It was the longest fic she’d written so far; it was already longer than any of Gemma T. Leslie’s books, and Cath was only two-thirds of the way through.

Carry On was written as if it were the eighth Simon Snow book, as if it were Cath’s job to wrap up all the loose ends, to make sure that Simon ascended to Mage, to redeem Baz (something GTL would never do), to make both boys forget about Agatha … To write all the good-bye scenes and graduation scenes and last-minute revelations … And to stage the final battle between Simon and the Insidious Humdrum.

Everyone in fandom was writing eighth-year fics right now. Everyone wanted to take a crack at the big ending before the last Simon Snow book was released in May.

But for thousands of people, Carry On was already it.

People were always telling Cath that they couldn’t look at canon the same way after reading her stuff. (“Why does Gemma hate Baz?”)

Somebody had even started selling T-shirts on Etsy that said KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON with a photo of Baz and Simon glaring at each other. Wren bought Cath one for her eighteenth birthday.

Cath tried not to let it all go to her head. These characters belong to Gemma T. Leslie, she wrote at the beginning of every new chapter.

“You belong to Gemma,” she’d say to the Baz poster over her bed at home. “I’m just borrowing you.”

“You didn’t borrow Baz,” Wren would say. “You kidnapped him and raised him as your own.”

If Cath stayed up too late writing, too many nights in a row—if she was obsessing over the comments or the criticism—Wren would climb into Cath’s bed and steal her laptop, holding it like a teddy bear while she slept.

On nights like that, Cath could always go downstairs and keep writing on her dad’s computer if she really wanted to—but she didn’t like to cross Wren. They listened to each other when they wouldn’t listen to anyone else.

Hey, guys, Cath started typing now into her FanFixx journal. She wished Wren were here, to read this before she posted it.

So I guess it’s time for me to admit that college is hard—College is hard! Or, at least, time consuming!—and I’m probably not going to be updating Carry On as much as I used to, as much as I’d like to.…

But I’m not disappearing, I promise. And I’m not giving it up. I already know how this all ends, and I’m not going to rest ’til I get there.

*   *   *

Nick turned around in his desk as soon as class was dismissed. “You’ll be my partner, right?”

“Right,” Cath said, noticing a girl in the next aisle glance at them disappointedly. Probably because she wanted to work with Nick.

They were each supposed to find a partner and write a story together outside of class, trading paragraphs back and forth. The point of the exercise, Professor Piper said, was to make them extra-conscious of plot and voice—and to lead their brains down pathways they’d never find on their own.

Nick wanted to meet on campus at Love Library. (That was the actual name; thank you for your donation, Mayor Don Lathrop Love.) Nick worked there a few nights a week, shelving books down in the stacks.

Reagan looked suspicious when Cath started packing up her laptop after dinner. “You’re leaving the dorm after dark? Do you have a date?” She said it like it was a joke. The idea of Cath on a date.

“I’m meeting someone to study.”

“Don’t walk home by yourself if it’s late,” Levi said. He and Reagan had class notes spread all over Reagan’s side of the room.

“I walk home by myself all the time,” Reagan snapped at him.

“That’s different.” Levi smiled at her warmly. “You don’t rock that Little Red Riding Hood vibe. You’re scary.”

Reagan grinned like the Big Bad Wolf.

“I don’t think rapists actually care about self-confidence,” Cath said.

“You don’t?” Levi looked over at her seriously. “I think they’d go for easy prey. The young and the lame.”

Reagan snorted. Cath hung her scarf on her neck. “I’m not lame…,” she mumbled.

Levi heaved himself up off Reagan’s bed and slid into a heavy, green canvas jacket. “Come on,” he said.

“Why?”

“I’m walking you to the library.”

“You don’t have to,” Cath argued.

“I haven’t moved in two hours. I don’t mind.”

“No, really…”

“Just go, Cath,” Reagan said. “It’ll take five minutes, and if you get raped now, it’ll be our fault. I haven’t got time for the pain.”

“You coming?” Levi asked Reagan.

“Fuck no. It’s cold out.”

It was cold out. Cath walked as quickly as she could. But Levi, long as his legs were, never broke an amble.

He was trying to talk to Cath about buffalo. As far as she could tell, Levi had a whole class that was just about buffalo. He seemed like he’d major in buffalo if that were an option. Maybe it was an option.…

This school was constantly reminding Cath how rural Nebraska was—something she’d never given any thought to before, growing up in Omaha, the state’s only real city. Cath had driven through Nebraska a few times on the way to Colorado—she’d seen the grass and the cornfields—but she’d never thought much past the view. She’d never thought about the people who lived there.

Levi and Reagan were from some town called Arnold, which Reagan said smelled and looked “like manure.”

“God’s country,” Levi called it. “All the gods. Brahma and Odin would love it there.”

Levi was still talking about buffalo even though they were already at the library. Cath climbed the first stone step, hopping up and down to stay warm. Standing on the step, she was practically as tall as him.

“Do you see what I mean?” he asked.

She nodded. “Cows bad. Buffalo good.”

“Cows good,” he said. “Bison better.” Then he gave her a lazy, lopsided grin. “This is all really important, you know—that’s why I’m telling you.”

“Vital,” she said. “Ecosystems. Water tables. Shrews going extinct.”

“Call me when you’re done, Little Red.”

No, Cath thought, I don’t even know your number.

Levi was already walking away. “I’ll be in your room,” he said over his shoulder. “Call me there.”

*   *   *

The library had six levels aboveground and two levels below.

The sublevels, where the stacks were, were shaped strangely and accessible only from certain staircases; it almost felt like the stacks were tucked under other buildings around campus.

Nick worked in the north stacks in a long white room—it was practically a missile silo with bookshelves. There was a constant hum no matter where you were standing, and even though Cath couldn’t see any vents, parts of the room had their own wind. At the table where they were sitting, Nick had to set a pen on his open notebook to keep the pages from riffling.

Nick wrote in longhand.

Cath was trying to convince him that they’d be better off taking turns on her laptop.

“But then we won’t see ourselves switching,” he said. “We won’t see the two different hands at work.”

“I can’t think on paper,” she said.

“Perfect,” Nick said. “This exercise is about stepping outside of yourself.”

“Okay,” she sighed. There was no use arguing anymore—he’d already pushed her computer away.

“Okay.” Nick picked up his pen and pulled the cap off with his teeth. “I’ll start.”

“Wait,” Cath said. “Let’s talk about what kind of story we’re writing.”

“You’ll see.”

“That’s not fair.” She leaned forward, looking at the blank sheet of paper. “I don’t want to write about, like, dead bodies or … naked bodies.”

“So what I’m hearing is, no bodies.”

Nick wrote in a scrawling half cursive. He was left-handed, so he smeared blue ink across the paper as he went. You need a felt tip, Cath thought, trying to read his handwriting upside down from across the table. When he handed her the notebook, she could hardly read it, even right side up.