My throat closes.
“I had that job since I was eight—I loved that job.” He points passionately at his chest, tears welling in his bloodshot eyes. “I fykking loved it and you took it from me in one second.”
My body shakes. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry,” he repeats, feverishly studying me to see if I’m lying.
“That’s what I said,” I say, heated, voice trembling. “I’m sorry.” I jab my finger to his chest. “I’m sorry.”
He inhales a pained breath, confusion warping his face. “Just … leave.” I doubt he expected me to carry even a fragment of remorse, but I shouldn’t have been alive that day. I shouldn’t have been alive to destroy his passion. Or to ruin the little time he has.
I was on the fast track to death.
I wish—I wish more than he would—that I had just died when I was meant to. Now I just wonder what’s out there for me. What am I supposed to do in the extra time I have? What is my real purpose in this world?
I’m nothing.
And then I’m something. I’m whole enough to amble back to bed, untie my canopy, crawl beneath the covers, and tuck my satchel next to me. Like another person sleeps close.
Lights shut off, the room bathed in darkness. Head on my feather-light pillow, hands folded on my belly, I shut my eyes and feel Mykal in a sweat, rolled on his side. Facing me. His muscled legs are tangled in his comforter, palms beneath his jaw.
He wants to smile, but his heavy lips turn down.
Court is upright, his forearms on his knees. Breath shallow, he murmurs softly. Lips moving like they’re my lips. I distinguish the word. Sleep, he mouths.
Sleep.
Through our senses, he speaks to us.
Sleep.
I mouth, All right.
Mykal closes his eyes, his deep breath flooding me with comfort. Right before I doze off, my roommates speak.
“Night, little children,” Kinden calls, his mattress squeaking as he climbs into bed.
Gem calls back, “May your dreams be nightmares, Kinden Valcastle.”
“And may your dreams be my dreams,” he replies, bed quieting. “Because none of you would last in my nightmares.”
NINETEEN
Court
“Just ask me already,” Mykal says to me, the three of us settled on velveteen seats inside StarDust’s classroom auditorium, attendance mandatory as noted on the main bulletin. More and more candidates arrive, but the oak stage is empty, and a projector screen is blank.
“Why are your cheeks burning?” I finally ask Mykal after staring for well over a minute.
Franny sighs heavily between us, trying to alleviate the foreign pressure on her chest. I may be anxious, but not as much as she is right now. She worries that we’re about to take a series of written exams. And the threat of expulsion looms over everyone.
Mykal bows forward, eyes fixed on mine. “I said one damned thing to all my goat-brained roommates at breakfast and you know what they did? They laughed for a good fifteen minutes.”
That’s why he lost his appetite? I thought my stomach—his stomach roiled from the sip of orange juice I drank. “What did you say to them?” I ask more curtly than I intend.
Mykal grinds his teeth, thinking that I care more about appearances than his feelings.
My ribs tighten. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Yeah,” he mutters.
I care about your feelings, Mykal. More than you’ll ever know. Why can’t I just say it? Instead I stare at his roasted cheeks, my concern flaring, my fingers to my lips. Hating that he’s upset. And hurt.
“I said to pass the griskin,” Mykal says suddenly and quietly, “and they snickered like I spoke a dirty word.” My heart falls.
“Griskin?” Franny frowns.
“Pork loin,” I define the word that only Grenpalish use. A word that I learned from him. “Think worse of them, not yourself, Mykal.” I try to cheer him, my voice low as more candidates enter. “They laughed because they had no knowledge of a word that you did. You know twice as much as they do.”
“I dunno about that,” he says deep beneath his breath.
I stretch my arm over Franny to squeeze his shoulder. He eases only a fraction, but it’ll have to be enough for now.
Franny fiddles with the bow of her blouse, distant and anxious again. Unless we talk about Mykal, she’s been avoiding me. I don’t care.
I do care.
I care more than I can quantify. It’s why I ask, “What’s wrong?”
