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“Well, I can’t give you a guarantee. But all my latest testing has worked perfectly.”

“Can you show us?” Bash asks.

“Yeah, sure.” Rudder gets up and holds his hand over a plant. Whispers.

It disappears.

My mouth gapes. “How’d you do that?”

He grins. “Magic.”

I reach for the plant. I can feel it but can’t see it. “Unreal. It’ll work on us merpeople?”

Rudder nods. “I used it on myself to sneak out of a boring class today.”

He and Bash high-five each other. Then we head to an empty classroom.

“We’ll try it here to make sure it works fully before heading to the library.” Before we have the chance to respond, he holds his hands over us and whispers in a foreign language. “Done!”

I look at Bash. He looks exactly the same. I hold out my hand, which is also visible. “Sorry to break it to you, but I don’t think it worked.”

Rudder looks in my direction, but not directly at me. “I can’t see either of you. Look in the mirror.”

Bash slides his fingers through mine, and we go over to the other side of the room in front of a mirror. We aren’t in the reflection. It’s as if we aren’t even there.

Bash turns to me and hugs me. “It worked! How long do we have?”

“You’ll have to come back to me to have it lifted. And that reminds me, I better lift the spell from the plant before someone hurts themselves.”

“Will you be in the band room?” I ask.

“Yeah. I’ve got some new songs I’m working on. Good luck!” He takes off.

Bash squeezes my hand. “You ready?”

My pulse drums in my ears. “As ready as I’m going to be.”

“Let’s do this.” We make our way to the main part of the building. Other students pass us by, some nearly crash into us. Earwyn and her dogfish go right past us, but don’t even glance my way.

Bash and I duck down a quiet corridor and make our way to the secret library.

The door is locked.

My heart sinks. “How are we going to get in?”

“We wait for someone to come in or go out. Then we sneak inside.”

“I wonder how long that’ll take.”

He shrugs. “I’m not worried about that.”

“Why not?” I sigh, annoyed that we could be waiting a long time when I have studying I could be doing. Or sparring. Maybe I should get my books.

Bash traces his thumb along my jawline and gazes into my eyes. “I don’t mind waiting because I can do this” —He brushes his lips across mine.— “without anyone stopping us.”

“Oh.” My irritation melts away and he presses his lips on mine and pulls me closer, kissing me deeply. Rakes his fingers through my hair and moans softly. My heart pounds like a jackhammer, and I run my fingertips over his scruff and through his hair. This definitely beats studying or sparring.

A group of girls head our way, giggling and whispering. I pull away, but they don’t have a clue we’re there.