Este’s new roommate was a ghost and not a particularly good one.

Standing on the other side of the cedar door to Vespertine Hall 503, a teenage girl under a paisley bedsheet said, “Oh, my god, Este, hi! You’re here.”

On Este’s first day at Radcliffe Prep, what she really wanted was a chance to soak it all in. The way the light streaked through the white pines outside the windows. How the original hardwood floors from 1901 felt beneath her feet. The fact that she was finally here, really here.

Instead, she walked straight into auditions for Casper the Friendly Ghost.

According to her orientation paperwork, the person underneath had to be Este’s roommate, Posy Thatch: fellow incoming junior, night owl, and amateur journalist. On paper (or, technically, the roommate assignment quiz new students had been forced to take), they were a perfect match.

But in reality? Two holes had been cut out of the still-wrinkled sheet for a pair of wide green eyes, and they blinked at Este, expectant.

Este nudged the door closed behind her. “And you’re haunting our dorm room?”

“Unpacking.” Posy stripped off her makeshift costume, revealing a Radcliffe Prep hoodie with the tag still on, a spray of staticky orange hair, and a wide grin. “My little brothers made this as a going-away present in case there’s a Halloween party. Mom was not happy. I’m sure you know how it is.”

“Not exactly.” Este readjusted the straps of her backpack just to do something with her hands.

She and her mom had spent the last three years living on pinstripe highways and borrowed time, never staying in one place long enough to settle down. Even now, her mom must have been zipping back down the Vermont mountainsides on her way to anywhere but here. Hadn’t even bothered to walk her to orientation. She’d dropped Este off at the boarding school’s towering iron gates, her grief too heavy to carry inside the Radcliffe grounds. Was that the kind of thing you told your brand-new roommate on day one?

She settled on saying, “I’m an only child.”

Posy seemed undeterred by her deer-in-the-headlights expression. “Oh, okay. Cool! Let me show you around.”

Este didn’t bother informing Posy that their suite was small enough that she could practically see it all from the front door. A tiny kitchenette—mini fridge, microwave, a hot plate, and a sink—opened to the shared living space. There, a green claw-foot couch took up most of the square footage, and the rest was occupied by a bookshelf and a coffee table splayed with gizmos and gadgets that definitely hadn’t been on the suggested-packing list. Doors on either side of the living room were their bedrooms, 503A and 503B.

All in all, it was a huge improvement from the Motel 6 she had just left.

“I took this room,” Posy said, heading left to 503B. “Hope that’s okay. The energy just pulled me here. I haven’t scanned the frequencies yet, but it totally feels haunted. Don’t you think?”

“Um,” Este said, shifting her weight between her heels, “can you define haunted?”

Mostly, the room felt incredibly pink. Posy had done some serious redecorating because there was no way this much pastel was school-sanctioned. Christmas lights wrapped around four posters of the bedframe, and a polka dot duvet had been tucked around the mattress. Next to a behemoth of a printer that belonged to the last decade, there was a pencil cup stuffed to the brim with gel pens and a teetering stack of scented candles. And that was just the beginning.

On the wall, Posy had plastered a mosaic of memories. Photos from Posy’s past patterned her room—her arms slung over her friends’ shoulders at football games, planting a kiss on someone’s suntanned cheek, and dressed up in homecoming garb with flowers dangling off her wrist and a boy off her arm. There were family photos with her squished between her siblings, each of them wearing broad smiles and a face full of freckles. This must have been Posy’s first time away from her family, her first time standing on her own legs, her first time alone.

Este’s chest tightened. She knew alone a little too well. Alone carved out a canyon in her chest, deep grooves of a river run dry. She didn’t know how to fill it back up. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to, just for it to empty again.

Posy waved her arms around the room as if Este should be able to see the obvious paranormal activity happening right in front of her. “You know, ghosts, specters, spirits that can’t move on. Radcliffe Prep is the nation’s third most haunted high school, so, I’m not surprised. I swear, I’ve seen the lights flicker so many times already.”

“Is that what all that stuff in the living room’s for? Ghost hunting?”

It was easy to see Posy settle into her element—the weight shifted off her shoulders, a light flared behind her eyes. Like she’d been waiting for Este to ask. “Yep. I spent, like, all my summer job money on it so that I would be prepared.”

Este forced a smile. She didn’t have the heart to tell her she didn’t believe in ghosts. At least, not anymore. She wasn’t sure she could survive an entire school year if her roommate hated her for being a skeptic. As far as friends went, Este usually kept a grand total of zero.

Unlike the shrine to T.J. Maxx Posy had created in 503B, when they got to Este’s room, it looked just like the brochures. Designed for substance, not style. Bed, closet, and a small desk situated in the corner. Gauzy sunlight pooled through windows that probably hadn’t been dusted since before the turn of the millennium.

Radcliffe Preparatory Academy was an exclusive college preparatory school with a curriculum reserved for eleventh and twelfth graders on an Ivy League track. And, now, Este.

Excitement flared behind her ribs as she dropped onto the bed. The closest thing to home sweet home she’d had in a long time. She dumped the contents of her backpack onto the mattress, and Posy disappeared into the living room only to return with one of the devices from the coffee table. This one looked like a Nintendo Switch but was evidently supposed to be super serious ghost-hunting equipment.

“What are you doing?” she asked. Were roommates supposed to be this . . . involved?

Posy’s gadget chirped in response.

“It’s an EMF reader. I’m checking for electromagnetic frequencies,” Posy said, shoving the scanner halfway under Este’s bed. “They’re the telltale sign of a supernatural presence.”

