Page 30 of Flickerstate

“How does the Academy get away with telling students to beat on each other?”

“Waivers.”

Crap. Yeah, over the summer, Mom and I did e-sign about fifteen different documents that the Academy emailed me, and I can’tclaim we read the six-point font. “Be that as it may, I won’t whale on you now just ’cause I missed my chance last year.”

“I got the sense you wouldn’t mind whaling on me.”

I’m dismayed—does he really think I enjoyed hurting him?—until I see the laughter in his eyes. “I wouldn’t mind whaling on youon purpose.Doing it by accident feels cheap.”

He grins. “Noted. What do you propose instead?”

I want to snap that he’s the Academy wunderkind, so he should tell me. But that wouldn’t be fair. He’s willing to let me blunder around and hurt him. I’m not, so I’m the one who has to find a workable alternative. “What if… What if I channel to you? Maybe seeing it from the other side will help me learn faster.”

“We can try.” He holds out his hand, the unbloodied one, palm up.

Gingerly, I take it.

Flickerstate blooms around me: wrathful red, bright gold, and laminate translucency. It’s getting easier for me, I notice, to slip into this half-real place.

Lend Vik my nav. Lend it. For a little while.

I imagine a fiery rope, one end knotted around my heart. I imagine tossing the other end to Vik, where he laces the air with precious metal.

The rope tautens, pulsing as energy flows from me, a sensation like giving blood.

Then I remember how it was with Mirabel, less like giving blood than like lying paralyzed while she cut out my kidneys. Vik saidlend, but how do I know he’ll give itback?

I grab the rope and pull. There’s no resistance. When my nav snaps back to me, I fall out of flickerstate and off my rock.

I sprawl in the grass and blink up at Vik. The trees behind him are regaining their green, the sky shifting from black to vibrant navy.

“What happened?” he asks. “Did I hurt you?”

I climb to my feet and brush off my leggings, avoiding his eyes. “No. I freaked out.”

“Why?”

“You’ve never freaked out when someone grabbed your nav?”

“Not when I’m trying to channel to them. Sure I didn’t hurt you?”

“I’m sure, it’s—” I stop before mentioning Mirabel. I’m not going to blame my mistake on his teammate giving me a boo-boo. “My bad. We’ve got three options now. I channel to you again. You channel to me again. Or we try leaguing.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want our practice so far to have been less humiliating.”

He laughs. “Sorry. Nav and humiliation are like peanut butter and jelly. I’ll channel to you again. Ready?”

***

For the next half hour, Vik and I fail at channeling. At 6 a.m., we call it quits. A pristine sunrise filters through the trees as we trudge up the footpath. I dread what Vik will say when we reach the courts:Sorry, you’re useless. Deal’s off.

On the lawn beyond the trees, he pauses. “Same timetomorrow?”

“But I sucked,” I blurt. “We didn’t even get to leaguing.”

He flashes that radiant-nanosecond grin. “When you try something new, you suck at first. See you.”