“I thought she might.” Lucy ignores the way anxiety burrows into her skin and tucks the blankets more securely around his body. “Are you warm enough?”

“Mm-hmm. But if you want to seduce me, you might have to leave on my socks,” he says, trying to lighten the mood. He doesn’t want to think about the downside to any of this. Only wants to feel her curled behind him and remember the world underwater. A fraction of his mind registers how crazy this is, that from the outside looking in, he might even appear suicidal. And with a piercing stab to his chest, he realizes this is how his mother must have felt. Doing whatever she could do to have even one more day with her daughter. Colin has never been more positive that his mother wasn’t insane after all. She simply wanted her family back.

It’s early—hours before the sun comes up and the students flood campus—and Colin can hear one of the delivery trucks outside, dropping off supplies at the kitchen. The steady beep as it backs up echoes off the stone buildings and fills the empty quad. “Hey, how’d you two get me up here anyway?”

“That would be Jay. Turns out he’s excellent at distraction and a lot stronger than he looks.”

“How is he?”

“He’s okay,” she says, and he feels her shrug slightly. “I mean, he seems to thrive on this kind of thing. I don’t get it, but I’m glad he’s like that. What he’s doing for us is amazing.”

“I know.”

“I wonder if we’d be able to do it without him. I wonder if I could get you out of the water somehow.” She pauses, watching him. “I wonder if that’s why I’m so strong now.”

Colin is silent in response to that. He’s given this some thought. If the lake is where Lucy was before she found him and where she goes when she disappears, Colin wonders if he could simply go find her there. He’s not exactly sure how they got to the other side because his head is still a bit foggy, but he likes to think if he had to, he could find it alone.

“Tell me what happened,” he says. “It’s true, isn’t it? You got past the gate.”

“You remember that?”

He nods.

She shivers beside him. “Other than finding you, I don’t remember ever feeling so drawn to something. I saw my hand, and it looked alive, Colin. I felt like I needed to be on the other side of the gate.”

“Do you think that’s how it works? We need to get you off campus? Like, unlocking some puzzle?”

“I don’t know. Somehow I don’t think it’s that simple. It can’t be.”

“Maybe you’re overthinking it.”

She doesn’t answer, just presses her cheek into the back of his shirt, reassuring herself that he’s warm and really here.

“It’s where you were before you came back?” he asks.

“I think so. I feel like I’d been pacing inside a cage, looking out through the lake, waiting to come be with you.”

“And you think it’s where you go when you disappear?”

Her arms tighten around him when he says that. “Yeah, but I don’t plan on disappearing again.”

Maybe not, he thinks. But at least I know where to find you. Colin relaxes. This knowledge makes the prospect of the approaching spring much less terrifying.

CHAPTER 33 HER

THE DEEP PURPLE WATER-SKY TREMBLES ABOVE them, with stars made out of a million of the smallest bubbles. The illusion of earth and lake bottom turns into the soft, inviting blackness. An instinctive burst of energy courses through Lucy’s system, and she pushes forward faster.

“God, I can’t wait to get there,” Colin says, floating behind her. “I hope we can stay longer this time. I want to try the gate again.”

Lucy doesn’t respond, simply kicks her feet through the icy clear water. It’s all she’s been able to think about: how her skin looked like real flesh, that she felt the sting of the cold air on her fingertips, but she’s worried there’s something they haven’t considered yet.

It’s strange to not be able to see but to know exactly where to turn, like the directions are embedded in her muscles. Does he feel it too?

“Can you find it?” she asks, stilling. “What?” He stops next to her, his arm pressed along the length of hers.

“Do you remember how to get there? Could you find it on your own?”

He looks behind them, to where the water has simply emptied into blackness, and then forward again. “Not like this. I can’t see anything. I don’t think this is how we got here before.”

“Never mind,” she says, grabbing his hand to pull him closer. “I guess it’s a feel thing. Maybe after you’ve been here a few more times.”

“Maybe,” he says, though he sounds unsure.

A few seconds later, she instinctively turns. A light in the distance grows brighter and brighter.

It takes a moment for their eyes to adjust, but everything is exactly as they left it. A canopy of crystalline leaves sparkles above them. The sun is a trapezoidal beam of yellow sweeping across the frozen shore. Orange, blue, red, and purple flowers bloom in small pops before they freeze, leaving waves of stained-glass color in their wake. A light snow is falling, and Colin holds out his hand; intricate, lacy snowflakes land in his palm.

She grins at him, watching him look around. It’s everything at once: vibrant color and glistening ice. They can smell the wet earth beneath the snow and hear the water freeze across the lake. It becomes disorienting and overwhelming, and she can see the moment it becomes too much for him when he sits on the bank and covers his eyes.

She sits next to him, resting her hand on his bent knee. “Are you okay?”