“Wednesday,” he called out, unprompted.
He wouldn’t say her name again. Lane. Lane. Lane. In the hall, Hayes and Lane stared back at him. Light from the theater spilled around them in falls of gold. It dawned on him that he hadn’t thought of anything to say. He’d only wanted to stop her leaving.
“He means you,” Hayes put in. He was still sporting his trademark easy grin, though there was something steeled off in his gaze. A warning. A reminder. There’d been a singular expectation set in place at the start of this year:Don’t make friends with the Meyers-Petrov girl.He knew it. Hayes knew it.
Delaney Meyers-Petrov was off-limits.
Colton’s thoughts spun out, scrambling for something intelligent to say. Falling woefully short, he landed only on, “You’re late.”
Next to Lane, some of the tension went out of Hayes’s shoulders. The sight of his relief rankled Colton beyond measure. He wasn’t a child. He didn’t need a keeper.
Sliding his hands into his pockets, he said, “I’m sure you’ve read the syllabus, but four counts of tardiness equal a failing grade. This is your first. Not a good look. If I were you, I wouldn’t let it happen again.”
Delaney recognized Colton Price’s name the instant she heard it.
“Price,”Eric said, and the panic ballooned in her, molten hot and instantaneous. She’d spent hours holed up in her room over the summer, tea lights burning, coffee cold, highlighting every last bit of her freshman curriculum. She’d worked color-coded deadlines into her phone, jotted earmarked project proposals into her planner. She’d memorized the names of all of Godbole’s undergrad assistants, determined to find ways to weasel into their good graces.
Thus far, she was fairly certain she hadn’t managed to succeed.
“Yikes,” whispered a student as she passed by the front row of seats. “How’d you manage to get a nickname from Whitehall’s TA so early in the semester?”
“No idea,” she lied, mortification heating her skin. She hadn’t thought anyone else had heard. At the desk, Colton Price busied himself sorting through a stack of papers. Framed by the towering whiteboard, the undergraduate senior seemed even more imposing than he had on the elevator. She didn’t know how she’d missed it. He appeared to be only a year or two older, but the stark professionalism of his attire set him instantly apart from the rest of the students. His sweater looked dry-clean-only, his trousers freshly pressed. His shoes were finely tooled brogues, the same shade of brown as the neat curl of his hair. Only his tie sat askew.
She chose a seat several rows back, climbing the stairs and wedging herself into the rounded shell of a particleboard desk. Immediately in front of her was an explosion of ginger curls. The coils bobbed, ringlets springing every which way, and Delaney was met with bright hazel eyes, a face smattered with an abundance of freckles.
“Hi.” The girl was solidly built and filled her frame well, dressed in a ruffled smock. A silver moon pendant hung around her throat. “For the record, I think you look much more like a Harley Quinn than a Wednesday Addams.”
Delaney’s spirits sank impossibly lower. “You heard that, too?”
“The door was wide open, Wednesday,” she said. “Everyone heard.”
“Great.” Delaney focused on prying a pen loose from her bag. “My name’s actually Lane.”
“Oh, well, you look infinitely like a Lane.” The girl’s smile was feline sharp, her stare astute. “I’m Mackenzie. I really love your hair. You definitely shouldn’t cut it.”
Delaney frowned. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
“If you’re done socializing, we can go ahead and get started.” Colton Price’s chilly tenor drifted over them, and Delaney swore the temperature in the room dropped several degrees. Peering toward the front of the room, she found Colton propped against the edge of Whitehall’s desk, ankles crossed and palms pressed flat against the surface.
Silence fell at once, papers rustling to a standstill. Through an open transom window slipped the timorous trill of birdsong. Delaney felt it run through her, haunting and clear. All around the room, shadows shifted in the places where the light didn’t reach, settling flat and heavy against the paneled carpet.
“It’s entirely normal,” her psychiatrist told her parents once, “for children to personify inanimate objects.”
She was eighteen.Eighteen.The shadows were only shadows. She shut her eyes. Opened them again. Colton Price sat in her immediate line of sight. He cut an impressive figure, the easy sag of his shoulders carrying the suggestion of old money and genetic arrogance.
She’d called him an asshole.
Right to his face.
He was responsible for overseeing her coursework, and she’d insulted him.
“Just like last year,” he said, “my office hours are Tuesday and Thursday nights from six to ten. If it’s not an emergency, I don’t want to see you. If itisan emergency, I still don’t want to see you, so seriously consider whether it merits a visit or an email before you interrupt my evening.”
This was met with scattered laughter. At the front of the room, Colton didn’t look like he was joking. He reached into his pocket and fished out a single nickel, holding it up to the light until it winked silver.
“Have you ever seen a magic trick?” The coin flipped between the knuckles of his left hand—there and gone in a flash of surprising dexterity. “The magician starts the trick by showing his audience something ordinary. Something easy to understand. Maybe it’s a coin. Maybe it’s a box. Maybe it’s a clear stretch of sky.” He held up his hand, now empty. “Next,” he said, “the magician does something extraordinary with that ordinary thing. If it’s a coin, he makes it disappear. If it’s a box, he places his assistant inside it. If it’s the sky, he steps clean through.”
His eyes met Delaney’s and stayed there.
