9. Ella

Chapter 9

Ella

A message from Akio was waiting for Ella when she powered her phone back on the next day.

Akio: Thought you’d want to know that your other boot is in my car. If you’d like to retrieve it, come join us for breakfast. There are waffles here with your name on it. Jo will leave the door unlocked for you.

Ella spent that entire weekend with Josefyn and Akio. The three of them came together for every meal. They joined her on all her walks with Freya. They talked for hours on end without pause. By the conclusion of the weekend, Ella wasn’t sure she’d ever laughed that hard in her entire life, her abdomen still aching from the residue of pure happiness. Throughout her hike to the academic sector on Monday morning, she replayed the memories from that weekend on a relentless loop, reexperiencing the comradery she’d found with Jo and Akio while unable to wipe the smile from her face.

The images grew foggy whenever she strained to remember how she returned home the night of The Dow. The camera roll in her head from that night finished off when Josefyn and Akio dropped her off at her dormitory. She’d woken up the next morning on her couch, Freya licking her cheek, and her trash bin next to her, unsure how she made it inside her apartment when what she last remembered was being unable to find her keys. Whatever the truth was of how she managed to get through the door appeared in her brain like a picture blotted with black ink, obstructed and impossible to see through. She treasured the carousel of moments from the last few days that she could remember, which gave her a glimmer of hope that she may be able to survive in Cavale after all.

Ella’s smile washed away when she stepped into her office and discovered that Kellen Kilic had commandeered her space.

She froze at the threshold, her fingers garroting the door handle as she watched the Varmin department head splay his feet out on her desk.The same desk she’d spent an hour on Friday before she left for the weekend scrubbing with disinfectant after a seven-year-old songbird-shifter vomited maggots—she wished she were kidding—all over the mahogany surface, having mistaken her office for the nurse’s station. She cocked her head at Kellen when it took him a whole minute to look up from the notebook he was perusing and notice her standing there.

“Rose,” he tossed at her over his shoulder in his clipped version of a greeting, then threw in for good measure, “Your zipper is down.” Her eyes and fingers dropped down to her slacks on instinct, discovering them fully zipped. Kellen’s grin revealed a soft dimple in the center of his cheek.

She set her hands on her hips. “Kilic? What’s wrong with this picture?”

Kellen’s eyes swept over the room, scanning the desk, then drifted to the floor, where his brows lifted in recognition.

“Ah,” he exclaimed, dipping to the ground to pluck a discarded gum wrapper from off the carpet, tossing it in the nearby trash. “There we go.”

“No!” she cried, slamming the door shut. “What’re you doing in my office when I’m not in here?”

“I needed quiet. Isn’t this supposed to be a safe zone?” He spoke those last two words between air quotes and with derision as he pointed to the sign she’d hung up on the wall that read this is a safe space for you to be who you are.

“If you don’t respect the safe zone, then you don’t get to benefit from the safe zone,” she hissed.

“You better work on your comebacks if you intend to survive the school year.” Ella’s eye twitched.

“You have your own classroom,” she reminded him.“ With your own office.”

“The Varmin student council took over my classroom for their meeting. I told them to go somewhere else, but they said all the other classrooms were full.”

Ella scoffed, “Oh, so it’s a problem when other people lay claim to your space, but it’s totally fine for you to take overmine?”

“Yes.” He didn’t hesitate. There was nothing sweet about the smile that unfurled over his lips.

“You are unbelievable,” she grumbled, dropping her briefcase on the couch and shedding her coat. When she looked further, she realized that Kellen had her notebook within his grasp, the one where she kept all her notes about her interactions with students. She stretched across the desk and snatched it from between his fingers. “This is confidential,” she asserted, hugging the book to her chest.

“That’s your favorite word, isn’t it?” he sneered.

“Ever heard ofprivacy?The children are entitled to it, and so am I.”

“You are entitled tonothingin Cavale, Ms. Rose. You need to stop clinging to your arbitrary human laws. They mean nothing here.”

“I don’t care if they mean nothing here. They mean something to me.” Kellen opened his mouth to respond, but then his gaze fell onto her sweater. Ella typically wore to work colors and shapes that wouldn’t bring too much notice to her, but today, she’d had the urge to step outside of her comfort zone, choosing a fuchsia sweater with a straight neckline that was more fitted then what she would normally grab. “Are you even listening to me, or just staring at my chest?” she snapped.

