He dropped his pencil midspin, whispering, “Do you know how dangerous that is? You should have brought me with you!”
“No way. If I get caught, I’m not taking you down with me.”
We listened to the rest of the lecture in silence. “Your composition projects are due the week after Thanksgiving, so be sure you’re making good progress,” Powell concluded.
Simon turned to me. “Want to meet tomorrow?”
“Don’t you have practice? And games?”
He considered this. “No game on Thursday. I’ll come by after practice.”
Bree shifted, clearly listening in.
“Can’t wait,” I said, as the bell rang.
I thought we’d continue the conversation, but Bree managed to intercept him—and he didn’t try to avoid her. Meanwhile, Eliot was strangely quiet as he walked me to lit.
“What’s wrong?” When he didn’t answer, I hip-checked him. “Spill. More problems?”
“Why did you fix that inversion? You should have notified the Consort instead of going it alone.”
“This was faster.”
“Bullshit. Key World inversions are a huge deal. Even you know that. You want to be responsible for another Roanoke? You aren’t in enough trouble?”
The disappearance of the Roanoke settlement had mystified historians for more than four hundred years. An entire town had vanished into thin air, leaving behind an inexplicably empty settlement. Nobody knew what happened.
Except for the Walkers. The lost colony of Roanoke hadn’t vanished. It had inverted, but the Consort of the 1800s—spread thin in a vast country with no efficient means of communication—hadn’t noticed until it was too late. What had begun as a small inversion had grown to take over the entire island, swapping places with an Echo where Europeans had never found North America, and the area was populated by the Croatan tribe. When the inversion had finally taken root, the Originals had been swept away, leaving behind a few pieces of their settlement—fence posts, a ring, the fort—that had slipped through the strings.
Not our proudest moment. Even today, Walkers patrolled the area, shoring up the weakness left behind, trying to prevent another inversion of that magnitude.
“You’re overreacting,” I said. “It was tiny. I fixed it. Addie showed me how the other day.”
“Well, gee. If Addie showed you one time, I’m sure you’re totally qualified. Nothing to worry about.”
I swallowed. This was Eliot. I could trust him. “Remember how I tried to isolate a break at that basketball game, and Addie had to tune it?”
“Hard to forget,” he said.
“The inversion came from that Echo.”
His face went blank, and I knew he was calculating odds in his head. “That’s not a coincidence.”
“I think it was my fault. I couldn’t let the Consort find out, or they’d blame me.” And cleave the world, with Simon in it.
He blew out a breath. “You can’t do that again. No more Walking on your own, Del. Between inversions and the increased breaks . . . it’s too dangerous.”
“That’s why I have your map, boy genius. I’ll be fine.”
“No. From here on out, I’m going with,” he said, gripping the straps of his backpack.
I thought about the things that Eliot did not like: Breaking rules. Walking to unmapped branches. Simon Lane. All of which he’d see in abundance if he came with me. “You don’t have to. If they catch us . . .”
“I’d be in the same situation as you,” he finished with a half smile. “I can think of worse fates.”
I sighed. “This is very unlike you.”
“Or maybe it isn’t, and you never noticed.”
The thought settled uncomfortably in the pit of my stomach. For the first time in ages I studied him. He wasn’t bad-looking, actually. He had the narrow, lean build of a swimmer, but you could hardly tell under the baggy cargo pants and too-big oxford he wore unbuttoned over a T-shirt. The tight curls of his hair were starting to poke out in odd directions, in need of a trim. Behind the thick black-framed glasses, his eyes were warm, and his smile was wide and sweet, a dimple peeking out on one side. If he put the slightest effort into it, he could have girls falling all over him.
It was a strange notion: Eliot as heartthrob. He didn’t realize it. He probably wouldn’t do anything about it even if he did.
“You’re impossible,” I said, untwisting his collar. “Do you even look in the mirror before you leave the house?”
He covered my hand with his. “Del. No more Walking without me. Promise.”
I smoothed his shirt and drew my hand away. Then I nodded, and he smiled. “I’m not giving up on Park World, either. You’ll get reinstated, and we’ll live happily ever after.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said. When I looked away, Simon was watching us across the hallway, eyebrows raised.
CHAPTER THIRTY
BY THE TIME Simon arrived at my house to work on our project Thursday night, I was worn-out and cranky from the week’s sessions with Addie. I’d avoided his Echoes, afraid of triggering a break or an inversion or Addie’s suspicions. But the sight of his tall frame hunched over the piano made me forget about the anxiety that had driven me over the last few days.
“You really are terrible.” I laughed, resting the violin on my knee.
“Told you. We should have done something with drums.”
“And I told you, you can’t do counterpoint with percussion. Unless you’ve decided to take up the marimba.”
“Um, no. Strictly a drum-set kind of guy.”
“Why did you stop playing?”
“One of the high school coaches saw me play basketball in seventh grade. Told me if I got serious, I could probably win a scholarship. It wasn’t like we had a lot of money lying around, so I got serious, and the other stuff fell away. Between practice and conditioning and camps and tournaments . . . I had to make a choice.”
The range of his Echoes made more sense. Each one had followed a path he’d turned away from. Each one had taken up a life he’d left behind. He’d followed his path with the same single-mindedness I had. “Do you miss it?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Sometimes. I wasn’t terrible.”
He would have been a good drummer. He had an innate understanding of rhythm. It was melody that tripped him up. Hands that were agile and precise on the basketball court fumbled constantly on the keys, mangling signatures and chords. He didn’t need the metronome—his timing was perfect—but his playing was a disaster.
“Congratulations,” I said. “You are officially the worst piano player I’ve ever heard.”
“I could whistle.” He pursed his lips, making a noise like a deeply angry seagull.
“What was that?”
“Our song.” He looked hurt. “You couldn’t tell?”
“We’ll figure something out,” I said. His Echo had whistled well enough to call Iggy the other night, but he’d had years of practice.
“I don’t understand why we have to play it. It’s music theory, right? That’s the opposite of performance. This is not what I signed on for, you know. Before Powell took over, this class was an easy A. It’s like a bait and switch.”
“You’re mad because you’re used to getting what you want. Everything comes easy to you, doesn’t it?”
“Not everything,” he grumbled. “You know what else isn’t fair?”
Idly I played a few notes. “That you’re partnered with a virtuoso? I admit, it’s very yin-yang of Powell.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of how you keep cutting class. Nobody ever busts you.”
My fingering slipped. “What do you mean?”