Chapter Eighteen #2
Griffin throws his arms around Mirabel and Vik, forcing a huddle.
Candace, Bree, and I stand around, too far apart to be standing together.
Candace stares over our heads as if bored by us.
I’m not surprised she won’t look at me. And I’m guessing her and Bree’s dispute last night got heated, because she’s not looking at Bree either.
If I were a better person, a natural leader, I’d turn the situation around.
I’d pull in Candace and Bree, like Griffin pulled in his team, and tell them last night was a cluster, sure, but we’re here at the critical moment.
I’d tell them I’m sorry and I want to put our fight behind us, because what matters now is now.
I’d ask them to put their hands in the middle—
My imagination stalls. Bree ran track at her old school, and when I picture Candace condescending to exercise, I see her in a drop-waist dress with pleats, holding a nine iron.
No real team sports there. If I asked them to put their hands in, would they even know what I meant?
Exhaustion swamps me, floaters swarming my vision.
Let Bree and Candace hum “Eye of the Tiger” if they want. I have no pep left to give.
The remaining player arrives: Dr. Langmore. “Finalists. Welcome to your last trial.”
Dead silence.
She walks to the middle of the room. “This trial will be summative. Depending on the choices you make, you may use some or all of the skills we’ve practiced in clinic so far.”
“What choices?” I’m so tired my voice sounds faded.
“Per Highwall’s will, both teams must agree to the nature of the last trial.
In the first option, team members compete separately in three one-on-one siphoning duels.
In the second, each team selects a main navigator.
The teams flip a coin to determine which one will defend and which will attack.
The defense holds an advanced occlusion, while the offense attempts to siphon the occlusion.
Defense wins if they maintain their occlusion for ten minutes.
Offense wins if they siphon the occlusion before then. Questions?”
No one speaks.
“You have two minutes to discuss these options. Your time starts…” Dr. Langmore raises her watch to eye height. “Now.”
I try to reason through the thick fog in my brain.
If we go for the team option, we might end up on offense, and we’ve never siphoned an occlusion before.
I didn’t know that was a thing. I’m guessing it means pulling power from the occlusion, the way you siphon from another navigator, until the occlusion collapses—but I’m not even sure.
And if we end up on defense… We held an advanced occlusion for ten minutes and thirty-three seconds last trial, but no one was attacking us, and we hadn’t just had a fight.
“Ninety seconds left,” Dr. Langmore says mildly.
“We choose the first option,” Griffin announces. “The duels.”
He didn’t consult Vik or Mirabel. It seems like he seized the chance to decide and hoped—or assumed—his teammates wouldn’t take issue.
And they don’t. Mirabel surveys my team grimly.
Her eyes stop on Candace, so maybe she thinks Candace is our best duelist, the biggest threat.
And Vik—Vik looks at me. For once, I can guess what he’s looking for.
He wants to see whether I would siphon him, hurt him, just to win.
I cut my stare away. Of course I would hurt him. He should know that already.
“Sixty seconds,” Dr. Langmore says.
I don’t like the team option. At the same time, I want to reject the duels. Not because of Vik—I’m not that squishy, not that stupid—but because Griffin chose them.
I look desperately to my teammates, hoping they have an idea of what we should do. Bree recoils like I really am beaming lasers from my eyes. Candace’s face is set and brittle. She’s usually the person at the Academy I have the easiest time reading, but today all I sense is her anger.
We can’t channel like this. Bree will collapse into a limp yarn heap. I’ll flare my teammates to crisps. Candace will reject whatever we give her. Now’s not the time to collaborate.
“Agreed,” I blurt. “Duels.”
Bree bobbles her head weakly. Candace shrugs—whatever, probably right, I don’t care.
“First option it is.” Dr. Langmore pulls two thin white envelopes from her suit jacket.
“You have ten minutes to siphon your opponent. If there’s no winner after ten minutes, you stalemate.
Otherwise, the winner navigates through a fifty-two-card draw, two to ace, clubs to spades. Questions? No? Let’s begin.”
***
When Dr. Langmore opens the first envelope, my heart shoots into my throat like someone fired it up my esophagus with a potato gun. It’ll be me and Vik. I’ll brutalize him. God, I don’t want to do this.
Dr. Langmore thumbs open a folded slip of paper. “Mr. Minter.” She slides a slip from the second envelope. “Ms. Yang.”
Not yet. My knees fold. I drop onto the nearest lab stool.
Candace walks to Dr. Langmore without glancing at me.
