My old classroom—the side room in the geroi’s villa where I had done all my years of learning—was cold and quiet. The dim glow of the phosphorescent stones cast multicolored shadows across the woven-copper table and chairs, the potted fraouloi, Gitrin’s antique globe. My footsteps echoed across the stone floor.

I didn’t know what I expected to find here. Answers, maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to hear Gitrin’s voice again, if only in my own mind. Everything was such a disaster all of a sudden. Gitrin always used to know what to do. Figuring it out on my own was just too hard.

I paced the room a few times before finally sitting on the floor, my back against the wall, staring at the darkened classroom space. The quiet was a welcome relief after the riot in the plaza. My ears were still ringing from the protesters’ screaming—and Isaak’s incessant questions afterward. I was so tired of having to give him answers when I didn’t know what they were myself. I was just so tired.

Maybe Gitrin had been right. Maybe I wasn’t ready, after all.

I didn’t even realize I’d closed my eyes until I heard the voice.

“Where is Ceilos?”

My head jerked up at the words. I was no longer alone in the room. Gitrin sat in a woven-copper chair in the room’s center. And across the table from her sat another person.

Me.

I gasped, looking down at my hands, only to find I wasn’t really there. The only Nadin in the room was the other me, sitting anxiously on the copper stool, her hands clasped tightly together in her lap. “The evaluation is supposed to be taken as a partnership, isn’t it?” she asked. Her voice—my voice—sounded strange in my ears.

“You cannot rely on Ceilos for everything, Nadin,” Gitrin said, a knowing smile playing at her lips. “The head will never survive if the heart is too weak.”

The other Nadin frowned, her eyebrows scrunched up in confusion, but she tugged her earlobe, and the evaluation began. Questions about Iamos’ history, the procedures of the gerotus, basic political and scientific and mathematical knowledge—all blurred together in my ears and in my memory, the standard evaluation questions I’d been memorizing since birth. I’d answered flawlessly then, as the Nadin in the chair did now. A perfect exam score. No chance of failure. I would be a gerouin by the night of my enilikin.

Then Gitrin hesitated, looking solemnly at the girl who sat before her. “Nadin, what if there was a way to save Iamos?” she asked. “What would you do?”

The other me hesitated, her mouth half-open. “The geroi have initiated the evacuation plan. If all proceeds on schedule, all remaining Iamoi will be safely on Hamos within one year.”

“Not the evacuation. Something else,” Gitrin said. “Something that could return the atmosphere to Iamos. That could prevent the cataclysm.”

I opened my own mouth to respond, but no sound would come. My tongue felt weighted down.

“Surely if there were another way, the geroi would have already tried it,” not-me said.

“But what if the geroi were wrong? What if you knew of a way to save Iamos, but the geroi refused to use it? What would you do then?”

I knew the answer now. I ran over to Gitrin, crouched before her, waved my hands in front of her. The time postern. That was the answer—it had to be. Why hadn’t I realized it before, when it would have mattered? I tried desperately to speak, to get Gitrin’s attention, but she looked right through me.

“There could be no such scenario, Gitrin,” the other Nadin insisted, damning herself with each word. “The geroi’s first priority is the protection of Iamos. If there were a solution, they would not refuse it.”

I knew how this would end. I’d lived it and relived it almost constantly for the past week. Gitrin would look me square in the eyes and tell me, “You’re not ready.”

But the words didn’t come. Instead, Gitrin stopped and looked at me. Not the other Nadin, but me, though I wasn’t really there. When she spoke, something about her voice was not right—it echoed, reverberated, out of sync with the movements of her lips.

“The answer lies in freedom.”

The walls of the classroom began to melt around her, dripping into the dark stalactites of the cave. Hissing voices swirled around me, whispering, “Elytherios, elytherios,” in my ear.

I swallowed hard. My voice came back in a rush. “But what does that mean?” I cried.

“Seek, and you will find,” said Gitrin. “Begin where we began.”

“Elytherios, elytherios.”

The floor beneath my feet began to rumble and shake, cracking apart. “Wait, Gitrin! Please—”

“Find me in the place where freedom lies.”

The cavern walls ripped apart with a deafening crash, an explosion of rock and blazing-red magma. The air around me now was fire, black ash and suffocation. In the distance, I could see three mountain peaks, dripping with molten lava. Balls of flame tumbled from the sky.

“Gitrin!” I called, choking for breath. She was nowhere in sight.

The voices in my ear whisper-shrieked, “Ne’haoi ifaisteioi mesau elytherios.”

My eyes flew open, ears ringing from the sound of my own screams. I was alone again in the classroom. I must have fallen asleep without realizing it. My mouth felt dry, and loose strands of coarse white hair tickled at my face. I brushed them away in annoyance, breathing in deeply and slowly, willing my heart to slow down to its regular pace.

“Nadin?”

I jumped at the voice, but it was only Ceilos. He stood in the open doorway, peering at me across the darkened classroom, the phosphorescent stones casting reflections of purple and blue across his skin. He stepped into the room, pulling the sliding door shut quietly behind him.

“I thought I heard voices in here,” he said. “Are you alone?”

“Yes.” I wiped the crust from my eyes as he came to sit beside me, on my left. “I had a nightmare. What time is it?”

“Well after nightfall,” Ceilos said. “I came looking for you when you didn’t come to the evening meal.”

