THE STORM ON DROGANE’S surface raged ceaselessly. But in the sheltered belly of the mountain, the only change Cora could sense was a dampness seeping through the stone. Her eyes drifted constantly to the clock the Mosca children had made for her: seven human days left until the Gauntlet began. Then five. Then three. Reports filtered in that the modules had finished constructing themselves. The various delegations’ ships were entering the outer edges of Drogane’s solar system.
The Gauntlet was nearly here.
Right up until the final day, she trained long and hard, running up and down Tern’s spiraling ramps twenty times, then thirty. She practiced telekinetically lifting heavier and heavier objects, as Bonebreak had suggested. First an empty clay pot the size of her fist, then a stone statue the size of her head, then a chair that weighed about thirty pounds. She tried to lift a potted fern that must have weighed one hundred pounds—nearly her own weight—but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t so much as make it wobble without pain throbbing in the back of her head, forcing her to ease off.
Now, from the edge of Ironmage’s balcony, she noticed through her goggles that Tern seemed more active than usual. More Mosca were out on the streets. They moved faster than normal, not exchanging greetings with one another, hurrying to their destinations.
Ironmage came out, looking over the activity. “Tensions are high because of the impending Gauntlet,” he explained. “We Mosca don’t like it, as a rule. No one wants the Intelligence Council on our doorstep. At least five smuggling units have had to suspend operations until they leave.” He adjusted a setting on his mask. “Lucky for you, the storm has bought you a little extra time. The Kindred and Axion and Gatherer delegates cannot land until it lessens. Their ships are in a holding pattern in the outer atmosphere, waiting.” He looked up at the stone ceiling as though he could judge what was happening beyond. “Half a day, maybe.”
She let out a tight breath.
He pinched her arm, feeling the muscle that had grown there, and let out a grunt of approval. “You have trained well. My brother and I, we believe you might actually win this thing. Your chances are low, of course, but not impossible.”
“Thanks,” she muttered.
He patted her arm and left.
She chewed on her lip, anxious. Half a day. Not much time. She turned to the potted palm, taking a deep breath. If she didn’t figure out how to lift it, she might fail the Gauntlet as soon as she’d started it.
She walked over to the fern and tried to lift it physically, judging its weight again. Her arms strained. She stepped back and rubbed her sore palms.
Cassian hadn’t prepared her to lift anything this heavy. The thought of him triggered a torrent of worry, and she sucked in a breath. Why wasn’t he here yet? Had something gone wrong with Mali and Leon’s rescue mission? Her imagination filled with gruesome images of his torture. A flood of guilt rushed in behind it, and then longing. She’d give anything to have him here with her, his arms circling her waist, his whispered reassurances in her ear.
She closed her eyes.
Focus on the fern, she told herself. Focus on what you can do now.
She opened her eyes slowly, held her palms flat, and tried as best she could to turn her thoughts from Cassian to the potted fern. A few white fronds ruffled. She gritted her teeth together and focused hard on the heavy pot, willing it to rise. A spark of pain tickled the back of her mind and she released her hold.
“You’re not doing it right.”
Anya stood in the balcony door, pointing at the potted fern.
“What do you mean?” Cora said. “I’m doing it exactly how we practiced.”
“Yeah, but we’ve been practicing with little things. Pebbles and coins. Things Cassian trained you to move, because that’s the way that the Kindred train their young.” Anya eyed the potted fern closely. “But this takes other techniques.”
“I thought there was only one technique. Concentrate and lift.”
“Only one Kindred technique, yeah,” Anya said. She came onto the balcony. “But our minds don’t work the same as theirs. When it comes to little things it doesn’t much matter what technique you use, but with bigger things, it matters a lot.” She walked around the fern, flicking its fronds playfully. “Cassian told you not to push your mind too hard, didn’t he?”
Cora nodded.
“See, that’s what the Kindred don’t understand. Because humans don’t cloak our emotions, we can’t ever concentrate as hard as they can. Our emotions are always clouding everything, which means we actually have to push our minds even harder to match their level of perceptive ability.”
Cora folded her arms, chewing on a lip. “Cassian said if I pushed my mind too hard, it could tear permanently.” She paused before adding, “He said that’s what happened to you.”
Anya’s expression went flat. Her small hand curled tightly around the fern. “He was wrong.”
“But your hands,” Cora said, motioning to the way Anya’s hands shook. “And in the Temple, you were practically delirious.”
“Delirious because of the Kindred drugs,” Anya insisted. “Not because I pushed my mind too far. Pushing my mind to the brink was the only thing that kept me alive in there.” She chewed on her lip, as though reliving bad memories.
Cora hesitated. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that Anya wasn’t all there—that her mind was slightly off somehow. She glanced toward the house. Inside, Willa was playing with the Mosca children, oblivious to what was happening on the balcony.
I’m being paranoid, Cora told herself. Anya’s just trying to help.
