“Where’s—”
“Holy Mother.” Deke bows at me from the other end of the room, his back against the wall and eyes looking straight ahead. It’s a Zodai stance, the same one Mathias assumes sometimes.
“Deke—” I move toward him, but he edges away.
Nishi marches up to him. “You’re seriously acting this way? She’s still Rho, our best friend—”
“Nish, it’s okay,” I say, even though it isn’t.
Shaking, I pull out a chair at the table Lola and Leyla laid out with drinks, fruit, and an assortment of seafood. Kai sits across from me. Soon, Nishi takes the chair next to mine, and once we’ve started eating, Deke slips into the last seat, his eyes never straying from the tablecloth. He loved his sisters as much as I love Stanton. Of course I understand.
“There are eighteen girls and thirty-three guys, and we’re split into two bunkrooms.” Nishi is rattling off a lot of the same information she told me yesterday, but I know she’s just trying to lighten the mood. “Most of the others are young, between twelve and fourteen.”
That’s probably why they didn’t come to the party. I stab a piece of fruit with my fork and stuff it into my mouth, even though I’m not hungry. “How does the training work if you’re all at different levels?” I ask through the food, trying to latch onto safer subjects.
“The three of us, plus a fifteen-year-old named Freida, are in the advanced group,” says Nishi, passing me her napkin so I can wipe the fruit juice trailing down my chin. “Everyone else works with Stargazer Swayne, who teaches more basic stuff.”
“When are you going home?” I ask her. It’s hard to believe there are people in the universe who can still do that.
“They don’t really have the ships to spare right now. Since there will be representatives from other Houses coming to your swearing-in ceremony, I’m hitching a ride with the Sagittarian envoy.”
The thought of Nishi leaving me to do this alone is unbearable. Now that I’m with her, I don’t even know how I made it this far. After tonight, I can’t go back to the loneliness of the past few days.
“Did you read anything in the stars today?” she asks, her voice lower. Kai leans into the table, eager to listen. Deke stays still, staring at the table.
I shake my head. “Lately, I can’t . . . concentrate.” My voice breaks. At this, Deke’s head tilts slightly, and his eyes almost look up.
“Of course you can’t, Rho,” says Nishi, surveying me with her sharp amber eyes. She squeezes my hand. “You’re human, you can’t block out everything that’s happened to you and your House.” In a whisper only I can hear, she adds, “It’s okay to feel your pain before walling it off.”
I wipe a tear before anyone can see.
In what feels like barely any time at all, there’s a knock on my door, and the officer outside informs me it’s the base’s curfew. Kai hugs me on his way out. He seems to have reverted to his nonspeaking ways—he didn’t say a word the entire night.
I look down when Deke passes me, not wanting to feel the pain of his rejection again. But he stops in front of me. I chance a peek, and he offers me his fist for the hand touch. It’s not a hug, but I still take it.
When she’s the last one left, I grab Nishi’s hand. “Can you stay a sec?”
She’s the only person who trusted in my visions, even when I didn’t, so she’s the best person to consult now. She pokes her head out and tells the officer, “Holy Mother needs me a few more minutes. I’ll catch up.” When she closes the door behind her, there’s a gleam of excitement in her eyes. “What is it?”
I dive right in. “Back on Elara, I saw something . . . strange. I’d activated Instructor Tidus’s Ephemeris, and when she turned it off, a series of holograms drowned the room. They were diagrams that looked like the usual stuff we all have on our Waves—history of the galaxy, layout of the stars, facts about the universe. Only her version of the Zodiac included an unnamed constellation. A Thirteenth House.”
Nishi’s eyes grow wide. Cancrians can be very skeptical, often because we’re so quick to get our hopes up that our first instinct is to protect ourselves; but Sagittarians will accept even the most incredible truths, as long as they trust the source.
“Instructor Tidus wouldn’t have kept that fact stored on her Wave if she didn’t believe it was real,” says Nishi, her reasoning soon out-speeding mine. “That means there must be evidence somewhere of a Thirteenth House, enough evidence that she would trust it . . . and something that big will surely have a trail.”
“Follow it,” I whisper, darting a glance at the door to make sure we’re not overheard. I don’t want to panic anyone until I have all the facts. “Find out what you can.”