‘I didn’t know you two worked afternoons.’
‘We don’t,’ Sophie says. ‘I was helping Dr Seymour and Viv was just doing some … extra research.’
I smile sweetly at him. ‘I like to do more work than is required, remember?’
He chuckles and looks down at his feet, then back up again.
‘Speaking of research … that reading you were doing in the library? You should take a look at the books again, just in case there’s something you missed.’
I stare at him, thinking back to the book on the Scottish Isles. Atlas didn’t even know what I was looking for in that book because I didn’t tell him. ‘What are you talking about?’
He gives me an innocent look. ‘I was just doing a bit of organising of the shelves after Ralph came to say hello—’
‘Organising?’ I say.
Sophie raises an eyebrow.
‘Yes,’ Atlas says, a smile playing on his lips. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’
‘None at all,’ I reply. ‘It seems you’re a man of many talents, Atlas King.’
‘You have no idea, Featherswallow.’
Sophie clears her throat loudly and Atlas almost drops his sticks. ‘See you at dinner,’ he says brightly. ‘Bye, Sophie.’
We both watch in silence as Atlas strides through the gardens towards the house. I feel a strange swooping sensation in my stomach as I watch him go.
Sophie turns to me. ‘What. Was. That?’
‘I have no idea,’ I reply. ‘What did he mean about the research—’
‘You were flirting with him!’ Sophie accuses me.
‘I absolutely was not,’ I say. ‘I can’t believe you’d suggest such a thing.’
‘Why?’ she says. ‘You’ve courted Third Class boys before.’
‘It has nothing to do with his class and everything to dowith the fact that I’m here to help us win this war and go home. Nothing more.’
‘Oh,’ Sophie says. ‘Right.’
She falls quiet until we reach the garden, then stops walking.
‘I can’t go back there,’ she says softly.
‘Back where?’
‘To the Third Class. To the halfway house.’
I swallow. ‘Was it really that bad?’
‘I met some good people,’ Sophie says slowly. ‘My friend, Nicolas. He lived in the halfway house with me.’
‘Did he … fail the Examination?’
I can’t believe I’m pronouncing those words to her, dancing along the knife edge of truth about what I did. Sophie nods. I stare at a spider crawling up the trunk of a tree.
‘What was so bad about it?’ I say carefully. ‘I thought it was supposed to be a place that helps you adapt to your new class …’ I trail off as Sophie shakes her head.
