I laugh at that, and he smiles at me, holding his messenger bag against his chest. After a moment, he gestures at the door behind us.

“Right,” I say.

“Sunday night is usually a quieter night on campus if there aren’t any performances for the public scheduled,” he says as we head out, his voice low. Tonight there aren’t any club meetings happening, as far as he was able to determine. And he thought it would make the most sense to start at this quadrant, farthest from the various administration buildings.

I decide that I am going to let him say words like quadrant if he wants.

“There are a lot of places to look,” he says.

“Let’s do this,” I say, trying to sound cool and probably missing by a mile.

How many out-of-the-way meeting spaces, common rooms, unused classrooms, back-door storage areas, abandoned basement stockrooms, and tucked-away rehearsal rooms that even I didn’t know about are there on campus? Approximately ten thousand. I am tired, and my hands and nose and ears are iced over. And, unfortunately, each of these spaces has some kind of issue. The smell of mildew that whacks us when I crack a door open, making Jack have to bolt, or, whoops, the only entrance to this wing is directly across from the teachers’ lounge, or I’m pretty sure that mice live here and they will declare war if we try to use the space, not that I’m afraid of mice or anything.

He tells me about each building as we make the circuit, how old it is, and points out things like gargoyles on the roof of the central admin building. The majority of the buildings are from when this place was a nunnery, then a Catholic school, and then the founder and his wife bought it, mostly to start a private dance program but adding other curriculums soon after.

He’s not lecturing me—he seems interested in the history and like he wants to tell someone about it. I relax enough to tell him that I’m half convinced most of the old buildings on campus are haunted.

“You believe in ghosts?” he asks me, as we stop in front of the main student lounge. Our breath makes bright plumes in the light streaming from the building, and the tip of my nose feels frozen enough to crack off.

“Of course not,” I say. “But I don’t not believe in them.”

“My night photographs show up a lot of weird stuff,” he says. “I don’t not believe in them either.” He frowns at me. “You’re cold. Let’s go into the lounge. Get a hot chocolate and regroup.”

We haven’t found anything too promising, and it’s getting close to curfew.

Jack apologizes for that when he sets a steaming paper cup down in front of me.