It wasn't fair. It just wasn't. The first thing Elise had remembered, truly remembered, had already been lost to her. And she only remembered Charlotte in fragments tied together by overwhelming loss and love. Even now, after she'd got control of herself, she reeled with anguish. Chasing that anguish was anger of an almost identical strength, because Charlotte's death hadn't been an accident. It couldn't have been. A girl like that, one so brave, so good, couldn't have died from anything as senseless as an accident. There had to have been a reason for it, one with a human face.

Elise looked at the others. They'd gone back to their places around the table, leaving her with room to breathe. All of them watched her with various degrees of concern and curiosity. For a moment, it was like being back in the Refectory. But most people there hadn't looked concerned for her.

"I don't know if I can ever ..." She stopped, giving herself a moment to swallow down her pain. It lodged in the middle of her throat. She pushed past it to speak. "I don't know if we can ever replace Charlotte, and I don't want to try." The others failed to hide their dismay, except for Stella, who didn't seem the least surprised. "But I'll try to take up as many of her responsibilities as I can, because I remember now ... Some of it, at least." Memories other than ones involving Charlotte had clicked into place for her. Little pieces of the old Elise Ellsworth. "She is — was our editor. I think I can handle that role." That brightened the faces around the table. She didn't want to let them hang onto false hope, though, so she added, "Just until we find someone more qualified." Her gaze settled on Willow. "Or until someone more qualified wishes to take the job."

Willow laughed, though not with cruelty. "You're not wrong about my qualifications."

"Good, because I'd taken a guess on them." Elise hadn't remembered much about the newspaper other than some of the tasks that she or Charlotte had done.

"But," Willow continued, "I don't want the position." More than just Elise began to speak against this refusal. Willow tossed their protests off with a shake of her head. "It's not out of sentiment; if I had any spare time I'd jump at the chance." She sighed. "There's my studies, my duties as an Underseer, and now that stupid dance ..."

"Well, we need someone to be editor," Ian said, "and you're more than qualified, Ell."

Elise didn't know if she was or not. She had recalled some of what it meant to edit articles, true, but that wasn't the same as remembering how to write, how to think, how to lead. And her gut said that being the editor of this paper involved all three of those things and more. "That's nice of you to say, but I don't have the ..."

Strength. Fortitude. Intelligence. And many things she was hopeless to recall. The possibilities of them sat like a half-forgotten objects that had been plucked from shelves in a dusty storage room, their existence only surmised by the gaps they had left behind. She had little idea of who she had been or what she had been capable of doing. Gerver's voice rumbled through her thoughts, reminding her that wasn't entirely true:

I have it on good authority that you've always been clever.

Clever, she was clever. With Gerver, she'd read between his words and learned that someone had tried to kill her, and that he, in turn, had been ordered to kill her would-be murderer. His clues hadn't been subtle, but she had been quick enough to understand them. That was a sort of cleverness, being quick to think. Her quick mind showed her the path ahead, and she took it.

"I'm not like Charlotte. I don't know much, but I do know that. And now ..." Elise took a long breath. Followed it with another. Press on, do not stop, follow the path to its end, Gerver encouraged. He'd never said that to her, but she needed those words from someone, imaginary or not. "Now I can't believe that she's gone. I can't believe that I'm here when she's not. I've barely remembered her, and I just can't believe ..." Her voice quivered, something that she couldn't stop no matter how she tried to. She wrestled back enough control to finish. "I can't believe that this school and this town aren't doing something about her death."

No one else said a word. They waited.

Her chest pumped with breaths so frantic that a nervous attacked seemed imminent. That she kept speaking disproved that fear. "Because of all those things that I can't believe, I know that we have to do something." Everyone watched her in a way that brought back the stares and whispers of the students, the professors, the staff. All of them watching to see what the girl with the broken brain would do next. Did her friends think that way, too? Is that why they were paying attention? "We have to find out who killed her."

Expression stony, Ash folded his arms over his chest. "Her death was an accident."

"Accident my foot," Ian said, pushing his coffee mug away from himself. "If you still believe that story after Elise was found where Charlotte died, then I've got a nice slice of real estate on the moon to sell you."

"And if you believe that she was murdered, you're more gullible than I thought you were," Ash said. "It's a coincidence."

Willow slammed her hands on the table, rattling the empty dishes from their picnic. "You really are a coward, aren't you?"

Ash slammed his hands down just as hard as she had done. He stood, staring down at her with blazing blue-grey eyes. "I'm looking out for all of us," he said. "You know where questions got Elise. If that'd been one of us, we wouldn't have been lucky enough to have a long stay in the clinic afterward."

Elise stiffened. She'd been asking questions about Charlotte's death? Could that have been what got her injured? It sounded plausible.

Plausible or not, Willow refused to back down. "So you're saying we shouldn't avenge Charlotte? Is that it?"

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"Listen to yourself, will you? 'Avenge?' This isn't one of your stupid soap operas."

Stella interrupted. "No, it's more of a horror movie, the kind where something always happens to those who don't believe in the existence of monsters." She sipped at the coffee she'd been nursing since she'd first got it. Full of too much creamer and sugar. "People like that are always the first to go."

Ash ignored her, keeping his attention on Willow. "Gerver didn't bother investigating her case for a reason, and the same can be said for the police."

Willow looked as if she'd start yelling at any second. She somehow managed to speak calmly. "Don't tell me to listen to myself," she said. "Listen to yourself, to how you're telling us to ignore the truth." She added, voice dark, "Does Charlotte mean nothing to you?"

That deflated Ash a bit. "I am listening to myself," he said, no longer sounding angry, just tired, "because I'm the only one making any sense."

"What a joke. The only thing that makes sense to you are baseball games."

