And then.And then. One day, on a very unremarkable Tuesday morning, she received a letter in the mail. It was late April, the days wet and insipid. She’d huddled by the mailbox, fingers numb, and torn into the seal of the Grants and Scholarships Committee, all hard wax and insignia. The header was embossed in glimmering silver, the paper fine cream-colored card stock.
Ms. Delaney Meyers-Petrov,
Congratulations on a job well done. You are a recipient of our needs-based placement fellowship. Due to your decidedly unique capabilities, the placement committee has determined that your talents would be best utilized in a neo-anthropological field. As such, you have been assigned to Howe University’s Godbole School of Neo-Anthropological Studies. The scholarship will be sent directly to the college, indicating that it can be used for tuition, fees, or books.
Your presence is expected at the Godbole building, auditorium B, on the morning of September 1st. More information pertaining to your placement can be accessed on the global student portal. Please see the attached documents for your login information. If you have any questions, feel free to call the student resources department at the number listed below.
At the bottom, the signature of a board member was signed in a looping scrawl. She’d stood there for a long time afterward, rain needling her skin. She’d heard of Godbole. Everyone had. It was a highly prestigious yet controversial program, a magnet for those who dabbled in the occult.
It’s all smoke and mirrors, she’d seen someone comment, when a leaked video purported to show a Godbole student slipping between worlds.Anyone with a laptop can doctor footage. These students are paying into a sham.
The video looked like something out ofThe Twilight Zone. One instant, the student stood perfectly still and stared behind the camera, waiting for a cue. Then, with a nod, he took a single step. The sky swallowed him up. The air rippled like water in his wake. He didn’t reappear.
Unique capabilities, her letter said.
People had used plenty of adjectives to define Delaney Meyers-Petrov in her eighteen silent turns around the sun. Tragic Delaney, who’d fallen too sick too young. Fearful Delaney, who still slept with the lights on. Fragile Delaney, who needed constant coddling.
But capable Delaney—that was something new.
She liked the fit of it, like an unwashed sweater.
And so, on a bluebird day in September, she packed up her things and she went. To conquer the world, and maybe some others. To prove that she could.
She took a breath and she took a step.
And the shadows followed.
***
Howe University looked like everything Septembers were meant to embody—like bricks and books and new beginnings. It smelled like it, too. Fresh-cut grass and petrichor, coffee grounds and vanillin and the faint, autumnal smack of sour apples.
At the far side of the quad sat the Godbole building. An imposing glass monolith, it sparked like a diamond in the light, a structural incongruity among the neat rows of ivy-clad brick.
The irony didn’t escape her. A glass girl, bound for a glass palace.
The chilly cling of early autumn faded away the moment Delaney stepped inside. The foyer was minimalist in design and built for aesthetic. At the room’s crux, a colorless floral arrangement of dripping hyacinths sat atop a sleek marble plinth. At the windows, the sun fell and fell. Each slap of her combat boots across linoleum cracked through the space in a startling eddy of thunder, and she was unsure—as ever—if the sound was magnified only by her cochlear implant, or to everyone in the vicinity.
Fortunately, there appeared to be no one else in the vicinity, only Delaney Meyers-Petrov and endless dazzling white. She wasn’t sure if she liked it. The rest of the campus looked like old money and old books, all brick and ivy and nostalgia. But Godbole—Godbole looked like the future. It looked like Januarys, bleak and severe.
She rounded a corner, tailed by the warped slip of her reflection in the glass—high pigtails deepening to a pale periwinkle, black blouse framed by a white baby-doll collar, all punk and pastels.Loud, a woman on the T called her outfit once. Loud, to make up for the unassailable quiet. Amid the sterile white of Godbole, she stuck out like a sore thumb.
And she was alone, which meant she was likely late. She hated being late.
Up ahead sat a pair of elevators, one set of doors steadily trundling shut. She caught diminishing sight of a figure within—gray sweater and burgundy tie, the neat gloss of chestnut curls. A single striking eye met hers through the thinning gap.
“Hey,” she called out, breaking into a run. “Could you hold the—”
The doors clicked shut just as she skidded to a stop, her nose inches from the crack.
“Asshole,” she said into the metal panel, and jabbed the button with her thumb. Once, twice, three times for good measure. She stepped back to wait for the other elevator to make its way down from the fifth floor, conscious of the steady trickle of seconds passing her by.
To her horror, the first elevator ground back open. Inside stood the stranger. He lounged against the wall, hands braced on the rail, the round face of his watch winking in the light. His hooded eyes were the color of coffee, his straight nose framed by pale, prominent cheekbones. His mouth was a dagger, unsmiling. The shadows pressed against him in a way that felt hungry—like they had teeth, and he was something sweet. Like everything about him beckoned the dark.
The stranger’s brows drew together at the sight of her. He looked, she thought, surprised.
“Lane,” he said.
The day Colton Price came back from the dead, he’d opened his eyes to find a little girl peering down at him. The sky was a mid-March blue, whipped in white and fringed with trees. She bowed over him, sunlight streaming around her braids. A flat stone was clenched in her mittened hand, primed for skipping.
