Chapter Ten #2
Bree blushes, smiling shyly at Candace. For a giddy second, I think about throwing Rafe the deuce. His sad sabotage attempt failed—Bree came through!
Mr. Davis explains the trial to us. Weather events are probabilistic, and some of the world’s best navigators are working with climate scientists to pioneer nav-assisted disaster response: using nav to curb wildfires with dampening winds, for example.
As high school seniors, we won’t be trying anything that big today, but we’re applying the same principles.
Mr. Davis will light ten tea candles on a lab table and open the nearest door.
Each team has to navigate to a future where the wind, blowing through the door, extinguishes the candles in order, one to ten, in less than a minute.
But because this is a test of our channeling, we’re not doing head-to-head matches like in the siphoning duels.
Instead, the teams choose one member to navigate, using power channeled to that member by the other two.
Once Mr. Davis explains the details, he sets a timer: We have a minute to pick our navigator. Candace, Bree, and I huddle at our table, nearly brushing noses.
“It has to be Norah,” Candace whispers.
“Why?” Bree whispers back. “Why not you? Or me, I guess.”
“Because I’m the worst at channeling,” I admit sourly. “I usually panic. Unless I’m the one who navigates, my power will be wasted.”
Bree considers this: Norah gets to lead because back in kindergarten, no one taught her to share a stage, and now she’s shitty at supporting roles. “Fine. Take it gently this time.”
“Nah, I think I’ll mug you at knifepoint.” I roll my eyes. “Of course.”
Main navigator chosen, we cluster around Mr. Davis with Elena, Rafe, and Carrie. Mr. Davis hem-hems at us. “We flip a coin to see which team goes first. Heads or tails?”
“Heads.” Elena stands tall, a silver headband gleaming in her pale hair like a crown. When I shoot her a dirty look—hey, who says Mr. Davis was asking you?—she ignores me with queenly disdain.
“Okay, Team Seven heads, Team Eight tails.” Mr. Davis pulls a quarter from his rumpled black slacks and flicks it high above his head. It hangs in the air, glinting, and drops like a shot bird into his palm. He slaps it onto the back of his hand and holds it out for inspection.
“Heads,” Elena announces, like we can’t all see George Washington’s flowy wig and oddly petite chin for ourselves.
“Team Seven, you’re up,” Mr. Davis says. “Who’s your navigator?”
To no one’s surprise, Elena steps forward.
“Do you remember what you have to do?” Mr. Davis asks.
Elena nods.
“Good. Are you ready?”
Elena nods again. Carrie and Rafe step up behind her.
Carrie takes her left hand, Rafe her right.
Meanwhile, Mr. Davis pulls ten tea candles from his satchel, lines them up on the table, and lights them with a chrome Zippo.
He counts down to zero and opens the nearest door, a wet gust from outside shivering the tiny flames.
Maybe I shouldn’t bother with flickerstate now—conserving energy and all that—but I want to watch another team channel.
I’m hoping to learn something from how their concepts mesh that I can apply to my own team.
Besides, since I came to the Academy, entering flickerstate has gone from a weird, physical wrench to an automatic action, like an unusually vigorous finger snap.
So. Snap.
Roses bloom from Elena’s eyes, her mouth, the neckline of her white tennis dress. Rosebushes climb the air, thorny limbs sprouting flowers, every petal a future. Carrie fountains fractal sprays, and Rafe churns up glistening mud. Water and dirt, helping flowers grow.
It’s gorgeous, lush as a golden age still life, and it strikes dread in my shriveled heart. Elena might be top five, but Carrie and Rafe aren’t. I’d hoped for an easy win. Team Seven’s so compatible, though—and in a channeling trial, compatibility may matter more than raw power.
A thorny branch darts from the roses where Elena’s mouth used to be, navigating upward to one floral future, a second, a third. Done.
In reality, Elena shakes off her teammates and takes a panting breath.
Damp wind swirls around us, carrying pinpricks of rain.
The first candle goes out. The second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth—and tenth. Candles seven to nine stay burning until Mr. Davis calls time.
I choke down a yelp of triumph.
Mr. Davis frowns. “Six choice-points managed. Team Eight, you’re up. Who’s your navigator?”
I step forward. As Mr. Davis relights the candles, Candace wraps her thin fingers around my right wrist, while Bree circles my left in a loose, sweaty grip.
“We good?” I ask.
They nod: Candace once, decisively, and Bree in her anxious, bobblehead way.
“Three,” I say, “two, one, go—”
Candace tears branches from her infinite sycamore.
Bree unwinds fuzzy yarn from the endless pink skein wrapped around her.
They take the manifestations of their power and toss them into my fire.
Above us, my flames swirl skyward. The more Candace and Bree sacrifice, the brighter and realer the burning futures.
I parse vision after vision of ten candles, dying one by one.
I find the branch I need: the first candle extinguished.
Holding that branch in my mind, breathing rhythmically, forcing myself not to pull too much, too fast from Candace and Bree, I hunt for the second choice-point. Third. Fourth. Fifth.
Sweat drips down my spine. A headache gathers like a storm cloud in my skull. Slowly, my heartbeat rises.
I need to find the sixth branch soon. If I don’t—
There.
But once I’m holding six branches…
Millions more possibilities burn my eyes. They smear into a blue-hot blur. I can’t make them come clear. And all the while, my heartbeat rises. Soon I’ll lose control.
I need more nav. Fast.
I’m so deep in the future that I can’t see Candace and Bree anymore; I only sense them, channels of fuel flowing into me. I keep pulling. The blur in front of me separates, slowly, into candles dying.
In the real, a boy shouts.
As if an avalanche has spilled boulders into the channels feeding me, the flow slows to an obstructed trickle. Futures bleed together, dying in a single brightness.
This can’t be happening. I’m so close.
I’ve been holding six choice-points while I fight toward a deeply improbable seventh. If I wait any longer, I might lose them all. Lose the trial, the Archive, Dad, myself.
So I do to the big obstructions what I did to Rob’s knives: I blast them till they melt.