by Megan Curd
CHAPTER
NINE
Alice and I stepped out of the elevator in awe. Jaxon took a step to the side and smiled as we took in our new surroundings.
We were at the top of a magnificent, dual winding staircase made entirely of black granite. The edges of the stairs and the rails were lined in what looked like—but couldn’t possibly be—gold. Silver was inlaid within the stairs themselves in extravagant designs; swirls and planets and all matter of the knowledge of mankind created a breathtaking montage. The flecks of color within the granite made it feel as though I were looking out into a vast galaxy with millions of stars.
It probably cost more than the food rations for the entire population of my old dome.
The wall to the right was covered in gold and silver cogs; intricate designs made with precious stones glinted in the light as they turned, casting mini rainbows on the floor. Brass pipes rose from behind the cogs and were bolted into place along the curvature of the cathedral ceilings. They angled back down to the ground in the center of the atrium to a fountain that was large enough to be a swimming pool. The marble carving depicted a family sitting in the grass with a picnic basket in front of them. They all leaned back on a blanket and looked skyward to the enormous skylight that covered most of the ceiling. Below them on the platform the words ‘Restore our future’ were carved. Water—clean water—flowed out of the sides of the monument and into the pool below.
What a waste to use clean water like that.
Banners hung from the ceiling rafters. They were every color imaginable and had cliché phrases like ‘Take pride in your gifts’ and ‘The future is now’ scrawled in calligraphy. It all matched the decor; nothing felt out of place.
Except me.
“Like what you see?” Jaxon asked.
Alice nodded, awestruck. “The banners are made of silk, aren’t they?”
Jaxon leaned against the golden railings and nodded, dropping his regal façade and falling back into general conversation. “Very good. The best we could find, considering the circumstances.”
“The circumstances…” muttered Alice. She’d probably wrap herself up in one of the banners and never return if she could. Silk was something that was impossible to find at home, and she loved new materials.
I gazed out over the ledge of the stairs and took in the atrium below us. The floors were laced with silver and directed a path to the back of the main room, where a traditional clock larger than any I had ever seen took up almost the whole wall. The iron pendulum swung rhythmically, and brass cogs were visible behind the main face that indicated the time in onyx Roman numerals.
“The floor and railings are my designs,” Jaxon said. His words overflowed with pride. “I thought the place needed some life.”
I looked once more to the cogs that hummed quietly on the right and the condensation that dripped from the pipes. “I thought you didn’t use steam here.”
“Yes and no,” Jaxon said, “like I said, we use electricity, but we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. We use the same mechanics as your dome, but we do it more efficiently with electricity.”
“That’s illegal,” Alice quipped.
Jaxon’s grin lit up his face. “It’s not illegal if you’re the one making the rules.” He pushed off the railing and extended an elbow for Alice and I. “You’re probably wondering where your room is. Riggs instructed me to meet him in the library when we arrived, and afterward I’ll show you around. Ready to go?”
It didn’t seem like there was an option, though Jaxon worded it that way. We silently intertwined our arms with Jaxon’s and set off down the staircase.
The water from the fountain playfully trickled and plopped as we passed. It was so clean, so clear. Part of me wanted to jump in and splash around to see if it was real. There was no time to stop, because Jaxon kept leading us on and into one of the multitude of hallways that led away from the central room. Shadows filtered into the hallways where the sunlight couldn’t quite reach.
“This hallway leads to the individual studies wing. The library and a few training rooms designed for specific abilities are back there, along with a quiet room for meditation,” Jaxon said in a blasé tone, as if every place he’d lived was equipped with a library, training rooms, and a place to meditate.
I nodded. This corridor was adorned in deep blues and lush reds. The carpet was so thick that I could see the impressions our feet made as we walked. Candelabras sat in arched niches that were lined with steel and brass every few feet, and candles threw flickering rays of light to illuminate our path. Upon closer inspection, the candles weren’t real. They were tiny light bulbs, flickering intermittently. Above our heads were crystal chandeliers. More than once I caught the red blink of another camera like the one I saw in the hospital hallway. Riggs must really value his security here.