“Is it working?” Este grabbed a stack of sweaters she’d used as packing protection and unwrapped them from around three framed photos. It wasn’t enough to make an entire art installation like Posy, but they were hers. In each, her dad stared up at her.

There was a picture from her eighth birthday, where she clung to her dad’s side, holding up her first library card. Her: pigtails. Him: mustache. It wasn’t a great era for either of them.

Next, he was shaking hands with the marble statue in the center of the fountain in the courtyard. Este had passed it on her walk to the dormitory and recognized it in the space between heartbeats. In this photo, it was easy enough to see the way she resembled him. She’d inherited his brown hair, his hazel eyes, and his Cupid’s-bowed lips. And somewhere, stuffed in her backpack, she still had the vintage Radcliffe crewneck he wore, except now the sleeves were frayed from overuse.

In the last photo, he was her age, sixteen and spindly, standing in front of the door to Vespertine Hall 503A. The photo was grainy and faded, crinkled at the edges, and he’d written First day at Radcliffe, September 1997 in the corner, the ink smudged with the heel of his left hand. She’d scanned the photo and sent it to the dean of students to ask—okay, beg—to be put in the room he had. At the time, the school’s response had been lukewarm. Your request has been received and will be considered.

But here she was. Standing in the same place he stood, filling the same space he did.

Posy hummed, standing back up. “Oh, yeah. There’s something seriously spooky going on here.”

Suppressing the urge to laugh, Este set the frames on the desk and then dug through her pile of belongings for a book. The green binding was a familiar texture between her fingers. A book of stories, a present from her dad. She must have had every word on the deckle-edged pages memorized, but there was a comfort in her old favorite tales that Este couldn’t resist.

She knew every line, every stamp of ink, every dog-eared corner. She used to run her fingers over the blank pages bound at the end—a place for her to pen her own story someday. Blue writing stained the flyleaf with her dad’s scribbled penmanship. From the library of Este Logano, he’d written and underlined. Beneath it, he wrote, There is life, there is death, and there is love—the greatest of these is love.

When he died a few years after writing those words, Este knew he’d gotten it all wrong. They laid him to rest in the dusty cemetery down the road from their little blue Paso Robles home, and no matter how much love her broken heart spilled, he stayed buried.

For a while, Este had been desperate to believe in ghosts, to see her dad’s face or hear his voice one more time. Searching for shapes in the dark was like ripping scabs off soft wounds, refusing to let them heal. At some point, she had to give up. Ghosts couldn’t be real because if they were, she would have seen his by now.

But at least she had the chance to explore his old stomping grounds, and maybe that was enough.

Posy’s gear released a string of beeps that sounded not unlike a stray cat finding a field mouse. “Houston, we have a ghost!”

As Posy swung the scanner around, searching for the source, Este muttered, “All that’s dead in here are the batteries in that thing.”

“If you can hear me, send us a sign.” Posy climbed onto Este’s bed, stretching the scanner toward the ceiling the way she’d sometimes seen her mom do to find cell phone service in the desert. “Is the temperature dropping? It feels colder.”

A door slammed shut somewhere down the hall. Posy’s eyebrows shot up, but Este shook her head. She had to give it to her. Posy was nothing if not persistent.

“It’s move-in day,” Este said, thumbing over the coarse pages of her book. “Not The Haunting of Hill House.”

Posy jumped down with a thud, sweeping the Magic Ghost Detector over the closet door, the single-paned window, and the desk. Este ducked under her roommate’s wayward arm to set her book next to the photos.

“Are you sure?” Posy asked, tilting her head to listen for more signs of afterlife. “Because it sounded like—”

A knock pounded against their front door, and Posy skittered backward with a yelp, ramming her back against the desk. One of Este’s picture frames teetered. There were only milliseconds between Este’s shocked gasp and glass shards scattering across the floor.

No, no, no. Este collapsed to the damages. Her hand hovered over the chipped frame. Posy had hundreds, thousands, of photos with her family, her friends. Este had only three left of her dad.

Posy’s voice sounded faraway, even as she crouched next to her. “Este, I’m so sorry. I really didn’t mean to.”

Impatient, the visitor knocked again.

“Go,” Este said between her teeth.

“Maybe I can help put it back together.”

Prickly tears welled in Este’s eyes, but she wouldn’t let Posy see her cry. They weren’t close like that. She forced her voice light as she replied, “Please, just. Get the door.”

This time, Posy nodded. When she peeled open the door, a vaguely familiar voice filtered into Este’s room. Probably the dorm’s faculty advisor Dr. Kirk, who doubled as a history teacher, spouting off reminders about curfews and visiting hours. Este barely heard it as she blew out a shaking breath and assessed the wreckage.

Sparkling glass had scattered across the floorboards as the frame shattered, snapping in half. The frame had slammed against the baseboard, cracking, and its black backing had ricocheted under the desk. Este pressed a finger to the edge of the frame where the corner had snapped off with impact, leaving exposed a patch of unpainted wood. Thankfully, the photo inside was left unscathed. Este and her dad still smiled, frozen in time at the Paso Robles City Library. Safe and unknowing.

Este nudged the sharp pieces into a pile by the wall. That would have to do for now. She slid the photo and the remnants of the frame onto the desk and then crouched to swipe the backing from underneath.

No sooner than Este had it in her hands, she dropped it again. The backing slipped from her fingertips, heavier than anticipated. On the inside, a solid brass key wrapped in a leather cord had been taped down.

Her heart leaped toward her throat. First of all, what was that? And secondly, how did it get inside her picture frame—or, more importantly, why was it there at all?

“You okay?” Posy asked, back again too soon.

