“But we’re so close. How can I pass up the opportunity to see inside the life of the mysterious Wesley Ayers?”
“Because I’m not offering,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “Look, it’s a big house. Soulless. And I hate it. That’s all you need to know.” He seems genuinely annoyed, so I let it go. He’s so quick to defend the school, even with all its pretention, but whatever’s at his house must be worse. The image of Wesley sitting on some grand patio with a butler shudders and breaks.
He starts walking away, and I follow. We move in silence through the Narrows, our senses tuned to the dimly lit corridors around us. I try to make a mental map of these new halls. It’s not enough to know the number of rights and lefts—Da taught me how to learn a space, make a memory of it so I could find my way through in both directions and correct my course if I strayed. It’s harder this time, since there’s already a nearly identical territory mapped in my head.
“Are you going to tell me what happened to your hands?” asks Wes.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“You promised me a story.”
“It isn’t a very nice one,” I say, but I still tell him. His steps slow. Even in the dark, I can see him pale as he listens.
“I would have killed them,” he says under his breath.
“I nearly did,” I say. I carved Eric out of the story. I don’t want Wesley to worry, not until there’s a good reason to. Luckily the appearance of the territory wall saves me from having to say more.
The boundary between Wesley’s territory and mine looks like a dead end, bare except for the keyhole set into it. It’s strange, I think, how separate Keepers are kept. Crew may be paired up, but we’re isolated. Each on his own page.
Wes slides his key into the small, glowing mark on the otherwise bare wall; as he does, the door takes shape around the lock, the stony surface rippling into wood. The lock turns over with a soft metallic click, and he pulls the door open to reveal my section of the Narrows. The same—a mirror image—and yet different. More familiar.
I free my own key from under my collar and wrap the cord around my wrist. Wes smiles and gives a sweeping bow before stepping aside to let me pass.
“Be safe,” he says, holding the door open as I cross through.
I hear it swing shut behind me; by the time I look back, there is nothing but a smooth stone wall and a tiny keyhole filled with light. A shadow crosses it briefly, and then it’s gone, and when I press my ear to the wall, I imagine I can hear Wesley’s footsteps fading. I feel the scratch of letters on my list, but I don’t pull the paper out. The History will have to wait. It might not be happy or sane, but I’ll deal with it when I get back.
I head straight through the territory to the numbered doors, my mind already on Mr. Phillip’s house as I slot the key into the first door and step out onto the third floor hall, and stop.
Eric is leaning up against the faded yellow wallpaper, reading his book.
“If I didn’t know better,” he says, turning a page, “I’d think you were avoiding me.”
“Flat tire,” I say, sliding my ring back on as the Narrows door dissolves behind me.
“I’m sure.” He closes the book and pockets it.
“You know,” I say, “there’s a word for guys who lurk outside schools.”
Eric almost smiles. “When you sneak off, it makes one think you’re up to no good.”
“When you follow people without telling them why, it makes one think the same.”
Eric winks. “How are your hands?”
I hesitate. He sounds like he actually cares. Maybe I was wrong about him. I hold them up for his inspection.
“Good,” he says. “Fast healer.”
“Comes in handy.”
“Thank your genes, Miss Bishop. Your recovery rate comes with the territory, just like your sight.”
I look down at my mending knuckles. I’d never thought much about it before, but I guess it makes sense.
Just then, the stairwell door bangs open and a woman strides through, a Crew key dangling from her fingers. She’s tall, her black eyes fringed with dark lashes, a black ponytail plunging between her shoulders and down her back, straight and knife-sharp. In fact, everything about her is sharp, from the line of her jaw and her shoulders to her fingernails and the heeled boots at the ends of her long, thin legs. I recognize her from that day in the Archive.
Eric’s partner.
“There you are,” she says, eyes flicking between us.
“Sako, my love.” There’s a warmth to his voice that matches the cold in hers. “I’ve just been educating our young Keeper here. They don’t teach them anything these days.”
I’m willing to bet I know more than Eric thinks about the ways of the Archive, but I hold my tongue.
“Well, school’s out. We have work to do.”
Eric smiles, his eyes alight. “Wonderful.”
My chest loosens. Wonderful indeed. That should keep him off my tail long enough for me to pay Mr. Phillip’s house a visit.
He starts toward Sako, and I’m halfway through letting out a breath of relief when he stops and glances back at me.
“Miss Bishop?”
“Yeah?”
“Do try to stay out of trouble.”
I smile and spread my arms. “Do I look like a troublemaker to you?”
Sako snorts and vanishes into the stairwell, Eric on her heels.
The moment they’re gone, I duck into my apartment and unearth Da’s box of things from the back of my closet, rooting around until I find what I’m looking for: a lock pick set. I ditch the school skirt for a pair of jeans and pocket the metal picks, and I’m halfway back to the front door when my phone goes off.
My heart lurches.
In the second between hearing the sound and digging the phone out of my pocket, all my fears feel suddenly silly.
The text will be from Jason, telling me he’s fine, and he’s sorry his phone was dead, and that he couldn’t find the cord, and I’ll realize how much I was making out of nothing, piling theory on theory on theory when for once Da was wrong, and it was in fact all coincidence. Maybe Bethany just found the strength to leave her necklace along with the rest of her life. Maybe Eric was hired to protect me, not get me erased. Maybe Mr. Phillip… But that’s the problem. There is no explanation for Mr. Phillip.
And the text isn’t from Jason.
It’s from Lyndsey, just saying hi.
My hope collapses, because there are no easy outs—only more questions. And only one place to go. A place that has to have answers.
I take the steps two at a time all the way down to the lobby. Then I cut right down the hall beside the staircase, through the study, and into the garden. I hoist myself up and over the stone wall, hit the pavement in a crouch, and take off running.
FIFTEEN
DA AND I are walking back to his house one scorching summer day, eating lemon ices, when he gets a call. His phone makes that certain sound it only makes when he’s being called to a scene. Unofficially, of course—Da never does anything on the books—and he hands me the last of his lemon ice and says, “You go on, Kenzie. I’ll catch up.” So of course I dump both ices and follow at a distance. He makes his way three streets over to a house that’s roped off, but clearly unattended. He goes to the back door, not the front, and proceeds to stand there until I get within earshot. Then he says, without turning, “Your ears broken? I told you to go on home.”
But when he glances back, he doesn’t look angry, only amused. He knows I’m good at keeping my hands to myself, so he nods me up onto the step and tells me to watch closely. Then he pulls a set of picks from his back pocket and shows me how to line them up, one above the other, and lets me press my ear to the lock to listen for the clicks. Da says every lock will speak to you, if you listen right. When he’s done, he rests his hand on the knob and says, “Open sesame.” The door swings open.