by Ally Carter
And when the blast came, it was like an earthquake, a tsunami of stone and timber and dust that we were trying to outrun.
The passageway crumbled behind us. The beams were rimmed with fire—red sparks shooting through the dry and decaying timbers, racing us toward the cool, clear air of the night.
I still remember seeing the Gallagher Academy for the first time. I’d just never realized I would someday see it for the last time.
“Zach…” I started, but the word caught. Was it smoke in my lungs—in my eyes? Because I was crying. I couldn’t stop crying.
I could hear my mother’s voice, yelling, “Cammie! Has anyone seen Cammie?”
“Mom! Mom, I’m here!”
Tears streaked down her face, mixing with the soot and the ash.
“Is everyone okay?” I asked. “Did everyone get out?”
“Yes.” My mother hugged me. “Cammie, are you okay?”
And for the first time in two years I said, “Yes,” and I absolutely meant it.
The fire grew. Flames swept upward, smoke spiraling toward the sky, but I just held tightly to my mother and watched the windows shatter, the floors collapse.
We stood for hours, watching as the fire raged and the sky brightened. I stood in the middle of a crowd of girls with soot-stained faces and bloody knees, living to spy another day.
“Courtney Elaine Bauer,” Madame Dabney said.
Applause filled the stands. Someone whistled. And Courtney looked like an angel as she walked across the stage to take her diploma and shake my mother’s hand.
“Rebecca Grace Baxter,” Madame Dabney said, and this time Bex climbed onto the stage.
I glanced at her parents, who sat in the front row of folding chairs. Her dad had a video recorder out, documenting the entire thing. Her mother smiled and clapped and waved, and I remembered that for a truly exceptional school, graduation at the Gallagher Academy is pretty much like graduations everywhere. There are smiling parents and gushing girls, shapeless black gowns and new graduates standing on the verge of a brave new world.
The only difference is that our worlds are slightly braver than average.
One by one we crossed the stage and shook my mother’s hand. Gilly’s sword had been shielded in its protective case and had come through the fire without a scratch, and like all Gallagher graduates before us, we stopped and kissed its blade. We held our diplomas and moved our tassels and when my turn came I was frozen for a moment, looking back over the crowd.
There were Mr. Solomon and Zach and Agent Townsend, who held tightly to Aunt Abby’s hand. My teachers smiled back at me. The underclassmen looked up at the senior class in awe. And I squinted against the sun, looking across the grounds at the scaffolding that rose in the distance. I saw the mansion growing, stretching up from the ashes. I saw our fresh start.
“And now a few words from our valedictorian, Ms. Elizabeth Sutton.”
Liz looked especially short as she stood behind the podium. Macey had forced her to wear heels, and she shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot as she adjusted the microphone and started to speak.
“What is a Gallagher Girl?” Liz asked.
She looked nervously down at the papers in her hand even though I knew for a fact she had memorized every word.
“When I was eleven I thought I knew the answer to that question. That was when the recruiters came to see me. They showed me brochures and told me they were impressed by my test scores and asked if I was ready to be challenged. And I said yes. Because that was what a Gallagher Girl was to me then, a student at the toughest school in the world.”
She took a deep breath and talked on.
“What is a Gallagher Girl?” Liz asked again. “When I was thirteen I thought I knew the answer to that question. That was when Dr. Fibs allowed me to start doing my own experiments in the lab. I could go anywhere—make anything. Do anything my mind could dream up. Because I was a Gallagher Girl. And, to me, that meant I was the future.”
Liz took another deep breath.
“What is a Gallagher Girl?” This time, when Liz asked it, her voice cracked. “When I was seventeen I stood on a dark street in Washington, D.C., and watched one Gallagher Girl literally jump in front of a bullet to save the life of another. I saw a group of women gather around a girl whom they had never met, telling the world that if any harm was to come to their sister, it had to go through them first.”