Este tried to stand too quickly and knocked her head against the bottom of the desk, wincing. Brightly, she said, “Dandy.”

She scooted the backing onto the desk as quickly as possible, trying to look casual. There was no way she looked casual. Finding a key hidden inside her picture frame? That was the definition of not casual.

“Here. I hope this helps.” Posy hesitated at the doorframe with a broom, a dustpan, and a sorry look on her freckled face, like a TV vampire who had to ask for entry. Which meant that in the fifteen minutes they’d known each other, Este had already pushed her away like she did everyone else. For a moment, Posy’s jaw hung open as if she had more to say—another apology, another errant, phantom trivia fact?—but she shrugged, shaking it away. Instead, she said, “Dr. Kirk’s campus tour starts in ten minutes. We’re meeting in the lobby.”

Este thanked her with her best fake smile, and it was enough to convince Posy to disappear around the corner. She lobbed a goodbye Este’s way before closing the front door behind her. The moment her roommate was gone, Este yanked the key off the backing.

She cradled it loosely in her fingers, then gently unwound its leather string to stare at the key. It looked like the kind that probably opened doors that had no business being unlocked. The key’s bow had been intricately wrought with a flower of interlacing metal, and the cord looped through one of the petals like the chain of a necklace.

The photo from that day at the Paso Robles library watched as she examined it. Her dad had always said this was his favorite photo of them. Twin smiles in a place they loved most. Now, she knew why. Este slipped the cord around her neck, and her dad’s brass key fitted itself over her heart. Like it belonged. Like she did.

Whatever it led to, she would find it.

The halls around her quieted as students gathered in the lobby for the tour, and she needed to join them. She literally couldn’t afford to make a bad impression. Her enrollment hinged on a generous legacy scholarship, offered so that she could pick up where her father left off since he’d unceremoniously transferred schools halfway through autumn. She’d always thought legacy scholarships were given to people who had actually graduated, but hey, who was she to turn down free tuition and the opportunity to wear as many turtlenecks as her heart desired?

Este raced through Vespertine Hall’s carpeted floors, down the cedar staircases, until she hit the lobby, but the group was already outside. Campus was composed of sunbaked brick, strewn with creeping juniper and honeysuckle blooms. Students carried stacks of books against their chests, clasped steaming cups of coffee, and whispered to each other on garden benches. A cloud had crawled over the sun, blotting out the afternoon warmth and replacing it with an evergreen breeze. Este could spend an eternity drifting between the trunks of black birches and hemlocks.

Ahead, Posy’s burnt sienna ponytail bobbed at the back of Dr. Kirk’s tour. Forty or so students filed into the doors of the Lilith Radcliffe Memorial Library, Radcliffe Prep’s crown jewel.

Este gasped at the sight of the ribbed vaults and gargoyled eaves. Windows dotted the exterior, and her gaze snagged on a boy perched in a windowed alcove behind the shade of a leafy maple. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his wrinkled white button-down, and black hair curled over his forehead like spills of ink.

He must have been a senior since he wasn’t trailing behind Dr. Kirk for a first look at the school. The boy glanced up from the notebook he was writing in, the pages cradled against his knees. Este couldn’t look away, and he looked right back.

“Este!” Posy called from up ahead. “I brought an EMF reader for you!”

Her roommate broke off from the rest of the group and fast-walked toward her, one of the coffee-table gizmos clutched in her hand. She now wore a fisherman’s vest, splattered with iron-on patches and enamel pins. The scanner chimed with every step.

Of course. A peace offering by way of paranormal investigating.

Este forced a smile. “I wouldn’t know how to use it. You should hold on to it.”

“Suit yourself,” Posy said, wagging the EMF reader toward the Lilith’s exterior. It let out a high-pitched ring, and Posy squealed in response. “I told you this place was totally haunted.”

Searching the alcoves, Este found the boy again. He’d closed his notebook and instead fixated on the spectacle Posy was creating with a smirk curling the edge of his mouth.

And then, he winked. At her.

Heat flared across her cheeks, and it had nothing to do with the way the late afternoon sun crept out from behind the clouds. Was it possible to die of embarrassment?

When Este finally dared to peek back at the window seat, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand like a visor, the boy had vanished. Off to read Proust or contemplate Nietzsche or whatever it was private-school boys like him did with their spare time.

Her heart thrummed against her rib cage, but she dug her nails into the denim threads on her thighs. Good, she thought. Stay focused. She wasn’t here to drool over upperclassmen with alarmingly sharp jawlines. Este came to Radcliffe to follow in her father’s footsteps, and each one led straight to the library.

Posy’s pockets would not stop beeping, which was not ideal for a library in general, and definitely not ideal while Dr. Kirk waxed poetic about the Lilith Library’s hundred-year history.

Este had joined Posy at the back of the group right as Dr. Kirk launched into her spiel. She was a short Black woman, easily nearing seventy with her salt-and-pepper curls braided tightly around her head, but the way she walked backward made Este think she could probably lead this tour in her sleep.

“What’s that?” Posy had asked, eyeing the key around her neck.

“Nothing.” Este tucked the key underneath her sweater a little too quickly and motioned for Posy to pay attention.

Now, Dr. Kirk led them around the perimeter of the first floor, doing a decent enough job of ignoring the endless stream of interruptions coming from Posy’s fisherman’s vest. “The Lilith has been Radcliffe Prep’s academic cornerstone since the school was founded in 1901. Materials in these collections date hundreds, even thousands, of years back. In 1917, less than two decades after the school opened its doors, a fire—”

Beep.

