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  Cath didn’t usually order coffee, but she nodded anyway, and he topped off her cup. She pulled her saucer back and stared down at it. She heard Levi exhale.

  “I know how you feel right now,” he said. “I have two little sisters.”

  “You don’t know how I feel.” Cath dumped in three packs of sugar. “She’s not just my sister.”

  “Do people really do that to you guys all the time?”

  “Do what?” Cath looked up at him, and he looked away.

  “The twin thing.”

  “Oh. That.” She stirred her coffee, clacking the spoon too hard against her cup. “Not all the time. Only if we’re around drunks or, like, walking down the street.…”

  He made a face. “People are depraved.”

  The waitress came back, and Levi lit up for her. Predictably. He ordered corned beef hash. Cath stuck with coffee.

  “She’ll grow out of it,” he said when the waitress walked away from their booth. “Reagan’s right. It’s a freshman thing.”

  “I’m a freshman. I’m not out getting wasted.”

  Levi laughed. “Right. Because you’re too busy throwing dance parties. What was the emergency anyway?”

  Cath watched him laugh and felt the sticky black pit yawn open in her stomach. Professor Piper. Simon. Baz. Neat, red F.

  “Were you anticipating an emergency?” he asked, still smiling. “Or maybe summoning one? Like a rain dance?”

  “You don’t have to do this,” Cath said.

  “Do what?”

  “Try to make me feel better.” She felt the tears coming on, and her voice wobbled. “I’m not one of your little sisters.”

  Levi’s smile fell completely. “I’m sorry,” he said, all the teasing gone. “I … I thought maybe you’d want to talk about it.”

  Cath looked back at her coffee. She shook her head a few times, as much to tell him no as to shake away the stinging in her eyes.

  His corned beef hash came. A whole mess of it. He moved Cath’s coffee cup to the table and scooped hash onto her saucer.

  Cath ate it—it was easier than arguing. She’d been arguing all day, and so far, no one had listened. And besides, the corned beef hash was really good, like they made it fresh with real corned beef, and there were two sunny-side-up eggs on top.

  Levi piled more onto her plate.

  “Something happened in class,” Cath said. She didn’t look up at him. Maybe she could use a big brother right now—she was currently down a twin sister. Any port in a storm, and all that …

  “What class?” he asked.

  “Fiction-Writing.”

  “You take Fiction-Writing? That’s an actual class?”

  “That’s an actual question?”

  “Does this have something to do with your Simon Snow thing?”

  Cath looked up now and flushed. “Who told you about my Simon Snow thing?”

  “Nobody had to tell me. You’ve got Simon Snow stuff everywhere. You’re worse than my ten-year-old cousin.” Levi grinned; he looked relieved to be smiling again. “Reagan told me you write stories about him.”

  “So Reagan told you.”

  “That’s what you’re always working on, right? Writing stories about Simon Snow?”

  Cath didn’t know what to say. It sounded absolutely ridiculous when Levi said it.

  “They’re not just stories…,” she said.

  He took a giant bite of hash. His hair was still wet and falling (wetly, blondly) into his eyes. He pushed it back. “They’re not?”

  Cath shook her head. They were just stories, but stories weren’t just anything. Simon wasn’t just.

  “What do you know about Simon Snow?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Everybody knows about Simon Snow.”

  “You’ve read the books?”

  “I’ve seen the movies.”

  Cath rolled her eyes so hard, it hurt. (Actually.) (Maybe because she was still on the edge of tears. On the edge, period.) “So you haven’t read the books.”

  “I’m not really a book person.”

  “That might be the most idiotic thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “Don’t change the subject,” Levi said, grinning some more. “You write stories about Simon Snow.…”

  “You think this is funny.”

  “Yes,” Levi said. “But also sort of cool. Tell me about your stories.”

  Cath pressed the tines of her fork into her place mat. “They’re just, like … I take the characters, and I put them in new situations.”

  “Like deleted scenes?”

