When Quinn's alarm went off the next morning, the spot next to them was empty. With not a single wrinkle in the sheets he'd lay on, it was hard to believe that Vincent had ever been there, but Quinn could feel it—some part of them felt better now than it had before they'd seen him the night before. Their eyes were still a little bleary from all the crying, but other than that they felt... almost okay. Rested, even.

When they glanced at the time on their phone, they realized that it was past nine—which meant that, for the first time in weeks, they'd gotten a full eight hours of sleep.

Huh.

Shaking their head, Quinn swung their legs over the edge of the bed and stretched, releasing a little yawn. As they got dressed in their usual outfit—dark pants and a soft, dark sweater from their vast collection of soft, dark sweaters—their gaze fell on the tarot cards still scattered on Valerie's bed.

The Eight of Swords glared up at them, bound and blindfolded.

Quinn glared back at it and made a decision.

***

After an extensive search of the campus, a brief questioning round with Josie and Caleb and a following awkward conversation with a professor after he'd spotted Quinn talking to the air outside the art building, Quinn found Joy in an empty classroom in a more secluded part of the art building that was mainly used for pottery.

She was lying flat on her back on one of the workstations when Quinn spotted her, her heavy boots propped up on the desk, her head resting in Jun's lap. The hazy light streaming in through the tall windows painted the pair golden, Joy's features softer than Quinn had ever seen them as she gazed up at Jun, who was toying with one of the spikes on her leather collar.

Quinn paused in the doorway for a few seconds, watching them. Their clothes aside, the two of them could've been mistaken for any regular couple stealing a few moments between classes together. It was only when Quinn neared them that the gentle flickering of their outlines got more obvious.

Jun was the first one to notice them. His eyes widened almost comically as he suddenly sat bolt upright, the shift in his posture abrupt enough to jostle Joy. "Quinn," he said, staring at them as if they were the one who was likely to disappear if he so much as blinked. "What are you doing here?"

Quinn hesitated after a few steps into the room. Nervously pulling their sleeves over their knuckles, they tried their best to make their voice sound firm. "I was looking for you."

"Sorry, who are you and what have you done with Quinn?" Sitting up, Joy shot them a suspicious glance. "You know them? Short, Chinese-American, pees their pants at any tiny noise?"

Jun gave her a not-so-subtle nudge before turning to beam at Quinn. "It's so cool you came! I was worried we scared you off for good last night."

"Oh. No, it's... it's fine," Quinn said, shifting from one foot onto the other as they tried not to make eye contact with Joy, before they stilled. The Eight of Swords flashed in their mind again. "Actually, it's not," they said, this time meeting Joy's glare head-on. "I want to know why you've been going after me these past few days and what I need to do to make you stop."

One of Joy's eyebrows went up in an expression that almost looked a little impressed. "Oh, so you're serious? You want to talk like adults?"

"Yes," Quinn simply said. To prove that they meant it, they finally entered the room for real, Joy tracking their movements like a hawk as they wound their way through the workstations and finally sank down on a desk opposite the one the pair occupied.

"All right." Joy's leather jacket creaked softly as she turned her entire body to face Quinn. "But you have to promise not to freak."

Glancing from her to Jun, who was chewing on his thumb with a look of general discomfort, Quinn said, "I... don't know if I can do that."

"Just tell them, Joy," Jun said. "You gotta do it like a band-aid."

Quinn didn't like the sound of that one bit. Still, they leveled Joy with an expectant look as they waited for her to talk.

"Right. Okay." Quinn wasn't sure if they were imagining it or if Joy was the one who looked a little bit nervous now, one hand fidgeting with a safety pin on her skirt. "So. You know Vincent."

"I do."

"And you know he's been dead for almost a hundred years now."

"Uh-huh."

"Which makes him the oldest out of all of us. Followed by Hannah, me, Jun, and then Caleb and Josie."

Quinn nodded, silently willing her to go on.

"I'm sure you've noticed by now that we..." Joy gestured vaguely between her and Jun. "Are a bit more... solid? Like, we look firm."

"Present, maybe?" Jun supplied, scratching the back of his head.

Quinn squinted a little as they studied the two more closely. They could see what they meant; where light filtered through Vincent like it did through a thin sheet of paper, it hit Joy and Jun no differently than it hit Quinn. "I guess," they said.

Joy glanced down at one of her hands, turning it over to study a little scar that looked like the handiwork of a lit cigarette snuffed out on her knuckles. "You know... I mean, I guess you wouldn't, since you're alive and everything, but—There's stages to this. At first, the weird sleepwalking stage. Then, after maybe a few months, the one where you realize that you're dead. After the first shock, this stage is the best because even though you're obviously kind of bummed about having bit it at the tender age of twenty, you still feel alive. You look like you're still made of flesh and bone, enough so that some people—you know, normal randos, not ones with talents like yours—can see you, and you can manipulate things."

"Which Joy took full advantage of," Jun threw in. "What was it that they called you, babe?"

Joy's face split into one of her razor-sharp smiles. "The Red Lady. Kind of a rad name."

