“I thought I’d save the best for last, but since you insist,” said Reggie, and a few of them laughed. “I had to forsake daydreaming.”
Once again, I stopped, the toast covered in jam halfway to my mouth.
Daydreaming?
“Nice,” said Russ. “It was nostalgia for me.”
“Meanwhile I gave up my fear of spiders,” said Mimi. “Possibly the best part of these trials so far. I just need to find a spider around here to make sure it stuck. I was terrified of them. Literal phobia.”
Shivers ran down my spine now—exactly like an army of spider was walking all over me.
What in the Everstill? The others got to give up silly things likenostalgiaandfear of spiders?
“It waspatiencefor me—though to be frank, I never had much of it to begin with,” said Levana.
“The sense of missing people,” said Seth. “Or at least I think so…”
I turned to my food, angry now.Mad.
My choices had been very different fromtheirchoices, it seemed. I’d had strength, fear, compassion. Impossible to start with, now that I thought about it.
“You?” March asked, nudging me on the elbow.
I swallowed hard. Didn’t want to answer—it wasn’t his business anyway.
But then there was something about the look in his wide eyes. Those colors that merged in them, all the shades of red and brown.
My heart ran out of beats again. I said, “Compassion.”
Shock registered in his face. I turned to my cup. “You?”
“Trust,” March whispered.
Shock passed throughmenow, too. It looked like I wasn’t the only one to have been faced with difficult choices.
“Intuition,” Silas said from across the table, and I hadn’t even realized he was listening to us.
Our eyes locked. I saw the desperation going through him, but didn’t really understand it. It was only intuition.
“You make up for it with your intelligence. I wouldn’t worry about it,” I said, and bit into my toast.
A tight lipped smile, and Silas nodded. I meant it, though—he seemed to know most things about most things. He would be okay without his intuition.
“It shows,” said March, as he, too, continued to eat, his voice lower, darker.
“What shows?” I wondered.
“You.What you gave away. It’s like you’re…not you anymore.”
In his eyes I saw the suspicions glistening like the sun outside. It ruined all my favorite colors for me, so I looked away.
“Well, I am.” I was still me. I’d seen the mirror in the bathroom, but…
The words that had popped into my head when I’d been in front of those other mirrors in the tower came back to me.If you forsake me, you forsake who you are.
Which in turn made me wonder:whenwas I going to get my compassion back?
24
