“She and Analeigh knew something happened. She saw me run after you like some kind of lovesick stalker, and it’s not like the rumor mill isn’t going to be churning with the news of our sanction this morning, anyway. Would you rather we lied about it like there’s something to hide?”
His face fell and I almost felt sorry for him. Whatever else was going on, Oz clearly cared about Sarah and their relationship. After meeting Caesarion, I understood. The thought of disappointing him or making him hurt, even unintentionally, twisted my heart into a knot. It softened me toward this boy whose secrets were an infuriating source of dangerous intrigue.
“I had to tell her, Oz. I mean, maybe you and I each have something to hide, but we don’t have anything to hide. And that’s what she would have thought.”
He nodded, eyes downcast. “Thank you for telling me.”
We moved down the hall toward the wing that held the Elders’ offices. The space where judicial panels were held sprang off Zeke’s office, the rooms sort of modeled after a courtroom or judges’ chambers on Earth Before.
“I didn’t enjoy kissing you either, you know,” I added, even though it sounded defensive. I just couldn’t let him think I’d been all weak in the knees over his dorky lips.
Oz shot me a wry smile. “Noted.”
“What did they say to you after I left?”
That one question changed the air between us, folded it up and sucked it into a black hole until we might as well be standing on opposite sides of the System. Oz’s face shuttered, all of the openness of a few minutes ago wiped away, replaced by a blank slate. He rubbed his jaw, winced.
“Oz. Please. I know something’s going on. We might only be apprentices but we’re still Historians. We protect the past. Ensure the future.”
“Since when do you take duty and oaths seriously, Kaia?”
The stinging insult flung hard into my gut. The hours spent with Caesarion tried to hammer me with guilt, but those impulsive visits didn’t negate my belief in this institution. “I may not always follow the rules, Oz, but I wouldn’t put the future of humanity at stake.”
“But I would?” he challenged.
“I don’t know. Would you?”
Oz shook his head, refusing to look at me. “You don’t know anything.”
“If you’re not putting us in danger, then you must be able to predict trajectories. To know for sure the effects you are creating. How?” I tried hard to keep the desperation from my voice, but the flicker in his gaze said he’d heard it.
“That’s impossible. Your imagination is getting the best of you. Again.”
He was lying. Like calls to like, in science and in life. To my untruthful brain, untruths sang loud and clear.
“Jonah said something dangerous is going on at the Academy. I think you know what it is.”
“I thought you hadn’t spoken to him since he left?”
“You’re determined that I’m not special enough to be privy to your secrets, so why should you be privy to mine?”
“Your brother is a delinquent and a criminal. If anyone is a danger to the continued validity of the System, it’s him.”
This was going nowhere. He wouldn’t admit he knew anything about a project that was a secret from the apprentices. Jonah had insinuated that the Elders—well, at least Zeke—were behind it. So, how did Oz, not even a full Historian yet, fit in?
In a last-ditch effort, I reached out and wrapped my fingers around his strong, pale forearm, dragging him to a stop. His skin pricked under my palm before he pulled away as though my touch pained him.
“Oz. If you need help, you can trust me.”
His rain-cloud eyes grew heavy, as though holding tight to a storm of confessions that begged to break free. I hoped my own dark brown gaze urged him to give in, said I could be his friend, because it was true. If for no other reason than to help Sarah, I would be Oz’s friend in this—whatever that meant.
I found that, after everything, I did care about him and not just because of how his fate intertwined with my friend’s. Our history did indeed count for something.
After what seemed like an eternity, but probably lasted only a minute or less, he shook his head. Black chunks of hair flopped in front of his glasses, and he raked it back with his long fingers. “I can’t trust anyone,” he said softly, before turning and walking the last few steps to the judgment chamber alone.
*
The sanction meeting had gone about as well as expected, except they’d declared mopper duty for a month, not two weeks. And not together, of course, given their assumption that the two of us couldn’t keep our hands off each other.
Ugh.
Elder Truman refused to even look at Oz, his eyes hard, lips set in a grim line. Oz’s mother had died giving birth to him, but aside from his gray eyes, all of his physical traits must have come from her. Truman definitely seemed like the type who would never get wrapped up in a relationship, True or not. That his supposedly perfect son had made such a cosmic error in judgment probably embarrassed him half to death, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that emotion came out of him as anger. A brief stab of worry sliced through me and I glanced again at the bruise on Oz’s cheek.
Oz probably had quite the time explaining his tryst with me, given that he’d been gifted with the rarest of loves. Boys were weird, though. Maybe he blamed it on cold feet or sewing wild oats or some other such nonsense.
Caesarion had sown his own wild oats—probably wilder ones than Oz could dream up—and it wasn’t like I’d never had a crush, or butterflies, or been kissed before now, but even so. If I’d gotten to keep what Caesarion and I had—if we had been as lucky as Oz and Sarah—I would never even look at another guy again.