“—threatened to burn it down. Thankfully, it began in the spire, and, because it’s carved entirely of stone, the fire didn’t spread. Open flames in the Lilith, as you might expect, now require supervision from library staff, and today the spire houses heirlooms from the Radcliffe family themselves.”

Beep.

Toward the front, someone raised a hand and asked, “Can we go up there?”

“Unfortunately,” Dr. Kirk said, leading them between narrow shelves, “access to the spire is prohibited. For the protection of the collection, you see. However, you’ll find plenty of resources among the Lilith’s main floors if you’re—”

Beep, beep, beeeeeep.

“Can you lower the volume or something?” Este whispered, harsher than intended.

“No way. The readings are off the charts in here.” Posy pulled the EMF reader from her vest and smacked it against her hand, trying to still the rapidly rising number on the scanner’s dim screen. “You know some scholars think the fire was started on purpose.”

Este dragged her fingertips along the rumble strip of book spines. The thought of losing even a sentence of this collection made her stomach knot like a yoga class.

To say the Lilith was impressive would be the understatement of the century. Hollow in the center, five sweeping stories rose around them. A vaulted glass ceiling glittered hundreds of feet above them, drenching the library in saffron sunlight. Jutting out of the east wing, a stone spire loomed overhead, braided into the whipped clouds. Night was creeping in quickly, but through the peaked windows, a soft September glow clung to the oak trees’ first golden leaves. Vermont in the fall was something striking.

Shelves that stretched to the soffits lined each wall, and every section boasted a rolling ladder to reach the highest books. Layer after layer of bookcases sat laden with leather-bound texts that promised the dusty scent of old books and fading ink. A crooked banner hung from the second-floor banister and read Welcome, Students!

One day, she would know every inch of this library like the back of a well-worn cataloging card, but tonight was her first time treading hallowed ground. She’d imagined this library a million times, but nothing compared to finally pacing the polished floors.

“Why would anyone try to destroy this?” she asked, realizing Posy was next to her, staring up at the spire curiously like she was thinking about fires and phantoms.

“I don’t know. What motive does anyone have for arson? Destroying evidence, amateur witchcraft, a desperate attempt to stay warm in a Green Mountains winter before the invention of central heating.” Posy pocketed the EMF reader and retrieved a silver laser pointer. “Sixty-seven degrees, but I’ll have to keep an eye on it.”

That last part she said mostly to herself, but even whispering, Posy snagged the attention of a few students around them. As Dr. Kirk guided them up a polished staircase, a boy with warm brown skin and a head of tight curls that had been bleached at the tips poked Posy’s fancy thermometer with a painted index finger.

“Can that really find ghosts?” he asked.

Not in a million years, Este thought. She walked faster, craning an ear to hear Dr. Kirk announce that the Lilith’s hidden passageways are “technically off-limits to students, but great if you need a shortcut to class, as long as you don’t get caught,” and how they’re “easy enough to find if you know where to look,” and “no, I won’t show you, but there’s a suspicious-looking painting on the fifth floor you might find interesting.”

“Find ghosts? Absolutely,” Posy said to the boy. She’d clearly lost all interest in Dr. Kirk. “Shadows, ghosts, wraiths, fades, poltergeists, ectoplasm, and apparitions all create cold spots. You’ll know it when you feel it.”

A towheaded boy twice Este’s size butted in, saying, “Dude, I didn’t think this place was actually haunted.” Pale with ruddy cheeks, he wore a wide-strapped tank top and had a lacrosse stick looped over a sunburned shoulder like he’d just run off the field from practice.

“I’m Arthur Wilhite,” the first boy said. “This is my roommate, Shepherd Healy. He knows nothing.”

Posy took the liberty of introducing them. “I’m Posy, and she’s Este—like the Estes Method.”

“The what?” Este asked.

Waving a hand dismissively and turning back to Shepherd, Posy said, “Of course this school is haunted. I thought everyone who applied to Radcliffe knew that.”

She looked toward Este for encouragement.

“Well . . .” Este scrunched her face up. “Not everyone.”

“You, too?” Her roommate’s initial shock was quickly replaced as she plastered on a grin like a morning newscaster. “Oh, my god. Okay, get this: eight students have gone missing while they studied at Radcliffe. Eight. That’s not, like, a small number. Every ten years, someone came to school, and they never went home.”

“What happened to them?” Shepherd asked. Este didn’t miss the way his grip tightened around the hilt of his lacrosse stick, knuckles white.

“No one knows for sure,” Posy said, shrugging. “There hasn’t been a disappearance since the eighties, but the energy doesn’t lie. Some scholars think Radcliffe was built on a ley line. Some think whatever was responsible was much, much worse. Something ancient, evil, and out for blood.”

Scholars, evidently, was a loose term. Este could think of a hundred things more likely than paranormal activity. Tuition costs, family emergencies. Some students probably couldn’t take the pressure of a curriculum that only scheduled twenty minutes for lunch.

“And you all seriously believe in this stuff?” she asked.

“Me? No,” Shepherd whispered, stretching his ham hock of a neck. The way his eyes shifted back and forth, scanning the shadows for stray movements, said otherwise.

“You sure about that?” Arthur reached around Shepherd to tap his opposite shoulder, and the lacrosse player nearly jumped out of his skin. The twisted look on Shepherd’s face made Este think he was considering knocking Arthur over with a single flick on the forehead.

Este rolled her eyes. All it would take was one wrong look and the EMF reader would start shouting. Posy’s theatrics might have worked on the boys, but she was going to need a little more concrete proof before she started salting her door.

