Once the city district ended, we had to cross the desert for what felt like miles. The sky was cloudless, and the ground was flat. Every cactus, plant, or thornbush we passed looked the same. Greens that could be browns and browns that could be greens. And the trek was taxing. Sweat rubbed between my thighs, and the cooling jacket was rumpled with sweaty creases. How Skye was managing with the sun beating down on her black muscle shirt . . .
Skye slapped her forearm over her forehead like a sun visor. “Big orange thing,” she said. “When does it set?”
“The sun?” I looked straight up at it.
“Soon,” said Belinda.
“I hate the sun.”
“Yet you’ve chosen to join me in the desert,” I said.
While Pepper coasted along in Belinda’s satchel, Nova leapt between dried-up plants for cover, looking back at us, then dashing ahead to the next one. Clouds of dust kicked up as wewalked, the orange haze obscuring my vision. Even still, I saw them. Therocks.
We were surrounded. The entire desert, the city district — all of it — was set inside a border of immense, red-rock mountains. And the Creation Academy, isolated in an otherwise barren part of the desert, was a colossal rock monument that would’ve been a national park in the human realm. It glittered in the sun, the color of sunsets and sand.
On my right, a field of purple groundcover looked like dried-up ivy.
“Bup bup bup.” Belinda’s arm jutted out from nowhere, the beads of sweat on her tan skin glistening prettily. “Purple ivy,” she said. “Highly poisonous.”
Skye skipped around to Belinda’s left side to distance herself from it.
To enter the academy, we had to climb a long, low-sloping, rocky pedestal, so massive in width that an entire city of interconnecting caves could’ve been housed within it. A thousand feet of cave-like rocks, then the formation sprouted up into a gargantuan pillar. We climbed for five minutes before reaching the hatch, a steel door in the rock that Belinda pushed on. It opened inward.
Belinda held her arm out, guiding us into the cave. “Welcome to what is basically a full-time sleepover! Only a few staff hang around in the summer, so right now we’re mainly just a small band of fourth-year teachers. Everyone else will start showing up after Selection, but until then, we’re all just hanging out until classes start! First things first, I’ll introduce you to Rayne and Vyra. Then we’ll all go to — ”
“Vyra?” I twisted a hand around my wrist, checking for the cuff. “Vyra Lennox?”
“That’s the one!” She closed the hatch behind her, its rusted steel groaning loudly over her words. “Another fourth-yearteacher. You know her?”
“We’ve met.”
“Perfect!”
Yeah, perfect,I thought as we traveled through the low-lit cave, grateful for my cuffs.
Thick rock walls insulated us from the outside’s heat, and cooled air refreshed me as the sound of us walking across stone echoed tranquilly through the long passage. I skimmed the rock walls with my fingertips, tracing the bumps in the cool, rough walls. My new residence.
We exited the passage into a great hall called the arcade. It was an open common room, all natural and hewn from the massive rock pillar I’d noticed sprouting up from the pedestal. And the size of it —
The ends of my hair grazed the base of my spine as my head tilted back at a ninety-degree angle to take in the scope. Repeating arches encircled the arcade and spiraled up floor after floor in a corkscrew. There were no stairs, only the stone ground sloping in a spiral curve, all the way up to a giant skylight. The vibrant, blue sky had dulled, and pale-blue light filtered in, twisting with the rock’s reds and oranges, casting the entire column of the arcade in a romantic, fiery glow.
How could this place not be enough? I was so busy looking around, I hardly noticed when we came to a stop in the center of the room, where the three other fourth-year teachers were lounging. Where I was grateful for so much to look at vertically. Because in front of me . . .
Vyra nestled happily in Leland’s lap, snuggling her back against his navy-blue polo. His nose was in her neck, and his eyes were as good as closed.
“Awkward,” Belinda mouthed.
“I would puke if I could,” Skye said, grimacing.
“Hello,” said the elegantly tall and slender woman sitting nextto them, holding a small bundle of roses in front of her chest. She had a septum piercing and stylish shoulder-length, dirty-blond hair half-up in loose waves. Her white skin had a golden undertone and might have been as golden as mine with any time in the sun, but it was light, pale, like she specifically avoided it.
“Oh, right!” Belinda thunked herself on the head. “This is Rayne.”
Rayne handed me the roses, and with the small bouquet out of the way, I noticed Rayne’s pink baby tee had the trans pride flag printed on it. “I’ve heard so much about you,” she said warmly, and nodded hello to Skye. “I was friends with your sister.”
“Nice to meet you,” I replied, twisting the roses, missing Ash.
Leland whispered something in Vyra’s ear, and I spooled the ends of twine securing the rose stems tightly around my pointer finger, cutting off my circulation to take my mind off his mouth nuzzling Vyra’s ear.
