My brain leaps to the impossible.
I can’t go barging into the guys’ quarters, and I’ve checked everywhere else. Everywhere except—
The library.
As soon as I’m out the door, a rush of evening air greets my lungs. I race past Mr.Kovacs, who hollers at me to slow down, but I can’t. And I don’t. Not until I’m yanking on the double doors of Chelmsford and letting the warm, musty-vanilla scent wash over me.
And there, toward the very back of the room, sits William.
His head is bent over a book, loose tendrils of deep golden hair hanging on either side of his cheekbones as he reads. It’s so perfectly ordinary, which makes me hesitate before padding over and taking a seat across from him.
He looks up, then immediately stands by way of greeting.
“Miss Car—er,Delaney,” he says with a note of surprise.
I take him in. He wears the Ivernia uniform: steel-blue tie, white button-down, navy slacks. Does that mean his luggage arrived? I’m not sure. Part of me feels like I’m losing it.
“Hi,” I say carefully as he sits back in his chair. “Studying?”
His gaze flicks toward his physics textbook. “I don’t believe Sumner enjoys my company, though I do fear his habits and behaviors are objectively appalling and, quite frankly, unbefitting for a gentleman.”
“Um,” I say slowly, unprepared for this pivot. “I’ll admit thatgentlemanisn’t the first word I associate with Sumner, but—”
“He lives in filth,” he interrupts. “His attire is undesirable and comparable to a degenerate. He has ambition and a strong aspiration to accomplish, but as for his company and conversation? I believe his mannerisms could be improved.”
“Please don’t tell me you told him that.”
“Of course I did.”
I groan. No wonder Sumner’s fed up.
The smooth leather in my hands reminds me why I’m here. “I think I have something of yours.” I slide the journal across the table and watch his eyes widen, brows slightly raised. He recognizes it. His throat works around a hard swallow, and I track the movement.
“I—” he begins, then stops. Flips through a few pages. “I thought I’d left this behind.”
“It seems important, like it was passed down to you? From an ancestor?” My mind scrolls through the looping dates etched on thick parchment. There’s an explanation for this, one that doesn’t involve the unhinged theories sparking like ignited embers in the depths of my brain.
A terse silence.
“It belongs to me,” he says, eyes lifting to meet mine. “My findings, educational notes. Things of that sort.”
My nerve endings hum like a tuning fork. “It’s just—I couldn’t help but notice…the dates.”
He nods. “After a few very strange days, I began collecting evidence that this”—his hand sweeps across the room—“is all a dream. One where I’m expected to be someone else entirely, though I cannot explain why for the life of me, and I cannot seem to wake no matter how hard I try.”
My mouth dries. I run my hand across the table. “This?” I pickup his textbook, drop it back down with a sturdythud. “Isn’t a dream. I—”
I sweep my gaze toward students bent over books and hunched over laptops. There’s an occasional glance in our direction. We need privacy. I stand. “Can you come with me?” I say, quashing my growing panic.
He rises from his seat and follows me out the door, where we cross the quad in a contemplative silence. I swipe us into the admin building, ushering him down the hall until we’re outside my intended destination. The Forgotten Lounge.
The space was meant to act as a second student lounge, an area where you could socialize and play games and not worry about your volume, but it was inconveniently placed away from the houses and too far to walk to in the cold winter months. Hence the name.
Sunken couches, wheel-less wheely chairs, wobbly tables, and a cracked Ping-Pong table are scattered across the thin beige carpet, which muffles our footsteps as the door closes behind us. A stale musk hangs in the air, like a window hasn’t been cracked in a long time. It probably hasn’t, and despite this, you would not believe the number of secret hookups that have occurred here. This, however, is not my objective. I needed a place we wouldn’t be overheard. Except—
A burst of springy coils pops up behind one of the sagging couches. “Hi!”
“Hey, Lionel,” I say.
