I wished he hadn’t made me remember.

“What is with you today?” I demanded.

He opened his hands as if they were a box that was going to reveal something secret. “I’m just glad to see you.”

I studied him suspiciously. “Act normal, Conn, or I’m leaving. You’re weirding me out.”

That wiped the smile off his face. “All right.” He cleared his throat. “What’s that?” He nodded at my book.

Even though I’d planned to come straight to the point and ask him about my photograph, for a moment I faltered, suddenly nervous about what I’d find out. So I showed him the book.

“Reservation,” he said. “That’s one of my favorites.”

“This book shouldn’t exist.”

“In your world.”

I shook my head. “The split between my world and this one is because of the Great Fire, so everything that happened in both places before 1871 should be exactly the same.”

“That’s right.”

“But Jane Austen was writing way before then. It doesn’t make sense that here she would have written an extra book.”

“She didn’t,” he said. “But here, her lost manuscript of Reservation was discovered.”

“Ahhhh,” I said. “Okay.” I leaned against a wall, recalculating my conception of how different this world was. “And Jennie Twist? Who’s she? I’m pretty sure I don’t recall her from history class, and she’s got to be important if a library’s named after her. What’d she do? Eat twenty Shades for breakfast?”

“She’s our first woman president.”

I stared. “You have a woman president?”

“Not at the moment,” Conn said. “Twist was elected in 1978.”

“Well, at least you people got something right.” I paused. “You know … has it ever occurred to you that there are probably more worlds than yours and mine? If the Great Fire caused some interdimensional split, what did the dropping of the atomic bomb do? Or the Civil War? There must be tons of worlds, zillions of worlds, where history and everything else is different.”

He looked at me with an expression that seemed to be respect. “Not many people think of that. You’re right, Darcy. There probably are more worlds than we can imagine. But the government keeps that information very close to its chest. Governments are like that. Yours, for example, knows full well about our existence. But they’ve kept it a secret for more than a hundred years. We have a treaty with them to protect that information. I don’t approve, personally, but it’s the law. As for this world, everyone here knows about the Alter, though they’re not allowed into it.”

I stared, and realized that my fascination about the world around me had sucked me into a much longer conversation with Conn than I really wanted to have. Conn was too easy to talk to. He always had been.

But of course he would be. He’d been trained in interrogation.

“Let’s get down to business,” I told him. “I want these meetings to be short.”

For a moment he didn’t speak. Then he nodded sharply. “Good,” he said. “You’re right. We’re risking a lot to speak to each other. Every minute, we risk more. What do you have to report?”

“Nothing until I hear what you’ve found out about me.”

He folded his large, scarred hands. “Have you met my requirement? Have you learned how to control your shadow?”

I braced my back against the wall and stared down at him. “Sure.”

“Then ghost,” he said. “Right now.”

“Later.”

He crossed his arms. “Now.”

For a while, neither of us said anything. Then I caved. “I’m trying, all right? I can’t do it. But I will.”

He looked at me.

“I will.”

Conn’s eyes held mine. “I believe you.”

I exhaled slowly. “So.” I prepared myself for whatever might come next. “What did you find out about me?”

His mouth twisted. “Darcy. There’s no easy way to say this. You’re supposed to be dead.”

For a moment, I wavered on my feet. The news didn’t shock me so much as the way my memory reacted. No one’s supposed to know you’re alive, I heard a voice—a man’s—say. I’ll keep your secret.

I sat down hard, like my legs had been cut out from underneath me.

“I was looking at everything from 1997,” Conn said. “Every file my rank allowed me to pull. Other Shade arrests. Transcripts of emergency phone calls.” He rubbed tiredly at his forehead. “I even looked at traffic tickets. Then I came across your photograph, the same one, in a file from the coroner’s office. It listed you as deceased, but the details of the file were sealed.

“I tried to find out more. The coroner—Dr. Green—has been with the IBI forever, and would have had to sign off on your autopsy—which obviously didn’t happen—so I went to talk with her. Dr. Green claimed she’d never seen you, couldn’t remember your case—nothing.” He looked at me. “She’s lying.”

“How do you know?”

“Hours later, I checked the coroner’s database again. Your file had vanished. I think it was a fluke that I’d found it to begin with. It was a loose end someone forgot to tie up.”

“So go back to Dr. Green. Tell her the file vanished. See what she says.”

“Confronting her won’t do any good. I already tried that, with no luck. And whatever the IBI is hiding about you, it’s something bigger than Anne Green. Information about you is buried so deep, only the highest ranking officers have access to it.”

“But Green knows something. Make her talk.”

“I can’t make her,” he said.

“Yes, you can.”

“Darcy. I can’t make people do things they don’t want.”

And there it was again. That kiss, throbbing across the tension between us.

There was a very long pause.

“Don’t worry,” Conn finally said. “Dr. Green’s stonewalling me. Fine. That doesn’t mean this is over. There are a lot of people in the IBI. A lot of people who know a lot of things. One of the secretaries invited me to dinner at her place tonight. Maybe that’ll lead us somewhere. She likes me.”

I felt a stab of an emotion I didn’t want to examine too closely.

“I’m sorry I don’t have more information,” he said. “Now. What do you have for me?”

“Well,” I said reluctantly. “The IBI might be right. Maybe the Society is planning something. But they could be planning an interpretive dance with IBI flamethrowers for all I know. Not necessarily an attack.” Still, I told him about the little things Shades had let slip around me—the idea that I could be put “to good use” by passing as a human, that “now, more than ever,” the Society couldn’t afford a security risk. The flamethrowers, and how Orion had warned me away from them.

