I waste no time vacating our classroom the moment the last bell rings. Mathematics is one of the few subjects we have that is not taught by Mrs. Hardwork. I didn't think there was ever a teacher who could make me miss that woman, but Mr. Worsley is one such rare bird. He possesses a singular and near-inhuman enthusiasm for the subject matter that could convince you God herself inhabited the Cartesian coordinate system if you parsed it hard enough. Suffice to say, I'd rather count matches in a pyromaniac's tinderbox.

I only lose the urge to run when I cross the crossroads and find myself back amongst the student dorms. By some miracle, my room key survived whatever fate befell my suitcase one; I can still unlock my own door. Clarice is not inside. I shut myself in and retrieve the Miranda Bible from underneath my mattress. Holding it now, the driving force behind my bet with Exie trickles through my fingers like so much cornstarch dough. Firm if you poke it, but it liquefies the moment I'm not directly under pressure.

I can delude myself for just a moment that I can actually uphold this part of our bargain. I grip the bible tightly, unwilling to open it and shatter my illusion like so much spun glass. Words have never been my friends, no matter how hard I want them to be.

My stupid pride wins out. I sigh and slip the bible—unopened—into the satchel I now wear during the school day, to carry all the nonexistent notebooks and pens I bring to class. The truth is, I just want somewhere to hide stuff that won't be suspicious when it comes time to be clandestine. The bible feels obvious on its own, so I stuff the satchel with a few more untouched notebooks and a handful of school supplies. If anyone asks what I'm up to with a brass geometry compass, three erasers, and a fountain pen without a single sheet of graph paper, I can always say I'm plotting someone's funeral. That tends to shut them up.

Clarice is a necessary part of me and Exie's after-school activities, which means Clarice-hunting is now a necessary part of mine. I pause to contemplate where I would go if I were a kleptomaniac given free roam of a cathedral that flaunts its stained glass windows but never lets its students touch a penny of that wealth. I snicker immediately. My destination is clear, so I stroll back to the crossroads with all the casual arrogance I learned from my father on his way to Sunday services. It takes only minutes to reach the school chapel. I peek around the organ.

"Finding shinies?" I say.

Clarice jumps so hard, she cracks her head on the keyboard's underside. "Ow," she says plaintively when she sees me. She sits back with a hand on her head and a suasive pout.

I grin. "Do you have a moment? Well, probably an hour. We want your thoughts on something."

Clarice starts to answer, then eyes me. "Who's 'we'?"

"Me and Exie. We're, uh..." I make sure we're still alone. Though even if we aren't, I guess I can play myself off as crazy for talking to the organ. "Investigating the school?" I finish in an undertone. "If that's something you want to be a part of. We've got a book that could use a second opinion, and you're most likely to recognize what's in it."

"Do you trust her?"

"Who?"

"That girl. Exie. Do you trust her?"

"Why?"

If Clarice has dirt on Exie, I'll have earned whatever natural consequences come my way. Clarice wrinkles her nose and scoots out from under the organ. She perches on the padded bench instead, kicking both feet like a schoolgirl half her age. Despite school dress code, she's not wearing shoes. I respect that.

"Are you close?" she says.

"No," I say, a little too quickly.

She gnaws her lip. "Are you sure she's a safe person to work with? She seems like... the good kind of student, if you know what I mean."

"Good how? Is that a problem?"

"She might tell a teacher."

I almost laugh. I'd love to know how many hernias this student population would suffer if they discovered Exie must-excel Quinnell nicks chairs and steals into teachers' offices past curfew. It certainly gave me back some faith in humanity.

"She won't," I say. "She wants to see this place burn just as much as I do."

Possibly even more, though the burning part is flexible. Exie's the type to try and undermine an institution from within its own charters, and I'd probably rot brainside out if I tried to do the same. I'd much rather see actual flames involved.

"If you say so," says Clarice, though she could probably use convincing.

"Look," I say. "If we get caught for something you don't want to get involved in, I can take the fall for you. The worst they can do is kick me out."

Bile lurches up my throat after those words. It's too late to snatch them back, but it's a miracle I don't go down with heartburn right then and there. I sip my next six breaths just to keep from puking. Clarice, blessedly, has gotten distracted by the organ's keyboard. She doesn't notice my failed attempt at hiding the fallout of Colson's not-death, and I've more or less composed myself by the time she starts picking at the edges of the ivory.

"So will you work with us?" I say.

Clarice shrugs and gets up. "You're the only ones doing anything. Sure."

With that, she strides back towards the crossroads with the grace of a ghost. I trot to catch up with her.

"Where are you meeting?" she asks.

"Library."

I'm panting by the time Clarice punts the library doors wide and sweeps through them with the kind of majesty only tall people come by naturally. The librarian on duty gives her a very long stare. Just this once, I'm glad I'm not the target of a staff member's attentions. We find Exie in her usual corner. She's hunched over a book with an elbow propped up on one knee, and her fingers making claws through her neatly twisted hair.