“Purple,” he whispered to himself, as though he were tucking away important information in his brain.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” He cleared his throat before resting the back of his head against the wall behind him. “Oliviana is back today,” Kellen reminded her, folding his fingers together over his stomach.

“I know,” Ella mumbled to herself, setting her notebook on the desk to avoid his eyes.

“Are you scared she’ll return with a vengeance, earthborn? Maybe she enjoyed her visit to Terminus and wants to make it permanent.”

Ella glanced at Kellen, unable to read if he was messing with her or actually trying to warn her.

“Has that ever happened before?” she asked quietly.

“No, Oliviana would be the first. She’s a masochist. I would know from personal experience.”

“What, from having sex with her?” Ella scoffed, her volume rising along with her irritation.

He slanted his head to the side. “Does the idea of me having sex with her bother you, Rose?”

“You wish. You’re just so predictable. Of course you’re fucking her. And I already know you’re about to tell me it’s not serious, because you don’t do serious, right? That’s not your thing? ” His silence spoke volumes. “You know what? Good for you, Kilic. Go be a depraved cliché somewhere else. This is my office for the next nine months, and I’d really like to have it back now.”

Kellen didn’t move a muscle. He kept grinning at her, his absurd, impish smile burrowing painfully under her skin.

“What’re you doing?” she growled.

“It’s called a smile, sweetheart. Ever heard of one?” Ella recognized her own words.

“You do realize that copying is the sincerest form of flattery, so by you quoting me back to me, you’re basically admitting you think I’m a genius.” Kellen just rolled his eyes. Ella finally reached her limit and clapped her hands. “Alright. Playtime’s over. Get out of my chair, Kilic. Some of us have actual work to do.”

Kellen finally released her chair from detention and allowed her to reclaim it. He started walking to the door, but suddenly came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the room and spun right back around.

“Oh, I almost forgot! I have something for you.” He reached into his trouser pocket and produced a tiny block of taffy wrapped in white packaging that had the words Tootsie Roll emblazoned over it. He placed the tootsie roll right on her keyboard, over the letter K . “For you to stuff up your ass,” he drawled as his final words, swaggering to the door.

“I HATE YOU!” she screamed, chucking the taffy at the back of his head. It tumbled onto her carpet as he closed the door behind him.

Since Kellen left her office that morning, Ella felt the hefty weight of dread surround her shoulders as she waited for her unavoidable confrontation with Oliviana. Fear stalked after her when she was summoned to the Herculea sector to, once again, deal with Oken and his rage, though she escaped this encounter with no broken bones. It nestled deep within her bones every time her amulet vibrated and she checked to make sure she wasn’t being summoned to the Meteoro sector. She eventually grew so anxious, the pit in her stomach swelling to the point of near rupture, that she messaged Akio and Josefyn.

Ella: Have either of you seen Oliviana Bryan today?

Ella chewed her thumbnail, realizing she’d nearly gnawed the nail down to the nub, then withdrew her hand from her mouth, opting instead to curl her fingers around her Diet Coke mug to distract from the urge to nibble.

Josefyn and Akio’s answers disbanded the pit in her chest, releasing her lungs from imprisonment.

Akio: Not here today. The wind-bender classroom borders the Cerebri sector, so if she was here, I would’ve seen her.

Josefyn: I heard she called in “sick” and Headmistress Dyer is PISSED. Maybe the Gods will smile upon you and she’ll be fired?

Ella: One can only hope. The Gods seem to like me quite a bit.

Akio: You know the saying. If you want to make the Gods laugh, tell them your plans and wait for them to scream FUCK YOU in your face.

Ella: No offense, but your Gods don’t sound very nice.

Akio: Fuck, whatever about the nature of Primordials gave that away? (I hope you can hear my loving sarcasm).

Ella: You ruined the joke by explaining it, Kio.

Josefyn: Sorry, my love, but I have to agree with Ella.

Akio: Wow. Betrayed by my wife and friend. However will I recover from this blow to my confidence?

Josefyn: I’ll make it up to you tonight in the bedroom ;) Are you coming to Power Practice today to observe Jamie, El? She just got here.

