Emory swallowed past the lump in her throat, forcing a smile. “Fine.”
Through the nearby cloisters, she spotted Keiran with his group of friends. Their talk of heading down to the beach for the start-of-term bonfires carried on the breeze, and though Keiran’s attention was on them, Emory got the distinct impression he’d been looking at her only a moment before.
“We missed you at the funeral.”
Her attention snapped back to Baz. There was no bitterness in his voice, no reproach. And that made it so much worse because if he knew the truth, if he knew what really happened in those caves, he wouldn’t have wanted her there to begin with.
Emory’s cheeks reddened as she tried to think of an excuse, but the truth of it was, she had none. She’d meant to go, had told him she would when he’d invited her right before they left for the summer. But the thought of facing Romie’s mother, of lying to Baz about what happened, of saying goodbye to her best friend while Emory herself got to live… She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t stand the empathic way Baz looked at her now, couldn’t bear this guilt that clawed at her insides, knowing he must have so many questions, none of which she could answer.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, averting her gaze. “I, uh… I have to get going. But I’ll see you around?”
Baz hugged his books tighter, shoulders drooping in relief or disappointment, she couldn’t tell.
Emory couldn’t get away from him fast enough.
Reaching her old dorm room felt like crossing an ocean. The underclassmen dorms stood on the far side of campus, a plain stone building overrun with ivy where students of all houses were mixed in together, paired off into rooms no matter the sigil inked on their skin. It was only in their third year at Aldryn that they joined the housing facilities specific to their respective lunar houses.
Emory fumbled miserably with the key to her room until the lock gave way at last and she hurried inside, head falling back against the door. She blew a heavy sigh, grateful for the quiet.
Her breath caught painfully as she took in the room.
On one side was her narrow metal-frame bed just as she’d left it, with its dark linens and duvet perfectly tucked in. There was the tall mahogany armoire where her clothes lay forgotten and the small desk crammed in the corner, still covered with neatly stacked books and fountain pens. Everything appeared untouched by the passing of time, as though the past four months never happened, and Emory had never left, and everything was still the same as it once was.
Except it wasn’t, because the other side of the room—Romie’s side of the room—was bare.
The bed was still there, the armoire and the desk, but everything that had made it Romie’s—the mismatched art and obscure books, the messy piles of clothes and rare, prickly plants, the forgotten cups of tea and plates riddled with crumbs… all those things were gone now, taken away like the tide took Romie herself.
There was not a trace of her left, but Emory’s mind conjured her all the same, recalling the last time they’d been here together.
That day, Romie had been hunched over her desk, swathed in a shaft of dwindling sunlight that made her shoulder-length hair shine copper. When Emory came in, she startled, knocking over a teacup.
“Tides, are you trying to give me a heart attack?” Irritation laced her words as she righted the cup. Dusk, the stray cat she’d found on the school grounds their first week at Aldryn and taken in despite the rules against keeping pets in the dorms, jumped off her lap with an indignant meow to perch on the windowsill instead.
Emory dropped her books on her own desk. “Well, it is a new moon. Could be a good way to test my healing skills on a live subject.”
Romie didn’t seem in the mood for jokes. She furiously wiped the tea from the papers stacked haphazardly on her desk, angling her body as if to shield them from Emory.
“What’s so interesting you couldn’t be bothered to meet me for supper? I was stuck listening to Penelope talk about Darkbearer magic for what felt like hours.”
Emory tried to keep her tone light, but it came out sharp-edged. Loaded. She couldn’t help it: Romie had been acting all kinds of strange lately, constantly disregarding their plans, withdrawn and secretive in a way she’d never been before. In truth, Emory had noticed a change in her from the moment they’d arrived at Aldryn. She hadn’t wanted to see it at first, blaming their heavy workload and differing schedules for the rift that had opened between them. They’d known each other since they were ten years old. They’d shared everything. But something had shifted, and Emory was too scared to ask why that was—too scared of losing her one true friend.
“Just research,” Romie said distractedly as she gathered her tea-stained papers and stuffed them in her satchel.
Emory eyed the rumpled state of Romie’s clothes, her unmade bed. “Have you been here sleeping all afternoon?”
“I was practicing. You know, Dreamer stuff.”
Dreamer stuff. It was what she’d been saying for the past few months, brushing off every moment she spent in the sleepscape—the realm of dreams—like it was nothing. Like it wasn’t hollowing her out, depleting her of the bright energy she used to glow with.
“You can’t keep doing this, Ro. Missing class, spending all that time in dreams? It can’t be healthy.”
“I’m fine.”
“The bags under your eyes beg to differ.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
Romie shouldered her bag and moved toward the door. Something gripped Emory at the sight of her hand on the knob, as though she knew that if Romie walked out then, the rift between them would become an unbridgeable chasm.
“Ro. I’m serious. Is everything all right with you?”
She watched the tension in her friend’s shoulders ease, and when Romie turned to her, lips upturned in a signature smile, brown eyes molten in the golden hour light, she thought perhaps she might have imagined these past weeks, months—that everything might still be the same between them.
“Everything’s fine, Em.” She stood there for a moment, and though her smile never wavered, a shadow of doubt darkened her face. Emory thought she might come clean then, finally spill the secrets she’d been letting consume her, but Romie merely pulled the door open and said, “I’ll see you later, all right?”
Once the door shut behind her, Emory looked at Romie’s desk, too curious and concerned to let it go. Forgotten beneath a vial of salt water, half stained with tea, was a piece of parchment artfully burnt around the edges. The letters S.O. were stamped in the middle of the note. Emory flipped it over, where an inscription had been written in sprawling silver script: Dovermere Cove, 10 p.m.
She put the note back where she found it, dread making her mouth taste like ash. Students tended to avoid Dovermere Cove because of the dark stain its infamous sea caves cast on it. Tales of all the drownings that took place there over the years were the first thing freshmen were told when starting at Aldryn. There were always a few foolhardy students who went into the caves looking to prove something to their peers, though Emory didn’t think Romie would be reckless enough to do so. Yet when the clock neared ten and Romie still hadn’t come back to their room, panic seized her. She looked at the note again, wondering what S.O. might stand for and if it had anything to do with Romie’s change in behavior.
Unable to shake this sense of foreboding in her bones, Emory pocketed the note and went down to Dovermere Cove just in time to see Romie and seven other students slip into the caves where they would meet their end.
Emory shook the haunting image of that night from her mind. The room suddenly felt too stuffy. Too small. She rushed to the stained-glass window between the beds and threw it open wide, letting the breeze in to kiss her face. She took a deep breath, then another, and the panic that wanted to pull her under slowly receded.