I start to push past her with the intention of heading straight to Headmaster Rivera’s office, but Natalie grabs my arm.

“Shy, think about it,” she begs. “Jacobi isn’t here to take down the site, and Anora’s in danger. She’s known to the Order now. Who best to protect her? They’ll take her to Temple and keep an eye on her.”

I’m supposed to protect her, I want to argue, but Natalie’s right. It will be easier if I don’t have to worry about whether Anora’s safe. Still, putting her well-being in the hands of someone else feels wrong.

“In the meantime, we can do some research,” Natalie says. “Figure out who made those posts, who reanimated Lily’s corpse. We have work to do.”

I relent. “Right. Okay. I went by Jacobi’s house this morning and snagged his laptop.”

Well, one of his three laptops.

“I have his phone,” Natalie says. When I give her a look, she shrugs. “What? He’s got a lot of stuff on here, including that app he used to track Lily’s phone. We might need it.”

Fair enough.

Natalie and I find a spot in the library to camp out. We’re supposed to be in class, and we’ll probably get in trouble for skipping, but right now, I couldn’t care less.

I pull out Jacobi’s laptop, and Natalie and I sit side by side as I open the archive. Jacobi gained commander-level access, probably using his mom’s codes. And luckily, the Order hasn’t locked him out yet. I understand why Jacobi looked up his own file; it’s hard to keep myself from doing the same, especially having access as I do right now. After discovering my father was aware of my connection to Anora, I want to research the records and follow the threads of my past lives—of Anora’s past lives…

And I will, but I have priorities, and one of those is figuring out who reanimated Lily’s corpse. So I start with the small lead we’d gotten last night in the cardigan Natalie found at the ritual site. We don’t have a way to prove it is Lennon’s, but at this point, everyone’s a suspect, and it’s best to start eliminating.

I search Lennon Ryder.

The inquiry gives no results, which isn’t surprising considering I don’t think Lennon’s ever been arrested for practicing the occult.

“What about her mother? Her father?” Natalie presses.

“I don’t know their names,” I say.

“Jacobi’s got access to school records.”

I look at her, brow raised. “How do you know?”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve used his computer,” she says. She takes it from me and starts clicking around, navigating the interface like she’s done this a million times.