Page 24 of Flickerstate

“We need to talk strategy,” I say.

“Why?” Bree asks.

“To win. Why else?”

“Um.” She chortles. “Should we maybe consider more realistic goals?”

Candace side-eyes her. “Such as?”

“I don’t know about you guys, but I didn’t apply to the Academy just for the navigation. It was also about academics and meeting other kids who cared about learning and research and—basically anything other than getting high in the parking lot during free periods.”

“You’re here now,” I say. “You have those things. Those things are no longer goals.”

“Yeah, but…” As we pass the Great Tree, Bree trails her fingers thoughtfully through a low branch’s leaves. “Dr. Langmore told us to practice nav every day. And our regular classes aren’t skimping on homework either. At least, mine aren’t.”

Candace adjusts her cognac-leather satchel, once sleek, now bulging. “We all have heavy workloads.”

“Then why stress over the trials? I hear four-year students always win. Maybe we should get to a place with our nav where we don’t bleed in clinic and otherwise, you know, have fun with it?”

This is why I can’t deal with group projects, teamwork, cooperation, and all that touchy-feely crap. I can’t trust people to want things as much as I do. I can’t trust them to make the effort. Now my family’s future depends on a sweet, well-adjusted girl who thinksfunis a legitimate competitive aim.

Extreme stress can make navigators’ powers go wonky. Sometimes we navigate without meaning to. I haven’t navigated by accident since the day my power manifested. But now, as I hear my new teammate dismiss our shot at the Archive, my bottled-up dread explodes. Between steps, I fall into flickerstate.

Futures spin up from Bree like pink yarn. One possible Bree, floating tree-high, murmurs, “Okay, I’ll try my hardest—”

I wrench myself back to the real, panting and stumbling.

Bree puts out a hand. “You okay?”

Some people believe the number of possible futures is infinite.Maybe so. But the futures that navigators perceive most easily are the most probable ones. As a result, we can use what we see in flickerstate to guess, though never with total accuracy, what’s going to happen: to spy on people’s choices before they’ve chosen. Like, now I know that in some near future, Bree verbally commits to taking the competition seriously.

A creepy invasion of her privacy, I’m aware. But that’s not the worst part. When I saw Bree say what I wanted, I almost forced that future. Hijacked her free will.

Interfered.

I swallow bile.You didn’t do it. That’s the important thing. Right?“I’m good.”

“Norah and I want to do our best in all our classes,” Candace says gravely. “Including Navigation, where our grades partly depend on the competition.”

Bree fidgets with her curling ponytail. “Yeah.”

“And since we’re a team now, we succeed or fail together.”

“I mean, I know.”

“So Norah and I need you to go all in with us. Right, Norah?”

No secret coercion of Bree here. Just good, old-fashioned peer pressure. Blessings upon Candace and all her household. “Right,” I say.

We reach the dining hall. At the main doors, we veer off, finishing our conversation under an ornamental redbud.

Bree scrunches her face, confused and resistant. “Why do you guys care so much?”

She has a point. Studying hard, doing pretty well, and not stressing are reasonable priorities. But they’re notmypriorities. While I’m too shaken to say much, I hope Candace can persuade Bree to change hers.

“You remember these.” Candace taps her scarred forearm.

Bree flinches. “Yeah?”