Liz straightened. She no longer had to look down at her paper as she said, “What is a Gallagher Girl? I’m eighteen now, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that I don’t really know the answer to that question. Maybe she is destined to be our first international graduate and take her rightful place among Her Majesty’s Secret Service with MI6.”
I glanced to my right and, call me crazy, but I could have sworn Rebecca Baxter was crying.
“Maybe she is someone who chooses to give back, to serve her life protecting others just as someone once protected her.”
Macey smirked but didn’t cry. I got the feeling that Macey McHenry might never cry again.
“Who knows?” Liz asked. “Maybe she’s an undercover journalist.” I glanced at Tina Walters. “An FBI agent.” Eva Alvarez beamed. “A code breaker.” Kim Lee smiled. “A queen.” I thought of little Amirah and knew somehow that she’d be okay.
“Maybe she’s even a college student.” Liz looked right at me. “Or maybe she’s so much more.”
Then Liz went quiet for a moment. She too looked up at the place where the mansion used to stand.
“You know, there was a time when I thought that the Gallagher Academy was made of stone and wood, Grand Halls and high-tech labs. When I thought it was bulletproof, hack-proof, and…yes…fireproof. And I stand before you today happy for the reminder that none of those things are true. Yes, I really am. Because I know now that a Gallagher Girl is not someone who draws her power from that building. I know now with scientific certainty that it is the other way around.”
A hushed awe descended over the already quiet crowd as she said this. Maybe it was the gravity of her words and what they meant, but for me personally, I like to think it was Gilly looking down, smiling at us all.
“What is a Gallagher Girl?” Liz asked one final time. “She’s a genius, a scientist, a heroine, a spy. And now we are at the end of our time at school, and the one thing I know for certain is this: A Gallagher Girl is whatever she wants to be.”
Thunderous, raucous applause filled the student section.
Liz smiled and wiped her eyes. She leaned close to the microphone.
“And, most of all, she is my sister.”
Six Months Later
Some girls are looking at me as I write this. Well, not me, exactly. I think they want this table. I can’t really blame them. It’s warm here in the sun with the cool breeze washing over these pages. Every now and then I reach down to smooth my plaid skirt, but then I remember that my plaid skirt days are behind me.
Some guys throw a Frisbee across the quad. A man in a tweed jacket parks an old-fashioned bicycle near the library. And I sit here, alone and unseen.
A chameleon.
Turns out, you can take the girl out of the spy school, but you can never take the spy school out of the girl.
“Here you go,” I tell the guys and send the Frisbee back to them, harder than they must have expected.
“Hey, thanks,” one of the guys tells me. “Wow. You’re really strong.”
He has no idea.
He’s cute, Bex would say. But Bex isn’t beside me. None of my friends are here, so I’m alone when the guy asks, “Have I seen you before?”
I gather my things and have to smile.
“Nope,” I tell him.
“See you around?” the guy asks.
I doubt it.
He doesn’t know my story. He hasn’t seen my scars. To him, I’m just another freshman, another girl. He can’t possibly understand why I blend so easily into the wave of backpacks that fills the sidewalk
. He doesn’t know me, and I realize that maybe I don’t know myself. That I have a lifetime to figure that out.
People say Georgetown University is prettiest in spring, but the autumn air feels sweet to me. It’s the closest thing to freedom that I have ever felt. When the path branches, I can either walk along the main road to and from campus or go down an overgrown path that runs along the river. Most coeds would be afraid to go down the dark, twisting trail alone, but I don’t think twice about it. I walk on, sun streaking through the falling leaves until I pass beneath a stone archway.
Overhead, cars and pedestrians and cyclists make their way to campus. They don’t think about what’s down below, but I walk on without another thought.
When I find the derelict-looking door, I punch a code into a cleverly hidden box and turn the knob. Once inside the cold space, I don’t blink as the red line sweeps across my eyes, reading my retinas. I hold my hand to the sensor and wait for another steel door to swing open. Then I step inside and start down the stairs, two at a time.
