“Sheridan helped remind them of how tainted you are,” she explained.
My heart sank a little as I gazed after them. “Do they really believe that? I thought some of them …”
I couldn’t finish, but Emma knew my thoughts. “Were just playing along to survive here? Some are, but even if they haven’t been reprogrammed, they’ve learned enough to survive here. And part of survival is steering clear from people who’ll get you in trouble. You crossed a line—no, you trampled it, and even if they think what you did is okay, they know they can’t let Sheridan and the others think so.”
“What do you think?” I asked.
She gave me a tight smile. “I think you and your ink are a good precaution in case they ever try to mess with my mind. But I’m also going to keep my distance. See you later.”
She hurried off, and I spent the rest of the day formulating my plan, wishing it was more solid than it was. When I was in the bathroom that evening, I popped one of Addison’s gum sticks into my mouth, chewing until I hoped I’d mustered up a sticky enough result. I kept it in my hand as I left and then brushed my hand against the door as I entered my room, right over the place the bolt entered. I hoped the system was as touchy as Duncan had claimed and that the one piece had been enough. I’d nearly used both but thought a second might be useful in the future. I slipped it into my sock.
Later, when the lights went out, I heard a click at the door but didn’t know if it had been successful. I crept out of bed and tentatively approached the slit of light, waiting and listening to make sure no one was outside. They weren’t. Gingerly, I tried to slide the door open a crack … and succeeded. The bolt hadn’t worked! I exhaled a deep breath and braced myself for the next part of the task: getting out unseen.
I’d used invisibility spells in the past, once even to break into an Alchemist facility, which seemed ironic in my current situation. They weren’t easy, otherwise—as Ms. Terwilliger had noted—everyone would use them. The best coverage required a lot of spell components and ideally an amulet. Even then, the spell would often be unraveled if someone knew to look for you. I had nothing to aid me here, only the knowledge of a small spell and my own power to pull it off. It would last thirty minutes at most and be susceptible to anyone searching for me or who looked me directly in the eye. It would protect me from cameras, however, and my big gamble was that the halls would be deserted this time of night, when our masters thought we were all locked in and drugged.
I didn’t know what kind of shifts the Alchemists pulled, but I had to assume personnel would thin out later. So I sat back on my bed for a half hour, hoping by then that everyone would have settled down for a quiet night. Before returning to the door, I stuffed my pillow under the covers. Between that and the near darkness, I hoped it wouldn’t be obvious that the bed was empty to anyone glancing at the surveillance screens. At the door, I murmured the incantation as quietly as I could, not wanting to tip Emma off to my true nature. Meaning and focus were more important than volume, and I felt another exhilarating surge of power course through me as I finished speaking. The spell, such as it was, had worked, and now the clock was ticking. After again making sure no one was in the hall, I slowly slid the door open, just enough to slip through, and then closed it again. That was one of the other difficult parts of invisibility spells: just because you were invisible, it didn’t mean your actions were. Someone seeing a door open by itself would give me away just as much as bumping into a person, so I had to make sure all my movements were small and cautious, attracting as little attention as possible.
The dorm hall was empty, with only the cameras keeping sentry, and I hurried toward the nexus where other corridors intersected. There, I found my first Alchemist on guard duty, a hard-faced man I’d never seen before who was texting on his phone as he stood stationed in a spot that let him supervise all the halls. He never looked up as I moved quietly and slowly past him, turning down the hall that led to the elevators. It was still amazing to me that the only exit off the floor didn’t even lead outside in an emergency, but I supposed the Alchemists felt it was better to risk our lives than give us more escape points.
When I reached the elevators, I realized they’d taken precautions there too—precautions that I’d completely let slip my mind. You couldn’t even push the button for the elevator without first scanning your ID card. I’d seen our Alchemist jailers do it many times, but I’d left it out of my plan. The elevator was inaccessible to me, as was the similarly access-controlled stairwell next to it. Otherwise, we detainees would’ve constantly been trying to use them. As I stood staring, trying to find a work-around, a ding indicated the elevator’s arrival and that the doors were about to open. I hastily stepped to the side and out of direct sight. A moment later, the elevator opened and Sheridan came out.
Without hesitation, I slipped in after her while the doors were still open, praying the elevator would still function from the last swipe of her ID card. If not, I might be stuck in it for a very long time. Luck was with me, and the button for the operations and purging floor lit up when I pushed it. I moved down a floor, and the doors opened to an empty corridor. I hurried out and tried not to think about how I was going to be able to use the elevator again.
I remembered where the supply closets were, but when I reached them, I discovered something I hadn’t noticed before: They too required a keycard to open them. Sheridan must’ve unlocked them ahead of our visit before, but now I was out of luck. Time was slipping away on my spell, and I was getting nowhere fast. Sadly, I accepted that I’d probably have to return to my room and try again with a better plan tomorrow. At least I still had that second stick of gum.
Laughter jerked my attention from the medical supply closet, and I saw two Alchemists round the corner and come walking down the hall—in my direction. Panicked, I flattened myself against the wall. There were no nearby corners or nooks to duck into. If luck was on my side, the twosome wouldn’t walk past me at all. If they did, I’d have to hope looking down would save me from eye contact and detection. For all I knew, that might not be enough.
The two of them stopped in front of the operations room, and I started to breathe a sigh of relief until an idea came to me and I realized I might be missing a golden opportunity. I sprinted toward the room they walked into and just managed to make it inside before the door—an automatic pocket one—slid closed. I froze and held my breath, terrified someone would notice me, but the two Alchemists I’d followed never even turned around. The only other person in there was a bored-looking guy in headphones, who was eating yogurt near a wall of monitors. The majority of the monitors were dark, and I realized those were the displays from our bedrooms. The other monitors showed classrooms and halls, most of which were empty.
Desks and computers filled the room, and I prowled around, again struck by a sense of déjà vu for the time I’d conducted similar activities in an Alchemist facility. Only then I’d had a much more reliable invisibility spell to fall back on. Still feeling determined, I searched around until I found what I’d hoped for. The guy eating the yogurt had taken off his suit coat and draped it on a chair. Clipped to the coat’s pocket was his ID badge. I had no idea if some badges had more access than others, but at the very least, this would get me back on the elevator before my spell wore off. I pilfered the ID from his coat while his back was to me and slipped it into the waistband of my pants. I’d thought at first when I saw his headphones he was monitoring sound surveillance, but being that close to him, I realized he was actually listening to some kind of metal band. I wondered how that would fly with his superiors.