“What are you doing?” Marcy asked, and Harper looked up to see her coworker standing at the end of the shelves with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Um…” Harper glanced back at Alex for help with answering the question, but he looked as lost for words as she was.

“Did you plan on doing any more work today?” Marcy asked. “Or were you going to hide out here all day?”

“Well…” Harper shifted so she was sitting up straighter. She knew she should be working, but she didn’t really want to abandon her pursuit, either. That felt more important than scanning in overdue library books.

“If you didn’t feel up to working because of Gemma running away or whatever, then you could’ve just said so,” Marcy went on. “You didn’t need to sneak off on false pretenses.”

“No, we didn’t,” Harper said quickly.

Marcy narrowed her eyes, apparently hearing the conviction in Harper’s words. “What are you doing?”

“We’re, um…” Harper glanced back again at Alex, who hurried to provide a reason.

“We’re, uh, we’re reading … books,” Alex responded lamely.

Harper gave him a severe look, like she thought he was an idiot, and Alex shook his head and shrugged.

“What are you reading?” Marcy asked. When neither of them answered, she bent down and picked up the nearest book, which happened to be called Sirens: Handmaidens of the Sea. “This is what you meant by sirens?”

“Uh, yeah,” Alex said.

“Those really beautiful, creepy girls,” Marcy said, putting the pieces together rather quickly. “You think they’re sirens?”

“Well…” Harper swallowed and decided to answer honestly. “Kind of. Yeah.”

“And they took Gemma or had something to do with her running off?” Marcy asked, her voice keeping the same monotone it always had, betraying neither a hint of skepticism nor belief.

“Yeah,” Alex admitted. “We think so.”

Marcy seemed to consider this for a moment, then she nodded as if it all made sense to her, and sat down on the floor.

“Have you figured out a way to get her back yet?” Marcy asked.

“Not yet,” Harper said cautiously. “We’re still looking.”

Marcy held up the Sirens book. “Have you looked in this one, or do you want me to look?”

“You can, if you want,” Harper said.

“Yeah, that’d be great, actually,” Alex chimed in with more enthusiasm than Harper, who was still a bit reluctant to trust Marcy’s acceptance. “There are a lot of books to cover.”

“Cool,” Marcy said, and opened the book.

As Marcy began to read, Harper exchanged a look with Alex, but he just shrugged and went back to reading his own book. Harper couldn’t let it go that easily, though. She wanted to, but even after actually seeing the monsters, she’d found it hard to believe in them. And Marcy seemed to trust it with almost no evidence.

“So … that’s it, then?” Harper asked.