He laughed. "Oh, that's rich coming from the gossip queen of Rambling. Tell me, Willow, what do your beauty magazines say about avoiding a maniac who'll shove us off the nearest staircase the second he realizes that we're af —"

"SHUT UP!"

Everyone jumped at that, including Ian, who'd jumped straight out of his chair to yell those words. "Just shut up," he said, not looking at Willow or Ash. "Charlotte was one of us. A fellow student, our colleague, and our damned friend, too." His thin shoulders heaved up and down with unsteady breaths. "And she's been killed in the same way that someone tried to kill Elise." His breathing slowed a fraction. "But this college, this town, they don't care about Charlotte because she was nothing more than an Addy."

"Ian," Willow said softly.

"It's true. That's what those in charge think about people like her." He swallowed, the muscles in his throat flexing. "People like me." He swept his gaze over everyone, but only let it linger on Ash, who looked away first. "Charlotte's not the first Addy to have died in Rambling." He leaned forward, clutching the table as if he might fall over without it. "There was a guy who had a nasty 'accident' decades ago in this place. But it'd happened just before the First World War, and people let themselves forget. Life went on: Exes hating Addies, Addies hating Exes, and Ords watching the whole show like they're righteous for staying out of the fray." His knuckles grew ashen as he held the table a little harder. "But it's not right. This world is what we make of it ... and I don't want to be part of any world that turns a blind eye to murder."

Silence crept into headquarters again. It wouldn't do to let it stay. Elise didn't fully understand what Ian was talking about — though Addies and Exes and Ords seemed to be more complicated than everyone had made them out to be — but his meaning was obvious. And it sounded right. She felt that in her bones, a knowledge so deep that it seemed like instinct. Some part of her remembered the truth of what he said.

Elise said, "Ian's not wrong. This town doesn't care."

"That's easy to say and hard to prove," Ash said, speaking with less conviction than he'd had minutes ago.

Instinct guided her again. "Addies are hurt or murdered all the time, aren't they?" The people around her answered that question without speaking a single word, so her intuition hadn't been wrong. As I said, clever, the memory of Gerver reminded her. Yes, it might be cleverness. It could just as easily be luck. No matter the name for it, she would use it. "I can see that Addies don't have it easy by the looks on your faces," she said. "So what's the point in kidding ourselves over Charlotte's attack? Being afraid over it? Fear doesn't change anything."

Ash didn't meet her gaze. "Being afraid makes sense."

"It also lets history repeat itself." For the first time since she'd awoken, there was a clearness in her mind that flowed into her voice. "If we don't do something now, whoever did that to Charlotte might hurt someone else." She nodded in the direction of Ian, then added more. "Like I said, he's not wrong, and for several reasons. Charlotte is ... Charlotte was one of us." Her gaze fell over these people who had thought of Charlotte as their friend. Words didn't matter. Actions did. They needed to prove what they were, just as she needed to. "Now, are we going to find her killer, or are we going to let him get away with everything?"

Not a word was spoken. Everyone seemed unwilling to speak up, struggling with internal arguments that only they could hear. Even Ian, who'd just said how dire things were for Addies, looked conflicted. Fine. It was fine. If they didn't didn't want to do anything, she would do it herself. Any madman who wanted to come after her would have a hard time of making her murder stick. He had last time, anyway.

Then someone spoke.

"Where do we start?" Willow said.

Elise nearly shook with relief. Two people now stood on Charlotte's side. Willow hadn't needed convincing, of course, but the lines had been drawn. Time for everyone to pick a side.

"Yeah, where?" Ian said, dropping back into his chair. He looked as if he'd never got out of it, curly hair flopping carelessly onto his forehead. "Because I don't have the first idea."

Everyone else settled back into their places, including Ash. They started trading ideas back and forth. Gratitude rushed warmly into Elise. They were doing this, all of them, together. Elise cleared her throat. "First," she started, "we'll need proof, I think. Of what happened to her that night."

Willow drummed her fingers on the table, making a nearby stack of paper wave up and down. "That'd mean finding files on her death. Official files."

"Yes, I suppose." Another thought occurred to Elise, an unpleasant one. "But are those at the University?"

"They should be," Willow said. "Rambling keeps records on every Extraordinary in Valens Valley for research purposes."

Research purposes? Asking about that would lead the conversation away from where it needed to be, so Elise kept quiet. She could find out what Willow had meant later.

Ash wore his skepticism openly. "We tried seeing those files and didn't have any luck getting permission," he said, as if to say that was that and nothing more could be done.

Permission? That alone held them back? It seemed such a flimsy thing to stand in their way. Elise cast it aside without a second thought. "Then we do without it."

Only Stella didn't look disturbed by this. Ian whistled. "You're sure not taking any half-measures, Ellie," he said.

That didn't sound like a compliment. "I know," she said. "But I think we can come up with a plan that'll work. I doubt it'll be easy, but if we work together, we'll be one step closer to knowing what happened to Charlotte."

"Yeah, and who takes the blame if we get caught?" Ash said.

"I will." She didn't need even think about it, and she certainly didn't regret volunteering.

Willow said, "You don't know what you're risking."

"Maybe it's better that I don't."

The discussion was over. In hushed whispers that were the tone of every conspiracy good or ill, the staff of the Rambling Herald burned away the daylight hours assembling and finishing a plan. It would require all of them to pull it off, but only one of them would be the actual thief: Elise Ellsworth, of Valens Valley, state unknown. Everyone tried to convince her to change her mind on that score, each of them volunteering in her place. She refused to so much as consider changing places, and found no fear in her heart at the prospect of being caught. Their worry proved without a doubt that they'd truly been friends both in the past and the present. Keeping them safe mattered more than anything. No instinct or memories needed to tell her that.