Chapter Three #2
Uneasy fidgeting ripples through the little crowd. The transfers are realizing that while they chitchatted and (probably) whined about our late-ass student guide, she was hiding among them, eavesdropping. I imagine a filmy thought bubble above their heads: Were we being graded?
“Now we’re headed to the dining hall so you can meet your mentors. Follow me.” With a flick of her superlative hair, Mirabel strides off. The transfers hurry after her.
I slide my arm from Candace’s shoulders. “That was abrupt and strange.”
“Abrupt and strange is Mirabel’s thing,” Candace says. “You have a fine instinct for dramatics, has anyone told you that?”
“My mother, constantly. You know Mirabel?”
Candace nods. “My stepbrother—”
“Guys,” Bree interrupts. “We’ve got to start walking. We’re falling behind.”
***
Mirabel leads us across the main quad to the cafeteria, an aesthetically dubious riot of flying buttresses and gargoyles leering from the roof.
When we stream inside, I realize why the pretentious Academy kids call it a “dining hall.” Dark wooden arches support its high white ceiling.
Along one wall, Gothic windows display the quad; along the other, the basketball courts and the forest beyond.
Under each window stands a bar top. Lower wooden tables march left and right into the middle distance, with a runway of empty floor between them.
The runway ends in a cornucopia, foods shining under heat lamps like flowers in a greenhouse, students flitting from pasta bar to salad bar to soda fountain like hummingbirds.
Scattered among the tables are kids holding signs with transfers’ names: Peyton Peng in pink bubble letters, Austin McKeigh with gold stars dotting the I’s, Daisy Sultan inside an actual daisy chain hot-glued to the posterboard.
Mirabel halts before the tables. “Here we are.”
“Thank you,” I call from the back of the pack.
So far I’m ambivalent about Mirabel—she shakes hands like she’s imitating a distant, high-powered father with a specially humidified room for his cigars, if you know what I mean—but Mom taught me to say thank you like she taught me to look both ways before crossing the street. You always do it, no matter what.
The other transfers chorus, “Thank you.” Bree starts a brief smatter of applause.
Mirabel scans the crowd and locates me as the origin of the appreciation outburst. A microscowl torques her mouth. “Thank you. Your mentor should be carrying a sign with your name, but I’m going to read their names to you as well, so you’re not at a disadvantage when you meet them.”
Mirabel pulls a phone from her pocket and reads out pairs, clear and crisp. Bree’s the first transfer called. Her mentor, Antoine, is a cute guy with a high-top fade who’s written Bree’s name in the style of the SpongeBob SquarePants title card.
Mirabel reads fast. Soon she’s announcing, “Norah Sullivan, your mentor is Vikram Souza.”
I scrutinize the dining hall. I don’t see my name on any sign. Transfers are vanishing into the mass of Academy kids. Nearly everyone is paired by now, and I’m just hovering, hesitating, looking stupid as I search for Vikram Souza, whoever that is.
In the far corner, on the crowd’s outskirts, a guy sits with his head bent over a book. I can’t see his face, just thick black hair and a faded shirt that reads VERMONT. He has a sign tucked under his arm.
I make a beeline for him. At least I look like I know where I’m going. And if he isn’t my mentor, he can point out wherever the real Vikram Souza is hiding.
Behind me, Mirabel announces, “Candace, you’re with me.”
I reach the guy with the book. He keeps reading.
I stand quietly for about ten seconds, wondering whether his apparent obliviousness is actually hazing, and then I step sideways into his light.
When my shadow falls across the page, he looks up.
His irises are so dark that at first I can’t distinguish his pupils.
Then he straightens, the light hits his face, and gold filaments radiate from his pupils’ absolute black like an eclipse flare.
Oh my. He’s fine.
Also…familiar. It’s not just the shocking eyes—it’s the cut-glass cheekbones, the strong jaw, the firm mouth. No way I could forget that face.
“Hi,” I say. “We, uh, met before.”
His expression shuts down. It’s like hearing a door lock as you pass by. “Last spring. In Admissions.”