She’d been thirteen when she stood next to her mom, head angled toward the cemetery’s patchy grass. Este couldn’t watch as they dropped the first clumps of dirt over her dad’s casket. Of course, she learned all the signs of spiritual encounters—how ghosts could sift through walls, how the lights would flicker and the floorboards creak. How much time had she wasted trying to believe that whispers on the wind might have belonged to her dad?

Ghosts hadn’t been real then, and they never would be.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the click, click, click of high heels on old floors. A pale woman sidled up to Dr. Kirk. Black hair dripped over the shoulders of an ironed pantsuit, silken and straight, and she held herself with the kind of Ivy League prestige Este hoped she could someday grow into.

“I won’t take up much of your time—Dr. Kirk gives an excellent tour—but I wanted to introduce myself as we kick off the 2027 academic year.” The woman’s smile was practiced, perfect. “I’m your head librarian, Aster Ives.”

Arthur’s eyes went wide, and he muttered, “She looks like she could be a student,” as if high schoolers in Vermont frequently donned pressed blazers and stilettos.

Ives let loose a good-natured laugh. Was preternatural hearing a prerequisite for becoming a librarian? “Being here keeps me young.”

“Not me,” Dr. Kirk ribbed, raising her wrinkled hands.

Posy’s EMF reader chose that exact moment to let out an ear-piercing beep like a sitcom dad after stubbing his toe. She didn’t even have the decency to look remorseful, instead immediately scanning the nearby shelves while Este silently wished she could have had an ordinary roommate, maybe one who liked jigsaw puzzles or collecting Funko Pop! figures.

Ives narrowed her eyes, a blue as sharp as the sapphire on her ring finger. “It’s my privilege to continue Radcliffe’s tradition of excellence and preserve this collection in Lilith’s honor. If you need help with anything this year, don’t hesitate to let me know. And next time you’re here, put your phone on silent.”

That got Posy to click the off button.

The tour continued upward, Ives joining them, and curios dotted the second floor, a maze of collected relics. Treasures lined each row of books, curated through the years: Greco-Roman marble busts, naval instruments for navigating harsh seas, ancient silk textiles. Dr. Kirk made a point to emphasize that all the best antiquities were hoarded at the top of the spire. These were the disposable valuables, the ones that could afford to be ogled at and fondled by high school overachievers.

Frankly, Este was pretty sure most students were too busy ogling at and fondling each other to pay attention to the artifacts.

While Posy quietly informed Shepherd about some 1960s hippie named Aoife who vanished (“With eyewitnesses!”), Este found herself fruitlessly searching the stacks for a glimpse of the boy she had seen in the window as they neared the alcove over the main entrance. With an enrollment of less than two hundred students, it wasn’t like she would never run into him again.

The third floor was noticeably quieter. Ceilings dipped lower, and the shelves were lined with thick, dusty tomes. The deeper they wove through the stacks, the darker it grew. Light barely reached this part of the library.

As the aisles narrowed, she imagined her dad pacing down the corridors, a pile of books held steady beneath his chin. He must have scanned the same call numbers, browsed the same books that she would.

Everything you need to know, you can find in your library, her dad used to say. Este clung to the defiant hope that she’d find a piece of him in this one.

“Here are the school’s archives,” Dr. Kirk said as she stalled in front of an impressive arched double door. “Completely windowless, this collection is protected from sun damage, and you’ll need permission to enter since the texts are incredibly delicate. Our highest-achieving students have the opportunity to become archiving assistants and help us maintain these records, some of which require twenty-four-hour care. Although, would you want to work overnight in the most haunted place in the most haunted school in the country?”

“Third most haunted,” Posy corrected under her breath.

“Now, don’t run off all my volunteers with your ghost stories!” Ives chided playfully, conjuring a wave of hushed giggles from the crowd.

Surveying the doors, Este’s pulse quickened beneath her skin. An ornate trim cased the archives’ entrance, carved with delicate flowers. Flowers that looked familiar. She traced her fingers along the key around her neck. It weighed heavier now, somehow.

With Dr. Kirk ruminating on best cataloging practices and Posy distracted by her new entourage of ghost hunters, Este slipped away unnoticed. She lifted the key out from underneath her sweater, the teeth biting into her palm. Had her dad worked in the archives? She imagined him holding this key and took a step closer. It wouldn’t hurt to peek. Just one look.

Slotting the key into the knob, her hands shook. But the key caught halfway.

It didn’t make any sense. The keyhole was the perfect size, and the etchings matched the door. By all accounts, the doors should’ve swung open with ease, but when she tried the lock again, she had as much bad luck.

“You know, Ives will give you detention for trespassing. In fact, I’ve seen her give it to students just for looking at restricted sections of the library.”

Este jumped backward. Leaning against the bookshelf was a familiar set of shoulders. The buttons of a collared shirt led to the smooth planes of the window boy’s face. Her brain misfired at the kaleidoscope blues of his eyes.

Typical.

The most attractive human specimen this side of Burlington, and he caught her attempting to sneak into the restricted section.

She clamped the key into her fist, guilty red fanning into her cheeks. “You mean this isn’t the exit?” she asked, trying the lie on for size.

His smile flickered, a contained flame. The boy stepped closer. “I don’t think we’ve had the chance to officially meet.” His velvet-soft voice chafed every nerve. “I’m Mateo.”

“And I’m leaving,” Este said. She looped the key back around her neck, resigning to try again when there wasn’t an annoyingly cute hall monitor on the loose.

“That’s a terrible name.”