“What’s with all the candles?” I asked.
Jaxon shrugged. “Riggs likes the mood they set. Lord knows we have enough electricity to use regular bulbs, but for some reason he prefers the ambiance of the candlelight, even if it’s fake. Here we are,” Jaxon indicated as we reached the end of the foyer. A sliver of soft light flickered through the frosted windows of the cherry French doors.
I looked at Jaxon for guidance, and he nodded his head toward the doors. He let our arms go and we headed into the library.
“Miss Avery Pike, so glad you could make it,” Mr. Riggs said jovially from across the room. He stood facing us, his back to a large fireplace. The fire crackled merrily as the logs burned, and the strong scent of cedar filled my nostrils.
To the right of Mr. Riggs was a cozy looking alcove. Brown leather chairs and a couch sat in the corner. An old keg had been cut in half, and a circular piece of grey steel lay on top to create a coffee table. The Victorian feel of the library was comforting. It felt like home, but so much more than Dome Four had ever been. Perhaps this place wasn’t as awful as I’d imagined on the way here. I couldn’t wait to curl up in that corner with a book and enjoy the serenity that this room exuded.
Mr. Riggs strode toward us with his arms extended in welcome. On either side of him mountainous rows of books loomed overhead and onto a second floor. The ceiling was adorned with cogs, metal windmills, and coils that wrapped around open wooden rafters. It was mesmerizing.
Mr. Riggs’s pleasant baritone brought my attention back from overhead. “I see Mr. Pierce successfully retrieved you, as well as Miss Dobson. I’m sure we’ll find her suitable living quarters.”
We looked at each other, dumbfounded. The thought of us not living together sent a cold sweat over my entire body. Alice found my hand and squeezed. I knew how she felt without having to speak.
I swallowed hard. “We would prefer to live together, if possible.”
Mr. Riggs’s smile grew, and he bowed his head. He seemed shorter than when I’d last encountered him, but then I realized he wasn’t wearing a top hat. He still towered over us, but his stature wasn’t imposing. “Very well, Miss Pike. I already had a roommate selected for you, but the rooms are capable of having three inhabitants. Would you prefer that?”
“Very much so,” piped Alice, but then she bowed her head. “I apologize, Mr. Riggs. It’s not my place to speak.” Traditionals weren’t allowed to speak to Elites unless spoken to first in Dome Four. It made me want to gag.
“You will find the social protocol here is quite different than your old dome’s. You’re welcome to speak at any time, my dear,” Mr. Riggs said with the air of a concerned father. His smile faded as he looked past us and to where I assumed Jaxon stood. “You were late arriving.”
“I apologize, Sir. I’ll get to work immediately.”
“But you can’t,” Mr. Riggs breathed lightly, his eyes roving over Jaxon as though he were examining a piece of property. “You must show these ladies to the dormitories, then meet me back here.”
I heard Jaxon swallow. “Yes, Sir. I’ll see to our new tenants and return promptly.” His brazen demeanor had dis
appeared. He was all business.
Mr. Riggs nodded at him with cold, calculating eyes before returning to Alice and I. His mood change was like a light switch. His face relit with kindness and compassion, and his broad shoulders and long arms engulfed us in an embrace. We were crushed to his chest as he chuckled, and I felt the reverberations from within him echo into my body. “You’ll find yourself here, Miss Pike. We’ll push your talent and maximize it. You’ll find freedom.” He turned his head and spoke to Alice. “My dear, I think you’ll enjoy this place as well. You’re the first true Traditional to step foot in the Academy, and I’m anxious to see how you fit in.”
I felt Alice stiffen as though the words were physical blows.
“Not to say you aren’t gifted, my lady,” he said in a reassuring tone. “I’ve been informed you’re quite skilled with sewing, and I’ll be sure you’re accommodated thusly. I’ll also put you in a few of Avery’s courses to see how you do, if you’d like.”
