“Why not?”
“Because,” he says, running his teeth along his lower lip, “I intend to make it hard.”
His words confirm her suspicion that he chose to mentor her not because he thinks she’s talented, but because he wants someone to fuck with. Fine, she’ll keep her guard up, even as his gaze traces her features, landing on her mouth.
Instinctively, Dez looks at his mouth, too. And she wants him. Shecan’t help it. But before she knows it, Rafe has started down the corridor, disappearing where the light recedes.
“Where are you going?” she calls.
“To get you access to the Vault. Keep up.”
They walk in total darkness for a few paces, then a few paces more, until they’ve been walking so long in the pitch-black hall that Dez loses track of time, of space, even of herself. Finally, Rafe’s footsteps stop.
Dez slams into him, her face against the broad crevice of his back. The collision of their bodies sets off a series of explosions inside her. The heat of his skin through his clothes. His petrichor scent flooding her senses, as if she can feel it inside her.
He puts one hand on her back and presses an obscure space in the shadowy wall. The stone recedes, and on the other side, a light shines through. Dez looks inside and sees a small chamber that reminds her of a ticket booth at a train station. Rafe gestures her inside—
Where Esther’s walking out with her mentor, Yael’s fuck-boy Felipe. She’s rubbing her eyes like she’s been crying. Dez reaches for her arm.
“Esther, you okay?”
Felipe blocks Dez, putting up a hand. “Don’t touch her. It’s very fresh.”
“What is?” Dez asks.
“I thought we’d completed all the first-years,” a voice calls from within. Dez looks up to see Dr. Ezekiel standing behind a glass divider on the far side of the room. “Have you brought me another?”
“This is Desdemona,” Rafe says.
“Ah, yes. The last of the first.” Dr. Ezekiel opens a door in the glass divider and steps through it to stand before Dez. She swallows as he sizes her up.
His office is crammed with shelves holding strange curiosities—ancient Bunsen burners, broken mirrors, bird and butterfly wings cased in resin, and a whole glass case of antique syringes. Dez wonders if they’re props for movies being filmed this term.
Dr. Ezekiel walks over to a large wooden cabinet about five feet high and two feet wide. “Are you ready?”
“Is this the mind’s-eye access?” she asks.
He beams. “You look frightened. It won’t hurt.”
“Well, Dez is soft,” Rafe says.
Dez glares at him. Soft?
“I’m ready,” she tells Dr. Ezekiel. Whatever it is, if Rafe’s watching, she can handle it.
“Come close,” Dr. Ezekiel says, beckoning to a small metal pyramid on top of the cabinet. But instead of a sharp point, the pyramid’s top is a flat glass panel shaped like spectacles. She realizes she’s supposed to look down into the cabinet through them.
“What is this thing?” she asks.
“The first movie projector,” Dr. Ezekiel says. “This is Thomas Edison’s personal prototype of the kinetoscope, circa 1891.”
“No way,” Dez says, glancing at Rafe. “But how does it project? It looks like it’s designed for one person at a time.”
“Everything has to start somewhere,” Dr. Ezekiel says.
Carefully, Dez leans over the cabinet and presses her face against the primitive viewfinder. She sees only a vacant, blurry white.
“Remember,” Dr. Ezekiel says, “the most important thing is that you keep your eyes open. If you blink, the access will fail.”
