“Let’s see how far we can push her first,” replied Yael, a laugh in his voice. “I give her three sun-cycles.”
“One sun-cycle!” Siret shot back.
“One rotation,” Aros teased, glancing at me over his shoulder. “Teacher Christin is pretty lenient, so let’s see which one of us can push enough of her buttons to get the dweller sacrificed by the end of this next lesson. It has to be a death sentence, too. Whoever manages it first will win a single favour from each of the rest of us.”
Holy shit. “What ifIwin?” I quickened my steps, trying to walk right behind them.
I was pandering to their obviously competitive nature, and hoping that I lasted longer than a single rotation in the process. It was a dangerous game, but dangerous games were pretty much the only games I knew how to play, so at least I was in familiar territory.
“Well then I guessyouwin the favours,” Siret returned thoughtfully. “Should we let her play?” he asked the others.
“She doesn’t have a gift,” Yael pointed out. “She’s way out of her league.”
They definitely underestimated the power of my clumsy-curse.
“So there’s no harm in letting me play,” I added gently. I was attempting to be coaxing. Siret snorted—he clearly wasn’t buying it.
“Sure.” He grinned, walking backwards again to show me the way his cat’s eyes were crinkling at the corners. “You can play with the big boys, little dirt-dweller.”
“But you guys can’t use your gifts,” I quickly added, now that he’d already agreed. “Because then it’s no fun, no challenge. You want at least alittlebit of a challenge, don’t you?”
“Is the dweller trying to manipulate us?” Yael asked the others. He sounded unimpressed and bemused all at once.
“Cute,” Aros added, his silky voice doing funny things to me. “It manipulates.”
Wow.Ouch.
We entered a classroom, and even though I knew it wasn’t the classroom I wassupposedto be in, I still attempted to move against the wall with all the other dwellers. It was Siret who stopped me, grabbing my arm with a chuckle and forcing me past a few rows of shocked sols toward the back row of seats. I suspected that people left the back row of each classroom purposefully empty, just for the Abcurse brothers. He dragged me into the row and forced me to take a seat beside him. Aros claimed the seat on my other side, and Yael lowered himself into the aisle seat, indicating that I’d have to fight pasttwoof them if I wanted to escape. I stared back at the sea of faces all now staring at me. They weren’t staring at the Abcurse brothers, even though they wereclearlyat fault for this. Nope. Apparently, I was going to be the one to take the fall, because nobody wanted to punishthem.
Teacher Christin—or at least I assumed it was the same teacher that the guys had mentioned—strolled into the room, her nose stuck into a book, a mumbled, “Hello students,” floating eerily over the still-staring room full of sols. She glanced up when she realised that nobody had answered, and her eyes traced all the attention back to me.
“Dweller?” She seemed too surprised to think of anything more to say.
And now I had a choice. I could get myself sentenced to death-by-sacrifice, and somehow use the favours I won to get myself out of the death-by-sacrifice, or I could …Run? Hide? Play dead? Ask to use the bathroom?I really had no idea.
“Last I checked,” I attempted to drawl nonchalantly. “That’s me. I’m a dweller. Dirty, er, dirtiness and everything. What’s it to you, woman?”
Her mouth dropped, her fingers loosening around the book. I watched as it fell—seemingly in slow motion—toward the floor, landing with a deafeningthumpthat echoed off the walls. She looked toward the sols either side of me, probably hoping for some kind of explanation. The sols admittedly looked a little put-off, but I was sure it was only because they hadn’t actually thought that I would try to get myself sentenced to death.Pfft. They clearly didn’t know me.
“Now insult her again,” Yael suggested, his persuasive voice washing over me.
He wasn’t actually using his gift on me, but he was making it sound as though he was. Now I couldn’t insult her again, otherwise it would be because ofhimthat I got sentenced to death. I turned to glare at him, but he wasn’t paying attention to me. He was leaning back, his arms crossed over his broad chest, his green eyes almostshining, because he was just that entertained by the rapidly reddening face of the teacher.
“I’ll do what Iwant!” I exclaimed, surging to my feet and attempting to barge past Aros to poke a finger into Yael’s face.
Unfortunately, Aros had only drawn back enough for me to get one leg past before slipping forward in his seat again. His knees closed around my other leg, trapping me solidly. He wasmuchstronger than he looked. I froze, my eyes locked onto Yael’s face. Whatever insult I had been mustering, ready to shout at him, died. I could feel it fizzle out, making way for shock. I didn’t even know why I was so shocked, I really didn’t. It had nothing to do with the fact that even sittingnextto Aros had been making my head spin a little bit, and it definitely had nothing to do with the fact that him now touching me had scattered my brains to the far ends of the room. I was avoiding looking at him, but Yael was meeting my stare, and he had thisknowingexpression on his face that made me want to sucker-punch him in the face.
So …
Yeah.
That’s how I ended up sucker-punching a sacred sol on my second sun-cycle of being one of the Luckiest Dwellers in the World. He shot out of his seat, capturing my hand as I began to draw it back again. All three of the brothers were on their feet now, crowding around me. I had no idea what was about to happen, but the whole world froze when the teacher’s voice rang out, loud and cold and shrill.
“DWELLER!”
I froze, my eyes on the ground. There were three sets of shoes, all pointed toward my boots, only a few inches away. The grip on my wrist tightened, and I felt one of them moving against my side.
“Forget …” It was Yael, and the word had been whispered into my ear, though it rang around the room with the tenor of travelling magic. “Forget everything you just saw …”