"In her first years, she was kind of infamous around here," Jun explained to Quinn. "She would haunt the entire campus, slam doors, throw plates, the whole nine yards. One time, this poor freshman saw her standing at the end of a hallway around three a.m. All she had to do was smile at him and he passed out."

While Quinn winced in sympathy, Joy only shrugged. "Listen, I was pissed to be dead. It was cathartic."

"It was what you deserved," Jun said. One of his hands reached out to grab Joy's, his thumb rubbing up and down in a motion that looked so natural, so familiar, that Quinn wasn't even sure he was aware he was doing it.

Tearing their eyes away, Quinn asked, "What's the next stage?"

Jun's smile dropped. "The one we're in now. We call it the Fading."

"With every year that we're stuck here, we become a little less. Until we're just... gone."

Quinn blinked. "Oh. So... you just have to wait a few years and eventually you automatically get to the other side?"

Joy gave a sharp shake of her head. "No. That would be too fucking easy. Once we vanish, that's it. We don't get to go to the other side. We're stuck here, we fade, and then we're gone. There's no after for us, and we can't go back to before. It's just this for maybe a hundred years, if we're lucky."

All at once, Quinn felt unsteady, their hands gripping onto the edge of the desk they were sitting on to stop themself from drowning in the rush of terrible words spilling from Joy's mouth. "A hundred years? But—Vincent is almost—"

"Ding ding ding! Ladies and gentlemen, we've got a winner."

"We've seen it happen before," Jun said, his voice much gentler than Joy's. "The last time was three years ago, with a guy who'd died in 1928."

"None of us really misses him, to be honest," Joy snorted. "He'd served in World War I and kicked the bucket after drinking himself to death, so he was a little... messed up. We were kind of glad when he was gone. He was scaring the kids with all his talk about this being purgatory, not to mention all the goddamn war stories."

Jun shuddered. "God, they were gnarly. Remember that one time he told Josie and Caleb about his friend who'd lost a leg? They kept bringing it up for weeks afterward. I've never seen Vincent so angry."

"Vincent... H-he died in 1932," Quinn managed to choke out, finally having found their words again. "If that guy died in 1928 and vanished three years ago..."

"Yeah," Jun said, not meeting their eyes. "He's already struggling to be corporeal, and he's randomly disappeared a few times now. It's only a matter of time until he won't re-appear."

"He never told me about any of that," Quinn whispered.

"Of course he hasn't. The guy's a saint. He knows how scared you are of your magick, and he didn't want to make you feel obliged to use it."

"Yeah, well. I'm not that nice." Joy fixed Quinn with a glare, her voice all steel again. "You need to use your magick to save him."

"I... I don't know how," Quinn stammered.

"Well, then fucking figure it out," Joy snapped. "You can see us. All of us, even those who have been here for decades. You're our best shot at getting him out of here."

"Our only shot, really," Jun said. "I wanted to keep you out of this, but she's right, Quinn. Vincent's time is running out. If we don't do something soon, he'll never get to the other side."

"I've tried to figure out how he died," Quinn weakly said. "I thought that maybe if he got closure, that would be enough for him to—"

"Closure doesn't do shit," Joy cut them off. "I know how I died. Vincent told me. My shitty excuse of a boyfriend convinced me to speedball with him and his bandmates and I OD'd. Knowing how it happened didn't change anything except make me even angrier."

"And determined to haunt all the popular sesh spots and hopefully scare people bad enough not to do it," Jun threw in. "Which is how I know how I died as well. Joy saw it happen. I got high, thought it'd be a grand idea to still ride my motorbike home, and crashed while I was riding through Oakriver. When I came to, she was yelling at me."

Quinn blinked at him. They'd known about the motorcycle accident, but no one had ever mentioned the drugs part to them.

"There," Joy said. "Knowing how you died doesn't change anything. It takes more than that to get us to move on."

Quinn buried their head in their hands. They should've known it wasn't going to be this easy. And Vincent—fuck, he had known, and he still hadn't said anything, all because he didn't want to make Quinn uncomfortable. Quinn thought about all the nights they had sat together, Vincent's quiet, the look of tentative hope that was there and then gone.

His words from the night before echoed in Quinn's ears again. To see my mom and sister again. Were they on the other side? If that was his biggest wish... How could he not have said anything? How had he just sat there, patient and still while Quinn drew him, and not brought it up once?

Into the silence, Joy said, "It wouldn't matter if it were me. I don't care if my soul moves on and I get to be reincarnated or whatever happens. Existence is a prison, yada yada yada. Don't look at me like that, Jun. My point is: Vincent, out of everyone here, is the person who least deserves to just disappear."

"He's our glue," Jun softly added. "Without him, we'd probably all be drifting around here, alone. He took care of Hannah when he found her. He was the first person there when Joy came to. And when Joy refused to talk to me in the months after I arrived here, he was the one who convinced her to give me a chance. The kids... I mean, fuck, he spends night after night telling Hannah stories to take her mind off things, and he's the one who comforts Josie and Caleb when they say they miss their parents. Vincent is the only reason our existence here isn't absolutely miserable."

