Dear Miss McLellan,
Thank you for your application to the University of Ithilia’s Academy of Sciences. I am pleased to inform you that your application has been accepted and you have successfully passed the first round of admissions. We invite you to submit a secondary essay for consideration, followed by an interview with the academy Masters, before the decision to officially offer you a place at the university is made. Please return your essay to us by the twelfth of September. Interviews will be scheduled the first week of October. We look forward to hearing from you.
All the best,
Magdalena Lokis
Dean of Admissions
University of Ithilia
“I passed,” she said breathlessly. She looked up at Eneas, her eyes brimming with tears. “I passed the first round of admissions!”
A bird screeched and took flight from a nearby dogwood, and Eneas wrapped her up in a tight hug.
“Your mother would be so proud,” he whispered. “Now get upstairs before your father sees you!”
Agnes nodded and whirled around, not daring to breathe until she was back in her room. She collapsed onto her bed and read the letter several times before it really began to sink in that she had been accepted. Well, there were still a few more hoops to jump through, but that was better than no hoops at all. The essay shouldn’t be a problem, but her heart sank at the thought of an in-person interview. How was she ever going to get to Pelago by the first week in October?
There was a second sheet of paper containing instructions for the essay. It was only one sentence, which read, Please describe in detail the bravest thing you have ever done in the name of science.
The first thing that came to mind was the day she had asked her father to build the lab for her, but that didn’t seem very brave if you didn’t know Xavier McLellan. And it wasn’t any sort of scientific discovery but more of a personal triumph. All her experiments felt silly and childish, not anything she would classify as brave.
She sat on the edge of her bed and chewed at her thumbnail. She had to stand out. She had to think of something impressive, something unique. . . .
It hit her in a flash. The sprites. What could be bolder than sneaking onto an expedition in the name of science? And for a magical creature, no less? She could discover a new species. That should get their attention. She could steal one away back to her lab to study it.
She’d have to be careful. If she was caught . . . well, she didn’t want to dwell on that thought. But Agnes knew in her heart that this was the thing that would set her apart. She clutched the letter and felt her world turning, shifting, moving closer to what she so desperately wanted it to be.
She slid off the bed and slipped her hand under the mattress, feeling around for the slit she’d cut into its underside, her fingers digging into it until they touched the sharp edge of her most sacred and illicit possession.
Ever since she could remember, Agnes had wondered why there were no pictures of their mother in the house. Until one day, when she was eleven and playing at being the great Pelagan explorer Cadhla Hope, she discovered a whole box of them in the attic. There were letters, and pictures, and even a ring. But Swansea had found her—she’d only just slipped the photograph into a pocket she’d sewn on her skirt before she was yanked away and sent to her room.
When she’d snuck back to the attic the next night, the box was gone.
She pulled the picture out, leaning back against her bed. She didn’t know where it had been taken—somewhere in Kaolin, she assumed, but the countryside, not Old Port.
Her mother, Alethea Byrne, was standing with a bicycle in front of a small stone cottage with an arched door. The roof was thatched, and there was ivy growing up one side. She wore a thick sweater, pantaloons, and high-laced boots, one foot put up jauntily on a bike pedal, one hand on her hip. Her face was alight with joy. The camera had caught her mid-laugh, and the wind was playing with her curls—red, Agnes knew, though they were dark gray in the photo. She looked vibrant and happy and carefree. She looked alive.
On the back of the photograph, written in a looping scrawl, were the words:
Taken by X, March 12. Runcible Cottage, the Edge of the World.
Agnes traced her mother’s handwriting with a finger. She had tried to copy the style to no avail. Taken by X, March 12. Her father had taken this photograph. Of his wife laughing. With a bicycle. Wearing pants.
She flipped it over and stared at her mother’s face. “I’ve been accepted to the Academy of Sciences,” she said. “Well, almost accepted—I passed the first round of admissions. Eneas said you would be proud. Would you, Mother? Would you be happy for me?”
Her mother laughed and laughed but never answered.
Finally, Agnes shook herself and returned the photograph to its hiding spot. She tucked the letter inside a book on her nightstand. Then she got into bed, her brain whirring, planning and plotting for what tomorrow would bring.
11
Leo
LEO WAS EVEN HOTTER IN THE BACK SEAT OF THIS CRAPPY car than he’d been in the library in Old Port.
If the temperature rose any higher, his skin would melt off. He could already feel it on his hands and face, a creeping red that itched and burned when he scratched it.
There were no windows on the car, and only a canvas roof, so sometimes the sun would scorch him for hours and other times he’d be blissfully in the shade. His driving goggles were coated in dust. In fact, everything seemed to be covered in a fine layer of dirt—his brand-new boots, his shirt, his hair. Even his mouth felt grainy.
They had left at the crack of dawn and hadn’t stopped driving since. The man at the helm of this expedition was a burly beast named Branson, and he had three men under him, all dour fellows. One had a constant lump in his lower lip where he kept his chewing tobacco. Leo’s back seat companion was a consummate nose picker. Leo didn’t know anything about the man driving the supply truck behind them.
“How much farther?” he asked. He’d been asking the same question every hour for the past five hours. He couldn’t help himself. Why hadn’t they taken the railroad? It had a café car and large, comfortable seats, and there were plenty of stops in the Knottle Plains. And Leo always rode first class—one of the perks of being best friends with the future head of Conway Rail. But the more they had driven, the more he realized that they weren’t going to Alacomb or Oakbend or any of the cities in the more rural areas. They were driving right into the heart of the plains themselves, where there was nothing but grass and sky and more grass and more sky. But not nice, thick, green grass, like the fairways at the Old Port Country Club. This grass was tough and yellow, like straw. They’d passed streams and ponds that had all dried up, or had a trickle of sludge running through them at most. Many of the farmhouses looked abandoned. It was quite a depressing sight.
Branson grunted from the driving seat. That was the only answer Leo had gotten since the last time he’d asked.
Agnes would probably love it if she were here. She’d find a million weird insects to put in jars and dissect once she got home. Leo’s stomach turned just thinking about what might be lurking in the high grasses.
Several beads of sweat trickled down his lower back, pooling unpleasantly under his backside. He was aching for a shower. As it turned out, the Knottle Plains were boring. Maybe this was why his father hadn’t gone on the actual expeditions himself. He delegated it to ruffians like Branson. Did that make Leo a ruffian in his father’s eyes? No. He refused to believe that.