“They move fast here.” He grabs the suitcase out of my hand and ushers me inside. “Come on, I saved a seat for you.”
Loud, raucous cheers sound from the stands as the door closes behind us. My heart is beating triple time as we walk down a long hallway beneath the seats. It’s dark, but that doesn’t matter, as there isn’t much to see except for the huge pile of luggage at the end of it.
Paris drops his suitcase into the middle of the pile, then motions for me to do the same with my backpack. “Come on. I grabbed seats at the bottom so we wouldn’t have to disturb everyone by trying to climb up the stairs. Not that Ithought you’d be half an hour late. You really have to work out more.”
“How were younotlate?” I demand with narrowed eyes. It’s one thing for me to reach the conclusion that I need to work out more—it’s another thing entirely for him to actually say it. “After that obstacle course on the bridge? And the snakes—”
“Snakes?” He looks completely confused. “What snakes?”
“Seriously? The snakes that swarm and bite you—”
If possible, Paris looks even more baffled. “I didn’t see any snakes. I just walked across the bridge and followed the signs—”
“Signs? There were no signs!” I squawk indignantly.
“What are you talking about? They had one posted every two feet between the bridge and here. With giant black letters.” He shakes his head like he can’t believe I missed them.
But Ididn’tmiss them.There just weren’t any. I looked everywhere for them. I mean…didn’t I?
For the first time, doubt starts to creep in. I checked everywhere I could think of. But maybe I did miss them somehow? I don’t think that’s possible, but it’s not like there are a lot of other explanations. Paris saw the signs. I didn’t. Signs, like Hades boys, don’t just disappear.
This has to be my fault.
That or it really was the donut holes, after all. Next year I’m going to eat two dozen of them. Maybe that way I can just step onto the bridge and show up in the middle of the amphitheater. Not going to lie…skipping that nasty flower field sounds pretty good right about now.
“Next time just text me. I’ll give you directions,” Paris mutters as he takes my wrist and starts tugging me along. “Come on, let’s go before we get into trouble on the first day.”
Just the thought of being in trouble has my already jittery stomach threatening to revolt. So much so that I don’t bother to tell him about my no-service message and simply ask, “Do you know what they’re cheering about?”
“I think it’s about the new pattern.”
“New pattern?” I feel like I’m twenty-fivestepsbehind, not just twenty-five minutes. “For what?”
“Supposedly, it’s some kind of logic problem,” my brother answers. “Something about how to get around the school.”
“You mean they don’t just give us a map—”
I break off as we step from the shadowed hallway into the full-blown light of the amphitheater.
It’s even more impressive than I imagined. Not to mention, it’s definitely bigger than it looks from the back. And brighter, even though that only makes sense considering there’s no roof. Like the amphitheaters of ancient Greece, this one is completely open air. Above us, the sky shines a bright, beautiful blue.
But the size of the place is the least surprising—and intimidating—part of the amphitheater.
What is intimidating—so, so intimidating—is the number of students in the stands. There are at least five or six hundred of them, which means there are at least one hundred per hall. Maybe even more for Athena, since it’s the best hall on campus. I’m sure almost everyone here wants to belong to it.
The butterflies in my stomach turn into vultures at the thought. What happens if more people want to belong to Athena than the hall can accommodate? What do they do with the overflow? Do they cram us all in or do they assign us to other dorms?
But even as the thought crosses my mind, I know it’s silly. The Fates think of everything—they’d never make a mistake like that.
“Isn’t it epic?” Paris says, completely oblivious to the tiny freak-out I almost had.
“Completely epic,” I answer, because what else can I say?
And also because itisepic.
The amphitheater is epic.
The stands filled with my classmates are epic.
