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“The moon is detaching!”

“This is catastrophic!”

“What the fuck?”

Someone yells, “Is the entire world doomed?”

It was me.

Professor Gregorio cups his hands to his mouth. “QUIET!”

A hush falls over the room.

“Yes, yes, yes. How do we move forward? I think we will need to…” the professor mumbles to himself. “We will be pivoting our syllabus for the remainder of the year.”

I reach for Ramona’s arm only to smack her hand as she does the same.

“All cadets will be expected to assist with solving this particular issue of the moon.”

Ramona leans in and whispers, “I think the moon untethering from its orbit is a little bigger than a “particular issue,” but I digress.”

I smirk back at Ramona, but my gut churns at the news. I’ve heard this before.

Somewhere… Old World History? Damn Teller mind. Too many stories stored away in there.

A tingling sensation creeps like spiders along the base of my neck. Something is deeply wrong, and if it’s not figured out soon, it won’t just be the Moon’cher humans that will be impacted.

Class is dismissed, and Ramona excuses herself, saying something about showing Leaf how to properly throw a dagger.

I don’t push her on it.

With a little more time before Battlefield, I might be able to squeeze in time at the library. I exit the glass lift only to run into two first-stone cadets.

“Sorry about that, I wasn’t looking.”

“By the moon, that’s the Starwatcher!” one cadet shrieks, flipping her book bag over her shoulder.

I grit my teeth. My eyes squint. “Um, hi.”

“Can you sign my…” The girl scrambles through her book bag. “Oh no! I thought I had a piece of paper. Maybe you can sign my arm?” Her hand shoots forward. I step to the side, avoiding a punch to the gut.

“It’s really not something I do.”

“Please, my father studies Starwatchers. Has a poster of Malcome, Rebekah, and Lark in his—”

“—room is enormous!” Bennidix says, staring up at the domed ceiling. Glimmers of sunlight shine through the branches woven together in braids. Sunken in the middle of the room is a mountain of pillows on top of a rounded mattress. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“I suspect that makes sense given that we are in Elf territory,” Lark says from his right, arm resting on Bennidix’s shoulder.

Bennidix chuckles. “Fair. Suppose I’ve never been this far north before. Do you think they’ll let us speak with Clayoq? We’ve been waiting in here long enough.”

“Depends on if they ever let us out of this—”

“room!” The cadet wiggles her arm, eyes bouncing from the pen in her hand to me.

I blink a few times, returning to the present moment.

A vision!