Page 11 of Flickerstate

When I stride toward Candace, Bree hesitates but falls into step behind me.

“I’m Norah,” I say. “This is Bree. We’re your roommates.”

“Blockmates,” Candace says.

“What?”

“Academy students don’t live in nasty little rooms off dingy hallways. We live in what are, effectively, two-bedroom apartments with a common room for entertaining callers. These apartments are known as blocks. I’m sharing Lucasson 41B with Bree, who is, in fact, my roommate.Youmust have gotten the single, Lucasson 41A, which makes you my blockmate.”

Candace has a dry, soft voice, nothing special—except the steely confidence of her delivery makes you hang on to her words. No wonder her team killed at debate.

“Okay, blockmate,” I say. “How did you become the leper of the senior transfer class?”

Candace shoots a sly glance at Bree, who blushes. Then she folds up her sleeve. Shiny scars, raggedly circular, mark her inner arm from wrist to elbow.

I recognize their lamprey-mouth shape. These are bites from a common form of beast manifestation..

Candace has possibility wounds.Healedones.

“They demanifested? How?” I demand.

Hope slams my heart against my ribs. I’ve never met anyone with a healed bite before. Candace is proof, in the flesh, that Dad and I have a shot at surviving.

“I don’t know,” Candace says. “Why aren’t you bleating and fleeing like the rest of the herd?”

I don’t know?If not demanifestation, what healed the wounds?

Before I can ask, Bree cuts in. “I don’t think people know your bites are, um, inactive. That’s amazing. You should tell them. If you told them, they might be less crappy about it.”

“Theymight be less crappy?” Candace echoes.

Anger bubbles in my chest. There’s no proof the bitten pose a risk to others. But even if there were, Candace has healed. The usual superstitions don’t justify the stupid way our new classmates are acting. It makes me wonder how Jo’s faring, back at Saint Cat’s.Are the other girls recoiling from her, Dad’s sickness clinging to her like a bad smell?

I glare at the transfers. Nope, I’m not putting up with this. “Mind if I try something, Candace?”

She cocks her head. “Go on.”

I throw an arm around her. She stiffens, surprised, and then relaxes with a laugh. When I steer her into the crowd, kids gasp like I’m handling a copperhead.

“Hey, everybody,” I call. “I missed the introductions. Mind coming and telling us your names?”

The nearest transfer, the girl with the mole, stutters, “H-h-hi. I’m Aria.”

“Hi, Aria.” I offer her my hand without letting go of Candace.

Aria hesitates.

I keep my hand out. Yeah, let the momentstretch.Candace grins, small and sharky.

Another girl steps between me and Aria. She has mild resting bitch face and enviable hair, glossy chocolate sheets falling to her waist. She grabs my hand in a bone-grinding grip, pumps it, drops it, and turns to our audience. “Hello, senior transfers! I’m Mirabel Delgado. I run the peer mentor program.”

Uneasy fidgeting ripples through the little crowd. The transfers are realizing that while they chitchatted and (probably) whined about our late-ass student guide, she was hiding among them, eavesdropping. I imagine a filmy thought bubble above their heads:Were we being graded?

“Now we’re headed to the dining hall so you can meet your mentors. Follow me.” With a flick of her superlative hair, Mirabel strides off. The transfers hurry after her.

I slide my arm from Candace’s shoulders. “That was abrupt and strange.”

“Abrupt and strange is Mirabel’s thing,” Candace says. “You have a fine instinct for dramatics, has anyone told you that?”