Enchanted Ivy

Chapel. Others represent the university experience, like this perennial favorite here, the Unseeing Reader, who symbolizes opening the eyes of students.'

Keeping her voice low, Lily asked Tye, 'Why do I need a guard?' She was on a campus tour at a suburban school, not wandering alone in the inner city. 'Are you supposed to protect me against vicious squirrels and roving gangs of prefrosh?'

'Something like that,' he said.

The tour guide was talking about a bulldog (Yale's mascot) carved into a drainpipe on the chapel, supposedly a joke from the architect, a Yale graduate. 'Everywhere you look on the Princeton campus, you'll find treasures like these,' the guide said. 'Some call our gargoyles the 'true professors of Princeton.''

Lily winced. Okay, that was cheesy. She hung back as the tour proceeded on to the chapel. 'Am I really supposed to be on this tour?' she whispered to Tye. 'She seems as likely to say something useful as a gargoyle.' Lily nodded up at the Unseeing Reader.

'I wouldn't be so sure of that.' His golden eyes twinkled at her. 'You never know what a gargoyle might say.' He waved up at the gargoyle as if the Unseeing Reader were an old friend that he always greeted.

High up on the arch, the Unseeing Reader's stone fingers twitched.

Lily felt blood drain from her face. It had to have been a flicker of light, a cloud crossing the sun, even though the sky was blemish-free blue. 'Did you see—' She stopped. She didn't want him to think she was a lunatic or, worse, to report back to the Old Boys that she had her mother's problems.

Tye was watching her with an unreadable expression.

'Never mind,' she said. Clasping her shaking hands together behind her back, Lily willed herself to stay calm. She'd taken a triple dosage. She might have a seizure or a heart attack, but she could not have a brain hiccup.

The fingers twitched again.

'Oh, crap,' she said.

She couldn't pretend she hadn't seen that. Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at Tye. He was still watching her, his tawny eyes intense.

Above, the gargoyle spread her fingers. A shard of stone slipped between them and plummeted toward the plaza. Without thinking, Lily stretched out her hands. The stone landed neatly on her palms. She stared at it. It didn't feel like a hallucination.

'What does it say?' Tye asked.

Her head shot up. 'How do you know it says anything?' She didn't wait for him to answer. 'The Old Boys ... Vineyard Club ... they rigged the gargoyle,' she said flatly. She waved the stone shard in the air. 'This is a clue. And you knew it was and let me think I was ...' Instead of finishing the sentence, she swatted his arm. Her fingers brushed against his bare skin. She felt tiny static shocks dance on her fingertips.

His eyes widened, and he reached out as quick as a cat and caught her hand. He held it for a second, and she felt prickles run up and down her arm. 'Who are you?' he demanded.

'Nobody,' she said. 'I'm Lily. Lily Carter.'

He was staring at her with a gaze so piercing that she felt yet another blush rise up over her neck and face. A second later, he dropped her hand and blushed too. 'Sorry,' he said. He seemed at a loss for words. She flexed her fingers. Strange, she thought. Her hand felt tingly. 'You, uh, you think the 'Old Boys' are controlling the gargoyle?' he asked.

'Puppet or robot.' She didn't care which, so long as it wasn't a hallucination. Lily studied the shard, a flat rectangle.

Carved on one side were numbers and letters: 921.45 Wil. She showed it to Tye.

'Cryptic,' he commented.

'It could be a date, except the punctuation isn't quite right,' she said. 'And what about 'Wil'? What does that mean?'

'Abbreviation?' he suggested. 'Acronym?'

'Research time,' she said. She was a stone's throw from the university library. The prospect of winnowing through that much information was daunting, but the answer had to be in there somewhere. It couldn't be a coincidence that she'd received this clue so close to—

Oh.

Of course.

'It's a book catalog number,' Lily said. Looking up at the Unseeing Reader, she asked, 'I'm right, aren't I?'

The gargoyle didn't answer.

Love at first sight, Lily thought as she and Tye approached Firestone Library. First, it was beautiful, all gray stone and turrets. But second and even better, it was lopsided. It had a single off-center tower that looked as if someone had stolen half of Notre Dame Cathedral and then stuck it on top of the library without measuring first. She loved it. It was grand and quirky at the same time, and it was utterly different from her home library. Not that she didn't love that library too. Her home library was a drab hunk of concrete from the seventies, but it was also her first-choice refuge whenever Mom was acting too 'artistic' to handle. Lily typically holed up in the nonfiction section. She liked to thumb through the books and imagine what she would do once her life was her own ... if it was ever her own.

If Princeton said yes, she would have her own life. Since this was Grandpa's alma mater, she was allowed to apply here, even though coming here would mean leaving home. (Princeton was too far from Philly for an easy commute.) All of the other colleges on the Grandpa-approved list were in or just outside Philadelphia. If she went to one of them, she'd live at home and commute to class. Mom and the flower shop would continue to dominate her world, and nothing would change. Passing this test was the key to her future.

'So is the Key in there, or just a clue to the next clue?' Lily asked Tye.

'They really have you looking for the Key?' he asked.

She bristled. 'You don't think I can find it?'

'It's not that,' he said quickly. 'It's ... you're a surprise, you know. Going to be fun to figure you out.'

For about the five millionth time since she'd met Tye, she felt herself blush. 'Not much to figure out,' she said. 'There's nothing mysterious about me.' Mom was the one who was full of riddles. Lily was as ordinary as peanut butter and jelly. Possibly peanut butter and bananas.

'Yeah, right.' He cupped his hand around her cheek, and she felt her skin tingle again with that fuzzy electricity. She froze, scarcely breathing. She'd never had a boy cradle her face in his palm, even if he was regarding her more like an interesting scientific specimen than an object of adoration. He released her. 'I'll be back before you've found your next clue.'

'You aren't coming with me?' she asked. Inwardly, she winced. She shouldn't beg him to stay with her. Just because he was the cutest guy who had ever talked to her ... On the other hand, shouldn't he come with her? He had said he was her guard. 'Don't you need to protect me from extra-fussy librarians or dangerously dust-ridden books?'

He flashed his lopsided smile. 'Just watch out for rogue book carts.'

She opened the library door. When she glanced back over her shoulder, he'd already walked away and was looking up at a gargoyle of a cloaked man with a flute. She had only a second to wonder what he was doing before a family of four approached. Rather than continue to block the door, she scooted inside.

The library foyer was a warm honey-colored wood, the same color as Tye's eyes. Quit thinking about him, she told herself. If she passed the test, she'd have plenty of time to moon about college boys with nice eyes. Right now she had a book to find.

Lily marched across the lobby only to stop at a set of turnstiles. Security guards were checking student ID cards. She considered her options: One, she could claim she was a student and try to bluff her way through (not a good idea—she was a lousy actress); or ... She couldn't tell the truth. The Legacy Test was supposed to be a secret.

As she tried to think of a plan, she half listened to the family of four touring the library lobby. The woman was reminiscing about hours spent here on her senior thesis. The father bounced a toddler in a tiger-cub outfit on his hip while the girl gazed up at her mom with wide brown eyes. They looked like a poster for the Perfect Family. Lily