I’d figured the trick out after I’d gotten in trouble a few months ago and had been forced to do some time working in the school’s front office. There, I’d discovered the flaw in the Truancy Register’s system: it doesn’t catch redundancies. So when Rax and I both do show up, there are no red flags. It’s perfect.

“Can’t reveal my secrets,” I say, giving a little smirk.

“Cool kid,” said Paxton, his admiration curdling slightly into contempt. I flushed.

“Thanks,” I said, trying to act like I didn’t actually care. But before I could think of anything else to say, I froze. Over by the club’s entrance, I spotted someone I knew. And not someone I wanted to know.

It was Endym, my interplanetary cultures professor at Lorien Academy.

Okay, Endym was generally a pretty cool guy, probably the only teacher I had that I actually liked. But cool or not, if he saw me out at the club, underage and with no hope of making it to school in time, he’d have no choice but to report me.

I grinned at the couple I was talking to. “Teev, Paxton, it’s been a pleasure,” I said, easing myself out of Endym’s line of sight and into a mass of dancing people with a half wave. Under the cover of the crowd, I peered back towards the entrance and saw Endym as he was approached by one of the club’s vendors. He took one of the proffered ampules and popped it into his mouth, his eyes scanning the club, and then he stepped forward, onto the dance floor. I was pretty sure he hadn’t seen me—yet—but he was heading right in my direction.

Shit. I ducked behind a column to escape his sight.

The Chimæra’s a big place, but not big enough. If I stayed where I was, I was going to spend all my time trying to avoid him—and even then, I didn’t like my odds that he wouldn’t spot me.

I had to get out, and I had to take my opportunity now, while Endym was distracted. He’d just struck up a conversation with a woman in the middle of the dance floor and was flirting with her shamelessly as she danced. I rolled my eyes. The fact that my teacher was at the Chimæra was suddenly making it seem significantly less cool.

The only way out was to go deeper in. I’d never been in the dressing room below the stage, but the performers had to come from somewhere. The only problem was that Endym had somehow positioned himself in the worst possible spot for my purposes: I’d have to go past him to make it to the entrance, but he had a direct line of sight to the back stairwell, too.