“Ms. Morgan,” Agent Townsend yells from below. “You’re late.”
“Sorry,” I tell him. I hold up my report. “Almost finished,” I say, but he doesn’t care about the paperwork.
He nods toward the boy who looks like him. “We have a lead on a rogue asset outside of Kabul. CIA wants the two of you. If you have the time?” Townsend asks, almost condescendingly.
The boy looks at me and smiles. “What do you say, Gallagher Girl. Do you?”
I take the file from Townsend’s hand.
“Let’s go.”
The Gallagher Girls would never have been possible without the support and encouragement of everyone at Disney-Hyperion, with special thanks to Catherine Onder who has seen this series through to the end. Also, Stephanie Lurie, Dina Sherman, Elizabeth Mason, Elke Villa, Holly Nagel, Andrew Sansone, Monica Mayper, Marybeth Tregarthen, Sara Liebling, Julie Moody, and the very talented people who do everything from design covers to correct typos. You are all Gallagher Girls and Blackthorne Boys in my book.
I am exceedingly grateful to Kristin Nelson for first inquiring as to whether or not I’d ever consider writing for young adults and for her amazing support in all the days that have followed. I’d also like to thank the people of the Nelson Agency who work so tirelessly on my behalf. Also, Jenny Meyer, Whitney Lee, and Kassie Evashevski.
Perhaps the biggest change in my life between now and eight years ago is that now I have a fantastic group of friends, many of whom were so much help in finishing this final book: Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Holly Black, Sarah Rees Brennan, Rose Brock, Carrie Ryan, Melissa de la Cruz, and, of course, BOB. I’d like to give a special thanks to E. Lockhart for suggesting the title of this novel.
As always, my family is the key to every good thing that has ever happened to me. So Mom, Dad, Amy, Rick, Faith & Lily, thank you for everything.
And, finally, I thank the librarians, booksellers, parents, and teens who have welcomed the Gallagher Girls into your lives. It has been a pleasure spending my time at the Gallagher Academy with you.
And don't miss Ally Carter's hit series, Heist Society! Keep reading for a preview of book one!
No one knew for certain when the trouble started at the Colgan School. Some members of its alumni association blamed the decision to admit girls. Others cited newfangled liberal ideals and a general decline in the respect for elders worldwide. But no matter the theory, no one could deny that, recently, life at the Colgan School was different.
Oh, its grounds were still perfectly manicured. Three quarters of the senior class were already well on their way to being early-accepted into the Ivy League. Photos of presidents and senators and CEOs still lined the dark-paneled hallway outside the headmaster’s office.
But in the old days, no one would ever have declined admission to Colgan on the day before classes started, forcing the administration to scramble to fill the slot. Historically, any vacancy would have been met with a waiting list a mile long, but this year, for some reason, there was only one applicant eager to enroll at that late date.
Most of all, there had been a time when honor meant something at the Colgan School, when school property was respected, when the faculty was revered—when the headmaster’s mint-condition 1958 Porsche Speedster would never have been placed on top of the fountain in the quad with water shooting out of its headlights on an unusually warm evening in November.
There had been a time when the girl responsible—the very one who had lucked into that last-minute vacancy only a few months before—would have had the decency to admit what she’d done and quietly taken her leave of the school. But unfortunately, that era, much like the headmaster’s car, was finished.
Two days after Porsche-gate, as the students had taken to calling it, the girl in question had the nerve to sit in the hallway of the administration building beneath the black-and-white stare of three senators, two presidents, and a Supreme Court justice, with her head held high, as if she’d done nothing wrong.
More students than usual filed down the corridor that day, going out of their way to steal a glance and whisper behind cupped hands.
“That’s her.”
“She’s the one I was telling you about.”
“How do you think she did it?”
Any other student might have flinched in that bright spotlight, but from the moment Katarina Bishop set foot on the Colgan campus, she’d been something of an enigma. Some said she’d gained her last-minute slot because she was the daughter of an incredibly wealthy European businessman who had made a very generous donation. Some looked at her perfect posture and cool demeanor, rolled her first name across their tongues, and assumed that she was Russian royalty—one of the last of the Romanovs.