  “Sometimes. More like what-ifs. Like, what if Baz wasn’t evil? What if Simon never found the five blades? What if Agatha found them instead? What if Agatha was evil?”

  “Agatha couldn’t be evil,” Levi argued, leaning forward and pointing at Cath with his fork. “She’s ‘pure of heart, a lion of dawn.’”

  Cath narrowed her eyes. “How do you know that?”

  “I told you, I’ve seen the movies.”

  “Well, in my world, if I want to make Agatha evil, I can. Or I can make her a vampire. Or I can make her an actual lion.”

  “Simon wouldn’t like that.”

  “Simon doesn’t care. He’s in love with Baz.”

  Levi guffawed. (You don’t get many opportunities to use that word, Cath thought, but this is one of them.)

  “Simon isn’t gay,” he said.

  “In my world, he is.”

  “But Baz is his nemesis.”

  “I don’t have to follow any of the rules. The original books already exist; it’s not my job to rewrite them.”

  “Is it your job to make Simon gay?”

  “You’re getting distracted by the gay thing,” Cath said. She was leaning forward now, too.

  “It is distracting.…” Levi giggled. (Did guys “giggle” or “chuckle”? Cath hated the word “chuckle.”)

  “The whole point of fanfiction,” she said, “is that you get to play inside somebody else’s universe. Rewrite the rules. Or bend them. The story doesn’t have to end when Gemma Leslie gets tired of it. You can stay in this world, this world you love, as long as you want, as long as you keep thinking of new stories—”

  “Fanfiction,” Levi said.

  “Yes.” Cath was embarrassed by how sincere she sounded, how excited she felt whenever she actually talked about this. She was so used to keeping it a secret—used to assuming people would think she was a freak and a nerd and a pervert.…

  Maybe Levi thought all those things. Maybe he just found freaks and perverts amusing.

  “Emergency dance party?” he asked.

  “Right.” She sat back in the booth again. “Our professor asked us to write a scene with an untrustworthy narrator. I wrote something about Simon and Baz.… She didn’t get it. She thought it was plagiarism.” Cath forced herself to use that word, felt the tar wake up with a twist in her stomach.

  “But it was your story,” Levi said.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s not exactly plagiarism.…” He smiled at her. She needed to come up with more words for Levi’s smiles; he had too many of them. This one was a question. “They were your words, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I mean, I can see why your professor wouldn’t want you to write a Simon Snow story—the class isn’t called Fanfiction-Writing—but I wouldn’t call it plagiarism. Is it illegal?”

  “No. As long as you don’t try to sell it. GTL says she loves fanfiction—I mean, she loves the idea of it. She doesn’t actually read it.”

  “Is your professor reporting you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Is she reporting you to the Judicial Board?”

  “She didn’t even mention that.”

  “She would have mentioned it,” he said. “So … okay.” He waved his fork in a straight line between them, holding it like a pencil. “This isn’t a big deal. You just don’t turn in any more fanfiction.”

  It still felt lik
e a big deal. Cath’s stomach still hurt.

  “She just … she made me feel so stupid and … deviant.”

  Levi laughed again. “Do you really expect an elderly English professor to be down with gay Simon Snow fanfiction?”

  “She didn’t even mention the gay thing,” Cath said.

  “Deviant.” He raised an eyebrow. Levi’s eyebrows were much darker than his hair. Too dark, really. And arched. Like he’d drawn them on.

  Cath felt herself smile, even though she was trying to hold her lips and face still. She shook her head, then looked down at her food and took a big bite.

  Levi scraped more eggs and hash onto her plate.

  Sneaking around the castle, staying out all night, coming home in the morning with leaves in his hair …

  Baz was up to something; Simon was sure of it. But he needed proof—Penelope and Agatha weren’t taking his suspicions seriously.

  “He’s plotting,” Simon would say.

  “He’s always plotting,” Penelope would answer.

  “He’s looming,” Simon would say.

  “He’s always looming,” Agatha would answer. “He is quite tall.”