Alice’s smile returned, albeit a cautious one. “I’d like that, yes.”
“Then it’s decided!” Mr. Riggs said with more enthusiasm than the situation warranted. He relinquished his grip and patted our backs as he turned us. “Very well then, if you two don’t mind, I’d like a word with Mr. Pierce before you three depart.”
I looked at Jaxon, whose face was a mask of indifference. He was perusing a book, his left leg over one of the velvet-covered arms of the cherry wood chair he occupied. While his eyes were fixed on the pages, they were unmoving and his lips were taut. He swung his leg off the arm and snapped the book shut with one hand, tossing it onto the table beside the chair. The book tumbled and clattered to the floor, where pages fell away from the battered spine.
A page fluttered away, the bold text at the top reading IS THE WAR REALLY OVER? Riggs followed the page to its resting point, then turned his gaze back to Jaxon.
A smile that looked more like a grimace covered Jaxon’s otherwise inscrutable features. “Of course, Mr. Riggs.”
Alice and I walked out of the library and Mr. Riggs shut the doors behind us. The shadows of the two men danced against the firelight. Their voices were muffled.
“What do you suppose they’re talking about?” Alice wondered aloud as she picked dried dirt from her dress. A small mound of dirt began to settle on the carpet when she twisted her hips to free the caked mire from her clothing.
Just then, the men’s voices rose. Riggs’s thundering baritone made me jump. “I don’t care what your excuse is; don’t let it happen again, or there will be severe consequences! Nothing is free in this life, and you of all people should know that.”
“I didn’t recall asking for anything from you, or anyone else!” Jaxon retorted.
The sound of books thudding to the floor sounded through the door, and Mr. Rigg’s voice was clear. “Mr. Pierce, you simply breathing has taxed me more than you’ll ever know. Now get out.”
Jaxon’s figure began to grow as he stalked toward us.
“That wasn’t a good meeting,” Alice whimpered, no longer distracted by her disheveled dress.
Suddenly I felt a sliver of concern for the boy who wore his arrogance like a badge of honor. I also had more than a healthy dose of fear for the man who only moments before had given me the closest thing to a fatherly hug I’d ever received.
CHAPTER
TEN
Jaxon emerged from the library, his expression stony. He extended his elbows to accommodate our arms and stalked forward mechanically.
Halfway down the lengthy corridor, Alice couldn’t handle the silence. “Ugly can be wrapped deceitfully in the throws of beauty,” she said, as though she couldn’t get it out fast enough. She inhaled and whispered the rest. “And it’s hard to tell the difference when one isn’t used to seeing it.”
That was my Alice. Sage-like and wise beyond her years.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jaxon said firmly, “and if you try to make me feel better again, I will leave you in the atrium to fend for yourself.”
Alice fell silent. Her eyes dropped to the floor, then turned to find me in the corner of her vision. I shook my head. There was no way I could make heads or tales of this place, and Alice wasn’t much of a navigational mastermind herself. We didn’t need to make Jaxon mad and wind up sleeping beside the fountain until morning.
We crossed the main floor to the other side. The magnificence hadn’t diminished, but after hearing Jaxon and Mr. Riggs, the shimmer and shine of the atrium wasn’t as enticing. Instead, it made me feel like the beauty was a façade.
Jaxon led us to the center hallway, where the entryway was made of bronze. Over the top of the doorway, silver script was embedded in granite stone with numerous flourishes.
“Exegi monumentum aere perennius,” I said aloud, probably butchering the entire thing.
“I have erected a monument more lasting than bronze,” Jaxon said tonelessly. “A quote in Latin from Horace.”
I nodded, taking in the implications of the claim. “Mr. Riggs must think very highly of this place and his students.”
“He thinks very highly of himself, that’s for sure.” Jaxon muttered under his breath, then gestured above him to the right. Another camera. He stared it down as he spoke. “Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur.”
