“What? No!” Susan tried to read the timetable she’d scrawled on her hand before realizing that was left over from yesterday. Pulling up her sleeve, she found faded ink detailing last week’s schedule. No sign of today: Monday. Susan tipped her head back and howled at the ceiling, “Curse you, Richard Curtis, and your inability to distribute gender-balanced speaking roles!”

Opposite, Kully gave her a mild raise of an eyebrow before reaching into his monogrammed leather satchel and pulling out a can so bright, it could cause a migraine from fifty paces.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he said, sliding it across the table.

“What’s this?”

“You haven’t ever pepped up with a little ENN-ARR-GEE?” Kully’s face was the picture of astonishment. “Late-night Physics revision? Partying till three when you’re the designated driver?”

“I have never done either of these things,” Susan said, picking up the can and looking at the label. The colors alone made her eyes buzz, and try as she might to find the ingredients list, the typeface was impossible to read.

Cracking the lid, Susan downed the lot.

Since Vectra had talked to her, Esther had upped her sartorial efforts in an attempt to prompt further interaction. Today she was wearing red leather shorts, fishnets, and a “top” that was essentially nothing more than a complex array of stretchy bandages that had taken her half an hour to put on that morning.

Although Ed Gemmell said he liked it, his expression was one of terror, and he kept casting Esther anxious glances as she spent the lecture calculating the perfect trajectory from bench to door. When the lecture ended, Esther’s plotted course intercepted that of Vectra Featherstone’s exactly three paces from the main door.

Ever polite, Ed Gemmell held it open for both of them.

“What? You want a cookie?” Vectra shot him a wry look before doubling back to confuse him with a compliment. “Those notes on how the camera angles encourage a mainstream audience were pretty intense. Thanks for letting me copy.”

Ed Gemmell started, darting a confused glance in Esther’s direction. She’d not exactly been truthful as to why she’d wanted the notes, feigning an interest in swapping modules for the next semester.

Never one to let a silence remain uncomfortable, Ed Gemmell cleared his throat and pointed nervously to the necklace Vectra wore.

“I, um, that’s cool. Is it real?”

“What do you think?”

He swallowed, eyes flitting nervously from Esther to Vectra, voice trembling with the kind of tension you’d expect from a finalist on The X Factor. “I think wearing a real razor blade that close to your throat would be very unwise?”

Vectra rolled her eyes and met Esther’s gaze. “The company we’re forced to keep.”