Anya pointed to the fern. “Go ahead. Try it.”
Cora focused on the heavy fern. Before, she had used caution when reaching out toward objects with her mind. But she was out of time. Now she pushed aside that caution and projected her thoughts as hard as she could. Not reaching delicately for the plant, but snatching for it. Instant pain ricocheted through her head, and she hissed but ignored it and pushed harder. The potted fern trembled. It rose an inch.
Cora was so surprised that she dropped her focus, and the fern crashed to the floor, cracking the pot.
“See?” Anya grinned. “Don’t think like a Kindred. Feel like a human.”
Cora pulled off her goggles and shook out her hair, raking her fingers against her aching temples. Her head was throbbing. But still, she’d done it. Which meant maybe she could do it again in the Gauntlet. In the sudden darkness, she noticed that the dripping sound of storm water filtering through the mountain’s crust had lessened. She leaned over the railing, listening.
“The storm must have broken,” Anya observed.
Cora let out a long breath. “That means the delegates will start to land. I’ll have to go up to the surface.” She turned to Anya in the dark. “Cassian still isn’t here. I’m worried about him. And about you and Willa, too. Once I go into that Gauntlet, Bonebreak and Ironmage will have no need of you anymore. What’s to stop them from selling you while everyone is distracted? And . . .” She suppressed a shiver. “I can’t shake the feeling that Fian and Arrowal have something else planned. Something bad.”
Anya rested a hand reassuringly on Cora’s arm. “Your job is to worry about the puzzles,” she said. “Let us worry about what the other species might be planning. You’ll be in there, but we’ll be outside. Technically, I’m a ward of Bonebreak’s now”—she tapped her hard thumb badge against the railing—“which means I can join him and Ironmage as part of the Mosca delegation. We’ll observe your progress from the recess rooms. Assuming you make it to the break after each round, we’ll be able to talk, and let you know about anything we discover.”
Cora smiled. “Thanks. That makes me feel better.”
She slid the goggles back over her head as Ironmage and Bonebreak emerged from the house, dressed not in their rust-red jumpsuits, but in crimson-red ceremonial shielding.
She sniffed the air. They looked nice but still smelled rotten.
“It is time,” Bonebreak said. “We must go now, in the storm’s eye. The official Mosca delegation has already made its way to the surface. They are awaiting us.”
Ironmage held out a simple set of black clothes. “Put these on. They are embedded with nanocircuitry that the stock algorithm will use to track your progress.”
Cora hesitated before taking the clothes.
No more time to train. No more time for Cassian to land and reassure her that everything would be okay.
She was going to have to do this alone.
She felt a heavy hand on her shoulder and turned to find Willa behind her. The chimp gave her a long nod, her dark brown eyes wordlessly reassuring her. She handed Cora a scrap of paper.
I have not wanted to tell you about what happened to me in the Gauntlet because I feared the same might happen to you. The truth is, I lost the one thing that mattered most to me: my identity. The moral puzzle in module eight forced me to face the fact that I was no longer a chimpanzee, but neither was I a human. It shattered any hope I had of ever belonging. And I fear that you might lose what matters most to you too. But I do not fear that anymore. I believe you can do this.
Cora smiled.
No, she wasn’t completely alone.
She went inside to change behind the curtain that divided the bedroom area and cooking area. Ironmage’s children were on the other side, making strange beeping noises. She pulled back the curtain to watch them playing some kind of laser tag game. The youngest one tackled the others, and they all erupted in giggles.
She let the curtain fall.
If it hadn’t been for their curved backs and odd way of walking, she could almost have imagined they were human children. Memories of home flooded her mind. Once, she and Charlie had dressed up their dog, Sadie, in fairy wings. They’d played fetch all morning in the big yard beneath the oak trees, laughing, telling each other that every time Sadie brought back the ball it was a wish granted. What do you wish for? she’d asked Charlie. He’d smiled and thrown out his arms. To fly! And she had laughed too, picking up Sadie and giving her a kiss between her floppy ears. I wish to be famous. A famous singer with my songs on the radio!
Now, as she dressed, she shook her head at how carefree she’d been. In a way, she’d gotten her wish. She was important—an entire species’s survival depended on her. But famous? No one even knew she was alive. And, she realized, maybe it was better that way.
“Home means loved ones . . . ,” she sang quietly, “and good times and shelter from gloom.”
She pictured Fian as she’d seen him on Armstrong, so cold in his cloaked emotions, and yet she had been able to feel his simmering anger just beneath the surface. She represented a threat to Fian’s superior way of life. To the menageries, to the enclosures, to the system that kept Kindred like him powerful and dominant.
She pressed a hand to her throat, fighting against the phantom feeling of suffocation.
She had survived the bridge accident.
She had survived eighteen months in Bay Pines.
She had survived being imprisoned by an alien species.
And she would survive this.
She pushed back the curtain and met the others on the balcony. “I’m ready.”