Now she picks at her nails, downcast and slumping.
I rub my lips. “Is it about…?” Vorkter. Our last argument.
“No.” Franny straightens, especially as the auditorium floods with watchful eyes. “Kinden Valcastle is in my dorm.”
I stare unblinkingly ahead. Kinden Valcastle is here.
“Who?” Mykal whispers and Franny murmurs, “His older brother.”
Outwardly I am stone. Inwardly my past crushes my lungs; I rock back, then forward. Face in my hands, screaming. Crying.
I’m stone. I can’t blink. Can’t move. Memories scrape my brain. Flying past like unburied razor blades.
Mykal always tells me that I carry a thousand miseries, but not all my memories are bad. Most are good—so good—but they’re shaded and clouded in dull gray. They belong to someone else. Someone worthy of holding them. Touching them.
I’m not that boy anymore.
But I return there. For this single moment, I’m eight.
I arrived home from my training at the hospital past dinnertime, exhausted and spent. As a Wonder, I was expected to be so much more. Where Influentials were lightly pushed toward an education at three years of age, Wonders were shoved full-force. Influential children could play outside, take breaks and naps, but I was required to open another book. Read a little more. Study a little more. Fill your Wonder brain a little bit more.
Open your eyes.
Ignore the pounding in your head.
Stay awake. Stay alert.
Be the very damn best.
I sped through the core curriculum in two years, pushed through science courses in three, and jumped into medicine when I was eight.
Mentally, I clawed to catch up with every older Influential. Mentally, I scraped my way to the top. And yet, I loved medicine. I could never complain because I loved every book I read. Every fact I learned. Every single time I walked the hallways of a hospital.
I chose medicine. I was not forced to, but I had to sacrifice a childhood for that future. Because I was supposed to die at fifteen.
I was so drained most nights, but one night surfaces again. All these years later, this one night speeds toward me.
On the kitchen counter, my foil-wrapped plate sat cold. Right next to a small antiquated television that played reruns of a corny game show. The host cackled too loudly and the contestants won romantic dates instead of bills.
We kept our only television in the kitchen. Our father liked watching Altia News while he cooked and no one argued with that logic.
While my mother and father had gone to bed, Kinden waited up for me, lounging at the table. Four years older, his hazel eyes lifted from the television and sank into my features.
“You look tired,” he said.
Exhaustion was my constant companion. Always pulling at me. Talking took too much effort, so I fell onto a tufted chair and chewed on cold lamb.
Kinden leaned back, watching. He was twelve, but I’d already surpassed him in studies. Some would say that I even flew past him in life.
His chair squeaked, so he bent forward and nodded to me. “You know how Father always says ‘Wonders are blessed by the gods’?”
I nodded back, sipping a glass of goat’s milk. Wonders are blessed by the gods had been one of my father’s favorite phrases. I can almost feel the weight of his hand on my shoulder, gripping affectionately. A proud smile overcoming him. Tauris Valcastle adopted me because I was a Wonder.
Because I was blessed by the gods.
My belief in the gods ended there. I never thought of myself as holy, so I decided that the gods did not exist. I was just an ordinary boy who’d never become an old man.
Kinden shook his head a few times, his halfhearted smile more pained than awed, and I listened to him. I looked up to him.
And he told me, “I wish Father would stay up late enough to see you come home. Maybe then he wouldn’t think so highly of you.” Forearms on the table, he leaned forward, sincerity bursting in his eyes. “Your value has an expiration date. You have an expiration date. They will break you, little brother. Your spirit will die before you even do. I see it waning every night.” He laughed a weakened laugh of disbelief at how this world worked. At how much divided him from me. “And yet, you will be lauded and praised.”
Kinden took a sip from my milk and then casually changed the subject to the newest opera opening on the weekend.
“They will break you, little brother.”
