I perked at the mention of him. I’d be lying if I said that very idea hadn’t drawn me to the Reality Paradox in the first place.
“You think he’s in that other world, then? That I could I reach him?”
“Whoa, now,” he said, running a thumb over his bottom lip. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. That’s not something I can answer for you. I can only show you the way.”
He watched me with his dark, glittering eyes, and I swallowed, licking my lips.
“But with the power that you already have as a dimidium, who knows what you could do? I hope to see you here again soon. There’s so much that we could learn from each other.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Anything on curses taking place over the cycles of the moon? Could be something there?”
I’d looked up the hex Dr. Oswold had cast on the student at her former school, but it didn’t have any similarities to Dani’s. In fact, from what Max had reported from her previous school, Rose’s spells were decidedly less serious. They included hexing her frenemy’s phone to spam her contact list, making all their pink clothes bleed in the wash, a spell so their Starbucks order was always wrong. Nowhere near the same profile as the hex on Dani. That, combined with records confirming she was at a conference out of the country the week of Maya’s murder, dropped her significantly down on our suspect list.
“Sure, maybe she’s a werewolf,” came the dry reply.
I’d recruited Vern’s help, but he was exhausted, too. And when Vern was tired, he was even crankier than usual.
He looked sadly at the three-day old mascara smudged beneath my eyes and the threadbare sweater that, judging from the wide berth everyone gave me, was starting to smell. “I’ll come up with another one if you tell me why you’re killing yourself trying to do this.”
“I’m not.”
“Now you can pretend all you want, but it sure doesn’t look like you’ve given up on people to me. All I see is you trying your damnedest to save that girl. Don’t get me wrong; nothing warms my heart more than seeing you in your old studies again, but this is too much. You’re pushing yourself too hard. One dead girl is enough, you should go back to your room. Rest. Eat. Bathe, for all our sakes.”
Because I can’twas what I wanted to say. There was a girl beneath the terrifying voice, and the levitating, and the blood, a girl who was probably alone and scared, and I couldn’t bear to leave her. How different might things have been for Aaron if he’d had a friend? If there had been even one person who’d doggedly refused to leave his side?
My phone buzzed in my pocket. A blinking notification showed two missed calls from Mom. How she knew I was in town was beyond me.
I shoved it back in my pocket.
Vern arched an eyebrow. “You haven’t seen them yet?”
I grunted.
“You can’t avoid them forever. Seeing you would do her a world of good, Cella.”
I blew out my cheeks. “Check on one more book for me, and I’ll go get a sandwich. Deal?”
He only sighed and shuffled away down the aisles.
“What’s that?” Max asked, sliding next to me. I stuffed the slip of paper in my pocket.
“Nothing. Got a headache.”
I’d been finding notes at the table increasingly more often, strings of numbers that didn’t make any sense to me. At first, I thought it was Vern, leaving Dewey Decimal codes for books to check or maybe even page numbers, but neither of those lined up. As far as I could tell, the numbers were gibberish. I considered briefly that it could be Max, but I couldn’t take the way he’d been looking at me lately, a mixture of pity and confusion when he found I’d spent another night in the library. Somehow, I didn’t think asking him if he was the one writing me nonsensical notes would help. I even hid behind the shelves a couple of times to see who was leaving them, but no one came into this corner of the library except for me, and I never saw who it was.
“Probably just the poor lighting in here,” Max said.
“What?”
“Your headache.” He cast me a funny look again. “You should get some fresh air.”
I didn’t want to admit how nervous I was, scared of all the things happening to me. I strived to be the girl with all the answers, but now I couldn’t account for the dreams I was having, for the terrifying messages in my shower, for the carvings above my bed. Something was happening to me, and I was afraid.
“You know you can talk to me, right?” Max said, voice softening. “One of the perks of being a dimidium, you know. You don’t have to go through any of this alone.”
“Why is everyone on my case today? Maybe you get too much fresh air,” I snapped, hard enough for him to drop it.
