Alma and Hugo were unchaining their bicycles by the Fifth Point when they heard a buzz of voices, many voices, coming their way.
Somewhere in that buzz was a voice Alma recognized.
She looked behind her to see a group of girls coming down the street. They wore vibrant colors and the sun bounced off their sequined and shiny accessories. Their teeth flashed as they smiled and laughed. And with them, right in the middle like she fit perfectly, was Shirin.
Alma jerked her eyes back to her bicycle lock. She had liked Shirin from the moment she met her, but she didn’t want her to know what she and Hugo were up to. It was weird. It was bizarre, even. And Alma was pretty sure that the last thing she—a girl who talked to herself and wore feathers in her hair and fled from every classroom every single day—needed was one more thing that made her weird.
A boy who wore visor-glasses and gave lectures on astrophysics and said things like “Zonks” didn’t need another thing to make him weird either. But Hugo didn’t seem to be aware of this.
“Greetings, Shirin,” he said.
“Oh. Hi, Hugo! Hi, Alma!”
The girls, every single one, giggled.
Alma glanced up. Shirin was smiling, but she seemed like she’d rather not be. She seemed, Alma thought, like she would rather not be there at all.
“Hi,” Alma mumbled.
“What are you two up to?” Shirin asked.
“Noth—” Alma started to say, but Hugo was already answering.
“We’re gathering supplies in order to create true forms of the four elements of alchemy,” he said. “We want to test some hypotheses based on a pseudoscientific book that I found.”
Alma felt like someone had snuffed out every possible light in her as the girls with Shirin started to giggle again.
“Whatever that means,” one of them said.
“Yeah,” another said. “Pseudo-what?”
But Shirin’s rather-not-be-there smile had slid completely from her face and the expression left behind was startled and wide-eyed. “You’re collecting elements?” she said. “Elements like wind, water, earth? Those kinds of elements?”
“Yes,” Hugo confirmed. “Classical elements rather than chemical elements.”
The other girls were drifting away now, moving in twos and threes farther down the street, toward the coffee shop, Bean There Donut That. None of them, Alma noticed, waited for Shirin, who was now inching closer to her and Hugo.
“So, like, do you know how to get true elements?” she asked, her voice nearly a whisper. “Or how to store them? How are you going to keep wind in a jar? Have you asked anyone for help—like Mrs. Brisa or Mr. Newton in the school library or your parents or anything? What’s the plan?”
Alma had no idea why Shirin seemed so interested, but she desperately did not want Hugo to be the one to answer these questions. It was bad enough that Shirin knew about the elements—she did not want her to know about the Starling.
“We’re not sure yet,” she said quickly. “We’re still gathering ideas.”
“Creating true forms of the elements is proving somewhat confounding,” Hugo explained. “And, as you point out, storage presents another issue.”
Shirin nodded emphatically. “Yes. Yes! A big issue. You’ll probably need some super-specialized equipment.” She paused for a moment and glanced around her. She seemed to have just noticed, right then, that none of her friends were with her anymore. “Oh,” she said. She straightened up and her voice went back to its usual volume. “Well, I have some ideas for you. And some things you might need.”
“We don’t—” Alma began.
“We meet at midnight,” Hugo said. “Under the stars. It’s very top secret.”
Shirin grinned. “I like that!” she said. “Where?”
“Alma’s backyard,” Hugo said.
“I’m in Fourth Point,” Shirin told Alma. “Where are you? Here, I’ll write it on my hand.”
Shirin pulled open the tiny, bejeweled bag she was carrying and dug around for a minute before producing a flower-topped pen. Alma stammered out her address, and Shirin scrawled it across her palm in fuchsia ink.
“Meet you there tonight,” she said, slinging the bag back over her shoulder. “Trust me, you’re going to want what I have.”
“Okay,” Alma said. “Sure. Tonight. What do you have though?”
But Shirin was already gone, on her way to find the group of happy and sunny and beautiful girls who had left her behind.