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“I told you that I planned to move back in with my aunt, but I fear she’ll notice what we’re up to. She may see my journal. The letters.”

“You can’t write in the crypt after classes?”

“We’re on a time crunch. I’ll need to work through the nights, and my aunt will notice if I stay out past curfew. Won’t you need to work the same?”

“I guess,” I say, not following the logic, but I’m too overwhelmed with the weight of what I’ve promised to think any more. “You’re back to Xavier’s, then?”

Jasper’s blue eyes bounce around the maple trees in the Halo. “Being closer to you over the next ten days could help us complete these on time.”

He’s asking to be roommates again.

“Oh,” I say.

“I know how much of an ask it is to return to the room.” Jasper’s cadence is quicker now. “But our futures at Valentine depend upon this, do they not? I won’t be a distraction, I promise.”

My smile comes out more like a grimace. Because only months ago I would’ve done anything for a private room. Especially during the week before finals.

But since Jasper moved out, all I’ve been distracted by is thelackof him there. No more page turns. No more buzzing lamps. No more eleven pillows shuffling through the night. Every noise I once loathed is all I want to hear.

“I can survive until the mixer.” My heart makes me say it, and I’ve never wanted to dig a hole out of my chest more. There’s no way I can survive rooming with the one person who could never return my feelings. “But promise you’ll leave the moment we’re done.”

Jasper’s mouth twitches in a way I can’t read. “I promise.”

Chapter 33THE THREE MUSKETEERS

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6

“Charlie!” Xavier lunges for the machine bar slipping out of my fingers, and I jolt. He snatches and slaps the bar back into place above my head with a clang. “Where were you, man? You just kept going and going after your reps.”

Did I?

I sit up from the machine, glancing around the workout room. All I remember is thinking about all the study guides I have to finish after this. “Sorry. Zoned out.”

“Last month, you couldn’t get through one power lift without passing out, so good work. But overdoing it can strain your muscles. We don’t want that one week before testing day.”

As if I could forget.

“COMRADES,” echoes from the workout room doors.

I look over. Robby waves at us in a tracksuit uniform. Blaze poses behind him, fluttering his hands like a butterfly. They weave through the rows of machines toward our side.

Before I can ask why, Xavier says, “I mentioned we’d be here today. They said they might join.”

Blaze shows another innovative pose—a finger gun. The Ring of Ancestral Darkness on his thumb sparkles not from magic but from the fluorescent lights. “It is but my curse to push my body to its breaking point.”

“Hope we’re not intruding,” Robby says, adjusting his tracksuit collar.

“Not at all,” I say, but my pulse speeds at the lie. With Xavier comparing us three side by side, I’ll look weaker than I already am.

We follow Xavier’s lead toward three pull-up bars. Robby and Blaze take the first and third, leaving only the second available. Great. Xavier willliterallycompare us side by side.

Xavier raises his stopwatch. “One minute. As many pull-ups as you can.”

I place my feet firmly on the floor. This will be a tough match against Robby and Blaze—maybe an impossible one—but I have to give this my all. I can’t let Xavier down.

“Go!”

Flexing our muscles, we all pull ourselves up.

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