“What’d you say?” Alice asked. She was braver than me; I would have let him ramble on until we got to our room. She had to learn and know everything.
“Just something for Riggs,” he said.
“What’s it mean?”
He snorted derisively as we walked into the hallway. “That I can be just as much like Confucius as you can, with your so-called nuggets of wisdom.”
“At least I have the nuggets to say them in plain English so everyone can understand them,” Alice shot back angrily.
He was as quick as she was with a comeback. “A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”
Alice’s face widened with shock. “You know Oscar Wilde? How do you know Oscar Wilde?”
“Had lunch with him yesterday before I came to pick you two up. We’re old pals,” he nudged her in the side with his elbow. “He loves the french toast the kitchen whips up.”
Alice opened and closed her mouth, seemingly shocked that someone else had read her beloved poet’s works. “Apparently he knows how to read, Alice.”
“Of course I know how to read,” Jaxon scoffed. He stopped in front of an oval wooden door that was closed. The numbers 3-1-7 were nailed to the front. The handle to the door was a wheel like those I’d seen on vaults. He shoved a plastic card into each of our hands. “This is your room. Goodnight.”
“Wait a second,” I called, turning the card over in my hands. “What’s this?”
“Your key, of course,” he said, exasperated. “I swear you two are like cavemen.”
He stalked back over and snatched the key from my hand, then swiped it below the contraption mounted beside the door. It beeped twice, and the light flashed from red to green like the ones we’d seen on the way to the academy. He pushed the card back into my palm, but his touch was gentle. His turned the wheel in the center of the door, and I heard a click from the other side. The decorative cog on top of the door spun wildly and hummed, moving the much smaller gear below it. A moment later the door swung open a hair, and Jaxon stepped back.
“There. Seven A.M. is breakfast. No excuses. Your classes start tomorrow. Your closet is full, and Sari will show you to the common area in the morning.”
“Who’s Sari?” I asked, nonplussed by his information drop.
“Your other roommate. Don’t try to wake her up at this hour. She’ll maul you like a rabid bear.”
Without another word, he turned on his heel and left us standing at our door. Alice focused her attention on the door and her key, but I watched him walk away. Not thirty feet down the hall he stopped.
“And for the record, I said ‘Many fear their reputation, but few the
ir conscience’ back there,” he said, not looking at us. In the low light of the candelabras I saw him brandish his own key card and jab it through the reader by the door. Before he disappeared into his room, he cast one long glance back to us. The shadows danced across his face, creating the illusion that he bore one massive bruise on his left side. I wondered if he felt that way inside, too.
Alice tugged at my hand. “Avery, come on,” she urged quietly. “I want to see our room.”
‘Room’ wasn’t exactly what I’d call the arrangement behind the door.
We stepped in and were at the top of a small staircase. It was on a much lesser scale than the entrance to the Academy, but designed the same. Swirling patterns were inlaid in the granite. A massive, full-length window sat at the other end of a spacious sitting room, and the moon cast a cool glow over the whole area. The flecks in the granite twinkled against the moonlight and made me feel as though I really were looking into a night sky. It gave me a sense of vertigo.
Alice took the steps two at a time and turned left into the open-area kitchen. Her hands ran along the grey marble island in the center of the kitchen, where a bowl of fresh fruit sat.
She grabbed an apple and waved it at me, her face alight with excitement. “They have food here, Avery!”
“We had food at home.” I gestured to my body. “We’re not skin and bones, by any means.”
There was nothing that could curb Alice’s excitement when she got going, so I left her in the kitchen to search for a bathroom. I walked through the living room that contained three large overstuffed couches. A butterfly-shaped coffee table was littered with books. I ran my fingers across the edges of the coffee table and examined the massive bolts that pinned the two panes of glass together with mahogany wood outside. Inside the wings were gears and ratchets, and they turned systematically with a tick, tick, tick. The body was solid wood and monogrammed with C.A., which I assumed stood for Chromelius Academy. No detail was spared.