I loved him. Kinden’s unfailing honesty reaffirmed what I always believed. I am not greater than anyone. I am not better. Kinden saw me as fragile before I even cracked and I loved that I wasn’t a blessed Wonder or a physician in his presence.
I was just his little brother.
Before we headed to bed, he said to me, “Wake me before you leave. I did not appreciate you letting me sleep in, you little—”
“Fine.” I nearly smiled. “Will you wait with me for a Purple Coach?”
“I always do.” Kinden wanted to squeeze in as much time with me as he could. He thought I’d die in seven years. Really, I gave him just two more.
Truthfully, I never believed I’d see him again.
I wake from this stupor that burns my eyes. The StarDust auditorium is louder than before, almost every seat occupied. Searching for him, I swing my head right and left, and I freeze.
Diagonally across and seven rows down, Kinden laughs, his polished boot perched on the back of a seat, riling the person who avoids his rubber sole. He’s so much older, but he has the same brash confidence that sits uneasily with many.
“What if he recognizes Court?” Mykal whispers to Franny.
I acknowledge them and they both jump in surprise. I was drifting for a while. “It’s the same as my father,” I say beneath my breath. “Even if they recognize my features, they won’t believe it’s me. I have a different name and I’m supposed to be dead.”
No one dodges a deathday. It would be irrational for Tauris or Kinden to believe that I did. More likely, they’ll think I coincidentally look like a son or brother they once had.
Mykal cracks a crick in his neck. “So what’re you planning? Becoming his friend—”
“No,” I cut him off because I can’t fathom speaking to Kinden in any capacity. “I act like he’s nothing to me. I’ll evade him at all costs.”
Franny nods, head hanging with a pang of hurt that I don’t understand. Then she massages her neck, but Mykal has the sore muscle, so he tries kneading his shoulder.
Elbowing Franny, he whispers, “I’ll be the one visiting your room, you realize. I need familiar company.” Mykal reads her emotions far better than I can, and only now, the realizations suddenly well my throat. By avoiding Kinden, I avoid Franny’s room altogether.
I just mortared another wall between us.
Franny elbows back. “You would love the lighting in my room, I bet. Great bulbs.”
His humor lifts his lips and heart. “How big?” he teases. “And what’s the wiring like? I don’t do well with cords.”
I rub my tense jaw. Somewhere in the past couple of months, I missed out on their jokes. I have no idea why lightbulbs and cords cause both to sport pleased smiles.
Abruptly, I interject into their conversation, “You don’t want me visiting your room anyway.”
Franny bears every sliver of emotion in her face. Each one kisses her lips, her nose, her chin, her cheeks. Pulling and cinching and frowning. I see it all.
I feel it all.
“That’s not true,” she says hotly. “I’d want you to visit me if you could.” Maybe part of her believes I wouldn’t, even if I could, and that’s why she’s hurt.
Franny stares ahead and adjusts her posture. “We should focus,” she says, using my usual phrase seriously.
Focus. I try, but I glance curiously at Franny a few more times. While she’s unconcerned, our stagnant friendship, or lack thereof, plagues me. She deserves so much more empathy than the coldness I’ve given her—and yet, I find myself leaving the wall intact.
* * *
Amelda strolls onto the stage, a bounce in her energetic step. One thousand and twenty-four candidates quiet down.
Amelda taps her bulbous microphone. “Is this working? Can you all hear me?”
“Yes,” the crowd responds in waves.
“Good.” Amelda paces the length of the stage. “I begin with this: Be your best because StarDust is looking for the very best of our world.”
The best in what: science, medicine, mathematics, athletics, art, or something else? She doesn’t clarify.
“We’re looking for the thirty best candidates for StarDust. If you underperform, we won’t hesitate to expel you at any time. That includes today.” Amelda halts in the center of the stage and takes a robust breath. “We begin with a written exam.”
Franny sinks in her chair, gripping her armrests tightly.
I place my palm on the top of her hand. An instinct.