"Dating trouble?" I say, sparing none of the smugness that comes from one of us making headway on our end of the bet. I've recruited Clarice, and Exie looks like she's fighting a losing battle with a monster that breathes school supplies.

She scowls. "Very funny."

The literary reference materials strewn around her have graduated to carpet status. I pretend to inspect them, and end up actually looking at a few. Exie sits in a witch's circle of open notebooks and open tomes, an overflowing pencil case, and a smattering of loose sheets with notes scrawled across them at odd angles. The timeline she's building seems to inhabit the journal balanced on her knee, and no fewer than six scribbles grace its first page already.

"Dating?" says Clarice, tilting her head.

"The time kind."

"Oh! Like putting dates on things. Are you looking into the history of the school?"

"Trying to." Exie eyes Clarice like a cat might its owner upon mention of a bath. I feel compelled to step in.

"She's on our side," I say. "Do you want to show her the you-know-what?"

Exie snorts. "I want another pair of eyes on this stupid timeline, is what I want. Oh!" Her head jerks up, and she dons a smile so fast, it makes my skin walk all over my body. "Barnabas! Did you find anything?"

I turn to find a young man peering around the end of our row of shelves. He's an objectively good-looking specimen—one of the popular kids that so often agglomerate at the front of the student common room to trade mating calls and shows of physical or intellectual superiority. Barnabas has a nice smile, though. He's darker than most, with a clove-toned complexion, aquiline nose, and a shock of black hair that seems cheerfully rumpled by design. He's got a roguish look about him, only reinforced by a grin that radiates more innocence than an angel's backside. My money's on "gentleman thief" for this one.

Barnabas sashays towards us in a manner that seems designed to make Exie smile. This he succeeds at, and a flare of jealousy transplants her scowl to mine. Barnabas spots it. "Hey, hey," he says, and lifts both hands like he's been apprehended. His eyes widen in a sinless look that I'm finding it really hard to hate despite myself. "I'm not here to bother her. Just a favor returned, and I'll be out of your hair."

He's somehow manifested a piece of folded paper in one hand, pinched like a card between his fingers. When he's sidled past me, he offers this to Exie with a chivalrous bow. "For you, m'lady."

"Thank you, sir." Exie is enjoying this immensely. "Stop making a show of yourself before someone suspects you."

"Ah, but if everything I do is a show, who are they to believe this is any deviation?" With that, he winks at Clarice, then straightens and saunters past us both again. He pauses in front of me. "I believe you misplaced this," he says in an undertone, and holds up pinched fingers. Between them dangles a small, silver key.

I'm too startled to do anything but offer a palm for him to return my property. Barnabas drops the key in it, then pockets both his hands and maunders away. I turn the key over. It's the one for my suitcase. I clench it in a fist and lock eyes with Exie, who's watching me. She's mislaid her smile.

"Hold onto your things," she says, also in an undertone. "I had him search the staircase after, in case Colson left anything behind."

I raise an eyebrow. "For what favor?"

"Only the access code on a particular house my father knows. I won't be going back there anyway." She unfolds the paper Barnabas gave her with a flourish. "Do you want to see?"

"The house?"

"No, you dunce. Something far more useful to us."

Clarice and I crowd around. Exie still squirms about Clarice, but does not tell her to sod off, which I'll take as an improvement. The paper is a map. An old one, flaked at the edges in a way that makes it look hoarded from a pirate's chest, or at least a posh museum.

Exie drops her voice again. "You want to know why I picked the Santa Clarissa Cathedral for this project?" She taps the map's edge. "That's Vries-del-Mar. This is the closest we're going to get to..." She stops, finger frozen against the page. "Where is it?"

"Where is what?"

Exie draws a slow circle with her fingertip. "Whatever was here before this place was built. Des? Tell me I'm not blind."

I follow where she's pointing. I know the main road down from Vries-del-Mar. My parents and I rode in along it, an endless stretch of manicured dirt freckled with towns like God sneezed civilization across the countryside. I recognize the city on the other side, too. I daydreamed about pitching my parents from our coach and riding straight past Melliford Academy to reach it and build a new life in anonymity. Yet right between the two, where whatever predated this cathedral should be, that road simply ends.

It ought to be continuous. The ends are clipped like someone forgot to connect them, straddling a gap the dimensions of a mid-sized village. I blink twice to ensure I'm not seeing things. Then I lean closer. The paper isn't altered: there's no mark of erasure, no blotting or bleaching to remove this segment. I find another road, crosswise to the first. It does the same thing. The towns all around the gap are labeled and intact. But the spot we're looking for isn't just an empty field or marsh or some peasant farmer's pasture. Where Exie is pointing—where whatever came before this cathedral should be—there should be a crossroads, and therefore, a town. Instead, the map is blank. Not like something was erased. Like it was never drawn at all. 

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