  “No taller than me.”

  “Mmm … a bit.”

  It wasn’t just the plotting and the looming; Baz was up to something. Something beyond his chronic gittishness. His pearl grey eyes were bloodshot and shadowed; his black hair had lost its luster. Usually cold and intimidating, lately Baz seemed chilled and cornered.

  Simon had followed him around the catacombs last night for three hours, and still didn’t have a clue.

  —from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T. Leslie

  TWELVE

  It was too cold to wait outside before Fiction-Writing, so Cath found a bench inside Andrews Hall and sat with one leg tucked beneath her, leaning back against the cream-colored wall.

  She took out her phone and opened a fic she’d been reading. (She was too nervous to study.) Cath never read other people’s Simon/Baz anymore—she didn’t want to unconsciously mimic another author or steal someone’s ideas—so when she did read fic, it was always about Penelope. Sometimes Penelope/Agatha. Sometimes Penelope/Micah (the American exchange student who only appeared in Book Three). Sometimes just Penelope, all on her own, having adventures.

  It felt like an act of open rebellion to be reading fanfiction while she sat in the English building, waiting to see Professor Piper for the first time since their talk. Cath had actually considered skipping class today, but she figured that would just make it even more painful to face Professor Piper the next time. It’s not like Cath could skip class for the rest of the semester—better to just get it over with.

  Cath’d already faced Wren, and that hadn’t gone nearly so badly as she’d expected. They’d eaten lunch together twice this week, and neither of them had brought up the scene at Muggsy’s. Maybe Wren had been too drunk to remember the details.

  Courtney didn’t seem to get that they were avoiding the subject. (That girl had the subtlety of a Spencer’s Gifts shop.)

  “Hey, Cath,” Courtney said at lunch, “who was that cute blond boy you were with Friday night? Was that your hot librarian?”

  “No,” Cath said. “That’s just Levi.”

  “Her roommate’s boyfriend,” Wren said, stirring her vegetable soup. Wren seemed tired; she wasn’t wearing mascara, and her eyelashes looked pale and stubby.

  “Oh.” Courtney stuck out her bottom lip. “Too bad. He was super cute. Farm boy.”

  “How could you tell he’s a farm boy?” Cath asked.

  “Carhartt,” they both said at once.

  “What?”

  “His coat,” Wren explained. “All the farm boys wear Carhartt.”

  “Trust your sister on this.” Courtney giggled. “She knows all the farm boys.”

  “He’s not my hot librarian,” Cath had said.

  No one is my hot librarian, she thought now, losing her place in the fic she was reading. No one is my hot anything.

  And besides, Cath still wasn’t sure whether Nick was actually hot or whether he just projected hotness. Specifically in her direction.

  Someone sat down next to her on the bench, and Cath glanced up from her phone. Nick tilted his chin up in greeting.

  “Think of the devil,” she said, then wished she hadn’t.

  “You thinking about me?”

  “I was thinking … of the devil,” Cath said stupidly.

  “Idle brains,” Nick said, grinning. He was wearing a thick, navy blue turtleneck sweater that made him look like he was serving on a Soviet battleship. Like, even more so than usual. “So, what did Piper want to talk to you about last week?”

  “Nothing much.” Cath’s stomach was such a mess today, she hardly felt it wrench.

  Nick unwrapped a piece of gum and set it on his tongue. “Was it about taking her advanced class?”

  “No.”

  “You have to make an appointment to talk to her about it,” he said, chewing. “It’s like an interview. I’m meeting with her next week—I’m hoping she’ll give me a teaching assistantship.”

  “Yeah?” Cath sat up a little straighter. “That’d be great. You’d be great at that.”

  Nick gave her a sheepish smile. “Yeah, well. I wish I would have talked to her about it before that last assignment. It was my worst grade of the semester.”

  “Really?” It was hard to make eye contact with Nick—his eyes were almost buried under his eyebrows; you had to dig into his face. “Mine, too,” Cath said.