Some called her a hero; others called her a freak.
Everyone had heard a different story, but no one knew the truth—that Kat really had grown up all over Europe, but she wasn’t an heiress. That she did, in fact, have a Fabergé egg, but she wasn’t a Romanov. Kat herself could have added a thousand rumors to the mill, but she stayed quiet, knowing that the only thing no one would believe was the truth.
“Katarina?” the headmaster’s secretary called. “The board will see you now.”
Kat rose calmly, but as she stepped toward the open door twenty feet from the headmaster’s office, she heard her shoes squeak; she felt her hands tingle. Every nerve in her body seemed to stand on end as she realized that somehow, in the last three months, she had become someone who wore squeaky shoes.
That, whether she liked it or not, they were going to hear her coming.
Kat was used to looking at a room and seeing all the angles, but she’d never seen a room quite like this before.
Though the hallway outside was long and straight, this room was round. Dark wood surrounded her; dim lights hung from a low ceiling. It felt to Kat almost like a cave, except for a tall, slim window where a narrow beam of sunlight came pouring in. Suddenly, Kat found herself reaching out, wanting to run her hands through the rays. But then someone cleared his throat, a pencil rolled across a desk, and Kat’s shoes squeaked again, bringing her back to the moment.
“You may sit down.”
The voice came from the back of the room, and at first Kat didn’t know who’d spoken. Like the voice, the faces before her were unfamiliar: the twelve on her right were wrinkle-free and fresh—students just like her (or as much like her as a Colgan student could possibly be). The twelve people on her left had hair that was a little thinner, or makeup that was a little heavier. But regardless of age, all the members of the Colgan School Honor Board were wearing identical black robes and impassive expressions as they watched Kat walk to the center of the circular room.
“Sit, Ms. Bishop,” Headmaster Franklin said from his place in the front row. He looked especially pale in his dark robe. His cheeks were too puffy, his hair too styled. He was the sort of man, Kat realized, who probably wished he were as fast and sporty as his car. And then,
despite everything, Kat grinned a little, imagining the headmaster himself propped up in the middle of the quad, squirting water.
As Kat took her seat, the senior boy beside the headmaster rose and announced, “The Colgan School Honor Board shall come to order.” His voice echoed around the room. “All who wish to speak shall be heard. All who wish to follow the light shall see. All who wish to seek justice shall find the truth. Honor for one,” the boy finished, and before Kat could really process what she’d heard, twenty-four voices chorused, “Honor for all.”
The boy sat and ruffled through the pages of an old leather-bound book until the headmaster prodded, “Jason . . .”
“Oh. Yeah.” Jason picked up the heavy book. “The Colgan School Honor Board will hear the case of Katarina Bishop, sophomore. The committee will hear testimony that on the tenth of November, Ms. Bishop did willfully . . . um . . . steal personal property.” Jason chose his words carefully, while a girl in the second row stifled a laugh.
“That by committing this act at two a.m., she was also in violation of the school curfew. And that Ms. Bishop willfully destroyed school artifacts.” Jason lowered the book and paused—a little more dramatically than necessary, Kat thought—before he added, “According to the Colgan Code of Honor, these charges are punishable by expulsion. Do you understand the charges as they have been read to you?”
Kat took a moment to make sure the board really did want her to respond before she said, “I didn’t do it.”
“The charges.” Headmaster Franklin leaned forward. “The question, Ms. Bishop, was whether you understood the charges.”
“I do.” Kat felt her heartbeat change rhythm. “I just don’t agree with them.”
“I—” the headmaster started again, but a woman to his right touched his arm lightly.
She smiled at Kat as she said, “Headmaster, I seem to remember that in matters such as this, it’s customary to take the student’s full academic history into account. Perhaps we should begin with a review of Ms. Bishop’s record?”