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I start listing useless possibilities in my head: I could use it to force myself into a guaranteed uninterrupted nap after a twelve-hour day, or stage a dramatic faint to skip one of those interminable faculty meetings.

I could use it on Baryn—tempting, definitely not useless.

Maybe on Theo, just a little, to see if it would make him forget whatever point he was in the middle of making. That would be cute.

I glance toward him, already imagining the expression he’ll make when I tell him we might have a working chloroform recipe sitting right here. Equal parts concern and disapproval.

He’ll ask if I touched it.

I will say no.

I will be lying, absolutely unapologetic.

I lift the corner of the tempered glass cover and peer at the workstation. There are small jars with faded labels and a notebook with page after page of angular handwriting.

I tell myself I’m only inventorying, strictly professional.

I tell myself this is research, and research is my job, and my job requires thoroughness.

I take a breath. It’s the last competent decision I make.

I lean closer to the workspace and reach for the notebook, and my fingers nudge one of the jars by accident.

It tips over, and apparently the lid was loose, because clear liquid seeps out.

It isn’t like in the cartoons, no matter how clown-level this situation has become. It’s a sweet, not entirely unpleasant scent and it makes my nose twinge.

The world tilts an inch.

My thoughts shorten: huh, that is unexpected; also, oh no.

The next thing I know the bench is unfurling away from me, the hum of the fluorescence becomes a high, polite complaint, and there is a very formal collapse into the great unknown.

Theo’s words come from far above me, filtered through the water I seem to be submerged in—a distant what the fuck sound that doesn’t register fully.

I’m out before I even hit the floor. Blissfully unaware of the landing, I do not feel the impact when I hit. Ten out of ten. Five stars. Would absolutely pass out again.

Theo

Theo hears the noise before he sees her. A sharp scrape of metal. A soft thud.

Then silence. It’s dense and wrong and fills him with panic.

His brain stalls, every instinct narrowing to that one absence of sound. Something’s happened.

He doesn’t think, he just moves on reflex. The one he’s developed from every situation involving Lila, where instinct always beats reason to the punch.

His stool clatters when it tips over, the laptop forgotten, and he’s on the floor beside her before the sound even fades. Lila’s sprawled on the tile, one arm over her waist, the other slack against the ground.

She doesn’t move, not even the smallest flicker from her long, beautiful lashes.

His pulse slams against the base of his throat.

Every worst-case scenario he’s ever imagined pushes to the front of his mind at once.

He kneels beside her, checks her pulse. “Lila.” He says her name once, then again, louder. Nothing.

She’s warm. Breathing. Thank every god.