Court lowers his head just enough. His soft lips meet my cracked ones. Light bursts inside our lungs. He urges my lips apart, his hands sliding gracefully up my neck. I hunger forward, and I grip the thick strands of his hair. Tugging.
We both smile beneath an eager kiss. Tongues tangling, our bodies grind. Needing, aching to be even closer. I swelter hot, and by now, most Grenpalish would be on the ground. Rolling around together, but I let him take the lead.
Kissing a bit longer—and then our lips abruptly break.
Franny. The same thought, the same name widens our eyes. She can feel us.
I breathe raggedly. Trying to return air to our lungs. I focus my energy on Franny.
Court flattens his hair, lips reddened, and then glances at the door, then me. His concern felt, but no regret. No guilt.
Good.
The more I focus on Franny, the more my brows knot. “I can’t sense what she’s feeling.” Right now, I only feel Court and myself. The link heightened then.
“We’ll talk to Franny later,” Court says stiffly, smoothing back his hair more. We stay a couple of feet apart, a bit more tentative.
My lip quirks. I rub my mouth, a silly grin not leaving.
Court tucks in his untucked shirt. His hair falling over his lashes. But I spot lightness in his eyes.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
He lifts his head.
“What’s an underdog?”
His brows rise. “A person expected to lose.”
I frown. “Why would someone be rooting for a damned underdog?”
“People want underdogs to win because they fight harder for less, but they deserve more.”
I nod to myself a few times. I think, All right. Then I waft my hand, finger suddenly stinging. I put it to my mouth and suck.
“That’s me, from a paper cut this morning,” Court explains and raises his finger.
I near and grab his hand. Squinting at the tiniest slice.
Gods bless … I felt that?
Our bodies tense. This heightened link will be new territory for us to cross.
TWENTY-SIX
Franny
After packing my fur coat into a cardboard box, I leave my dorm and jiggle a knob to room D1.
I peer over my shoulder. No one will catch you, Franny. Everyone has been celebrating in the common room downstairs with brisk word games. Well, nearly everyone.
My lips are swollen from a passionate kiss. At least, they feel this way.
As soon as Mykal and Court’s lips touched, I concentrated on everything that I could think of to pull my mind far, far away.
Furs.
Blur 32 perfume. The most luxurious garments in Bartholo storefronts. My old friends, my mother—the list really goes on and on.
And while it worked all right, I wish I could’ve just turned off the link this once. What I felt was so pure and belonged to them.
But there’s no off switch.
Luckily, my mind will be preoccupied for the next while.
Entering the dorm takes a hair clip, a narrowed eye, and a memory of an old friend breaking a lock to the bathhouse, but the knob finally rotates.
I slip inside an identical dorm to my own, but four of five beds are stripped bare. Only one candidate still here.
I begin racing around Raina Nearfall’s room. Searching through the armoire, whipping through the hangers of blouses, I find clothes and more clothes. I unzip her satchel.
Empty.
“If I were an indigo card, where would I be hidden?” I mutter to myself. Pausing only a second, I run to her bed and peer in each pillowcase. Nothing.
After Tauris said every stolen card would be replaced, I had a brilliant idea: Find Raina’s card. Not steal, just discover her word and tiptoe out of sight.
We know little about the final exam involving the indigo cards. What we do know: showing your card will put you at a greater disadvantage.
I want to see Raina’s card.
If I can’t locate it, then I deserve to be called the poorest sleuth in all of Altia. Just as I kneel before her bed, I fear that Raina secures her card in her pocket like Court. Never leaving it unattended.
“Mayday,” I breathe, but I keep scouring. Today may be the only time so many candidates are occupied. I scan beneath the bed frame. Dust and a few hardbacks. I stretch and grab the books.
Sitting, I flip through the pages hurriedly
Peppy footsteps resound in the hallway. My pulse races. I open a book titled As You Wish It and something falls out of the folds. The doubtful part of my spirit hardly believes the fortune at my knees.
