Page 137 of The Amber Sunburst

“Whoa, whoa, Kallias, calm down,” Zeno yells.

Kallias stays still, holding Lazarus’ throat tight enough to make him cough.

“How much time do you think I have to keep you here to do enough damage to your vocal cords? It shouldn’t be that long,” Kallias says. “And besides, I’m patient.”

Lazarus stops fighting, lets his arms hang, and chokes out, “You won’t kill me.”

“Are you sure?”

Lazarus doesn’t respond.

They’ve all grown so comfortable with Kallias that Zeno forgot why he was afraid of him in the first place. But now he remembers.

Kallias is scared. He has been since Zeno first met him twelve years ago. And when someone has been scared for as long as Kallias has, there is no telling how far into their own mind they can run.

This wouldn’t have happened had Zeno looked after Lazarus as he should have. He knew Lazarus was missing from classes and meals—he was just too wrapped up in his own stuff to help him at all. So now he needs to fix it.

“Alexander,” Zeno whispers. Everyone else is as frozen as he is, trying not to set this off further. “Do something. Tell him to stop.”

But Alexander’s eyes are distant and his expression hard—just from that Zeno can tell this isn’t his usual Alexander. This is whatever calculating person is hidden under the charm.

“Why should I?” he asks. “He blackmailed Kallias. He’s threatening to ruin this for all of us.”

“He’s desperate. That doesn’t mean he needs to get hurt,” Zeno says, and then tries an argument that will land with the darker version of his best friend. “Ophelia can’t open the emergency exits from the tower and get Arete from the First Arc. It was unrealistic to think she could. But he could get Arete, which frees up Ophelia to focus on her own task.”

Alexander blinks slowly and some of the darkness fades away. “You’re right.”

Zeno nods and watches Alexander approach Kallias. “Kallias,” Alexander says, shaking his head once.

Kallias rolls his eyes and lets go, putting his hands up in surrender and backing away. The room exhales a collective breath of relief.

“Welcome to the team, Laz,” Zeno says with a smile and, despite it all, Lazarus smiles back.

40

EUDOXIA

“This is a horrible idea,” Eudoxia groans, leaning back in her chair.

Ophelia doesn’t turn from where she and Alexander scribble on the board. “Well, that feels a little pessimistic.”

She says it like her normal self, but Eudoxia can still hear some madness underneath. The stress has been weighing on all of them.

But, stressed or not, Eudoxia still needs to be the voice of reason here! She eyes Zeno and Kallias for backup because what they’ve come up with is insane. Like, stupid, gonna-get-branded kind of insane.

Zeno’s wide, brown eyes scrunch in apology. “Xia, what other option do we have?”

Eudoxia huffs, sinking further into her chair, and Lazarus sighs.

“We’re all going to die,” he says from his squished-in seventh seat at their four-person table.

Ophelia throws a piece of chalk at him—her new favorite weapon, it seems—and Alexander says, “You were going to die anyways, Laz. Better with us than with them, right?”

Lazarus fiddles with the useless ring on his finger and drops his head to the table.

That does nothing to deter Alexander. “Let’s go over everything,” he says, leaning against the back of Kallias’ chair. “Ophelia?”

Ophelia hops up and down in excitement, and Eudoxia tries and fails not to giggle because the plan is awful and she cannot stand for it.