I immediately started to feel sleepy.

Which had more in common with the caffeinating qualities of a mochacchino: 1,472 pages of Russian historic literature extolling the exploits of the Napoleonic invasion, or dusty essays about 19th century collegiate frats?

Blecch. I decided to stave off boredom by switching back and forth on a regular basis. Natasha Rostov was up to her usual antics, but the society tome didn’t gift me with any useful info. Seriously, do I care whether or not Phi Beta Kappa started at William & Mary? I want to know what’s going on with Rose & Grave in the 21st century.

“Hi, Amy.”

I looked up to see Malcolm Cabot standing over my table. A senior, a popular party boy, and the son of a state governor, Malcolm Cabot and I didn’t run in the same social circles. My friends stocked up on popcorn and had Sex and the City marathons, while his crowd liked to drive down to “The City” for marathon sex weekends. He wasn’t in my college, we’d never been in the same class, and as far as I knew, we hadn’t exchanged so much as three words in my years at Eli. “Um, hi.”

Okay, four words.

“What’s up?” Malcolm craned his neck toward my reading material, which, luckily, was currently opened to page 834 of WAP. He was dressed in a spring green polo shirt with the letters “CC” printed in the corner, and a pair of very well-fitting blue jeans. His sandy hair looked like it had been ripped right out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. He wore his messenger bag slung across his chest and was thrumming his fingers against the strap. “Russian Novel class, huh? Which one did you like best?”

“Crime and Punishment,” I said. “It’s only 500 pages long.”

He laughed, which earned him dirty looks from at least three other people at my table.

Malcolm straightened then, but continued beating that tattoo on his shoulder strap. If you ask me, the rhythm, more than the whispered conversation, was what was distracting about his presence. And now we were up to two dozen words.

“The final’s a breeze,” he went on. “So don’t worry about it.”

“Thanks.” I guess. Thrum, thrum, thrum.

“Just don’t work too hard. You’ll need your energy.”

Huh? My eyes shot to his face. “What are you talking about?”

He grinned then, showing me a set of gorgeous white teeth. “Oh, I almost forgot.” He stopped thrumming for a second, reached into his messenger bag, pulled out three books, and set them down on my desk. “This might help you out when you’re stuck in class.” He pointed at each of them in turn. “Said was a post-colonialist critic, Levi-Strauss advocated structuralism, and Aristotle…well, he’s the oldest critic in the book. None of them is a New Critic. Get your facts straight, or I’ll think you deserved that B–in Ethiopian Lit.”

I stared up at that all-too-familiar smile, then down to his hands, which had started tapping on his shoulder strap again. Right next to the little gold pin stuck through the canvas that showed a rose inside an elongated hexagon.

Malcolm Cabot was the Shadow-Who-Smiles. And he was in Rose & Grave.

Which meant…

“Hey!” I said. Loudly.

“Shh!” The harsh rebuke came from a girl at the next table. I craned my neck around Malcolm’s torso to see Clarissa Cuthbert glaring at me over the rim of her Louis Vuitton bag. Clarissa’s gaze ping-ponged from me to Malcolm and back again, and then her ice blue eyes narrowed. Little wonder. She was probably wondering what Governor Cabot’s son was doing talking to me. Like Malcolm, Clarissa was part of the school’s über elite.

And Malcolm was taking advantage of my distraction. He ruffled my hair. “See you soon, babe.” Then he turned on his heel and walked off.

Ignoring Clarissa, and completely forgetting about both the society books and Malcolm’s favorite literary critics, I snatched up WAP (with both hands, of course, since the stupid thing weighs two hundred pounds) and dashed after him.

By the time I got into the main hall of the library, he was nowhere to be seen. Stacks? Exit? Ugh! I walked as quickly as possible to the front doors, all the while scanning down each bay for any sight of his green shirt or blond hair. No luck.

At the door, I went through the usual No-This-Is-My-Copy-of-War-and-Peace-That’s-Why-It-Doesn’t-Have-a-Library-Bar-Code-on-It rigmarole, then sprinted down the front steps onto the Cross Campus Green. No sign of him there, either.

What, did Rose & Grave members have a secret entrance to the library, too?

Fine, I’d beard the lion in his den. “CC” stood for Calvin College in Eli shorthand, and green was the college color. I’d follow him right back to his dorm room. I tried to look dignified as I power-walked across the Green and back onto High Street, but the weight of WAP kept throwing off my stride.

THOUGHTS THAT WENT THROUGH

MY HEAD ON THE WAY

1) Malcolm Cabot knew I’d been bullshitting at my interview but tapped me anyway.

2) Must be convenient for Malcolm that Calvin College and the Rose & Grave tomb are right next door to each other.

3) I wonder if the Diggers have the Russian Novel final on file.

I swiped my keycard at the entrance to Calvin College, and opened the heavy gate. A few steps later and I was in their small, sunny courtyard, empty but for one guy in a green polo shirt booking it toward one of the far entryways.

“Malcolm!” I shouted, and he stopped in his tracks. I ran to meet him. “You’re a Digger,” I said when I arrived, panting slightly.

He grabbed my arm and maneuvered me to one of the stone benches positioned farther away from the windows. “And you,” he hissed in my ear in a much lower tone than I’d been using, “are not exactly discreet.”

I rolled my eyes as we sat. “How discreet is that pin of yours?”

He snorted. “It took you about ninety seconds to notice it, and I practically had to jab you in the eye with the pointy end.”

“Thanks for restraining yourself.”

“Think nothing of it.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Now I want an explanation.”

He narrowed his eyes. “For what?”

“For what!” I looked around the courtyard. Still empty. But I lowered my voice anyway. “For last night, of course.”

“You seemed to understand the process at the time.”

“Yeah, but then you just left me there. In the bathroom.”

“Of course. We had to get to eleven other people, you know, Amy. We were busy.”

I digested that point while he glanced around. “Look, this isn’t the time to talk. Everything you need to know is in the—” He stopped and looked down at my hands, empty but for WAP. “Where are the books I gave you?”

“In the library, I suppose.”

“WHAT!” Now it was Malcolm’s turn to get loud. He jumped up from the bench and threw his hands in the air. “You just left them there?”

I blinked at him. “They were library books. And I already have a copy of Poetics back in my suite.”

“There was—urgh!” He spiked his hands in his hair. “There was something in the Aristotle. For you. From us.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?” He paced back and forth in front of me. “Oh?!? That’s all you have to say?”

“What am I supposed to say? Did you honestly think that after that little act of yours I’d be more interested in hunting you down or settling back for a little bit of Dead White Guy’s take on literary criticism?”

“Well, I didn’t think you’d just leave them there!” He plopped back down on the bench and put his head in his hands. “I told them we shouldn’t get creative. I said, ‘What’s wrong with the Post Office?’ But did anyone listen to me? No. And now look.”

I patted him on the shoulder, because it seemed like the only appropriate response, but inside I was already plotting my course back to the reading room.

Malcolm whipped up and caught me by the shoulders. He stared at me intently. “Listen, you can’t let anyone else see the letter I put inside those books. It could ruin everything. You have to get back to the library and get them back. Now. Understand?”