that’s what you think. It’s just that in the moment, I’m always worried I’ll make them feel like jerks.”
“Maybe they deserve to feel like jerks.”
“Never mind.” She slumped forward, chin in her hands. “You wouldn’t get it.”
“Maybe not. But I know for a fact you emailed all their TAs over the summer. If they didn’t read the email, that’s on them.”