Este ignored the boy and pivoted toward the distant drone of Dr. Kirk’s voice. She wove between the stacks, shelf after shelf of yellowed pages, until, when she looked back, Mateo had been swallowed up by the library, tucked away behind the stacks. But when she turned the corner, he was waiting for her.

There was a sparkle in his eyes, rimmed with heavy lashes, and the smug remnants of a smirk on his lips when he said, “There’s only one door that key unlocks.”

Este couldn’t help herself. “Where is it?”

Mateo grinned, a lopsided thing that made Este’s breath shorten. “Only if you tell me your name.”

She sighed. New England boys were persistent. “I’m Este.”

His eyes dipped to her toes and dragged up the length of her. It sent sparks under her skin, and she tried to squash down the color rising to her face. “The door you’re looking for leads to the Radcliffe heirlooms.”

“The spire?” All the moisture wicked from her mouth. “We can’t go up there.”

His eyebrows raised, line of sight dipping to the key in her hands. “With that, we can.”

“No,” Este said, backtracking down the stacks. “I can go up there. We aren’t doing anything together. Plus, how do you even know?”

He scoffed at her. “You would’ve spent the entire year trying to break into broom closets if I hadn’t told you.” Mateo followed her down the aisle. “We could be the first ones to see the spire in thirty years. Don’t you want to know what’s up there?”

The thing was, she did. For some reason, the spire key had been hidden in her dad’s picture frame, and she wanted to know why. However, and maybe more importantly, she also wanted to not get kicked out of school before classes even started.

“Why should I trust you?” she asked, twisting to face him.

“If my dashing good looks and my winning personality aren’t enough,” he said, amusement darting across the lines of his face, down the long slope of his thin nose and the dimple in his chin, “because I’ll tell Ives you took the key. And rumor has it she’s been looking for it for quite some time.”

“I didn’t—” The outrage burst out of her.

“And yet you have it,” he said with a shrug. “Who do you think she’ll believe? This is your only chance.”

Este chewed on her lip and tasted vanilla ChapStick, deliberating. Mateo’s penchant for eye contact made her skin crawl. All crystalline blue with nowhere to hide. He made a good point. And exploring the spire . . . it was what her dad would’ve wanted, right?

“Let’s go,” she said, and she hoped she wouldn’t regret it.

“If this is the part where you axe murder me,” Este said, hands braced against the stairwell’s clammy walls, “promise me you’ll donate my organs.”

The entrance to the spire was an arched door on the fifth floor across from Ives’s office, and they’d slipped inside with absolutely no fanfare—it hadn’t even been locked. The real door, Mateo assured her, was at the top of a spiraling staircase as pitch dark as it was narrow. Este’s feet kept slipping off the steps, and her white-finger grip on the walls was barely enough to keep her upright. Apparently, the Radcliffes hadn’t believed in handrails.

Ahead of her, Mateo huffed, “I’m not going to do either of those things.” He marched, sure-footed and swift, up the stairs without sparing her a look back.

As soon as they’d pried open the spire’s fifth-floor entrance, a damp quiet had surrounded them. Here, there was no residual library soundtrack—no chime of the circulation clerk scanning library cards for checkout, no quiet chatter and whispered secrets, only cold stone walls that soaked up the sound of their voices. Trailing a boy she barely knew into a secluded tower wasn’t her best idea, but with her dad’s key warming in the palm of her hand, she knew she had to see where it led.

If only she could see her own feet.

“Is there seriously not an elevator?” Este whined.

“Oh, there is.” Este didn’t need to see his face to know Mateo’s lips were twisted into a skewed smile. She could hear it in his voice, the way it lilted with a laugh. “But it’s in Ives’s office and a bit of a tight fit for two.”

“Could you at least put on your phone’s flashlight?” she asked. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to break my neck, and I left mine in my dorm.”

“I don’t have one.”

Who didn’t own a phone? Este tracked the shape of Mateo, his outline muddled in the black. She hadn’t pegged him as an off-the-grid hipster. “Not even a flip phone?”

“Nope.”

Finally, gray-blue light sifted through the stairwell as they approached one arched window after another. A sliver of waxing moon cast silver streams over the limestone staircase, guiding them up and up and up. Through the streaked glass stood the pointed tops of pine trees, coated by a layer of evening fog rolling down the hills. Este lost track of how many flights they climbed, but she was certain she’d done enough cardio for the entire semester. And they were only halfway up.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Everyone I know is around here.” Mateo spun on his heels, taking the steps backward so that she had nowhere to look but up at him. It would take an hour to unravel the stitch in Este’s side, and he hadn’t even broken a sweat. “I was born and raised right here in Sheridan Oaks.”

Sheridan Oaks, Vermont, wasn’t much more than a pinprick on the atlas. Este and her mom had careened through the countryside for miles before she glimpsed the wrought-iron gates and brick perimeter that separated Radcliffe from the rest of the world. And a library like this? With its ornate exterior and sprawling collection of antique texts, the Lilith exuded a permanence unlike anything else in Este’s life. She couldn’t imagine having it all right in her backyard.

“Do you ever think about leaving? Going somewhere else for college?” she asked.

Mateo shook his head in a single, taut stroke. “This place is all I’ve ever known. I don’t know if I could leave it behind if I tried.”

That kind of constant was a foreign language Este hadn’t heard in years. After her dad died, her mom uprooted everything—sold the house, packed the Subaru, and strapped Este into the back seat for a three-year road trip. They’d eaten ice cream for breakfast and drank Slurpees for dinner, nursing the stomachaches that came with it.

When Este got her license last summer, she and her mom had taken turns driving while the other chose their next destination. She learned how to say goodbye over and over again. It was so much easier than holding on too long. She’d seen what heartbreak could do. She’d watched her mom cave in on herself beneath the weight of grief, caravanning across county lines searching for something she’d never find.