I quickly pry the indigo card off the polished floor, and I inspect the drawing: muddy brown strokes combined with dark forest green splashes.
Tree.
As soon as I engrain the word in my mind, I return the card and books to their spots and then rush out of the room. Act normally.
The footsteps have already drifted beyond Raina’s door, the circular hallway barren.
My lips rise again.
I could cheer and dance and twirl with reckless desire. In Bartholo, I would’ve swallowed Juggernaut and sprawled on my bunk. Here, I won’t. I’ve even made peace with the fact that some old pleasures of mine have no place in my life anymore.
The hallway is quiet enough that I take one small risk. I’m an Influential here, but my Fast-Tracker heart sings songs of victory. With a running start and a smile on the brink, I slide across the slick floor in knee-high socks.
Flying on my feet.
A body suddenly rounds the corner. Unable to slow, I crash against a hard, muscular chest that knocks me backward.
I stagger and lose my balance, but Mykal catches my waist and tucks me to his build.
His hands are my hands, coarse and large and caring. Those palms rise to the spot between my shoulder blades. The link disorients me with our touch. Just for a second. I blink, my heart skipping further and faster than his.
Mykal’s crooked smile brightens the hallway. “I told Court, ‘I’ll be looking for a Wilafran Elcastle’—and never did I think she’d smack right into me.”
“That’s not how I saw it. You clearly ran toward me.”
Mykal knocks on my forehead to check if my head is “cracked.” I never understood this gesture, but Court explained it’s a Grenpalish quirk. I slap his hand aside and then knock on his forehead for good measure.
I may as well rap my own forehead. Again, feeling his body like it’s my body.
Mykal pushes my hand, then cheek, and whispers in my ear before I respond, “In seriousness, I need to have a few words with you.” Worry dims the light in his blue eyes.
* * *
“I’ve been thinkin’…” Mykal plops on the edge of my bed, hunched.
Standing near, I lean my hip on my bedpost. “You’ve been thinking about…?” Unusual tension strains the air.
Mykal briefly explains why he and Court kissed and heightened the link, and when he finishes, he says, “I’ll just be asking you straight. How much of the kiss did you feel?”
My neck heats. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Heya.” He holds up his hands. “I’m linked too. I know how hard it is to control it. No need to blush, now, little love.”
My face is still on fire. “It was a good kiss.”
Mykal laughs. “Thank you.”
“The three of us—we’re an odd sort, aren’t we?”
“In all the world,” Mykal agrees. Because no one else has this link complicating everything. “Are you all right?” He rubs his sweaty palms on his thighs. His nerves surprise me.
I fiddle with my fingers. “I don’t want you and Court to ignore your affections because of me.”
“Then what about you?” he questions.
My cheeks burn more. “What about me?”
“Who will—” He stops himself and rephrases, “Is there…?” He frowns. “So you’re to be alone then?” He looks pained. Someone who pr
eferred loneliness in the Free Lands. Now he can’t see that for me?
But even without a kiss or bedding someone, I still have Mykal Kickfall as a friend.
Loneliness is my furthest feeling.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Court
No one has been expelled in two weeks.
Seated stiffly at the end of a dining table, I ignore the platters of breakfast sausage, rare raspberries, toast, goat cheese, fig jams, and much more. One hundred candidates still remain. That fact plagues me each morning, but no more so than Franny.
Three tables out of earshot, she chats with two Altian brothers known as Gef and Evers. Franny has constructed a dangerous ruse for the tenth time in fourteen days.
I can easily imagine their conversation because I’ve heard it with nine other groups.
Franny: “I’d do anything in the world for chocolate. I miss the taste, and the kitchen refuses to supply me more.”
Gef: “We’re too busy with studies to help you.”
Franny: “I have a brilliant idea! I’ll tell you my indigo card. I don’t have it with me, but I promise it’s right. Please, please. I beg you. You’re here already and near the kitchen.”
Gef and Evers silently debate her offer, and the prolonged anticipation locks my joints.