Her head turns, but I don’t meet the question in her gaze. The why? I can’t answer. I don’t know why.
I just let my hand cloak hers.
She eases a little.
“The exam covers a fundamental understanding of our universe that you all should know.” Amelda clears her throat. “After the exam, you will be given class schedules where your performances will be monitored by the StarDust directors. Think of this as university where the courses are more demanding and your chances for expulsion are much greater.”
Mykal blows out a heavy breath, his stomach caving in.
He’ll be fine, I want to believe.
Amelda tucks her microphone beneath her arm and unzips a purse snapped around her waist. She procures a stack of indigo cards and then adjusts, microphone in hand again.
“If you’re lucky enough, if you’ve lasted weeks and months on end, these will be your final exam.” She fans the cards and raises them. “Later today, you’ll be given one card. Each card has a corresponding word—and that word belongs to you and you alone. Show your card to others and there are great disadvantages in the final exam. Keep your card a secret and there are immense advantages. But learn the cards of your peers and you just may succeed.”
She stops there, not explaining what the final exam entails. Only that we must find a way to discover the other candidates’ cards. Even though it’d be a “great disadvantage” for them to share theirs.
“And so it begins,” Amelda singsongs and trots down the few stairs. As she passes out exam packets, the wrinkled woman named Dessa replaces Amelda on stage.
Everyone begins to flip their desk trays and then Dessa clicks a tiny remote. Behind her frame, blackness and little glittering orbs project on the screen. Space. Stars.
Dessa puts the microphone against her lips. “Do not open the packet until instructed—you, in the far left corner. Red shirt. I see you.” Heads whip, bodies shift, and we all settle uncomfortably.
I’m not worried about my skill set. I think of Franny. And Mykal. They’ll be fine. I wish I could feel something stronger than doubt.
Packets on our desks, turned upside down, and pens between fingers, we wait.
Franny exhales, “Gods be with me.”
“Flip,” Dessa commands.
Papers rustle and I quickly read the directions: Look at the screen. Answer each question in the time allotted. The packet is just numbers and blank spaces for our answers. Franny and Mykal will have no time to skip around and
process the questions.
“Question one,” Dessa calls out, lifting my attention to the screen.
Blanketed by outer space, the projector zooms in on five spherical planets and a sun. Simple outlines, no topographic distinctions or characteristics in the image.
“In order of nearest to farthest from the sun, list our four sister planets and our planet. Please draw a star next to the planet everyone here resides on.”
This should be one of the easiest questions. All the planets are called Saltare, but they carry a reference number that correlates to the sphere’s size. Saltare-1 is the largest planet, twice the breadth of the sun, whereas Saltare-5 is a dot on the diagram.
Unsure of how much time we’re allowed, I hurriedly list them in the correct order, my pen flying across the paper.
Saltare-5
Saltare-1
Saltare-2
Saltare-4
Saltare-3
I draw a tiny star next to Saltare-3: average in size but farthest from the sun—and therefore the coldest.
That is our planet.
Looking up, people continue scrawling. While Franny treads slowly, seemingly certain about her answer, Mykal second-guesses himself, hesitating to write a single word.
Sweat beads across his hairline and he uses his biceps to wipe his forehead.
My pulse pounds and I think, I sense him.
He senses me; why can’t we use that to our advantage? I’ve concentrated more on the difficulties than the values of linking, but being connected to Mykal and Franny has significant worth. More than we even realize.
I tap my desk a few times to gain their attention. Drawing their senses toward mine. When their focus trains on me, I begin to trace my answers with my fingertip.
Franny’s lips part and she scratches out one of her answers.
Mykal concentrates for a long second before writing.
“Question two.” Dessa clicks her remote. Outer space whizzes away from the Saltare planets to somewhere farther in the universe. Homing in on one giant sphere, she says, “Name the planet that was taken from us. And what year did we flee to the five planets?”
The Raging Ones Page 20
