I stood there mulling this over outside the girls’ dormitory while I waited for Regan. I thought back to the Cocoon, wishing for the first time that it hadn’t dissolved in the fountain. I was almost positive I remembered everything it had said, but what if I’d forgotten something? I mentally went down the list of bullet points at the bottom of the list. The last one we’d checked off was about the window. If the list was in order, and it sure seemed to be so far, then the next one on the list was about a door opening. It was on this bullet point that we had hinged our entire plan. If you could call winging it a plan, I thought glumly. A second later, Regan tiptoed out of the girls’ dormitory. She paused a second outside the door, scanning the dark hallway before she finally spotted me. With a quick glance left and right, she was across the hall and next to me. Together we stood there, our backs pressed against the cold stone of the mountain.

“It’s not too late to go back,” I said, not really sure where the words had come from. I sure hadn’t meant to say them out loud.

“It is for me,” she said, and before I could protest she was heading down the hallway at a jog. I realized that I already knew what had happened to change me in the future. Regan happened.

The fastest way to the Glitch room was straight through the atrium, but even at this time of night, it probably still contained a handful of professors and staff desperately trying to figure out the mountain’s next move. So we took the long way around, winding through the hallways and corridors that led us around the atrium and toward the hallway with that thick metal door I had no idea how we’d get through. As we slunk through the shadows, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched. The hairs on my neck were permanently at attention and the goose bumps on my arms and legs were big enough to hatch into actual geese. I thought about mentioning this to Regan, but she was the picture of cool, calm, and collected, and I decided against it. Even though I was learning that this was just a facade she put on and took off like a well-worn coat, it was comforting to pretend she had everything under control. I was probably just paranoid. People about to break about a hundred laws were bound to be a little twitchy. Right?

Finally, after almost getting spotted twice by two different professors, we made it. There in front of us was the thick metal door with its three different locks and safeguards that we had no way of getting through. We both stood there, staring at it as the clock crept toward midnight.