Chill drags his attention from his instruction manual as I cast off my blankets and slowly pull myself upright. “You feeling okay, Jack? You look pale.”
Seasons have been killing each other for eons...
I barely hear Chill’s question over the nagging hum of my own thoughts. If Seasons have always been disposable, how is it possible that we can be recharged? You can’t stick a disposable battery in a charger; they’re not designed to work that way. I tried once. It leaked chemicals everywhere and nearly started a fire. So how is it that dead Seasons can be stuffed inside a stasis chamber and come out alive?
Biology hasn’t changed since before the chambers were invented. Neither has physics, or even magic. Only the technology is different. So if we really were disposable before, how is it possible that our deaths are reversible now?
I scrub a hand over my face, wrestling with the logic. What if I’ve been thinking about this all wrong? What if Seasons were never disposable in the first place? Nature is cyclical. Patterns repeat themselves. Shouldn’t it be inherent in our basic design for our life cycle to end and then start over again?
My thoughts race as I stumble past Chill into our bunk room to change. “I’m going to the gym.”
“The gym?” he calls after me. “You just came out of stasis a week ago.”
“Ten days,” I say through my sweatshirt as I drag it over my head.
“You’re supposed to wait another four!”
Until we’re strong enough to train without risking a setback.
Until we’re fully recharged...
I pull on a pair of bright white sneakers. “Low impact. Back soon. I promise,” I tell him as I rush out the door.
I lied. I’m not going to the gym. But if I had told Chill where I’m really going, he’d have had a total meltdown. There’s only one way down to the Hall of Records, and that’s the elevator in the Crux.
Hood drawn low, I cut through a hall of darkened faculty offices, avoiding the recreation room and training center where most of the Winters congregate on weekends. It’s Sunday. The Winter lecture halls are locked, the corridors empty. Motion sensors activate the overhead lights. They flicker to life in rapid succession, turning off again behind me as I move through the halls. Still, I have the niggling sense I’m not alone.
I peek over my shoulder. A smaze hovers behind. I swat at it but it slips like smoke through my fingers. Dropping low, it weaves in and out around my legs.
“Get lost!” I hiss, giving it a sharp but useless kick. It slips into an air duct, and I wait to make sure it’s completely gone before I move any closer to the end of the wing. The punishment for being caught on the wrong side of the glass at the end of this hall isn’t something I really want to think about.
I pause at a covered electrical panel in the wall, searching inside it for the switch that controls the motion sensors in the lights. I press a fingertip to the breaker. Metal crackles as frost spreads through thewires. One by one, the lights around me flicker and go dark. I shut the panel with a quiet snap and tiptoe through the shadowy hallway toward the Crux.
Crouched low, I creep to the clear barrier, using a finger to wipe a layer of frost from the glass. The Crux on the other side is still brightly lit. Like all the other access points to the segregated wings, the Winter port is a mantrap—a narrow plexiglass tunnel with key-protected doors on each end, making it harder to sneak through. If I freeze the wires to the pneumatic gates, I wonder how long I’ll have to make it through before anyone realizes I’m inside.
Condensation trickles down the glass, obscuring the Spring port to my left. To my right, the view into the Autumn wing is dry and clear. No sign of the Guards. The only port I can’t see is the one opposite from me—the Summer wing—directly behind the cylindrical elevator shaft at the center of the circular hallway.
I draw back from the barrier as the gate between the Summer and Autumn wings glides open. The fast fall of approaching boots presses me farther into the shadows, and I hold my breath as the gate to the Winter wing hisses open, less than fifteen feet from the recess in the wall where I’m hiding.
I hold perfectly still as the Guard walks briskly by, her dark curls bouncing with her determined stride. Noelle Eastman slows, stops, and backs up a step, her eyes lifting to the ceiling when the lights don’t come on. She sniffs the air, her head tipped curiously.
“Who’s there?” A spark ignites in her palm. The silver scythe on her shoulder catches the light as she turns, and I take an instinctive step away from her. “Jack?” Her eyes narrow as she brings the flame closer. “What are you doing here?”
I raise an arm against the glare. Nod at her patch. “You never told me you were promoted.”
“Maybe I would have if you’d returned my calls.” Her cupped fire grows brighter and I flinch back from the heat. She was a Winter last time we talked. Her magic was the same as mine—comfortable, familiar. The sight of her wielding another Season’s power is as jarring as that patch on her sleeve.
“Your boyfriend made it pretty clear he didn’t want me talking to you.” Every bruise hidden under my hood is a testament to that.
Noelle’s flame wavers a little. “He was upset,” she says weakly. “He had every reason to be.”
She closes her fist and shakes the heat from her fingers. I incline my head toward them, my eyes readjusting to the dark lighting. “I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be.” She massages the warmth from her palm, as if it makes her uncomfortable. “This is the only other element I’ve managed to figure out yet. Water’s too unwieldy. And plants are impossible to master. Even Doug hasn’t figured them out.” She glances back to the Crux and lowers her voice. “Doug’s not so bad. He’s just... complicated.”
I lick the scab on my fat lip. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“I’m serious. He’s just jealous.” She raises a hand before I can utter an objection. “Not just because of what happened between us,” she explains. “Doug’s wanted a position on the Guard for years. It’s all he talked about. And when Chronos chose you for it first, I couldn’t tell if Doug was grateful you turned it down or pissed at you for not taking it.”