“Heya.” Mykal snaps his fingers, stealing part of my attention. “There’s no reason to fuss, you realize. She’s been doing fine—and would you stop holding your breath?”
I breathe out as I whisper, “She’s lucky no one has caught her yet.” If her plan is foiled, she’ll make enemies out of the other candidates.
“I think you just like fretting over nothing,” Mykal says, his chair squeaking beside mine as he peers over my place setting. Then he points at a platter to my left. “Pass me the flat bread.”
My lips ache to lift, but I concern myself, nearing obsession, with our reality. Which is not as content as I’d like. Seventy candidates still have to be expelled, and not to mention, being in the final thirty means nothing when our goal is to leave the planet. We have to be hired for the Saga 5 Mission.
“Court.” Mykal jostles my shoulder.
I wake from my thoughts and grab the warm platter. I hold the dish out to Mykal. “It’s not called flat bread.” I worry less about anyone overhearing, our table empty except for us. The dining room is far less crowded than the first night here.
“Round bread then?”
“Pancake,” I say as he stabs the golden stack with a fork.
“Why have I not seen pan cakes before?” Mykal piles three more on his plate before I return the platter. Light-as-air emotions flutter inside my stomach.
We kissed. It still feels like a dream. One that I have trouble believing belongs to me.
“Look at my lips,” I tell him.
Mykal extends his arm over my rigid shoulders. “I’m looking.” He’s looking at my eyes, which reflect his grin.
“Pancake,” I enunciate. “One word.”
“I didn’t quite catch that.” His tone is mockingly formal. “Come closer.” Mykal motions with a few fingers.
I near, eyeing his mouth. “Pancake.”
“I heard nothing,” he teases and motions again.
I’m about to repeat myself, but the kitchen door bangs shut. I flinch back from the sudden noise, my head swerving. My muscles tighten.
Mykal squeezes my shoulders.
I remember what he said before—his question: Why has he not seen pancakes since today? “Pancakes are usually eaten with syrup,” I tell him, “and there’s been a shortage. Until now it seems.”
“Where’s the syrup?” He scans the table, and then his eyes flit to me with a smile.
My heart skips a steady beat. “Here.” I set the porcelain syrup dispenser by his plate. I doubt he’ll like it.
My gaze travels to Franny again, her lips too rushed to read. I focus. The anger flaring in her eyes is a front. I feel no real hostility, but as her voice escalates, I catch her words.
“So now you don’t believe me after I’ve told you my word?”
This has happened before. Tree apparently seems too simple to other candidates, and without an indigo card as proof, they doubt Franny.
She scowls darkly, shoves her half-eaten toast at Gef and rises with a haughty façade. “You’re liars and cheats.” At this, she stomps to our table and plops down across us like nothing transpired.
“That was dangerous,” I snap.
“So you said yesterday and the day before that,” Franny says with less bite than the day before. “You should find a new word for dangerous, at the very least.”
Mykal chimes in, “Predictable as always.”
Rolling my eyes, I watch him drown his pancakes in syrup and then I steal the dispenser. “You’ll hate every bite.”
“Let me be the decider of that.”
“Fine.” I wave him on, and he cuts into his pancake stack, the fork alone dripping in dark syrup. As he eats, the sweet flavors hit our tongues all at once.
Mykal gags, about to spit on his plate.
I put a napkin to his mouth and he spits into the ivory fabric. I remind him, “You’re twice as predictable as me.”
Mykal downs his water, not disagreeing.
Franny makes a face. “Gods that’s sticky.” I can tell this is her first taste and touch of syrup, and it’s through Mykal.
My mind reels back to Franny and her attempt at spreading Raina’s word. “Is that your last time?” I question. “It’s not working anymore.”
“It is,” she says. “Even if they doubt me, maybe they’ll still use the word if they need one. We can’t quit before we’ve tried.”
I nod. I’m grateful that Franny chose Raina’s card among all the candidates. I’m even more grateful she’s taking the risk, but I can’t shut off my worry.
