Chapter 11
Places, Everyone
When we eventually arrived at the Graduation ceremony, we were shuffled into groups based on our school rankings.
I graduated at the top of my class, so I was placed at the front of the line. Astrid was probably somewhere near the middle, thanks to her hard work schmoozing all the instructors with her cleavage and borrowing my notes without permission.
Headmistress Kina Walton handed out robes and sashes at the front of the line. She had some other instructors helping further down. I slipped into the black-and-gold robe and hung the matching sash over my shoulders. Mine read Valedictorian in ornate cursive.
“Congrats, Elle,” Mikael Rockefeller said as he tried to untangle himself from his sash behind me. “You should have the whole world at your fingertips now with your Babel transcript and LPE score.”
I hummed and pretended to be busy with my own sash so I didn’t have to say more.
He was right, though. I should. Or at least I should have felt like I did.
My plan for the last ten years was falling into place, but my mind was on that bag under my bed.
I hadn’t given up on killing Azazel by a long shot.
That was still the goal. If anything, I think I’d figured out a more expedited way to get it done.
Working my way up the ranks could take years still, but Veda might be able to make Azazel’s death happen way faster with much less fraternizing among the snobs.
My toes wiggled in the monstrous heels Astrid had squashed my feet into, and my legs prickled with the need to go.
“Places, everyone!” Headmistress Walton beamed with a clap of her hands, her frizzy brown bun bobbing with the intensity of her movement.
Pomp and Circumstance played, and we waltzed single-file into Babel Amphitheater and down the middle aisle on the ground floor.
The upper seating was filled with families celebrating their graduates.
The other graduating students were probably trying to scour the sea of faces to find one they recognized.
I didn’t bother. The only person who might’ve shown up for me had Mod duty tonight.
I thought Zade was going to cry when he apologized for not being able to make it.
Yu Ting and Barrister were good acquaintances, but they had never seen me outside of the range, so this would be a boring way to start.
What if Soren’s here?
My pulse skipped three beats, then worked way too hard to make up for it. I kept my eyes trained ahead and willed my muscles not to look for him. Considering Soren’s penchant for lurking in the shadows, finding him in the dim, overcrowded auditorium would have been impossible anyway.
Then I tried to will my heart rate to slow down, but I could only control so much of my life. I walked the full length of the aisle on the verge of a cardiac episode.
About halfway down, I caught sight of the woman seated to the left of the headmistress on the stage behind the podium, and the fire that was building in my veins extinguished on impact.
Now I had someone to look at.
I murdered Prisca Ofer at least three different times in my head until I had to turn left and walk to the last seat in the front row.
Not her.
That’s true. It wasn’t her that I wanted dead.
Then where is her fucking husband?
Wasn’t he supposed to be here? I could have slapped myself for forgetting about that probability these last few days. I’d been distracted.
Okay, new plan. Join the cult, but stay the hell away from Mr. Distraction.
“That’s no fun,” hissed the voice.
“Welcome, everyone, as we celebrate this momentous occasion!” The headmistress addressed the crowd from the podium.
“Another generation is graduating from Babel Institute tonight. This is not an end, but a beginning. We have incredibly high hopes for this cohort. They have shown us over the years that they are more than capable of leading The Tower into the future. I am…”
Back to Prisca.
According to the only part of Kina Walton’s speech I listened to, Prisca was there representing her husband, who was unfortunately unable to attend this year, as tradition called for.
Azazel Ofer—the blasted coward—just happened to miss the ceremony the year I was graduating.
He would have had to look me in the eye, knowing my mother was dead because of his cowardice.
Perhaps he even knew that I wanted to kill him.
I was sure he had to know that deep down.
Or maybe he didn’t want to shake a mutt’s hand on stage in front of everyone else.
“Forgiveness,” came that small voice.
Screw that and whoever you are. Get out of my head, asshole.
I continued watching her, waiting for her to see me here.
How high I had climbed.
I wanted her to see me.
Just look at me and see the daughter of the woman you and your husband killed to save your image.
The headmistress droned on for a while and then invited others to drone as well. When it was Prisca’s turn, I straightened.
“Thank you, Citizens, for the warm welcome. I will keep my part short because today is not about me. It’s about these young leaders.
” She motioned to the front row but looked directly at me.
“I have had the privilege of seeing your exam scores, and I have such admiration for you. I cannot wait to see what you will do next.” She finally broke eye contact with me, but my palms lay sweating against the satin robe covering my thighs.
“These sons and daughters of ours are going to bring in a reign of peace that we have been hoping for since The Last War. They are going to unite The Tower as never before to reach new heights.”
“She knows,” it hissed.
The crowd erupted in cheers, and Prisca motioned for them to quiet down.
“As The Tower finishes the upper rooms and approaches the end of its construction, let’s support this new generation of conquerors. May they be like the scepter from The Ancient World and never wither under the sun.”
This time, there was a slight silence until the applause boomed again when she moved to take her seat. She stared straight ahead and refused to meet my gaze again.
