The alarm went off at six and I killed it with the kind of violence usually reserved for mosquitoes and people who spoil ani finales. Friday. The day before the festival. The last dress rehearsal, the final setup window, and approximately fourteen hours until I had to stand in a gymnasium wearing a cape and fake fangs while serving thed beverages to teenagers who would photograph every second of it for social dia clout.
I lay on the couch staring at the ceiling. Gerald maintained his accusatory vigil from the kitchen counter. The water stain had grown another centiter overnight, a slow brown continent expanding its borders while I slept.
My phone had seventeen notifications. Vivienne’s schedule revision, naturally, because the woman operated on the assumption that sleep was a suggestion and 5:47 AM was a reasonable ti to send a docunt titled "FESTIVAL LOGISTICS FINAL (v.23)." Harlow had sent a photo of my butler vest hanging on her mannequin with a string of sparkle emojis and a voice note I was afraid to play at this hour. Cassidy sent a single text at midnight that read "don’t forget the graph paper tomorrow or I’ll end you" followed by a skull emoji, which could have been about our morning tutoring session or could have been a literal death threat. With Cassidy, both options carried equal probability.
Sabrina’s daily ssage had arrived at 11:00 PM on the dot, sa as every other night that week. Tonight it said: "The cafe nu needs one more drink. Sothing for people who don’t like sweet things. Think about it."
I had thought about it. I’d thought about it at 11:01, and then again at 11:47, and then at 1:30 AM when I should have been unconscious. I’d co up with three options, texted her one at 2 AM, and she’d responded within thirty seconds with a single word: Perfect.
The woman slept less than and sohow looked better for it. Life was not fair and Sabrina Valentine was proof.
I rolled off the couch, checked on Iris through her cracked bedroom door. She was burrowed under her comforter with only the crown of her dark hair visible and one arm hanging off the mattress, fingers still curled around a pencil she’d fallen asleep holding. Her sketchbook lay open on the pillow beside her, and even from the doorway I could see the half-finished panel of a girl with cat ears wielding an enormous sword. The pencil lines were confident and clean, way better than anything I could manage. She’d gotten her talent from sowhere, and it sure as hell wasn’t from or Diana.
I closed the door softly and started the coffee.
The drive to Hartwell took the usual two hours. Traffic on the turnpike was light for a Friday, which ant I only wanted to commit three acts of vehicular aggression instead of the typical seven. The Lexus humd along at seventy-four miles per hour because I refused to give campus security any excuse to run my plates. The morning sun turned the Manhattan skyline gold through the windshield, and for approximately forty-five seconds I felt sothing that might have been peace.
Then Cassidy texted: "Where are you. I’m in the library. It’s 7:46 and you said 7:45. You’re LATE."
The peace died.
I parked in my usual spot between a white Porsche and a matte gray BMW, grabbed my bag from the passenger seat, and headed toward the main building. The campus already humd with festival energy even though the actual event wasn’t until tomorrow. Soone had taped orange and black strears to the front columns overnight, and a banner reading "HARTWELL FALL FESTIVAL" hung across the entrance in letters large enough to be read from orbit. Patterson must have been involved because the banner included a line at the bottom in smaller font: "3-A WILL TRIUMPH."
The man had lost his mind. Good for him. At least one of us was enjoying the ride.
I found Cassidy in the library at our usual table, and the sight of her stopped in the doorway for a full two seconds that I would deny under oath.
She wore her glasses. The black-frad ones that made her purple eyes look bigger and slightly rounder, the ones she claid to hate but kept wearing because they helped her focus. Her hair was down today, no ponytail, the wine-red and black streaks falling past her shoulders in waves she hadn’t bothered to straighten. The uniform blazer hung open over a white button-down that she’d left untucked on one side but not the other, as though she’d started getting dressed and then gotten distracted by sothing more interesting, like plotting my murder.
The skirt was hiked. Obviously. Cassidy Valentine had never once in her seventeen years of existence worn a regulation-length skirt, and today was no exception. Her navy thigh-highs had slipped down on the left side, bunching at the knee in a way that exposed a stripe of bare skin between the stocking top and the skirt hem, and she either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
She didn’t notice. That was the thing about Cassidy. The whole disheveled bombshell thing wasn’t performance. Vivienne perford. Cassidy just existed with the volu turned all the way up and the safety off, and sohow that was worse. Infinitely worse. Because when soone was trying to look attractive, your brain could file it under seduction attempt and deploy counterasures. When soone just sat in a library wearing glasses and ssy hair with her stocking falling down and no idea how that combination could ruin a man’s entire morning, there was nothing to defend against.
Her colored pens were arranged in the order I’d taught her. Red for variables. Blue for operations. Green for solutions. Black for notes. The graph paper I’d given her last week was covered in practice problems she’d completed the night before, and even from the doorway I could see the neat boxes of her work, each step isolated and labeled the way we’d drilled together.
Twenty problems. Completed. Before I even walked in.
She looked up when I reached the table and her expression did the thing it always did when I appeared. Her eyes went wide for a fraction of a second, then narrowed imdiately into a scowl as if she’d just rembered she was supposed to be hostile. The blush started at her ears and would reach her cheeks in approximately twelve seconds if past data held.
"You’re late."
"By ninety seconds."
"Ninety seconds is ninety seconds." She shoved the graph paper across the table without eting my eyes. "Check these. I did them at two in the morning because I couldn’t sleep and don’t you dare say that’s unhealthy."
"It’s unhealthy."
"I said don’t."
I sat down across from her, pulled the pages toward , and started reviewing her work. The library slled like old books and the lemon polish Mrs. Chen used on the shelving, and the morning light ca through the tall windows at an angle that turned the dust motes gold. Cassidy watched grade with an intensity that could have cut glass, her knee bouncing under the table hard enough that I felt the vibration through the wood.
Problem one. Correct. Problem two. Correct. Problem three, she’d made a sign error on the second step but caught it herself, crossed it out, and redone the calculation below with the right answer circled in green.
"You caught your own mistake on three."
"Obviously." Her voice was sharp but her shoulders relaxed half an inch. "I’m not an idiot."
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