“More…restless than anything,” Silas said. “I did not like having my memories extracted like that.” He rubbed the back of his neck as he flinched, and some of his hair slipped to the front of his eyes. He usually kept it slicked back, but he looked younger like this. More…innocent.
“Me, neither. I can’t believe we’re never going to get them back.” The words almost slipped out of my lips by accident.
I looked at the lantern, so big and bright, its glass frosted only on the bottom half. The light inside it had already begun to dim. There was a winder on the back that required spinning every couple hours—and it was the most unusual light,too, that burned in that glass ball in the middle. Almost like it was meant for somethingmorethan just light.
“Do you think about what’s left to lose still?” Silas asked after a tick, and the hairs on my forearms rose. “There’s three more trials to go.”
“Maybe they’ll be different,” I said, despite myself.
“Or maybe they won’t let go until they’ve squeezed us for everything we can offer.”
Laughter bubbled out of me. “You’re sonegative!” And he was, but I meant it as a joke, anyway.
His smile turned sad instantly, and he shifted slightly to the side so he could sit parallel to me, and watch the lantern, too.
I thought maybe he didn’t want me to see his face as clearly.
“I prefer the wordrealistic,” he said.
“There’s something about you, Silas.” I couldn’t really put my finger on it for the life of me, but there was.
“There’s nothing about me at all,” he said.
“Yes, there is. And I’m not the only one who notices. Everybody else does.” Calren, the queens, Master Talik, and Asha, too. They’d all…looked at him differently.
“Maybe because I speak my mind,” Silas said. “Maybe because I say things nobody wants said out loud.”
“You’re not veryprothese trials, are you.” It wasn’t a question but a well-known fact by now.
He laughed. “Not at all, no.”
“So then why sign up? Why come here?”
At that, he turned to look at me, almost like he was surprised by my question. “I didn’t feel I had a choice.”
Not the answer I was expecting.
I licked my dry lips. “Were you forced to join the trials, Sy?”
Another laugh. “No, brave Ora. Nothing like that,” he said. “I just felt Ihadto be here, that’s all.”
And I knew that if I asked why, he wouldn’t tell me. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t know.
“You aced the tests, though. Like Calren said, you beat hundreds of other applicants to get here.” That had to count for something.Thishad to count for something.
The other Hands across the junkyard cheered—whatever they were doing, it must’ve been working.
“It’s never about the tests,” Silas said. “Nobody cares how smart you are or how fast you can climb, or how good you are with a sword. The first test is the only one that matters.”
I narrowed my brows. “The first test was a health test.”
He looked at me. “Abloodtest.”
“Well, yes.” They’d taken a good amount of blood straight from my veins the day I sent in my application. “A blood test.” But that was for health reasons, to make sure we didn’t have any anomalies or any diseases. Mother had been happy—a free checkup,she’d said.
“The only thing they measure is the potential of your magic, Ora,” Silas said with a bitter smile on his face. “That’s the only thing they care about. How much you use. How much you put out with every movement. It’s all energy, and that’s what they need.”
Those words were so…big. Andcold.He sounded far too sure for me to even consider he didn’t know what he was talking about.
