Page 60 of The Alchemists

“We were looking for Lily.” Her heart stopped. “Seemed like a shame to miss the dance.”

Chant turned, incrementally, to meet her eyes. She kept her face carefully neutral. Beneath the mask she was screaming.

“I heard Miss Perkins isn’t in a dancing mood tonight, alas.”

“Lils, really?” Hawleyhurst looked crestfallen. The most terrifying part was that even to her, who knew better, he seemed perfectly sincere.

“Really,” she choked out.

“Well, in case you change your mind, your BFF Allsaires is out there. He’s cutting quite the rug.” His smile was like honey smeared on a pit viper.

At his shoulder, Braithwhite chortled. Lily couldn’t control the flush that spread across her chest, then up her neck. Hawleyhurst saw it and grinned deeper. He knows. Did everyone know? Had she been the last to find out?

“Was there anything else you needed?” Chant cut in.

“We’re all set. Just…think about it, Lily.”

Her stomach curdled. She stared ahead at the branches, now whipping the windows, as their footsteps faded. Chant was quiet for a long time, watching them walk away beneath the lamplight in the academic quad. He turned to Lily, but she remained frozen.

“Have you told anyone?” His voice returned her to her body. She craned her neck to look at him, feeling like one of those rabbits who thought freezing was a form of invisibility. “About the harassment.”

She said nothing, staring past him.

Chant sighed. “He’s not playing, is he?”

Swallowing, she found her voice. “No. He’s not.”

“You should go home,” he said. “Or, I can stay here, in case they return.”

“I can handle myself.”

Normally she believed herself when she said it. Chant’s eyes said he didn’t believe her either.

“I don’t want to keep you—I’ll just finish up here, then I’ll go home.”

“You’ll go home,” he agreed, but it was mostly a command.

She nodded vigorously.

Chant rapped the desk. “I’ll see you in class then. You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” Her voice was firm.

She meant to go home, but when she looked back at the symbols, she remembered that rush of discovery and forgot about Hawleyhurst. One note became two, then four, then ten. Nearly an hour slipped by before she finally found a stopping point, buzzing with energy, about to text Seb.

Lily paused, hand in pocket, first because she thought she shouldn’t bother Sebastian during the dance, then because of the noise. It was soft enough that she thought she’d imagined it. She froze, ears straining.

Just when she’d convinced herself it was nothing, she heard it again. The lights went out. The lights in the Metaphysics Library never went out. They blazed through the night, lighting empty secrets and theorems, for anyone with a key card. She heard the noise again.

Her body thrilled with primal fear, even as it remained motionless. In the almost-blackness, broken only by the sidewalk lights outside, she couldn’t see anything. The gloom was thick and penetrating, but she felt it—a wrongness in the air.

“Boo.” The voice whispered in her ear, its lips stirring the invisible hairs on her earlobe.

Lily screamed.

She jolted at the same time that vicelike arms clamped around her chest, lifting her and dragging her backward. One of her flailing legs caught something, someone, and from the swear she identified Braithwhite.

Hawleyhurst’s knuckles slammed into her lip as he clamped his hand over her mouth and pulled her toward the hallway. She bit it. He tripped backward up the stairs, falling hard, releasing her as he tried to break his fall. Lily’s elbow hit the floor, showering white sparks in her vision, and she leapt to her feet, trying to avoid the invisible hands that scrabbled for her, accompanied by grunts and vicious profanities.