As Captain Ross starts reading off the “teams,” another figure at my right looks my way. Byron keeps his usualconfident stance, but his jaw works like he’s chewing over the situation.
I haven’t had much of a chance to talk to him since this weekend. Radiants only know what’s been going throughhishead.
Is he still relieved to think I’m not the same Elodie who undermined and sniped at him? Or have all the other implications sunk in?
I don’t really understand the levels of lucent society he’s meant to be living at. My obviously blight glim means any kids we have will be drab.
I’m a wildcard in a life he’s preferred to keep strictly disciplined.
I hear my name and yank my attention back to Ross. He rattles off a few other names I’m only vaguely familiar with and finishes with “Asher Raith.”
The group I’ve been assigned to gathers on a patch of lawn he motions to. Besides Asher, I don’t know any of the other students outside of past supplementary seminars and passing them in the halls. I think they’re all at least a couple of years younger.
Did Ross stick me with them because he’s planning to go easy on the lower years? Because he wants to keep me out of the worst trouble?
I should be glad for that, but the implied condescension sets my teeth on edge. Does he think that little of my abilities?
The arrival of Professor Jovak next to our group seems to support the coddling theory. He smiles at all of us and dips his head specifically to me. “I’ll be observing your group directly, ready to intervene if necessary. I know your father doesn’t want any chances taken with your safety.”
I suppress a grimace. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate your diligence.”
And I’ll look like a wimp to the younger seniors.
Asher catches my gaze with a flicker of sympathy. He’s placed himself at the edge of the group, a careful distance from me, to maintain the fiction there’s no friendship—let alone anything more—between us. But the sight of him nearby no longer brings the same twist of anxiety into my gut.
He knows now. He knows what he means to me,how muchhe means to me.
He knows how afraid I’ve been of hurting him.
They all know, and disaster hasn’t crashed down on my head. Maybe I can carve out some small space in this new world where my glim doesn’t make me a monster.
If I survive long enough, that is.
I guess I can hope this training will give me a leg up in that department.
Captain Ross addresses our group. “Team 3, head to the Beacon Prep campus. Explore but remain within the school grounds.”
A couple of the younger students with me groan. They murmur to each other as we start the trek south.
Are they worried poor-people cooties will rub off on them?
My gaze slides over the shadowy academy buildings and halts on an unexpected figure. A broad-shouldered woman with most of her frizzy hair pulled back in a bun is watching us pass Anpao Hall, where most of the junior classes are held.
She’s only watching in that first second I notice her, though. Then she goes back to rubbing her sponge over a window.
Maintenance staff. I didn’t realize they stayed this late, but the administration probably wants them disrupting the students as little as possible.
We walk up the low hill next to the Khepri Building for Graduate Studies and down the path on the other side to the road that separates Luminary’s campus from Beacon’s.
In the thickening gloom, the preparatory’s buildings look even more like a prison. A haunted one, for good measure.
Only a sporadic half of the security lights still work, some of them stuttering on and off. The boxy concrete buildings blend into the cracked pavement of the walkways around the patchy lawns.
I don’t risk another glance at Asher, though I’m constantly aware of his presence through gentle twinges of our bond. I never had to attend Beacon in either of my lives, but he spent the first several years of his magical schooling there.
How does he feel coming back like this, for an elevated training exercise that’s treating the grounds like a hostile landscape? While our schoolmates complain and cringe at needing to step onto the grounds at all?
He appears to be at peace with our destination, keeping pace with the rest of us with his usual easy stride, his head raised and alert. None of us knows when the challenges will start.