Now, with her hands clawing at timeworn stones in a desperate attempt to find some connection to her dad, Este wasn’t sure she was any better. The staircase widened until they reached a curved onyx door cloaked with streams of ivy pockmarked by dainty purple flowers. Each blossom stretched its petals when moonlight slanted on its bulbs and shied away when fog shade drenched the staircase back into darkness, winking closed.

“The honor is all yours,” Mateo said, stepping aside on the wide landing.

Este braced herself against the wall, dizzy from the nectarine scent radiating from the flowers, the anticipation of stepping through the threshold, and how closely Mateo stood. She couldn’t tell which was the most responsible.

Thick twines of ivy circled the brass knob. Roots wedged inside the keyhole. She’d imagined the Radcliffe collection tucked inside a pristine vault, something with tufted velvet chaises and polished gold—not an overgrown attic.

Suddenly, a wave of nauseating anxiety crashed against her chest, threatening to pull her into the undertow. She raked her nail against a petal, and it shrunk into itself. If Este walked through the spire door, there would be no turning back.

“Are you sure we should do this?” she asked, scrunching up the bridge of her nose.

“Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet already. We haven’t even seen what’s inside,” Mateo crooned. His voice was hushed and harsh at once. Este wasn’t sure if it was his words or the hallway’s damp chill that grew goose bumps on her neck.

Taking the key from around her neck, Este held it out to him. “You should open it. Coming up here was your idea.”

“Ladies first,” he said. “I insist.”

“No, I do.” She dangled the key by its cord, bait for the taking.

His voice dropped. “I can’t.”

Este barked a laugh. “What do you mean you can’t?”

Mateo thinned his lips into a firm line and leaned his head toward the shallow ceiling. With his eyes pinched closed, he said, “I can’t touch the ivy, Este. I’m allergic.”

“Actually, you’re an asshole, you know that?” Este didn’t try to warm the cold snap in her voice. “You really dragged me all the way up here just to give me an earful of lousy excuses?”

She coiled her arms around her ribs as she dipped down the stairwell. Maybe she wouldn’t see the spire tonight, but she also wouldn’t have to spend another moment with someone as irritating as him.

Este was halfway around the first spiral by the time Mateo said, “I guess that’s my mistake for expecting more from a Logano.”

She paused, frozen between steps. The blood drained from her face. Her eyebrows pinched so closely together, she wondered if they’d fuse permanently into one. How did he know her last name?

Turning back, Este barked, “What did you say?”

When she faced him, he leaned against the stone wall, ankles hooked together and a hand slipped into the pocket of his trousers, with the graceful ease of a grand master who moved the rook into checkmate. “Dean Logano,” he said. “Is he of any relation to you?”

“What do you know about my dad?” Este stalked back to the door, fists clenched. A shadow blotted out the light from the moon, and every purple flower on the doorframe closed its blossom—too afraid to watch.

“The whole school’s heard of him. You must know that he was the last person in the spire.”

Este’s mouth hung open, wordless. When she didn’t say anything, Mateo leaned closer. He smelled like a sun-drenched memory—like well-worn book pages and Vermont’s white cedar groves. “Unless, you didn’t.”

Not a question. A realization that he had the upper hand.

“Legend says that while Dean Logano was working on a research project, he took the head librarian’s key—some say stole, some say borrowed, you decide—and snuck into the spire. Whatever he found up there, no one knows. He transferred schools, and the door was left locked.”

“So, what?” Este huffed, hoping he couldn’t hear the frantic way her heart was beating.

“So, no one has entered this section in thirty years, and now you have the key.” Barely louder than a whisper, he said, “I saw your scholarship announcement, Este Logano. You’ve got a legacy to fulfill.”

In that moment, Este hated Mateo. She hated that he lured her up here, all eyelashes and arrogance, and she hated that he was right. Underneath the rhythmic pounding of her heart and the storm of worry brewing behind her sternum, there was a magnetic pull to the spire that Este couldn’t resist. Her dad had been the last person to see the heirlooms. Her footprints would leave tracks in the gathered dust, right next to his.

As she pulled the key from her pocket, Mateo grinned, and if her curiosity didn’t outweigh how much she loathed his incessant cockiness, she would’ve left him standing there. Instead, she scraped away leaves from the lock with a polished fingernail and fitted the key into its slot. Ivy curled away as she twisted the groaning knob. The door hinges whined, one long syllable, as Este nudged it open with the flat of her hand.

Taking a steadying breath, she stepped up and into the spire’s archives.

Oh, my god. She’d need the next seven to ten business days to recover emotionally, mentally, and physically.

Window after window dotted the perimeter of the circular room, and hazy moonlight poured through the veiled sky. Cobwebs strung from the ceiling in lazy silver loops. In the center of the room, bookcases behind iron cages wove a maze of one-of-a-kind texts. Forgotten Shakespearean soliloquies, Italian sonnets drenched in unrequited love, playbooks and philosophies, ancient parables on ink-drenched parchment. Glass cases housed twinkling diamonds and fountain pens, a blade with a ruby hilt, portraits and sculptures, jewels and jade.

And ivy clawed through all of it. Vines wept over the window ledges, the bookcases, the cedar rafters. They crawled down the walls and dug deep into the stone flooring. Those petite, purple flowers speckled the greenery, opening and closing like watchful eyes.

Seeing the same forbidden collections her dad had, every heirloom gem and preserved parchment, sent shivers over her skin. Este couldn’t take it all in at once.

