Seven #2
The thought filled her with a perverse sort of determination. Giselle picked up a pencil.
Drawing had always come naturally to her. Of course if she could see something in perfect detail she could re-create it perfectly,
too. But it had never brought out the kind of passion in her that real artists seemed to feel. She had only done it because
her sisters had begged her to draw their favorite characters or portraits of their dogs. The act of drawing wasn’t creative. All she could do was reproduce what she had seen before. There was no imagination involved.
The photograph on the tablet showed what looked like the downtown area of a major city, not that Giselle had ever seen anything like it outside movies or television.
The streets were slick, as if with recent rain, and the vivid sunset cast the glass facades of the skyscrapers all in gold.
It was beautiful, in an artificial way. She hadn’t thought she could ever find something like a city beautiful.
The only thing that was strange was how absent it was of life. No people, not even a solitary pigeon.
Her pencil scratched across the page. The number of windows on the buildings, the lines on the crosswalk, the precise orange
shade of the sky—she remembered it all.
Giselle didn’t know how much time had passed, only that she felt breathless when she finally looked up. “Here,” she said,
thrusting the paper at Professor Blanchard. “I’m done.”
He took the page from her, pinching it carefully between his finger and thumb. But once he set the drawing on his desk, he
didn’t look at it again. He only stared in consummate focus at his tablet screen, and Giselle felt suddenly aware of how she
was seated like an experiment in front of him, the nodes prickling on her temples.
Slowly, an expression of awe overtook Professor Blanchard’s face.
“Perfect,” he murmured.
Giselle felt more irritation than pride. “And this little elementary school art project, this is going to help America win
the war?”
Professor Blanchard looked up. His gaze on hers was so intense that Giselle winced.
“In some manner or another,” Professor Blanchard replied. “You may go for now. But tomorrow: same place, same time.”
Giselle hadn’t realized how stuffy and airless the classroom had been until she stepped outside. As soon as she was in the
corridor, she let out a sigh of relief so deep it made her chest ache. She leaned against the wall and tipped her head back,
closing her eyes.
Her skin felt numb where the nodes had been.
Also, her temples were throbbing and her mouth felt dry, almost nauseatingly so.
This data will also be helpful in giving me a sense of where to start with your training.
Professor Blanchard had sounded—and looked—like a complete lunatic.
And she was supposed to come back tomorrow? The thought
of running away crossed her mind again.
“Giselle?”
She opened her eyes. Nadiya was standing before her. The sight was so unexpected that Giselle was momentarily at a loss for
words.
“Oh,” she finally managed. “Um, hi. What are you . . .”
She had not spoken to Nadiya since she had arrived at Valeran—she had barely even seen her, aside from quick, covert glances
in the dining hall. Nadiya sat at a table with the model-esque boy who had mocked her accent. Giselle noticed that the other
students seemed to give Nadiya a deferential sort of respect: hurriedly moving to clear a path for her, offering her their
place in line, as though she were royalty to them. Maybe she was.
“I just wanted to see how you were,” Nadiya replied. “I’m sure this has all been overwhelming.”
Slowly, Giselle nodded. “It’s a long way from Belle, West Virginia.”
“Of course.” Nadiya’s dark eyes searched her face. “I hope you’re starting to settle in. To feel more at home.”
“I don’t know if a place like this could ever feel like home.”
An odd look flashed across Nadiya’s face—almost pained. But it vanished quickly, and Giselle wondered if she might have just
imagined it.
“It can,” she said. “I promise.”
Her voice was clear with conviction. But Giselle’s heart remained heavy.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “Maybe it can . . . for someone like you.”
Nadiya raised a brow. “Someone like me?”
“Someone who muscles around six-foot-three guys like it’s nothing.”
“I think you’re overestimating guys.”
“Oh yeah?” Giselle felt a flicker of warmth in her belly, and it rose to a faint flush on her cheeks. “Then can you teach
me? There are a lot of guys I’d like to see collapse into a whimpering heap.”
“Maybe.” Nadiya folded her arms across her chest. “But you’ll have to teach me something in return.”
“Let me think, then,” said Giselle. For a moment she pretended to ponder it. “I don’t suppose you have any interest in mudding.”
“What on earth is that?”
“It’s when you race four-wheelers through a mud pit.”
“That’s revolting.”
“Yeah.” Giselle bit her lip on a smile. “But it’s kind of fun.”
“Unfortunately,” said Nadiya, “or fortunately—Valeran’s campus is not outfitted with a mud pit. I could recommend it to Dr.
Iver, though.”
“It could be just what all you geniuses need to let loose.”
Now Nadiya appeared to be biting back a smile. Then she said, “Do you want to have lunch?”
Giselle would have been more shocked to have been struck across the face. “Do you mean—together?”
Nadiya nodded.
Giselle had to swallow down her disbelief. Nadiya’s expression was open, sincere. Almost smiling. It took her another moment to find the word: “Okay.”
“Okay,” Nadiya echoed. Giselle tried to read the emotion in her voice. She couldn’t quite manage it. She had the sense again
of Nadiya being regal, almost untouchable. But that made her all the more pleased to have been invited—to have been chosen.
Giselle had never been chosen before for any reason other than her looks, which surely could not matter to Nadiya.
Nadiya started down the hallway, watching Giselle over her shoulder until she began to follow.
As Giselle fell into pace beside her, she caught a glance of the gold band around Nadiya’s wrist. She had been fitted with one, too, upon her arrival at Valeran, her name and birth date engraved into the plate.
KARAM, NADIYA, it said. 12.27.2018.
It was the first time Giselle had seen her name spelled out. Another curious quirk of her mind was that letters appeared to
her in flashes of color. Words and names had their own signature hues. And the name Nadiya, with those three elegant, lilting syllables, was a rich orange-gold. Just like the sunset she had sketched for Professor
Blanchard. As she walked with Nadiya to the dining hall, the world behind her eyelids glowed with color.