The question jars him, and he seems to realize he shouldn’t be sharing this much. He hesitates, then says, “He went to stay with his aunt Joan.”
“Great-aunt,” I correct absently.
“He told you about her?”
“A little,” I say. Joan was the woman who passed her key and her job on to Wesley. The one the Archive cut full of holes when she retired just to make sure its secrets were safe. The fact that I’ve heard of Joan seems to satisfy something in Cash, and his reluctance dissolves.
“Yeah, well, he was supposed to go stay with her for the summer,” he says, “to get away from the divorce—it was brutal—but Hyde started back up in the fall, and he wasn’t here. Our whole sophomore year, it was like he didn’t exist. You have to understand—he didn’t call, didn’t write. There was just this void.” Cash shakes his head. “He’s loud in that way you don’t really notice till he’s gone. Anyway, sophomore year comes and goes without him. And then summer break comes and goes without him. And finally junior year comes around, and there he is at lunch, leaning up against the Alchemist like he never left.”
“Was he different?” I ask as we reach the office door at the mouth of the glass lobby. That was the year he became a Keeper.
Cash stops with his fingers on the handle. “Apart from the black eye I gave him? Not really. If anything, he seemed…happier. And I was just glad to have him back, so I didn’t pry. Wait here, I’ll grab you some prospective student pamphlets.”
He vanishes into the office, and I glance absently around the hall. It’s covered in photographs—though covered suggests chaos, and these are all immaculately hung, each frame perfectly level and perfectly equidistant from the others. Each one has a small, elegant date etched into the top. In every picture, a group of students stands, shoulders touching, in several even rows. Senior classes, judging by the gold stripes in the more recent color photos. The years count backward along both walls, with the most recent years here by the mouth of the lobby and the older ones trailing away down the hall. Like most of the posh private schools, Hyde hasn’t always been coed. As I backtrack through the years, the girls vanish from the group photos, appearing in their own set and then disappearing altogether, along with the reds and blues and golds, leaving only boys in black and white. I let my eyes wander the walls, not knowing what I’m looking for until I find it. When I do, everything in me tenses.
He could have gone to any of the schools in the city, but he didn’t. He went here.
In the frame marked 1952, several dozen boys stand in rigid rows, stern, well-groomed, elegant. And there, one row down and several students in, is Owen Chris Clarke.
His silver-blond hair registers as white in the colorless photo, and that, plus the shocking paleness of his eyes, makes him look like a flare of light in the wash of black uniforms. The ghost of a smile brushes his lips, like he knows a secret. And maybe he does. This would have been before—before he graduated, before he was made Crew, before Regina was murdered, before he brought her back, before he killed the Coronado residents and jumped from the roof. But at the time of the photo, he was already a Keeper. It shows in his eyes, in his taunting smile, and in the hint of a ring on the hand resting on another student’s shoulder…
“You ready?”
I pull away from the photograph to find Cash standing there, holding a short stack of pamphlets.
“Yeah,” I say, my voice a little shakier than I’d like, as I cast another glance at the photo.
You and I are not so different.
I frown. So what if Owen went here? He’s gone. This is nothing more than a faded photograph, a glimpse of the past—a perfectly reasonable place for a dead boy to be.
“Let’s go,” I say as I take the papers.
Cash walks me out.
“Where’s your car?” he asks, surveying the parking lot, which has already emptied out quite a bit.
I cross to the bike rack and give Dante a sweeping gesture. “My ride.”
He blushes. “I didn’t mean to assume—”
I wave him off. “It’s like a convertible, really. Wind through my hair. Leather seats…well, seat.” I dig my workout pants out of my bag and tug them on under my skirt.
He smiles, gold eyes drifting down to the sidewalk. “Maybe we could do this again tomorrow.”
“You mean school?” I ask, unlocking the bike and swinging my leg over. “I think that’s the idea. Doesn’t work very well if you only go once.” I try to say it straight-faced, but the smile slips through.
Cash breaks into a warm laugh as he turns to go. “Welcome to Hyde, Mackenzie Bishop.”
His easy joy is contagious, and I feel myself still grinning as I watch him retreat through the gates. Then I look back out over the parking lot and all the warmth goes cold.
The man from this morning, the one with gold hair and gold skin, is leaning back against a tree at the edge of the lot, sipping coffee out of a to-go cup, and he’s looking at me. This time he doesn’t even try to hide it. The sight of him is like a brick through a glass window, shattering the mundane. It’s a reminder that life couldn’t be further from normal. Normal is a thing I might dream about, if I weren’t too busy having nightmares.
There’s one thing scarier than the fact I’m being followed. And that’s who is following me. Because there’s only one possible answer: the Archive. The thought makes my blood run cold. I can’t imagine it’s a good thing, being tailed by Crew. And that’s exactly what he is. What he has to be.
The way he sips his coffee and shifts his weight and his unguarded body language create an illusion of boredom that’s dampened only by his gaze, which is sharp, alert. But that’s not what gives him away. It’s the confidence. A very specific and dangerous kind of confidence. The same kind Owen had.
The confidence exuded by someone who knows they can hurt you before you hurt them.
The golden man’s eyes meet mine, and he smiles with half his mouth. He takes another sip of his coffee, and I take a step toward him just as a horn goes off in the parking lot. The sound steals my attention for a second, even less, but by the time I look back at the man, he’s gone.
Great.
I wait a second to see if he’ll reappear, but he doesn’t, and I’m left with only a sinking feeling in my stomach and the nagging question: why is the Archive having me followed?
The worry eats at the last of my energy as I pedal home. By the time I get there, my vision is starting to blur from fatigue. When I dismount, the world rocks a little. I have to stand still a moment, wait for the dizziness to pass before I drag myself through the doors and up the stairs.
I want sleep.
I need sleep.
Instead, I go hunting.
SIX
I STIFLE ANOTHER yawn as I step out of the stairwell and into the third floor hall, grateful that Harker’s still the only name on my list. After stashing my skirt in my schoolbag and shoving that behind a table halfway down the hall, I straighten my ponytail in the mirror above the table and fetch the key out from under my collar. The transformation is complete: student to Keeper in under a minute.
Across from the mirror is a painting of the sea, and just beside that is a crack in the wall. A seam where the worlds don’t quite line up. No one else sees it, but I do, and when I tug off my ring, the crack becomes clearer, the keyhole tucked into the fold. I slot my key, and the Narrows door blossoms like a stain, the faded wallpaper darkening as the frame presses against the surface. A thread of light carves the outline of the door, and I turn the key, hear the hollow click, and step through into the dark. I’m lifting my fingers to the nearest wall, about to read the surface for signs of Harker, when I think I hear it.