I feel thrown. I’m never the prettiest girl at a big party, but I’m pretty enough that most guys are pleased to meet me. And here this guy reacts like I’m canvasing for his least favorite politician. “Can I see your sign?”
“Sure,” he says coolly, pulling it from under his arm. No decoration, just letters printed with a typewriter’s precision: Norah Sullivan.
“That’s me. You’re Vikram? My peer mentor?”
He doesn’t quite meet my eyes, staring at my earlobe or maybe over my shoulder. “People call me Vik.”
“Okay, Vik. What now? Are you going to mentor me?” As the words leave my mouth, I realize that to some people, they’d sound suggestive. Thank God I never blush.
Vik blinks once. “If you need mentoring. I mean, I’ll answer any questions you want.”
I am beginning to suspect that, perfect cheekbones aside, Vik is a standoffish jerk. What could he mean except if you need mentoring, you’re weak—don’t bother me? I bite out, “I have a series of specific questions, in fact.”
He looks almost relieved. Maybe he was scared I’d want emotional support. “Okay,” he says, bending to slide his book into a backpack propped at his feet.
I spot the title, Philosophy of Navigation. “Is that for class?”
He snorts. “No. The Academy doesn’t care how nav works, so long as it does work.”
But you do? Why? What’s in the book?
I choke down the questions. During my demo, Dr. Langmore made her disdain for speculation and theory clear.
I suspect she’s the person I have to impress to get an Archive assistantship.
I can’t waste time; I can’t afford the rent in an ivory tower.
I have to save Dad. “How do you become a senior Archive assistant?”
He looks directly at me for the first time since I asked his name: an assessing, almost clinical stare.
“There’s a competition. Every year there are new senior assistants.
And Langmore has a screening procedure for who gets to compete.
It happens two weeks into the semester. What the screening is—that changes every time. ”
Vik says Langmore like a twelfth-century monk would say “Moloch.” I almost snap, hey, the woman earned her PhD from UNC-Chapel Hill decades before you existed, so that’s Dr. Langmore to you, sexist dipshit.
Except sexist dipshit isn’t his vibe. He’s not demeaning an older woman in authority to sound cool.
He seems to dislike Dr. Langmore specifically.
I would ask him about that, but other, more important questions are vying for my attention. “Competition? What kind of application process are we talking here?”
He blinks again, amused. “No application. Just the trials. We form teams of three—”
“Teams?”
“There are three assistantship spots. The winning team fills them.”
All around us, students chatter and cutlery clinks—but I almost can’t hear them over the ringing in my ears.
I am not great at teamwork. In basketball, I always had trouble anticipating my team.
Like, I’d read the court, and I’d pass to where my teammates should’ve headed.
But as the ball left my hands, they’d break left instead of right, following an intuition totally different from mine, and an opponent would intercept the pass.
And those were girls I’d known for years.
Now I have to figure out how to win with two total strangers? “Are the teams assigned?”
“We choose our own.”
Shit.
The students who came to the Academy as freshmen, who have the most training, will choose each other. The kids who transferred in as sophomores or juniors, same deal. I’ll have to recruit my team from the other senior transfers, who have as little navigation experience as I do.
The other senior transfers, who I just trolled—and maybe alienated—over how they treated Candace.
Double shit.
“Can you help me?” I blurt.
He blinks yet again—not amused this time. “What?”
“My navigation manifested in February. I’m years behind everyone but the other transfers. I’ll need help. You’re my mentor, so…be a mentor. Tutor me.”
“Oh. No.”
“No?” I yelp.
He shrugs. “Everyone wants the Archive. Me included. You’re my competition. I’m not giving you a leg up.”
This does not make sense. “Why would the Academy assign transfers to mentors who are also their competition?”
“Well, transfers almost never make it past the screening. I guess Langmore doesn’t consider you guys, y’know, real competition.”
Oh. Oh hell no.
I stare at Vik’s stupid, handsome face and think: I’ll show you real competition.
I’ll show Langmore.
I’ll show everyone.