Page 8 of Legacy Elite

"A dragon would be cool," Renzo says.

Sophia points at him. "Not helping."

"I'm supporting her."

"You're hoping she breathes fire."

"Both things can be true."

Declan lifts his glass. "More importantly, Jessica passed the First Trial."

Sophia picks up my abandoned glass and holds it out to me.

"Exactly. We all passed. We're not letting a bunch of professors with terrible communication skills ruin our party."

I take the glass.

"I can get behind that," Renzo says.

"Of course you can."

"I've been behind it the entire time."

From the terrarium comes the faint scrape of Pickles launching himself after another cricket.

I lift my glass.

"Seven of us passed."

Sophia looks at the terrarium. "The lizard did not take the First Trial."

"He provided emotional support."

"He ate crickets."

"Exactly. He contributed."

Chapter two

Jessica

A tray hits the floor in the dining hall as I walk past the open doors.

Not because of me. Probably not because of me. But the noise makes everyone look up at once, and then forty people are looking at me, and the conversation dies so fast I can hear a fork clatter onto a plate.

I keep walking.

"They're staring," I say.

"They are," Jon agrees.

"You're supposed to say they're not staring."

"You'd know I was lying."

Three girls on the path ahead of us stop talking. One of them steps off the gravel into the wet grass to give me room. I have never in my life been given room and now a girl in expensive boots is standing in mud so I don't have to go around her.

Yesterday I was one of the scholarship six. Today I'm apparently a campus cryptid.