Mateo, on the other hand, clearly didn’t harbor the same kind of awe and reverence. He unceremoniously breezed past her and veered into the stacks. She scrambled to catch up with him, and he dropped a scrap of notebook paper into her hand.

“I helped you,” he said, “and now you can help me find this book.”

Unfolding it, Mateo’s handwriting was as slim and precise as he was. “How are we supposed to find it with this?” she asked, cutting close corners to keep up with his breakneck stride. “BL293?”

Mateo stifled a curt laugh. “Don’t you know how to read a call number?”

“What? No,” Este fumbled. He was a spade digging under her skin. “That’s—no, of course I know the Dewey decimal system.”

“Academic libraries use Library of Congress classification.” He forged ahead, zipping between narrow rows of artifacts and precious artworks.

Mateo’s head didn’t swivel side to side at the sight of every relic the way Este’s did as they looped through the shelves’ crooked corridors. Publications were densely packed behind intricately carved, diamond-paned doors, and she trailed her index fingers across the bars as they passed. He barely gave them a second glance.

Finally, he stalled in front of a case close to the center of the room, and Este took her place next to him, shoulders nearly touching. Their reflections stared back at her, warped in the glass—the round curve of Este’s chin, the sharp bow of her lips, a triplet of moles on her cheekbone, all of it framed by a long swath of brown hair, and Mateo’s jagged features mismatched with the soft gleam in his eyes. On the shelf inside, a single tome stood centered on a bookstand, with knotted ivy binding the text in a living casing.

Stamped on a gold plate over the cabinet: BL293.

Este’s hand covered her mouth in disbelief. “That’s the book you want to look at?”

Mateo nodded, his eyes trained against the greenery and the hardback beneath it. “The one and only.”

“It’s absolutely ancient,” she said, breathless. “We should use gloves or something. Did you bring some?”

“Honestly, Este, if the ivy hasn’t hurt it, nothing you do will.” He ran a hand through his curls and offered her a half smile. Not exactly the encouragement she needed.

A groaning sound billowed through the spire, a vibrato baritone. Este couldn’t tell exactly where the sound came from—a northern wind rolling down the Green Mountains or inside the walls of the spire. Either way, an echo of Posy’s ghost stories ricocheted through her mind, suddenly too close for comfort. It spurred her into motion.

Este jerked the cabinet’s handle, but the door caught, its hinges unoiled and untouched for too long. Three decades of dust and grime sealed it shut. She waited for an alarm system to blare and blow their cover, but when the spire stayed silent, she pulled again, harder this time. The gated cabinet flung open, and the force knocked Este into the shelf behind her. A wave of sweetly scented air breathed into the spire, rich as primrose and sharp as pine.

“It doesn’t even have a title?” she asked over her shoulder as she plucked one of the leaves.

“It’s called The Book of Fades.”

Este’s hands stilled. Hadn’t Posy said something about Fades earlier? She groaned, “Not you, too. Is everyone here obsessed with dead people or what?”

“Just—” He pressed his index finger to his temple. Tension rippled through his shoulders. Este had to admit that she kind of enjoyed riling him up like that. “Just grab the book.”

Mateo’s fingers rapped against the cabinet’s glass pane as she pried away the ivy. Her hands tingled, coated in the sap from the greenery. With each vine removed, another wove snugly around the ancient binding, alive and angry. She curled both hands around the text, casting out any guilt twisting in her gut about what the oils on her skin might do to the antique leather, and the book broke free from the last vine with a final pull.

The book was horribly ornate, with a glimmering stitching around the perimeter and corners capped with scalloped, golden pieces. It must have been at least six hundred pages, each painted with a dainty metallic edge. Before she could flip the front cover open, Mateo stripped it from her grip with a quick hand.

“You’re the best, Este,” she said, dropping her voice as low as she could in a flimsy imitation of him. “Thank you for all your help.”

A shade of a smile grazed his lips as he fanned through the pages, but Mateo slammed the cover shut when Este tried again to glance over the book’s head. “Este Logano, I could kiss you right now.”

“You could?” she stammered.

He leaned down so that they were eye to eye, and Este didn’t dare breathe. “But I’m sure Ives will be up here soon. If I were you, I’d make a run for it.”

Este heard it, then, over the adrenaline swirling in her head—the click of high heels echoing from the staircase chamber. Quick, purposeful, and definitely bad news. “We have to get out of here.”

But she quickly realized there was no we anymore. Mateo had vanished.

“Mateo?” she called.

Este’s voice tapered off, answered only by the pearly moonshine, the night silence. Her hummingbird heartbeat pulsed in her ears. He’d used her, and he’d disappeared around the corner cabinet as if he’d never been here at all. Probably jumped into the elevator he’d conveniently deemed unusable on their way up.

She whispered his name again. No use. Tiptoeing to the end of the aisle, the only trace he’d been here at all was an oxford footprint in the dust. The shelves wove together, labyrinthian, and she couldn’t find him in them. Este’s fingernails carved divots into the soft of her palm.

She needed to find the elevator—and fast. Without it, there was only one way out, and she’d never make it back downstairs without getting caught.

Panic roiled in her stomach, acid burning up her throat as the head librarian turned the corner in long, lithe strides. Este’s hands were slicked with dust and sticky with sap, the spire key hung around her neck, and the case swung open on uneven hinges, The Book of Fades missing.

She was totally and completely screwed.

Ives rested both hands on her narrow hips, and a slice of moonlight illuminated half her face—her pointed cheekbones, her red-painted lips. With a flash of white teeth, she said, “Este Logano. I should’ve known it would be you.”