“This way,” Will says, and we take the fork that heads away from town. “There’s a clearing just a bit beyond school.”
“And we’re going there in the middle of the night?”
“Just us, and a few dozen of our closest friends.” He squints. “And rivals.”
“Do you often meet up with large groups of people in the dead of night?”
“I do when it means getting to race with the Tempests.”
“The Tempests that have been outlawed, you mean?”
He cocks an eyebrow at me. “Not outlawed. Strongly discouraged.”
“Hence why we’re sneaking out without telling your parents . . .”
“Yes,” he says, “although I think they know more than they let on. So far they haven’t said anything. But if I come to breakfast with a broken limb, I’ll be in it for sure.”
We pass the school, which is huge and dark and looming in the night, and cut through the adjacent orchard. Apples hang heavy on the branches like oversize ornaments. “Midnight snack?” Will plucks a few as we pass and tosses me one.
“It’s our tradition,” I tease, and bite into it. It is sweet and crisp, and with my night vision its white flesh practically glows.
Someone drops down from the shadows to greet Will, and I stop myself from shrieking just in time. “Carter,” Will says, slapping him on the back. “Thanks for keeping watch tonight.”
Carter nods and pulls himself back up into the branches of a tree. “Just do me a favor and win. Larkin’s already been running his mug.”
“Sounds about right,” Will says. We keep moving through the trees, and others are coming behind us. Everyone is dressed in black. “Almost there,” Will says. Beyond the orchard the trees give way to a clearing, and then we come upon a still, dark lake.
I can make out some of our classmates—?the hulking shadow of Chase Peterson, the girl from dressmaking who always walks on her tiptoes—?gathered on the strip of pale beach that rings the lake. My heart rises at the hushed sound of Beas’s laugh, but I can’t tell exactly where it’s coming from. We walk toward the students, who are clumped in patches between two long docks that bookend either side of the beach.
Eliza is at the head of the nearest group, shaking her hair, smiling with her white teeth. My stomach twists as Will leads us over to her. Please, no, I think.
“Hey, ’Liza,” Will says as we join her. “You and Aila know each other, right?” he asks, but his eyes are already on a row of others lining up along the beach.
Eliza shrugs. I don’t say anything at all.
“I’ll find you after,” Will says, leaning toward me. “Do you know what a kazoo sounds like?”
“Yes,” I say, amused despite the fact that he is about to abandon me with Eliza Patton.
“That’s the warning sign. If you hear it, run and hide. Pick a tree or something—?now that I’ve seen you climb.” And with a smile, he leaves to find his friends, who are warming up on the beach.
I stand awkwardly beside Eliza, playing first with my hair and then with my hands, searching the crowd for anyone familiar. I finally glimpse Beas, and she waves, looking surprised to see me. I try not to feel hurt that we spent all of biology together this morning and she never mentioned anything about this.
“A!” she says, walking over to me. “You came!” She grins. “You’re a bit more of a rebel than I’d pegged you for.”
I smile back and decide that whether Sterling is temporary or not, I actually want to be real friends with Beas. There’s something about her that reminds me of my mother. Perhaps it’s the way she refuses to march to everyone else’s beat.
Or maybe she’s just hearing a different one altogether.
“Hey, ’Liz,” Beas adds, pronouncing it like lies. She links arms with us both. Eliza rolls her eyes.
“Guess what? Thom’s coming tonight,” Beas whispers. “I know the race is very hush-hush. But . . .” Her giggle is throaty. “I invited him anyway.”
Eliza releases Beas’s arm and sits. “You’re playing with fire,” she says, examining her nails.
Beas drops down next to her on a slab of driftwood. “Anybody got any Embers?” she asks, ignoring Eliza. Tonight John Greenleaf Whittier peeks out from the hem of her skirt:
Are these poor fragments only left