“I came in here to think. I must have fallen asleep.”

“It’s understandable. You’ve been through a lot. You haven’t stopped going since you left the hospital. Your body is still weak after last night, you know. You should rest more.”

“How am I supposed to rest with everything that’s going on? When Gitrin…” I drew my knees to my chest, not knowing what else to say.

Ceilos put his hand on top of my foot. “Nadin, I know you’re upset about it still, but… do you want to tell me about what happened with Gitrin last week? On the day of the evaluation? You’ve been so tense ever since then.”

I said nothing, just staring at his dark fingers against the silver of my boot.

He sighed. “You and Gitrin were so close. Inseparable. She was my tutor, too, after I moved here, but I never had that bond with her. So when she passed me and failed you…”

He trailed off, watching me expectantly. I squeezed my eyes shut, resting my forehead against my knees. “I don’t know, Ceilos. I don’t know what happened. She said so many strange things, she was acting so bizarre. None of it made any sense.” Unless she meant the time postern. But how could she have known about that, days before Isaak appeared? And then that message she left for me in her apartment. The scene from my nightmare played over again in my mind. The cracking earth, the mountain peaks. The sky engulfed with fire.

Elytherios.

“Did she say anything about the Liberator?” Ceilos asked. His voice sounded strange, and he had an odd look on his face—I’d never seen that look before.

I lifted my shoulders like I’d seen Isaak do. “I don’t know. Everything she said was just off. I don’t even remember half of it now.” I stretched my legs out, leaning my head back against the wall and looking up at the ceiling. “I’m just so tired, Ceilos.”

He frowned. “Nadin, maybe you should take a break. I can watch Isaak tomorrow—”

“No!” I blurted. He stared at me, mouth agape. “That’s my assignment. I have to prove myself to the geroi. For…” I glanced at him, then looked away. “For our future.”

He put his hand on top of mine, his palm over the back of my hand, long fingers threaded through mine. “I’m your partner, Nadin. No matter what Tibros says. You should be able to share some of your burden with me.”

I smiled, but the little niggle of worry from earlier began to gnaw at the back of my mind again. “Ceilos,” I said, “did you see those plivoi in the square earlier?”

“The ones the Enforcers arrested?”

“Yes. Did you see them before that? At the fountain?”

“I saw them when I was making my way over to you. I didn’t pay them much attention.”

I inhaled. “Did you think… what they were doing was… normal?”

Ceilos chuckled. “They are a bit more expressive than patroi,” he said with a grin. “But, you know… most patroi partnerships are arrangements of convenience. Caste, status, genetic traits—those are the things that matter. But I think… I think we’re different, aren’t we?” He shifted onto his knees, scooting in front of me. Slowly, gently, he cupped my cheek in his palm. “You’re not just a business arrangement to me.”

My eyes stung, but I blinked back the tears and tugged my earlobe with my right hand. “I care more about you than anyone else on Iamos,” I told him.

Ceilos smiled, the kind that spread from his lips to his eyes and lit up his whole face. The smile that was only for me. “Then I think this is completely normal.”

I stared at him in confusion, but then the next instant he had pulled my body up against his, softly pressing his mouth against mine just like the plivoi had in the plaza. He ran his fingers through my hair, pulling more strands loose from their messy braid. I didn’t know how to react. I just sat there, limply, while Ceilos’ lips caressed mine. But when he drew my lips apart and slipped his tongue into my mouth, I jerked back.

“Ceilos,” I squeaked.

He didn’t seem to notice my revulsion. His lips slid down the side of my neck, and his hands caressed my back, my thighs. His breath came out as a sigh. “I love you, Nadin,” he whispered, pulling my body closer to his, and I could feel the hardness of him beneath his clothing.

“Ceilos!” I cried again, louder this time.

He pulled away, his eyes unfocused and confused. “What is it?”

“I-I…” I was shaking. I didn’t know what to say. It was like I was asleep again, having some kind of horrible nightmare.

He blinked a few times, his eyes coming back into focus. “What’s wrong? Didn’t you like it?”

Why would I like that?! my mind screamed, but I couldn’t find my voice. I couldn’t bear to see the hurt on Ceilos’ face, couldn’t understand what I had done to cause it.

He pushed away from me, getting to his feet. “I’m sorry, Nadin,” he said, his voice impossibly small. “I thought… I thought you loved me, too.”

I jumped up after him. “I do love you!” I protested.

“Then why don’t you—” I flinched, and he lowered his volume. “Why don’t you want me?”

I had broken him. No, I had broken us. I could feel it as surely as the cold air around us, as the fading atmosphere outside the dome. Something was wrong with me, and it had ruined Ceilos and me forever. We could never go back.

I couldn’t stop the tears this time. They coursed freely down my face, burned my throat. “I don’t know,” I said.

Ceilos didn’t say another word. He just turned and left me there, alone in the dark. I slumped down to the floor, my face against my knees, my shoulders shaking with sobs. This had to be a bad dream. I’d wake up in the morning and Gitrin would be home. The last week would never have happened. There’d be no Isaak, no crisis on Hamos, no conflict with the geroi, no argument with Ceilos. We’d never be broken.

I’d never be broken.

I told myself over and over that it would be all right, but the tears wouldn’t stop coming. Because deep in my heart, I knew it was a lie.