“Good luck,” Bree whispers too quietly for Candace to hear.
Griffin walks to face his stepsister, grinning. “Hey, Candy.”
She glares at him, clearly not in the mood.
“Are you ready?” Dr. Langmore asks. “Good. Three, two, one—”
I need all my remaining energy for my own duel. By this point in the semester, entering flickerstate requires about as much energy as sitting up straight—but today, sitting up straight is a struggle. I should wait in the real for Dr. Langmore to announce the winner.
Griffin’s eyes glaze over. So do Candace’s.
A pained noise vibrates behind his lips. Her face pales, glossy and sickly.
“Screw it,” I whisper and plunge into flickerstate.
Odors of iron, salt, and wet greenery fill the room.
Roaring fills my ears. Candace’s sycamore rears up beside a—a whirlpool of blood.
Candace tries to steal the blood, which must represent Griffin’s nav, by sinking roots into its blasting current.
Half the time, her ploy works: Her bark-and-leaf tower absorbs his nav and grows more massive and bristling.
But the other half, his current, snaps her roots.
The whirlpool, swelling with broken tree parts, rushes faster.
They’re evenly matched. At first.
Slowly, the balance tips. The whirlpool strips limbs from the sycamore that do not resprout. The tree’s trunk wavers, hazy and translucent. Through dappled bark, I catch a blurry glimpse of Candace: lips white, hands shaking like leaves.
She’s been navigating for a year. He’s been navigating since grade school. Their vastly different levels of experience are starting to tell.
I bite my knuckles. Hold on, Candace. Take the stalemate.
The crimson flood rips up her last roots. Her sycamore topples and sinks into the whirlpool.
I drift miserably out of flickerstate. My teeth have left deep indents on my knuckles.
“Mr. Minter wins, with”—Dr. Langmore checks her watch—“forty seconds left. Mr. Minter, navigate.”
Griffin’s tan skin has ashen undertones around the mouth.
Sweat darkens his shirt in spongelike clouds.
His eyes stay glazed for a second. When they sharpen, he stumbles to the table, where a deck of cards waits.
He navigates through the clubs but misses on the first diamond, pulling the queen instead of the two.
“Thirteen choice-points managed,” Dr. Langmore says approvingly. “You may return to your seat.”
Griffin trudges unsteadily back to Vik and Mirabel.
After Candace lost, she stayed where she was to watch the draw. Now she shuffles toward me and Bree like a postapocalyptic survivor: feet dragging, face empty. Bree stares at her with anxious blue eyes.
Terror closes my throat. Bree and I have to win now. Bree, who refused to siphon her opponents during the screening, has to beat Vik or Mirabel.
“Round two,” Dr. Langmore says.
A realization seizes me, so horrible my cheeks tingle and go numb. If Dr. Langmore pulls Bree next and Bree loses, I won’t compete. My team will have already lost. By choosing one-on-one duels, I’ll have condemned myself to death without a chance to fight.
Dr. Langmore pulls a slip from the first envelope. “Mr. Souza.” From the second. “Ms. Sullivan.”
***
I face Vik. He gives me an assessing once-over like we’ve never met before.
Purple circles ring my eyes. My hands are quivering with caffeine and fear. Under the circumstances, his cool appraisal feels like a taunt. Anger shoots through the fog in my brain like a signal flare.
“Are you ready?” Dr. Langmore asks.
Vik nods.
Past the brain fog, I spot the outline of a plan. Candace lost to Griffin because, in their dragged-out duel, his greater experience gave him an edge. Vik has the same edge over me. I can’t let him use it. I have to finish the duel as quickly as possible.
I offer Vik my hand. It’s a dare: Touch makes channeling easier, but it makes siphoning more unpredictable, more painful.
And faster.
If we touch, maybe we’ll get our duel over with sooner. One way or the other.
Vik gives me an unreadable look. Then he laces his fingers through mine. His skin is warm. I bite my cheek hard, trying not to think about other times we’ve touched like this.
Dr. Langmore’s eyebrows slide up her forehead. For a second, I think she’ll warn us against hurting each other too badly. “Three,” she says instead, “two, one, go—”
With a desperate effort I hurl myself into flickerstate, farther than I’ve ever gone.
The real vanishes behind a fantastic landscape. I am a pillar of fire. Above me stretches whitish sky. Around me, rust-red sands shimmer. In front of me lies a river, so wide I can’t see the opposite bank, reflecting a brilliant sun.