“You okay?” he asked, amused. “You look a little lost.”

“I know exactly where I’m going, thank you very much,” Rylin replied neatly. She picked a random door on the right and started to push it open. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”

The door swung inward, right into the middle of a small mat-lined room, where two guys were grappling with each other on the floor. They looked up at her, startled, and Rylin quickly stumbled back.

“Of course, you know exactly where you’re going,” Cord agreed, “which is to JV wrestling practice.”

Rylin threw her hands up. “Fine. I have no idea how to get to fencing. Can you tell me where it is?”

Cord started walking. “I’ll do you one better. I’ll take you there.”

“It’s okay, just tell me,” she insisted, but he’d already left her behind.

“You coming?” he called out over his shoulder. Rylin cursed and trotted to catch up.

They walked silently down a hallway, its walls lined with brass plaques commemorating the school’s athletic records. Light danced on the silver and bronze statues arranged in careful rows behind the flexiglass cases. Rylin kept her head fixed on the awards, reading the names inscribed there without processing them, trying desperately to look anywhere but at Cord. She found herself absurdly grateful that, for once, her hair hung straight and shining to her shoulders, instead of being in its usual low ponytail.

“So, fencing.” Cord’s voice seemed to echo in the empty hall. “You do know that you can’t actually hurt people with the épées, right? They’re lined with magnetic fields that make them impact-resistant.”

Rylin rolled her eyes. “I’m not trying to impale anyone today, I promise.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” he said lightly. “Why are you going to fencing, then?”

“To film something for holography.” The class where you sit right in front of me, close enough for me to touch you, and we both refuse to acknowledge each other’s existence.

“That’s a good idea. It’ll be interesting, visually,” Cord said, and beneath his typical insouciance, Rylin could tell that he meant it. The realization warmed her.

“It would be better if I could make the team wear pirate clothes, but Leda refused,” she ventured, and was rewarded with the corner of a smile.

“I’d forgotten Leda was your partner.” Cord glanced at her. “The thing you should know about Leda is that she’s a lot of bark but no bite. And once you’re her friend, she’ll fight for you to the death.”

“Thanks,” Rylin said, puzzled. As if she and Leda Cole would ever be friends.

He shrugged and led her down another hallway. “I just want to make sure things are going okay for you. If I can help …” He trailed off, not quite making an offer, but Rylin’s breath had already caught in her throat. What was he trying to tell her? She felt tangled in a state of painful, sweet, unbearable confusion.

“You are helping,” she said. “I had no idea how absurdly big this athletic complex is. I almost expect to see stables here, with those fences that people jump horses over.”

“We passed the stables. They’re on the middle level,” Cord answered.

For a moment Rylin was struck speechless, until she looked at his face and saw the telltale smirk.

“Nice to see you’re still messing with me.”

“Nice to see you can still tell when I’m bullshitting you,” Cord replied.

They stepped up to an enormous set of double doors, beyond which Rylin could hear the sounds of swooshing metallic swordplay. She felt a pang of regret that the walk hadn’t been longer. It was nice, talking to Cord again. She wondered what he’d meant by the gesture, if he’d even meant anything at all.

“See you around, Myers,” he said, but Rylin called him back.

“Cord—”

He turned and looked at her, expectant. She swallowed.

“You don’t hate me anymore?” she asked, and her voice was very small.

Cord looked at her with a funny expression. “I never hated you.”

Rylin stood there quietly, watching his retreating footsteps. She couldn’t help admiring the length of him, the easy, confident way he moved, the way his head sat upon his broad shoulders. She wanted to run forward and take his hand, the way she used to, but managed to hold herself back. You can’t have him anymore, she reminded herself. He’s no longer yours.

A buzzer sounded in the fencing arena. With great effort, Rylin pushed the door open and started inside.

It was a wide oval room, with nondescript white flooring marked by colored squares that must be the piste. Two fencers from the varsity team slashed at each other, both of them dressed in white jackets and helmets, scuttling back and forth like drunken crabs. Their impact-resistant épées whipped through the air in thin, quick motions. It would look incredible on camera, Rylin thought approvingly.

Leda stood at the edge of the piste. Her silver vid-cam already floated above them, near the overhead lights. “There you are,” she hissed, not even glancing up as Rylin approached.

“Sorry. I got lost.”

“Looked to me like you were busy flirting with Cord, but what do I know,” Leda retorted.

Rylin gave a jerky nod. She didn’t owe Leda any sort of explanation, she reminded herself.

Finally, Leda lifted her eyes to look squarely at Rylin. “What is it between you two, anyway?” she asked bluntly.

Rylin felt somehow both angered and amused by Leda’s complete lack of tact. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I used to work for him, and now I don’t.”

Leda pursed her lips, as if she knew there was more to the story, but was willing to accept Rylin’s explanation for now.

They fell into silence, watching the fencing for a while, one or the other of them occasionally waving to change the position or angle of the vid-cam. Finally, something occurred to Rylin.

“Leda,” she decided to ask. The other girl looked over in irritation. “Last week, you said something about how the class is only open to seniors, that you got in because of an application essay. But I’m a junior, and I’m in—”

“I told you, you’re a fluke,” Leda said impatiently. “Think of it as a mid-semester exception, for the sole purpose of pissing me off.”

“And Cord is a junior, too,” Rylin went on determinedly, an eyebrow lifted.

Leda made an exasperated motion. “It’s different for Cord. After all, he has a building named after him. So, yes, he gets into any class he wants.”

Rylin felt a strange lurch in her stomach. “What building?” She thought she’d seen the names of all the buildings, especially after getting lost so much the past few weeks.

“Maybe I should have said buildings, plural,” Leda pronounced meaningfully. “The whole high school is named after Cord’s family. You wouldn’t have noticed, since you haven’t gone downstairs to the lower and middle schools, but everything on this floor—the entire high school—is technically the Anderton campus.”

The brief moment of closeness Rylin had shared with Cord seemed to dissolve into the air like smoke. Once again she was reminded of the vast distance between them, and how foolish she was to think that she could bridge it. How many times did the universe have to teach her the same stupid lesson? Here she was, at the same school as Cord, and yet she felt further from him than ever.

Rylin wanted to blame the difference in their circumstances: the fact that Cord’s family had endowed the entire upper school, while she was only here because a girl had died. But she knew that only explained part of what was keeping her from Cord.

The rest of it was her doing. She’d broken something in their relationship when she violated his trust.

She wondered if someday, maybe, she might be able to fix it—or if some things you couldn’t fix, no matter how much you wanted to.

CALLIOPE

CALLIOPE STRETCHED THE entire length of the lounge chair, pulling her arms overhead in a deliberately lazy gesture, though her body thrummed with alertness. How long till Atlas showed up? She knew he would be here; he was meeting with one of the hotel executives about some business negotiation or other. She took a distracted sip of her water, its non-melting cold cubes clinking together, and fiddled with the strap of her new crocheted one-piece.