Page 80 of Flickerstate

She doesn’t care whether I’m okay. She cares whether I’m okaywith her. I step back. “I need—”

“Wait—” She grabs my arm again, directly over the bite this time.

“You reallyareweak,” I snap, wrenching from her grip. “Did you eventryto win your duel?”

Her wet eyes widen and spill over.

Candace glares, her expression telling me, clear as day, that I’ve crossed a line. Griffin stares at me too, face shifting from confused to understanding. But what does he understand? He’s not dying; his family’s not dying. (Anymore, the voice whispers.) Vik frowns at the ground.

Before anyone else can speak to me—orgrabme—I flee toward the athletic fields. I fly like a homing pigeon for the nearest basketball court and collapse cross-legged in the center circle. As I face the woods, its leaves a riot of yellow, orange, and red, I hate the trees for their long lives, and I hate the hoops for reminding me of Dad. There’s a photo of him on Mom’s nightstand in his blue-on-white college basketball uniform, two years older than I am now,mid-jump shot. Anytime I asked about that photo, he swore he threw an air ball. Mom, rolling her eyes, told him not to lie for a laugh: It was the first game of his she ever went to; she remembered the whole night perfectly, and he made the shot.

Tears burn my eyes.

I hear footsteps behind me. I hope against hope they belong to Vik.

“Norah,” Griffin calls.

Of course it’s not Vik. Why would he follow you after everything?

I blink hard. By the time Griffin has circled around to my front, my eyes are dry.

He lowers himself to the asphalt an arm’s length away. “You were never going to win,” he says, not unkindly. “Bree would’ve lost to anyone on my team. That’s not her fault. But for what it’s worth…Vik’s been one of the best navigators at the Academy since he got here. Maybe the best.”

A sense of unreality descends on me. I lost my shot to save my life and Dad’s, and Griffin has decided now’s the time to sing his team’s praises to my face. “Okay?”

Griffin laughs. “Give me one single ounce of credit. I’m not talking to talk. What I mean is, he’s been top of the class forever, and you stalemated him after a few months of formal training.”

“My team lost.”

“The team thing’s bullshit. If the point of the trials is to make the best nav students Archive assistants, we should compete individually. If we had, you’d be coming with me to the Archive. That’s all I wanted to say.”

“Oh.” I can’t summon a better response. Does he expect his approval to matter to me?

He ducks his head, blond hair falling over his eyes, photogenic despite the sweat darkening his roots. It’s like a film director told him to play a bashful boy. “Actually, the thing about the competition wasn’t all I wanted to say. I guess Thanksgiving break technically starts tomorrow, but when we’re back on campus…could we get dinner? There’s something I wanted to ask you.”

“Ask me now.” Tomorrow I could be dead.

“Maybe right now’s not the best—”

“Ask me now.”

“Okay, okay, dictatoress. You know Winter Formal?”

“Bree brought it to my attention.”

“Ah. Right. Are you still not planning to go?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

“Uh.” He grins. “That far ahead? It’s in three weeks.”

I shrug.

“Now that I’ve reminded you…would you think about going with me?”

I’m going to die, and one of the people who signed my death warrant—who just manifested in flickerstate as awhirlpool of blood—is asking me to a high school dance. I stare at him blankly.

He peeks at me from beneath his photogenic hair and winces, laughing. “Wow. Fine; I didn’t expect you to say yes anyway.”