From what we can tell, most of the student body has no clue that the Tessa, Archer, and Jake copies weren’t actually Tessa, Archer, and Jake. Quite a few people saw the guards, of course, and those who didn’t certainly heard about them. Rumors abound about the new Darkwood security measures that include uniformed guards. I overhear a group of students in the dining hall saying they’re glad they weren’t on the other side of Fleischer’s wrath, especially now that discipline at Darkwood is getting taken up a notch. I certainly don’t try to correct them or explain that those guards had nothing to do with Darkwood at all. If the student body’s in the dark about the guards—and the clones—all the better. Right now, we have one priority: getting our questions answered. And only one person can do that. Seymour.

• • •

After the thirty-minute walk to the main road, followed by fifteen minutes of trudging down a dark country lane, Pru, Ollie, Maude, and I arrive at Fillmore Park a few minutes before eight o’clock. It’s dark out, and silent, and this park is deserted. Probably has been for hours.

Albert Seymour is standing still as a statue by a park bench. He looks scholarly in a camel-colored coat, corduroy slacks, and Adidas. Like an absentminded professor. I think of that memory of Gravelle’s I watched when I was held captive on Castor Island, remembering how disheveled Seymour looked as a teenager at Darkwood. I guess that hasn’t changed. We approach him nervously. We’re all on edge.

I briefly tell Seymour what we witnessed over the weekend, starting with Archer’s memorable speech at the dance and ending with the lit joint that set fire to one of the dorms. “I assume you knew all this was happening, and that’s why you sent the guards? Who are those clones? The Tessa clone’s jacket was labeled Duplicate. What does that mean? Why were they here? Where did they come from?” I spit out the questions like bullets, barely taking time for a breath.

“Please. Give me a moment. I’ll tell you everything,” Seymour says, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He’s awkward and uncomfortable in his own skin. I shoot a look at Ollie. Seymour fits the description Ollie gave of how he acted in Cambridge, when Ollie spent a few weeks with him the summer before last.

“We’re listening,” Maude says, her voice steely.

Seymour takes off his glasses, rubs them clean with a cloth kept in his shirt pocket, then slides them back on. “Those three were never supposed to be here. Not like this,” he explains. “In fact, I’m planning to have a word with my brother as soon as we’re done here.”

“You mean Gravelle,” Pru cuts in. “Did he create them? Those…Duplicates?”