She wrote back with a thumbs-up, which always felt sort of dismissive to him.

He wanted to press for details but didn’t want to annoy her, which seemed like a real possibility.

Back to Aizel:

Is Ilanka taking good care of you?

Hypothetically, could you hack into the school’s grading system?

“Eli?”

Eli turned. Principal Lambert was standing there. “Did you get my message?”

“Sorry, no. What is it?”

“Follow me. The others are waiting.”

Eli pocketed his phone and closed his locker and locked it and then followed Lambert down the hall and down one flight of stairs and into his office. Eden and Marwan and Ilanka were all seated facing the desk. Eli took the fourth seat and tried not to freak the hell out.

“Okay, so, this message you all received on Wednesday,” Lambert said. “Did it make sense to any of you?”

Everyone muttered nos.

“Have any of you received any other odd messages via the reminder app?”

More nos, and not that I can think of s.

“And even now, none of you has any idea what it was all about?”

More of the same.

Lambert said, “So there’s nothing any of you wants to tell me about what went on that afternoon?”

Eli looked at Ilanka in the far chair. She looked bored beyond all imagining. And she was the one with the device in her bag. She made eye contact with him, and her look was blank and calm, like a robot or doll. Impressive.

At any second, Eli expected Eden or Marwan to fess up and tell Lambert about the device and that Ilanka had it and that they both wanted to return it the whole time but Eli hadn’t wanted to. But they didn’t speak. Eli couldn’t help but feel a certain kind of delight about it all.

“And can any of you think of a reason why only you four would have received the message? Any particular thing you have in common?”

Head shaking and nopes.

Eden said, “We barely know each other.”

“So if I were to confiscate all your phones and look at your text history, there wouldn’t be anything funny going on?”

“I don’t think that’s legal,” Ilanka said flatly.

God, she was good.

Lambert’s phone rang and he said, “You’re all free to go.” Then he added, “For now.”

In the hall, they went separate ways without a word.

Ilanka

ILANKA

Checking the time, Ilanka ducked into a bathroom and went into a stall. She opened her bag, took out the device, and put it back in.