The admiral’s brow dips so low, it forms a wall between his eyes. “You understand you’ll be forced to live isolated from Cancrian society, forbidden to return to anything or anyone you know?”
“I understand,” I say, opening my mind to memories I’ve been blocking out for a decade. They’re surprisingly well preserved and untarnished. I can’t believe I’ve found Mom again.
“Will you please let me see her? Under our laws, she’s allowed a final visit with family.”
He shakes his head. “That will not be necessary. We have never met your mother, nor do we know where she is. This was a test, which you have passed.”
Confusion flits through my features quickly, followed by relief: Mom’s not a traitor, I can have my life again.
And then anger.
Another test.
The white-haired lady takes a rickety step, leaning heavily on a cane. “I’m Agatha Cleiss, and this is my colleague, Dr. Emory Eusta.” She offers her hand, but I don’t exchange the traditional touch.
Her lips stretch into a sad smile. “My dear, forgive us. We’ve tricked you in a most barbaric way. This terrible tragedy has forced us to act in a cruel manner, and this lie was the quickest route to the answers we sought. If you’ll take a seat, we will explain.”
I bite hard on the inside of my lip, now angrier about the apology—it’d be easier to storm out of here if she didn’t seem so genuinely sorry.
The bald man beside her looks so real that only when I see his arm pass through the corner of a shelf do I realize he’s a hologram. Since Dr. Eusta shows no sign of a time delay, he must be transmitting from nearby.
I sit down on one of four cushioned chairs surrounding a square table, where a tray of water and sandwiches has been laid out. The sight of food makes my stomach rumble.
Crius sits across from me. His sallow skin has a fatigued grayish cast, and his mouth twists in a skeptical frown. “Have some refreshment.”
“No, thank you,” I say, over my stomach’s renewed protests.
Agatha lowers her gnarled body into the chair next to mine. “Why do you think you were tested twice at the Academy?”
“Because I failed the first time.”
She smiles sadly again, and her misty green-gray eyes grow distant. Across from me, Admiral Crius takes a dark stone from his pocket and lays it on the table. It’s smooth and oblong, and though it appears dull black at first, the longer I gaze at it, the more brilliant colors I see within its depths. Viridian blue-green, aqua, indigo, amethyst, even a scattering of crimson. And it’s not dull at all. It’s glossy slick.
“Black opal,” says Dr. Eusta. “It holds Guardian Origene’s Ephemeris.”
“As far as we can tell,” adds Agatha, “it’s in perfect working order. We don’t know why it failed to show the approach of this catastrophe.”
In this room at least, my theory about Astralators being insufficient is irrelevant. The Guardian and her Council are so good at foreseeing the future, they can interpret what’s coming from simply observing the stars’ movements. They don’t need an Astralator to tell apart what’s real from what’s imagined. That kind of natural Sight takes decades to develop.
Crius gives a voice command to switch off the lights, and we’re enveloped in cottony blackness. Now I’m thoroughly confused.
“Touch the stone,” says Agatha.
It’s a strange request, but I do it. From the moment they brought out the opal, I’ve wanted to hold it.
When I lift it in my hand, the stone feels warm. I roll it around my fingers, sensing tiny clefts in its smooth surface. The imperfections are so slight, they’re barely perceptible; but the moment I discover them, a shadowy mass begins to form in my mind, like I’m unscrambling a code.
The longer I brush my fingertip along the ridges, the more defined the shadow grows, until I recognize the configuration of bumps as part of a constellation.
Cancer.
As soon as I identify the image, a light fountains upward from the stone, and I shriek as it scatters through the air, filling the room with stars. The others stand in shocked silence, but it’s not the stone’s power that’s stumped them—it’s mine.
The opal is projecting a hologram of the universe. A large hologram, ovoid in shape, it’s the finest and most detailed Ephemeris I’ve ever seen. I stand inside its nimbus of light and spread my fingers, letting stars sparkle over my skin.
“You’ve discovered its key,” says Agatha, the amazement in her tone less than encouraging. “The ridges on the stone shift their shape every time the Ephemeris shuts off, so the lock changes. The key is always an incomplete map, so only those most familiar with our solar system could even hope to fill in the blanks and open it.”
“You mean that was another test?” I ask flatly.