Hanji doesn’t realize what she’s handed me. I grin, trying my best to look like I’ve just had the idea. “Feeling like I could streak the officers’ quarters.”
There are some words that have a little magic in them. Some words you have to be careful tossing around because they dig into people’s consciousness in such visceral ways. Some words you know are dangerous, especially on a dangerous day like today.
I’ve said some of those words.
A hush falls over the people packed around me, and Ollins wobbles on his table. “You’re ruttin’ kidding me,” he says. “You would actually—”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Hell yeah, I would! Bet I’d get farther than you too. Bet I could go all the way up to the head’s door and back.” Murmurs and laughter rise from the cadets around us.
I tip my glass at him. “Let’s do it. Let’s all do it.”
For a moment, Ollins stares at me. Then he hoists his glass high and screams, “HELL YEAH.” The crowd roars along with him, and the officers in the back slump lower in their seats, clutching their drinks tighter.
I down my polish in three quick gulps. Partly because with all eyes on me, there’s no avoiding it. Mostly because I’m going to need all the courage I can get.
* * *
—
We gain people as we go. The thirty in the cantina are drunk enough to accept the notion immediately, but as we make our way to the barracks, they start recruiting from whoever’s passing by. We’re a chaotic, shrieking herd of animals, whooping and hollering as we stumble through the halls, and we’ve swollen to a number I can’t accurately count.
Somehow I have to dislodge myself from them, but that means dislodging Rin from me first. She’s still got her arm snaked around my waist, and it feels like I’m the only thing keeping her upright. Every time I try to slip her grip, she only holds on tighter. She stopped saying words that made sense around the time we stood up from the bar.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I grab the hem of my shirt, and predictably enough, she lets go immediately, shrieking in delight.
“Damn, Nassun’s going for it!” Hanji hollers behind me as I pull my shirt off and throw it aside. And like that, the chain reaction’s off. Not to be outdone, Ollins is already staggering out of his pants. Rin yanks her tank over her head, and as the tidal wave of haphazardly disrobing cadets rounds a corner, it’s too easy to slip away.
I didn’t anticipate losing my shirt, but with the rate the drunken crowd is moving, there’s no time to go back for it. I duck out through a side door, cursing as the chill of the night hits me. Overhead, the sky is clear, the distant lights of roving transports tracing lines between the stars. With nothing but open plains surrounding the academy, the vast dark of the universe seems monstrous.
No time to admire it. I haul ass along the barracks to the rows of poorly maintained hedges that decorate part of the green. My head’s buzzing from the polish, and it takes me several extra seconds to figure out which one has my bag in it.
The whoops and yells inside the dorms are growing louder. Lights flicker on in the officers’ quarters. There’s a distant, muffled crash.
I sling the bag over my shoulder and take off running again, fixing my eyes on the uppermost floor of the officer barracks. The top brass sleeps up there, and I’m fairly certain the windows at the far end correspond to the head’s rooms. There’s a faint glow inside. Gods of all systems, I hope I’m right. Otherwise this is going to get awkward fast.
It takes my polish-blunted fingers way more time than I anticipated to get the ascension harness on properly. Four attempts to clip my blaster to my belt. Three tries to shoot the grappling line in the right place. But my head clears right away when my feet leave the ground. I steal up the side of the barracks, pressed flat against the stone, trying my best to keep away from the windows. As I climb, the chaos inside climbs with me. Ollins has the luck of a devil when it comes to betting, but he had better make good on this one—if this is going to work, my mob of streakers has to make it to the sixth floor.
But they aren’t meeting any resistance, and who can blame the officers for not trying? It’s hard to keep a smile off my face, imagining the scene inside. I wish I could be in there with them, naked, drunk, and manic. Instead I’m outside, dangling from a rope, freezing my ass off, and waiting for the moment their chaos hits the corridor inside the window I’ve chosen for my entrance.
Now I have time, so I hang my head back and admire the stars. The lights of the academy compound drown out all but the brightest. A few of our system’s planets are visible tonight. I pick out the inner world of Imre and imagine the furious vector the system governor must be burning to get here from his winter estate. The trip will take him two days minimum with the intrasystem limits on travel speed, but every second of delay brings us closer to the moment he steps in with blood-granted authority that no one but an imperial can question. And something tells me that once Berr sys-Tosa arrives, he won’t be yielding to the command of an unripened Umber. Gal has to get out of here before that happens.
Even with the distant movements of satellites, stations, and ships above, everything feels far too still for the way my heart is racing.
Unintelligible shouting from inside snaps me back into reality. I recognize Ollins’s voice, and a grin splits my face even as a shudder of anticipation runs down my spine. I pull my blaster off my belt, brace against the stone, and fire a quick line of pulses along the base of the window. It splinters, then shatters, the glass falling away in a glimmering shower.
I whisper a prayer of thanks to all gods listening that the academy head chose comfort over security when he locked Gal away. With a kick off the wall, I swing into the window frame, using my boots to knock away the last of the glass.
The suite inside is plush. Far nicer than anything I’ve seen in my time at the academy. Fancy carpets, velvet drapery, soft orbs of warm light scattered around. And in the middle of it all, looking scared to pieces but still somehow smiling, is Gal emp-Umber.
“Ettian,” he says, crossing his arms. “Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”
CHAPTER 5
I SCOWL, BUT I can’t commit to it. Seeing him safe is too much of a relief. If I weren’t worried about the broken glass, I’d sag against the window frame.
No time for that. Already the ruckus is moving past us in the corridor outside the suite. “We need to move,” I say, glancing around the room in case there are more guards than the ones I knew would be posted in the hall outside his door. When my gaze lands on Gal again, I frown. “What the hell are you wearing?”
Gal shrugs. The fact of the matter is he’s wearing a brightly colored robe, loose silk pants, and no shoes.