“I think you just can’t bear to let a gorgeous guy like me out of your sight,” Malachai says, kissing her on the top of her head.

“Shut—shut up, loser,” Wren mutters, and I feel a burst of happiness inside me, seeing the first glimpses of the old Wren returning, and then I think what a shame it is that she might only get to enjoy it for a little while.

“Luka, can I talk to you a second?” Igby asks.

I walk over to him and he speaks with a lowered voice. “I didn’t fix the glitch with the door.”

“What does that mean?” Kina asks, joining our small group.

“It’s … it’s probably going to be okay. I’ll just need to get a new laptop and rewrite the program.”

“A new laptop? In here?” I look around the bare cell. “Igby, what’s the problem?” I ask.

“Look, we’re probably all going to die down here anyway, so it probably doesn’t matter.”

“Well, if it doesn’t matter, why not just say it?” Kina asks.

Igby sighs. “You see that handle over there?” he asks, pointing through the darkness to a large spin handle that looks like a car steering wheel.

“Yes.”

“It’s a dead-bolt lock; it’s connected to a drive cog, which is connected to eleven rotating cams.”

“I don’t know what any of that means,” I tell him, putting Apple-Moth into my pocket.

“It means we’re completely safe in here and no one can get in from the outside.”

“So, where’s the problem?” Pander asks from her position on the floor, kneeling beside Sam.

“The problem is in the weighted auto-shut mechanism. If whoever opens the door lets go of the spin handle, the door will snap shut.”

I think about this for a few seconds. “So, without the laptop to power the door, someone will be left behind in here?”

“Whoever opens the door for everyone else will be trapped until I can either get a new laptop to hook up to this thing or hot-wire it from outside, which might take hours.”

“So, what do we do?” Kina asks, raising her voice to be heard over Sam’s cries of pain.

My eyes are beginning to adjust to the darkness. I look around at the faces of my friends as Igby begins to talk, laying out a plan involving a weighted system that would hold the handle in place. I barely hear him, though.

Is this all my fault? I think. Could I have done anything differently? What if I had left Purgatory faster? Would that have changed anything?

I look away from the faces of my friends, and my eyes are drawn to the corner of the room, to the place where two sheets of thick metal meet. Droplets of water are beginning to seep through. What’s happening? Is Happy flooding the library? Trying to flush us out?