She. Knows.
I allowed myself all of five seconds to scan the room to see if anyone was there. Anyone at all.
Soren, Veda, old lady Winifred. Had no one else heard that?
Prisca Ofer clearly knew that I was essential to The Way and the Guild of Sharona. She knew I was crucial to their plans.
Isn’t anyone going to come and save me?
Then I turned back to keep my eyes on her. My knees bobbed under my robe, but the bumps on my arms could have convinced anyone I was just cold, despite the body heat sweltering in the crowd and the drop of sweat now sliding down the back of my neck.
Stop being a paranoid psycho, Eliana, and keep calm.
I absolutely hated it when people told someone freaking out to ‘calm down’ or ‘keep calm’. It was even worse when I told myself that.
However, when no Mods came to arrest me and no Extermins stepped out from the shadows to mark me for dead as the other old geezers took to the podium, I eventually did calm down.
Even if she had her suspicions of my hatred for her and her husband, Prisca had no proof.
If she did, I would be dead already. Right?
Eventually, the graduates were called to walk across the stage.
Because I was first, it was slightly less awkward that no one cheered.
It was almost like people forgot that was a normal thing to do during this part of the ceremony.
I shook each hand as I paraded in front of the esteemed spectators on stage.
A small part of me expected to get in a full-on wrestling match right then and there with Prisca.
Instead, she took my right hand in both of hers and smiled warmly as she looked me in the eye.
Then she leaned in real close and whispered nearly inaudibly and at breakneck speed in my ear, “I am so glad to see a dual-blood getting such an honor. Take the leap of faith, young daughter. I’m watching to see what you do next.”
I opened my mouth to ask, “What?” but Mikael shoved me out of the way so he could shake her hand next. When I got back to my seat, I continued to stare at Prisca, but she never looked toward me again.
Wanna see what I’m going to do next?
I am going to kill your husband and destroy your world just like you destroyed mine.
I spent the rest of the ceremony plotting all the possibilities of how Veda could help me kill Azazel.
Though Astrid was probably livid that I had turned down her insistence on joining the after-party at Dagon’s, relief washed over me as I sank into one of the few spare seats on the MagFlux and knew that I was heading back to my dorm alone.
No more people to have to smile in front of.
No more creepy Dagon. No more high-strung Astrid.
Though my social battery was 100% drained and I felt mentally exhausted, my skin seemed to be crawling with the energy of what I was going to do tomorrow morning. Maybe I would do it tonight.
After slipping out of the heels Astrid had picked for me and grabbing my sandals from my backpack, I opened my Visex and went straight to the Ground Floor train schedule.
The last train of the day departed at eleven.
I’d swing by the dorm and grab my bag from under my bed (and trade these ridiculous heels for runners).
If I spent the last of my credits budget for the week on a DropLift, I could get to Central Station in plenty of time.
My vision moved beyond the schedule to the woman sitting across from me with her wide eyes flickering between me and the nearest exit. Disgust I got quite often. This was fear, though.
I glared back and lunged my chest forward a centimeter with my eyes matching hers in their widening.
She tripped over her floor-length sundress as she rushed toward the exit when the doors slid open.
My eyes followed her only to notice that an older man with a bowler hat and a guy with a build almost as bulky as Barrister’s were giving me the same wide-eyed panic-stare.
Not entirely sure why I was getting these sorts of looks, I folded myself back into the seat, dropping my gaze to my lap. With the glittery V-neck dress that Astrid had paid for that afternoon, two-thirds of the mark was visible.
“Mommy, that’s the girl from the article you’re reading.”
It was the whisper from the little girl with plaits tied in purple ribbons that clicked the last gear into position. She had an extender on, so she could see what her mother was looking at on her Visex. A lot of parents did it to keep their kids from chatting everyone’s ears off in public.
I turned my attention back to my Visex.
For at least ten seconds, I just stared at my Pulse homepage. I knew what was coming. I needed to psych myself up for it.
Tower News Network.
Even though I knew, I wasn’t ready.
My blood ran cold.
Not cold enough to turn to ice; it heated to lava right away.
Breaking News: Brilliant Babel Graduate Wanted for Terrorist Activity
A not-so-flattering picture of me staring up at Soren from behind the counter at Nian’s was right next to the same image that had been displayed on my LPE confirmation screen.
I stood on instinct and tottered my way toward the nearest set of doors as I tried to read through the words of the article with blurred vision and a pounding headache.
An inside source working directly with Commander Prisca Ofer has confirmed that Eliana Glory Kai Xin Chapman-Chen is being investigated for threats made against President Azazel Ofer. She has recently been spotted with—
The text disappeared along with the rest of my Visex interface.
I looked up at the steel doors, still closed, and the LED lights whizzing past on the walled track. I tapped my temple and ignored the other whispers.
A white text outlined in red appeared in my Visex.
CITIZENSHIP REVOKED
VISEX ACCESS DENIED
Please report to the nearest Moderator for further instruction.