  “She said that my writing was ‘overly slick’ and ‘impenetrable.’” He sighed.

  “She said worse about mine.”

  “Guess I’ve gotten used to writing with backup,” Nick said, still smiling at her. Still sheepish.

  “Codependent,” Cath said.

  Nick snapped his gum at her. “We writing tonight?”

  Cath nodded and looked back at her phone.

  * * *

  “Reagan isn’t here,” Cath said, already closing the door.

  Levi leaned into the door with his shoulder. “I think we’re past that,” he said, walking into the room. Cath shrugged and went back to her desk.

  Levi flopped down on her bed. He was dressed in black—he must have just gotten off work. She frowned at him.

  “I still can’t believe you work at Starbucks,” she said.

  “What’s wrong with Starbucks?”

  “It’s a big, faceless corporation.”

  He raised a good-natured brow. “So far, they’ve let me keep my face.”

  Cath went back to her laptop.

  “I like my job,” he said. “I see the same people every day. I remember their drinks, they like that I remember their drinks, I make them happy, and then they leave. It’s like being a bartender, but you don’t have to deal with drunks. Speaking of … How’s your sister?”

  Cath stopped typing and looked at him. “Fine. She’s … fine. Back to normal, I guess. Thanks, you know, for driving me. And everything.” Cath had told Levi thank you Friday night, but she felt like she owed him a few more.

  “Forget about it. Did you guys have a big talk?”

  “We don’t have to have big talks,” she said, holding two fingers to her temple. “We’re twins. We have telepathy.”

  Levi grinned. “Really?”

  Cath laughed. “No.”

  “Not even a little bit?”

  “No.” She went back to typing.

  “What are you working on?”

  “A biology essay.”

  “Not secret, dirty fanfiction?”

  Cath stopped again. “My fanfiction is neither a secret, obviously, nor is it dirty.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair, making it stick up in the middle in sandy blond plumes. Shameless.

  “What do you put in your hair to make it stick up like that?” she asked.

  He laughed and did it again. “Nothing.”

&nbs
p; “Nothing? Something—”

  “I think it does that because I don’t wash it.…”

  She grimaced. “Ever?”

  “Every month or so, maybe.”

  Cath wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “That’s disgusting.”

  “No, it isn’t. I still rinse it.”

  “Still disgusting.”

  “It’s perfectly clean,” he said. He leaned toward her, and his hair touched her arm. This room was too small. “Smell it.”

  She sat back. “I’m not smelling your hair.”

  “Well, I’ll smell it.” He pulled a piece down his long forehead; it came to the bridge of his nose. “It smells like freshly mown clover.”

  “I don’t think you mow clover.”

  “Can you imagine how sweet it would smell if you did?” Levi sat back, which was a relief—until he picked up her pillow and started rubbing his head into it.

  “Oh, God,” she said, “stop. That’s such a violation.”

  Levi laughed, and she tried to grab her pillow from him. He held it to his chest with both hands. “Cather…”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Read me some of your secret, dirty fanfiction.”

  “It’s not dirty.”

  “Read me some anyway.”

  She let go of the pillow; he’d probably already filthed it beyond redemption.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m curious,” he said. “And I like stories.”

  “You just want to make fun of me.”

  “I won’t,” he said. “I promise.”

  “That’s what you and Reagan do when I’m not here, right? Make fun of me. Play with my commemorative busts. Do you have a stupid nickname for me?”

  His eyes sparkled. “Cather.”

  “I don’t exist to amuse you, you know.”

  “One, are you sure? Because you do. And, two, we don’t make fun of you. Very much. Anymore. And, three…”

  He was counting on his fingers, and his cheeks were twitching, and it was making Cath laugh.

  “Three,” he said, “I won’t make fun of you, to anyone but you, from now on, if you’ll just once, right now, read me some of your fanfiction.”

  Cath gave him a level stare. A mostly level stare. She was still giggling a little. And blinking hard. And occasionally looking up at the ceiling. “You’re curious,” she said.