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I’ve ruined his coat.

I turn my face into the pillow and I let myself smile, let myself feel all of it for once instead of rushing through the feelings.

Then I get up.

I slip on my robe and slippers and head down the hall to the bathing rooms and draw myself a bath, sprinkling in some leftover tea for good measure. I wash myself carefully, because of the newly tender places and, when I’m done, I feel pink and shiny and new.

Then I pick a dress that I know is extra flattering (deep violet with dusty grey lace) and I do my hair up in a loose chignon. I look at myself in the small mirror by the washstand and the woman looking back is flushed and open-faced in a way she hasn’t been since Fernhollow, or perhaps ever. Certainly not a look I’ve seen on myself in five years.

My goal today is to find Baz. Whatever we are now started last night in a graveyard and what I need is to see his face in daylight and to know he’s thinking what I’m thinking, that something has shifted that we can’t come back from and that it’s something we shouldn’t have to come back from. I understand the risks of what we did, the consequences of a relationship, that it might be something we have to keep hidden and under wraps until I graduate. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be worth it.

I head to the library first, because that’s the likeliest, but he’s not there.

I pass the teachers’ quarters hallway on my way back to the ramp. I slow, pretending to look at the Keeper on the landing, the skull of Seraphina Milano, whom I get a good feeling from, and watch the door to the quarters. I’m not about to go inside the room but I stand out there for long enough that if he is in there, he’s probably sleeping.

Then I try the crypts.

They are cold, empty, and creepy.

I stand in the doorway for a long moment looking at the slab, and the small coil of unease that’s been building in me takes a half-turn tighter. He could be anywhere. He may have even gone back to Sogliano.

I go back to my room and sit on my bed with my hands in my lap, the moth attempting small talk with me but I’m too scattered to participate. I read the same page of a book twice without taking any of it in. I get up and I pace and the light moves across the floor and the window has gone from morning to midday. That feeling of unease twists again.

I decide to try the crypts a second time.

This time he’s there.

The oil lamps and candles are lit. The kit’s out on the slab, open. Baz is standing at his usual place at the head of the slab and his eyes meet mine when I open the door.

For a moment, I’m smiling a big silly grin. I can’t help it.

Then I see his face.

And I go cold.

He looks terrible, dark shadows under his eyes, his skin a strange pallor. But more than that, it’s the look in his eyes that makes my stomach twist with dread.

My smile fades.

“Hello,” I say, suddenly feeling awkward, like I made a mistake coming here.

“Shut the door,” he says in a firm but flat voice.

I shut it behind me, heart in my throat. The sound the latch makes when it clicks echoes across the room.

“Are you alright?” I ask. “You seem⁠—”

“Please, let me speak first.”

My brows go up. Oh? Is that how it’s going to be?

I go over to the slab across from him and wait, my entire body awash in prickles.

He doesn’t look at me, which makes it even worse.

“Last night,” he begins, his head down and his hair falling over his face, “was a mistake.”

Everything inside me stills and an acidic taste rises in my throat.