I moved over to Ryan’s bookcase. It held a few sports biographies, but the shelves were mostly stacked with video games and a couple of picture frames. Once they’d held pictures of me and Ryan, but now he and Mary Beth smiled out at me from behind the glass. But in one picture frame, behind a photo of the two of them with their arms around each other on Mary Beth’s parents’ porch, I could make out a bright turquoise corner. That had been the backdrop for last year’s Spring Fling. The theme had been Under the Sea. Ryan and I had gone together. Apparently, Ryan had shoved a picture of them on top of one of the two of us.

I fiddled with the frame now, half tempted to open it and see if I was right. “You think I don’t know that?” I said at last, not looking at him. “Saylor Stark died the night of Cotillion. Bee was kidnapped. And now the Ephors suddenly want to be besties, and I’m apparently going to face some kind of trials, but I have no idea what they could be. And if I don’t do them, we spend the rest of our lives trying not to get killed.”

My voice broke on the last word, and from behind me, I heard Ryan sigh.

“I’m sorry, Harper,” he said softly. And then he gave a little huff of laughter. “It’s weird, my impulse is to hug you, but I don’t know if that’s something we can do anymore.”

Turning around, I smiled and put the picture back on the shelf. “I know what you mean. But we should probably do without hugging.”

Ryan was still wringing his hands in front of him, glancing over at Mary Beth. “It’s gotta wear off eventually.”

“I’m sure it will,” I said, even though I wasn’t exactly. Saylor had used that stuff a lot, but I’d never asked questions about how it worked. After she’d died, we’d handed all her various potions and elixirs over to Ryan without thinking. He’d inherited Saylor’s skills, but that didn’t necessarily mean he knew exactly how to use every little tool she’d had. Not for the first time, I wished that she were here.

Mary Beth’s eyes started to flutter a little more, and Ryan was off the bed like a shot, kneeling in front of her. “MB?”

“My head,” she slurred, her fingers going to her temple. Her dark red hair swung above her shoulders, and the freckles across the bridge of her nose stood out against her pale skin.