I should thank Franny instead of chide her like a child. I should say so many things, but I just stare.
She no longer stares back, not even expectant of gratitude. Because I rarely give her any. It’s my fault. I hate that I combat with the simplest kindness when she deserves more, so much more.
Say thank you. I open my mouth.
Say it. I close my mouth.
“Any guesses on what the next exam could be?” Franny heaps sausage on her plate. Whether knowing or not, she offers me an out to my internal battle.
I take it like a coward. “Something difficult,” I say, “and with a hundred still left, it might expel half of us at once.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Court
In StarDust’s indoor training pool, all one hundred candidates wait on edge. Triangular country flags of Maranil, Orricht, and Altia are strung in rows high above an iced pool. Crystallized fruit is scattered across the completely frozen surface.
Barefoot, we stand on damp violet tiles in identical onyx and gold-trimmed swimsuits: briefs for boys, and briefs plus a high-cut swim top for girls. Candidates shiver and hug their arms around their bodies.
My pulse is in my throat, but not from the cold. For the first time at StarDust, I bear my ink and scars openly.
Ninety-seven pairs of eyes claw along my back and thighs and arms. Some dart to Franny at my left, her arms crossed, two tattoos visible. Whispers escalate all around us.
“Gods, her tattoos are so atrocious.”
“Is that Mal’s … tree?”
“Have you ever seen someone with ink on their thighs?”
“Why does he have so many?”
“Are those scars?”
Don’t look at them.
I remind myself that we’re not the only ones with ink. Several Influentials tattooed significant dates on their arms. Like the day they graduated university. Others have snowshoe hares that they deem adorable and even more etched their country’s insignia on their skin.
We attract unwanted attention because of the poor handiwork of our tattoos and the sheer amount that I bear.
Don’t look at them.
I can�
��t help but watch my father as he speaks to a few StarDust directors. Huddling around a clipboard, their gazes cast back to us. To me. Their judgment scours my skin up and down, back and forth. I stand like stone.
I can’t move. Can’t think of anything but the worst outcomes. I barely hear Mykal growling at me to breathe deeper.
“I’m fine,” I murmur distantly.
When my father saunters to us, his smile cradling kindness, I tell myself to relax—but my shoulders barely loosen.
As though reciting the weather forecast—snow, snow, and more snow—he says very simply, “Half of you will leave StarDust today. I may be the Director of StarDust, but I cannot run the world’s aerospace department alone. Likewise, just one candidate cannot execute a space mission. We need five of you. Five who’ll work in cohesion as a team. That’s what today’s exam is about. Be ready, be prepared, and we’ll begin calling the first group of ten. Five candidates will be expelled from every group.”
The second he says this, I think, Split us up. We have far better odds if we’re all in different groups. Tauris says he’ll give instructions once the first group makes their way to the middle of the iced pool.
“First group of ten, when I call your name, walk forward. Winrock Bolcastle,” my father reads from a predetermined list of candidates, what all the StarDust directors must’ve been nagging over. “Zimmer Creecastle.”
Zimmer ditches the crowds and crosses the ice barefoot. His wily grin sits uncomfortably with me. No tattoos decorate his tall, scrawny body.
He’s been bedmates with Franny for a while now, and when she caught me scrutinizing him, she said, “Besides me hogging the quilt, we’ve been fair to each other. He’s not a threat.”
“He’s another candidate. Therefore, he is a threat,” I refuted her more frostily than I meant. As her guards lower, mine skyrocket. I always hesitate to admit my theory: That Zimmer is at StarDust with the intent to take over the Saga starcraft, all for entertainment and thrill.
It sounds too outlandish in my head to even speak aloud, but a small portion of belief eats at me.
“Odell Petalcastle,” my father continues, “Mykal Kickfall…”
He tears from my side. Mykal walks across the ice like he’s impervious to the chill, not tiptoeing or slowing. Odell slips onto her knees, and he lifts her up with one strong arm before continuing his course.
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