I don’t say anything.

“Don’t worry,” Dad says. “Your secret’s safe with me. Still, I gotta say, it’s a good thing you didn’t go against me on bringing Rhonda into it.” He makes a fist and chucks me on the chin, hard enough to hurt. “I’d hate to break up our father-son bond, right?”

“Just make sure you’re here tomorrow,” I say.

“Oh, I’ll be here,” Dad says. “For two million bucks, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

We drive back in silence.

When I get to my dorm room, my weekend assignments are piling up on my desk—course packs, textbooks, unfinished papers, two chapters for Global Risk, and about a hundred pages of U.S. Diplomacy, plus math and English Lit—but I can’t concentrate on any of it. I can’t stop thinking about what Dad told me about Andrea, how she went to him with everything. Of course it makes sense that she’ll do whatever she has to do to derail the con, and I know it means I just have to step up my game, but something in me is resisting.

I force myself to open a textbook and start reading about Wilson’s Fourteen Points, but almost instantly there’s a tapping on my window.

I go over and push the curtains aside. Gatsby’s standing out there with her arms crossed, looking in at me. Her hair is tucked up into a black knit cap and her breath is steaming out in clouds. She looks cold. I flip the latch and swing the window open.

“Hey.” Her cheeks are flushed, and she tosses a quick look over her shoulder. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” I say. “What’s up?”

“It’s complicated.” She climbs through the window, ducking her head down, and I notice that she’s wearing a huge black nylon backpack. Whatever’s inside is bulky enough that it almost catches on the window frame. Once she’s inside, she shuts the window and yanks the curtains closed behind her, turns around, and looks at me. Her glasses are starting to steam up and she takes them off to rub the lenses on her scarf. “So,” she says, sounding out of breath and sitting down on my bed. “How are you?” She takes off her gloves and gives me a weak smile.

“Uh, fine,” I say. “What’s—”

There’s a sudden banging on my door. Gatsby shoots up like she’s on springs, her head swiveling in all directions, looking around the room. The knocking continues, becoming more insistent.

“Who is it?” I say.

“Security. I’m looking for Ms. Haverford,” a man’s voice says. It’s familiar, but I’m not sure why. “I know she’s in there. Open the door, Mr. Shea.”

I look at Gatsby, but she’s frantically struggling with the backpack, taking it off and shoving it under my bed, where it barely fits.

“You’ve got the wrong room,” I say. “This is an all-male floor.”

There’s silence for a second, and then I hear keys rattling outside the door. Apparently the guard has had enough with the small talk and is already letting himself in.

“Okay, all right,” I say. “Just hold on.” I’m trying to stall, but the door’s opening. From the corner of my eye I see Gatsby crawling under the bed next to her backpack.

Seconds later, a uniformed man steps inside. It’s George from the other night, the Kant-reading security guard who let me into Brandt’s dorm. His face and neck are flushed like he’s been running, and he smells faintly of tobacco.

“Where is she?” he asks, craning his neck to look around the room.

“Who?”

“Don’t play stupid with me, Shea.”

“Look,” I say, “I told you, I’m alone here. And as you can see”—I point at my desk and the mountain of papers and books—“I’ve got a ton of studying to do. So if you don’t mind . . .”

“Nice,” George says, lifting one of Gatsby’s gloves off my bed and holding it up for closer examination. “Not really your color, though, is it?”

“I found ’em outside. Going to put them in lost and found in the morning.”

“Uh-huh.” After crossing the room, he opens my closet and starts yanking out my clothes. Once he’s finished trashing my wardrobe, George takes another walk around the room and ends up next to the window, staring out at the night. Then he looks at me.

“I told you,” I say.

George’s whole face clenches, and then he just shakes his head and walks out. The door clicks shut. I wait until I hear his footsteps fade down the wooden hallway. Then I exhale.

“He’s gone,” I say.

Gatsby comes sliding out from under the bed, brushing herself off. “Wow,” she says, “you’ve got a lot of dust under there.”

“Are you going to tell me why security is looking for you?”

“I accidentally tripped an alarm in the rare books collection tonight.”

“What? Why?”

She reaches under the bed for the backpack, unzips it all the way, and pulls out the Gutenberg Bible. For a second I just stare at it, this historical artifact lying on my bed next to an empty Mountain Dew bottle and a rumpled T-shirt.

“Okay,” I say, “that’s the Gutenberg Bible—”

“The fake Gutenberg.”

“You stole it?”

“Borrowed it.”

“Okay, but I’m pretty sure this particular item doesn’t circulate.”

“Will, listen.” She looks up at me, absolutely serious. “We just need you to hold on to it for a while.”

“We?”

“It’s important. Consider it an assignment.”

“An assignment? Wait, you mean . . .” For a second, it’s dead silent, as if all of the air has been sucked out of the room, and Gatsby’s face is expressionless. “You’re in the Sigils?”

“Is that such a shock?”

“Well, kind of, yeah.” Then it hits me. “Are you the one who nominated me for membership?”

Gatsby allows herself the slightest smile. “I knew you were smart.”

“Why me?”

“For one thing,” she says, “you threw that snowball.”

“What?”

“At Brandt’s head. On Tray Day. Nobody’s ever done anything like that before.”

“That? It was just a lucky toss. I didn’t even think it would hit him.” Then the implications of what she’s saying finally occur to me. “Wait. You mean, Brandt’s not a Sigil?”

“Are you kidding?” Gatsby laughs out loud at the thought of it. “The Sigils are the antidote to the Brandt Rushes of the world. We’re outsiders, Will.” The laughter has drained away from her face. “Like you.”

I just look back at her. For an instant the room is absolutely quiet again. I’m an outsider, all right. She has no idea.

“Now,” Gatsby says, and nods at the Gutenberg, “in order to prove yourself worthy of the Sigils, you have to complete this assignment. Keep this in your room for one week. If you can do that without getting caught, you’ll be inducted into full membership.”

I shake my head. “I don’t understand. Why the Gutenberg, other than it’s incredibly difficult to hide?”

“Funny you should ask,” she says. “It took some digging, but I did some research on the school’s acquisition of the Bible. You know how I said it was purchased thirty years ago from a rare-book dealer in the U.K.? The school actually got it for a bargain-basement price, under one condition—that the book dealer’s son got a full scholarship here. Any guesses what his name was?”

“I give up.”

Gatsby can’t hide her smile. “Melville.”

“Wait.” I blink at her. “As in, the head of the school?”

“That’s him.”

“Dr. Melville’s father sold the fake Gutenberg to the school?” Now I’m smiling back at her. “That’s unbelievable. Do you think he knew at the time?”

“Well,” Gatsby says, “the fact that Melville senior disappeared not long afterward, never to be heard from again, should tell us something, shouldn’t it?” She lowers her voice. “I wonder if maybe Melville himself knew about it too, even then.”

The idea that Dr. Melville might have been in on it—a father-and-son con team—hits way too close to home, and all at once I feel myself straining to change the subject. “That thing’s huge.” I glance down at the enormous Bible again. “How am I supposed to stash it in my room for a week?”