“What just happened?” he asks with a smile.
I grab his hand and jump to my feet, tugging him up. “Let’s look up Dia Voletto next.”
Ben and I dart down to the first floor, where a few Guardians and their students angrily hush our excited whispers, and dash to the card catalog. In our previous lives, we both lived in the library, so we’re fine with the Dewey decimal system, which Harper’s peon Plum is groaning about near the periodical section. Hurriedly, we find four cards for books that mention or are about Dia Voletto.
“He’s the demon of ego,” Ben reads on a card as we take the stairs two at a time back to the fourth floor. Only to find the books on Dia Voletto are all gone.
“He took them,” I say.
“What more could we expect from the demon of ego?”
“Major faux pas.” We settle back to the middle of the ring of candles, which thankfully haven’t burned the place down in our absence. “Stealing books from the library.”
“Yeah. If he wasn’t already condemned to Hell.”
I begin closing the books. And Ben stacks them. But we’re moving at about half speed. I pray he’s killing time for the same reason I am: I don’t want a reason to leave. I’ll gladly pretend we need to be here as long as possible. I don’t want to go yet. I can’t imagine ever wanting to go.
When we’ve made towers of the books we read, books Ben has been reading for years, he starts unfolding dog-ears, and I pull my knees into my chest as I watch him. He’s talking absently about the world of demonology, and it’s not until he sighs and sits back that I realize I haven’t told him about his dad. He notices my face drop, and he comes to my side, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.
“What is it?”
“I saw your dad today.”
“Was he sober, by chance?”
I turn to look him in the eyes. “He was burned. On his neck. And he looked…dejected. Like he’d lost all hope.”
“He probably has.”
“Ben.”
He shrugs. “‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’ My dad held out longer than the average man would.”
“Hiltop said your dad wanted the burns. As a reminder of your car accident.”
“He’s doing what he has to do to cope. Y’know, with my decision to die.”
“But if you were to fight for the Big V…”
“I’m not going to fake I’m into Garnet. Please, Anne. Drop it.”
He lifts my hand and holds it up flat, and we watch as he folds his fingers between mine. The lines distinguishing my skin from his blur, like they’re glowing at the edges, like we’re melting into one person.
“More spirit than flesh,” I whisper.
He brings our hands to his lips. And, when he doesn’t let up, I shift until my lips are pressed against the other side of the fist we’ve made. Our eyes meet. We lower our hands.
“Ben, you’re going to have to choose Garnet.”
“I hope you mean garnet the gemstone.”
“You need to win the Big V.”
“Shh.” He puts his finger to my lips, and I pretend to bite at it. “I’m with you. Not her. Any plan that keeps me from you is no plan for me.”
“But Ben—”
“If I have to choose between death and life without you, I choose death.”
“That’s very”—I pause—“cheesy.”
Because we can’t actually stay in the library forever, we make our way outside and, holding hands, meander down the dark island, past the red line that used to mean so much, past the old Zin mansion in which Dia and Invidia now live, past Gigi’s old cottage, toward the village. Most of the villagers’ homes, which were enormous, are being demoed to make way for the college.
“Why do you think Mr. Watso’s here?” I ask Ben. “Everyone else is gone.”
“He made a deal with the devil. I assume he’s here because he has to be. Maybe if he signs the island over to them, they’ll let him go.”
“Sign it over?”
“My dad has this idea that Villicus wanted you and Molly to break the rules and be friends. He put you at Gigi’s so you’d be more likely to run across the only village girl. That way, he’d have some leverage—he could dangle Molly’s life in front of Mr. Watso in exchange for the island.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Mr. Watso is a shaman. He’s the spiritual owner of this island. Or so the story goes.”
“So he can just give the island to the devil if he wants to?”
“If he had to. It’d be a clear gateway in for the underworld. But I doubt he’d do that.”
“He’s got no reason to now that she’s gone.” I meet Ben’s gaze. “Do you think Mr. Watso will hate me forever because of what happened to Molly?”
“Molly’s gone because you guys were friends. She was a part of that friendship.”
“She’s dead because of that friendship.”
“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself,” he says.
“I just can’t believe how dumb I was.”
“Hold on there.” We stop walking and he turns me to face him. His hands are on my shoulders, and he’s looking quite serious when he says, “That’s my girlfriend you’re talking smack about.”
With that word—girlfriend—running through my head and the warmth of his hand on mine, we return to campus and cross the quad. I watch Ben walk to the boys’ dorm. He smiles back at me when he opens the door, and we wave again, smile again, say good night, and eventually, with me suppressing dumb giggles that I sort of love, retire indoors.
Harper isn’t in my room when I curl up with thoughts of the beautiful Ben Zin, the boy who is, at last, mine. I see bright lights like fireworks behind my eyes. Ben’s my boyfriend. We’ll figure the Big V stuff out. He’ll find a way to win. I’ll help Teddy—maybe I can find a way to wrestle the Seven Sinning Sisters away from Mephisto and Dia—and then get Teddy to wake me up. And, after that, Ben and I will be together in California. It won’t be easy, but we can do it.
It is that gloriously satisfying thought that sends me swiftly into dreams, dreams I’m quite certain will feature a tall, lovely, mint-eyed sculptor.
Except it’s not Ben in my dreams.
It’s Dia.
At first he and I are arguing, but we swiftly find ourselves in a far more compromising position than I’ve ever been in. I feel the soft ring of his open mouth moving down my neck to my shoulder, leaving a glowing tattoo that looks just like Invidia’s. When he leans away from me, his mouth is open—and he’s screaming.
My eyelids burst wide to find Harper standing over my bed in the glow of a lamp. She’s screaming at me. She reels back as I stagger out of bed, holding my arms out defensively.
“What is it?” I cry, looking for an intruder. “Where? Who?”
“Y-y-you!”
I catch a glimpse of myself in Harper’s full-length mirror as she staggers backward.
And I do a double take.