Conn’s eyes sharpened. “Tell me more about Orion.”

“He’s…” It wasn’t easy to sum him up. “Graceful. I think he must be one of the Society’s best fighters. He mentioned something about training people. Well, he’s training me, in fact. He’s intelligent, and … passionate. So passionate that sometimes I think he doesn’t always see things for what they are. He doesn’t see me for what I am, anyway. I think.”

Conn leaned back in his chair, silent. A muscle pulsed along his jaw. “You should be careful around him.”

“As if I’m not,” I said. “Anyway, he’s a nice guy. Sure, he doesn’t like humans, but I’ve never seen him hurt one. Whenever he’s mentioned a Society terrorist attack, it’s always been in a matter-of-fact way, like what they did is simply part of the past. And he’s been good to me. I’d be in Society prison if it weren’t for him, and he’s been more welcoming to me than anyone else in this world.” Something made me add, “He likes me.”

“I’m sure he does.”

“Can you please cut the sarcasm? I’m trying to tell you that Orion might give me some valuable information. The IBI wants me to spy. He’s my best source.”

“You can find other sources.”

“I’m working on it.” I frowned. “I really don’t see what your problem is.”

“It’s just”—he ran a hand through his hair—“you’re talking about using someone, and that’s not an easy thing to do. I don’t think you’ve ever done that before—use someone. Your friends—Lily, Raphael, Jims—”

I flinched, the pain of missing them was so sharp.

“I’ve seen how you are with people,” Conn said. “Your friendships are true. You value people, and when they value you, you’re true to them. That’s a gift. I don’t want to see you throw it away.”

“Hey, I’m not spying for the IBI because I enjoy it.”

“I know,” Conn said. “But be careful,” he repeated. “Especially if Orion has feelings for you.”

I looked at Conn and decided I wasn’t crazy about the turn this conversation was taking. So I changed it. “You were right about something. Sort of. Shades don’t really need food.” I explained what Orion had told me about ghosting, and how it could shut down hunger, pain, even aging.

Conn stared.

“I know what you’re thinking,” I said.

“I don’t think you do.”

“You’re thinking about how different we are. You, a human. Me, the Shade.”

“Actually … I think we have a lot in common. Though”—he smiled a little—“it’s true that I can’t live hundreds of years.”

“So not worth it. What’s the point in living that long if you can’t do anything? Paint. Sleep. Ride a bike. Pet a dog.” And kiss, I thought. Hurriedly, I added, “And food. Let’s not forget about eating.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Not technically, but I’d sell my soul to a minor demon for a candy bar.”

“Tell me what you miss. What would you eat right now, if you could have anything? I mean, besides blueberry pancakes smothered with butter and maple syrup.”

I glanced at him. That was what I had ordered at the diner the day we skipped class. “Chocolate-covered espresso beans,” I said. “Veggie pad thai with lots of lime and crunchy peanuts. Pink apples. Fortune cookies. Roasted brussels sprouts with cracked pepper and rock salt…” I couldn’t stop myself. I kept listing what I craved, watching Conn’s face relax as if we were eating delicious things instead of merely talking about them. As I studied him, I couldn’t help noticing how his features were lean and sharp but almost perfect. In fact (purely from an artist’s perspective), they were handsome because they weren’t perfect.

Conn looked noble. And treacherous, because the way he looked had nothing to do with who he really was.

But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from that one feature that was off center. His one flaw. That broken nose. I glanced at his hands with their old nicks and cuts, and remembered Conn holding the X-Acto knife in my bedroom back home. I remembered him ramming into my attacker’s side. And something made sense. “You got that”—I pointed—“fighting, didn’t you?”

“This?” Startled, he touched the bridge of his nose. “No. I got it sleepwalking.”

“You sleepwalk?” This was unlike Conn. He always seemed so in control.

“I used to, when I was little. One night I walked straight into a wall.” He looked at me. “It was a long time ago.”

“You don’t sleepwalk anymore?”

“No.” There was a flicker of a rueful smile. “Now I just don’t sleep.” His eyes were blue and hooded and sad.

After that, I got the details about our next meeting and left.

The last thing I wanted was to feel sorry for Conn McCrea.

28

Training with Orion was intense and increasingly pointless. But he never gave up. He was certain that I only needed the right incentive to ghost, and alternated between getting bossy and playing the role of head cheerleader for Team Darcy. Frankly, I preferred it when he was bossy. I found myself making excuses to sneak away from the practice room. More often than not, I ended up in the Archives.

It was about a week after my meeting with Conn at the library, and since then I’d been stocking up on art supplies. The Archives had tons of them. Paper, colored pencils, primer, brushes. At first, Savannah grumbled at me from behind her desk, but one day she asked, “What are you doing with all that?”

“Nothing yet,” I told her. Then I looked at her. “Would you help me?”

That’s how I ended up painting Savannah’s portrait.

“You’re using an awful lot of color,” she said as I dabbed a brush on the heavy paper fixed to an easel.

“That’s why it’s called watercolors. Water. Color.”

She stood and stepped around her desk to peer over my shoulder. “You’ve put yellow on my cheek. My skin is not yellow.”

I waved her away. “You’re not supposed to do that. No looking. You said you’d wait until I finished.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. I’m on the Council. And I voted against you, remember that.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I remember. I remember because you remind me every single time I see you.”