“No. As long as you don’t try to sell it. GTL says she loves fanfiction—I mean, she loves the idea of it. She doesn’t actually read it.”

“Is your professor reporting you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is she reporting you to the Judicial Board?”

“She didn’t even mention that.”

“She would have mentioned it,” he said. “So … okay.” He waved his fork in a straight line between them, holding it like a pencil. “This isn’t a big deal. You just don’t turn in any more fanfiction.”

It still felt like a big deal. Cath’s stomach still hurt.

“She just … she made me feel so stupid and … deviant.”

Levi laughed again. “Do you really expect an elderly English professor to be down with gay Simon Snow fanfiction?”

“She didn’t even mention the gay thing,” Cath said.

“Deviant.” He raised an eyebrow. Levi’s eyebrows were much darker than his hair. Too dark, really. And arched. Like he’d drawn them on.

Cath felt herself smile, even though she was trying to hold her lips and face still. She shook her head, then looked down at her food and took a big bite.

Levi scraped more eggs and hash onto her plate.

Sneaking around the castle, staying out all night, coming home in the morning with leaves in his hair …

Baz was up to something; Simon was sure of it. But he needed proof—Penelope and Agatha weren’t taking his suspicions seriously.

“He’s plotting,” Simon would say.

“He’s always plotting,” Penelope would answer.

“He’s looming,” Simon would say.

“He’s always looming,” Agatha would answer. “He is quite tall.”

“No taller than me.”

“Mmm … a bit.”

It wasn’t just the plotting and the looming; Baz was up to something. Something beyond his chronic gittishness. His pearl grey eyes were bloodshot and shadowed; his black hair had lost its luster. Usually cold and intimidating, lately Baz seemed chilled and cornered.

Simon had followed him around the catacombs last night for three hours, and still didn’t have a clue.

—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T. Leslie

TWELVE

It was too cold to wait outside before Fiction-Writing, so Cath found a bench inside Andrews Hall and sat with one leg tucked beneath her, leaning back against the cream-colored wall.

She took out her phone and opened a fic she’d been reading. (She was too nervous to study.) Cath never read other people’s Simon/Baz anymore—she didn’t want to unconsciously mimic another author or steal someone’s ideas—so when she did read fic, it was always about Penelope. Sometimes Penelope/Agatha. Sometimes Penelope/Micah (the American exchange student who only appeared in Book Three). Sometimes just Penelope, all on her own, having adventures.

It felt like an act of open rebellion to be reading fanfiction while she sat in the English building, waiting to see Professor Piper for the first time since their talk. Cath had actually considered skipping class today, but she figured that would just make it even more painful to face Professor Piper the next time. It’s not like Cath could skip class for the rest of the semester—better to just get it over with.

Cath’d already faced Wren, and that hadn’t gone nearly so badly as she’d expected. They’d eaten lunch together twice this week, and neither of them had brought up the scene at Muggsy’s. Maybe Wren had been too drunk to remember the details.

Courtney didn’t seem to get that they were avoiding the subject. (That girl had the subtlety of a Spencer’s Gifts shop.)

“Hey, Cath,” Courtney said at lunch, “who was that cute blond boy you were with Friday night? Was that your hot librarian?”

“No,” Cath said. “That’s just Levi.”

“Her roommate’s boyfriend,” Wren said, stirring her vegetable soup. Wren seemed tired; she wasn’t wearing mascara, and her eyelashes looked pale and stubby.

“Oh.” Courtney stuck out her bottom lip. “Too bad. He was super cute. Farm boy.”

“How could you tell he’s a farm boy?” Cath asked.

“Carhartt,” they both said at once.

“What?”

“His coat,” Wren explained. “All the farm boys wear Carhartt.”

“Trust your sister on this.” Courtney giggled. “She knows all the farm boys.”

“He’s not my hot librarian,” Cath had said.

No one is my hot librarian, she thought now, losing her place in the fic she was reading. No one is my hot anything.

And besides, Cath still wasn’t sure whether Nick was actually hot or whether he just projected hotness. Specifically in her direction.

Someone sat down next to her on the bench, and Cath glanced up from her phone. Nick tilted his chin up in greeting.

“Think of the devil,” she said, then wished she hadn’t.

“You thinking about me?”

“I was thinking … of the devil,” Cath said stupidly.

“Idle brains,” Nick said, grinning. He was wearing a thick, navy blue turtleneck sweater that made him look like he was serving on a Soviet battleship. Like, even more so than usual. “So, what did Piper want to talk to you about last week?”

“Nothing much.” Cath’s stomach was such a mess today, she hardly felt it wrench.

Nick unwrapped a piece of gum and set it on his tongue. “Was it about taking her advanced class?”

“No.”

“You have to make an appointment to talk to her about it,” he said, chewing. “It’s like an interview. I’m meeting with her next week—I’m hoping she’ll give me a teaching assistantship.”

“Yeah?” Cath sat up a little straighter. “That’d be great. You’d be great at that.”

Nick gave her a sheepish smile. “Yeah, well. I wish I would have talked to her about it before that last assignment. It was my worst grade of the semester.”

“Really?” It was hard to make eye contact with Nick—his eyes were almost buried under his eyebrows; you had to dig into his face. “Mine, too,” Cath said.

“She said that my writing was ‘overly slick’ and ‘impenetrable.’” He sighed.

“She said worse about mine.”

“Guess I’ve gotten used to writing with backup,” Nick said, still smiling at her. Still sheepish.

“Codependent,” Cath said.

Nick snapped his gum at her. “We writing tonight?”

Cath nodded and looked back at her phone.

*   *   *

“Reagan isn’t here,” Cath said, already closing the door.

Levi leaned into the door with his shoulder. “I think we’re past that,” he said, walking into the room. Cath shrugged and went back to her desk.

Levi flopped down on her bed. He was dressed in black—he must have just gotten off work. She frowned at him.

“I still can’t believe you work at Starbucks,” she said.

“What’s wrong with Starbucks?”

“It’s a big, faceless corporation.”

He raised a good-natured brow. “So far, they’ve let me keep my face.”

Cath went back to her laptop.

“I like my job,” he said. “I see the same people every day. I remember their drinks, they like that I remember their drinks, I make them happy, and then they leave. It’s like being a bartender, but you don’t have to deal with drunks. Speaking of … How’s your sister?”

Cath stopped typing and looked at him. “Fine. She’s … fine. Back to normal, I guess. Thanks, you know, for driving me. And everything.” Cath had told Levi thank you Friday night, but she felt like she owed him a few more.

“Forget about it. Did you guys have a big talk?”

“We don’t have to have big talks,” she said, holding two fingers to her temple. “We’re twins. We have telepathy.”

Levi grinned. “Really?”

Cath laughed. “No.”

“Not even a little bit?”

“No.” She went back to typing.

“What are you working on?”

“A biology essay.”

“Not secret, dirty fanfiction?”

Cath stopped again. “My fanfiction is neither a secret, obviously, nor is it dirty.”