By now, Quinn felt close to crying. They knew what Jun meant. Even though they had only known Vincent for a few days, the thought of him simply vanishing made them feel sick to their stomach. When had they grown so used to having him around?

"Okay," they said, looking up at Joy and Jun again. "I'll do it. I'll try, I promise."

Both of their shoulders sagged in relief.

"Thank you," Jun said. He looked like he was going to reach across the space between them to squeeze Quinn's hand, but awkwardly withdrew his arm when he remembered.

"I'm really sorry. If I had known that this was happening, I would have done something earlier, I swear."

To their surprise, it was Joy who said, "It's fine. You couldn't have known. I'm sorry, too. I guess I could've been a bit nicer about the whole thing." She paused. "And I'm not just saying that because Vincent told me to apologize."

Quinn couldn't help the chuckle that tumbled from their lips. "Of course he did. Last night, he—"

"A-ha! I knew it! I knew something was up with you!"

Quinn spun around so fast they almost fell off the desk. Standing in the doorway was Luis, a triumphant grin on his face as his eyes darted between Quinn and the spot they'd been looking at a few seconds ago. With a sinking feeling, Quinn realized that the most attractive boy they knew had just walked in on them talking to an invisible second party. Suddenly, they desperately wished for death as well.

Trying their best to keep themself from losing it, they offered Luis a pained smile. "H-hey! What are—what are you doing here?"

"I just came back from posing for an art class. What are you doing here?"

Quinn looked to Joy and Jun for help, but when they turned their head, the two had quietly stolen away. Traitors.

Pinching the bridge of their nose between their fingers, Quinn looked at Luis again. "Oh my God. Just. Please forget you saw that? I promise I'm not usually this weird, I just—"

"Oh, absolutely not." There was an absolute look of delight on Luis's face as he walked into the room and right over to where the two ghosts had sat just a moment ago. Leaning against the desk, he asked, "Who were you talking to? Are they still here?"

Quinn pulled their knees to their chest, burying their face in their arms. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You're not getting out of this that easily," Luis chuckled. "When I saw you staring at nothing in art class, I was like, Okay, that's normal. People zone out sometimes. But then it happened again in the alley and I know you thought you were being slick but I knew you were talking to someone. One time's chance, two time's a coincidence, three time's a pattern. So, what are you?"

Quinn only burrowed farther into the crook of their arm. Muffled into the fabric of their sweater, they tried, "I'm an art student."

Even without seeing him, they could feel Luis's unimpressed stare. "Quinn."

"What?"

There were a few seconds of silence. Then, Luis's hands very gently took a hold of Quinn's and pulled their arms away from their face. "Come on," he said, softer now. "I promise I'll believe you."

"It's going to sound ridiculous."

"I love ridiculous," Luis said. Sheepishly, he added, "This is, like, my thing, remember? I won't judge. Hell, if you don't want to say it, I'll run through my entire list of cryptids and paranormal entities and you can just nod when your preferred label comes up."

"I'm not an entity," Quinn huffed, though it sounded more like a laugh. And then, because of the way Luis was still looking at them, because they were tired of sneaking around him, and, okay, maybe also because their head was kind of dizzy with his hands still holding theirs, they said, "I'm a w—I have magick, and I can see ghosts. There. Happy?"

"Yeah," Luis breathed, blinking down at them. "That's—holy shit. Really? Or are you making fun of me right now?"

"Why would I be—Yes. Really."

"And you were talking to a ghost just now?" Luis asked, twisting his head to glance behind him.

"Two. My dead uncle and his girlfriend."

"What the fuck. What the fuck," Luis said, more to himself than to Quinn, before he turned to beam at them again. "You're the coolest person I've ever met."

Quinn blinked at him, incredulous that he hadn't once thought to let go of their hands throughout all of this. "You really believe me? Just like that?"

"I promised you I would, didn't I? And besides, ghosts aren't that far out there in terms of paranormal stuff." When Luis let go of their hands, it was only to gesture grandly as he added, "The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?"

"Where's that from?"

Luis grinned wide enough for his cheeks to dimple. "Edgar Allan Poe."

Somehow, it was then that the tension in Quinn's shoulders loosened, an invisible weight lifted as it set in that they'd done it: they'd acknowledged their abilities, talked about them out loud, and the world hadn't ended. "Jesus," they laughed. "I think the fact that you could perfectly recite that quote just like that is weirder than the whole magick thing."

"Are you going to show me?" Luis giddily asked. "Your magick?"

Quinn grimaced. It was hard to say no when he was looking at them like that, but they still had enough common sense left to shake their head. "I can't. I'm not supposed to do it in public and as we just saw someone could come here any second, so..."

"Tomorrow, then," Luis immediately said. "You can come over to my place. And... bring your ghost friends, if you want. I promise I won't be weird about it."

Quinn knew that it was stupid—reckless even—but their head was nodding before they could think better of it. "Yeah, okay," they said. "Tomorrow."