Ella: On my way there now. Don’t let your co-teacher lock me out.

Josefyn: Wouldn’t dream of it.

“Hey,” Ella called out to Josefyn as she edged her way inside the serpent-shifter dome. Josefyn sat perched on the bench against the wall, violet hair woven in an intricate fishtail design. Two loose curls wiggled free from the braid and framed her gaunt cheeks. “I have a present for you.”

Ella tossed Kellen’s tootsie roll to Josefyn.

Jo caught the candy with one hand, unfurling her fingers to observe the tiny object balanced in her palm.

Once she read the writing on the wrapper and realized what this was, she cackled, “ This is the size of a tootsie roll? You compared his shaft to this?” Josefyn whistled through her teeth. “You’re a savage, El.”

“Kilic left this on my desk this morning, after breaking into my office, and told me to stuff it up my ass.”

“Seriously?” Jo snorted. “This war of wills between the two of you sure is entertaining to watch.”

“Not so enjoyable to live, but I’m glad we’re giving you a nice show.”

Ella sat next to Josefyn on the bench. Josefyn held the small candy up to her face, hugging it with her thumb and index finger before examining the way it rolled between her fingers.

“How did he even get one of these? Aren’t they Earthly Plane candies?”

“He must’ve known somehow that the fridge in my office can make any food I want, which tells me he’s been inside my office when I’m not there more times than I’m aware of.” The thought made her stomach churn. “The fridge was a gift from Headmistress Dyer so I wouldn’t have to go into the teacher’s lounge anymore. I was getting pummeled every time I went there.”

“I’m sorry. That’s so sad.” Jo sniffed the tootsie roll. “I feel weird putting this in my mouth now.”

“Give it to Akio without the wrapper. Tell him what it is after he’s already eaten it.” Jo dissolved into gales of laughter.

“You’re a genius. Where have you been all my life?”

“In another dimension,” Ella bantered, her eyes sweeping over the twelve pairs of students engaging in combat exercises. The sixteen-year-old Primordials each wielded wooden swords with padded hilts as they emulated what Mr. Armstrong was displaying at the front of the room with a dummy.

“Stand in a sloped position with bent knees,” Mr. Armstrong shouted to the students, arching his knees to show what they needed to imitate. “This is the only time you’ll be encouraged to make yourselves small. It aids you to present yourself as a smaller target, especially at the start of a clash. Underestimation will be your friend in battle. Preserve your strength for later.”

“It’s combat day, I see,” Ella muttered to herself.

“We switch off every day for Power Practice,” Josefyn explained. “One day, combat training. The next day, power training. I teach power training, while Mr. Armstrong teaches combat.”

“And they’re training to fight in the war against Lantari?” Josefyn nodded. “Why is Cavale at war with Lantari?”

“It’s a long story that we don’t have enough time to get fully in depth with, but I’ll try to give you the cliff-note version now.” Jo shifted her body to face Ella. “The Lantarians are a species known as Sireres.”

“What are Sireres?” Ella had meant to make a trip to Delmarth’s library and research the story behind the war between Cavale and Lantari, but the demands of her job had kept her from putting the plan into action.

“The Sireres are basically Primordials, but their powers are derived from a different God, so their abilities are somewhat different from ours, though not drastically. They also have a different grouping system. Sireres who can shift into beings in Lantari aren’t called Varmin. They’re called Sirerebrates. The war isn’t actually between the Primordials and the Sireres. It’s between Aros Cavalian, our Godly king, and Edar Lantarian, their Godly king. Edar used to be considered a Cavalian God before he broke away from Cavale and created his own empire, renaming the Primordials there as Sireres and turning them against Aros. We have no reason to hate one another apart from the fact that our allegiances are to our Gods.” Ella sensed a volume of sorrow in the underbelly of Josefyn’s explanation.

“Why do Aros and Edar hate each other?”

“The answer to that question changes depending on who you ask and depending on who supports which God. There are Primordials who back Edar, just like there are Sireres who back Aros. The Primordials who favor Edar are referred to as Dissidents. If they’re caught circulating any undesirable propaganda against Aros Cavalian in Cavale, they’re sentenced to a lifetime in Terminus. You may meet a Dissident during your time here and never know it. It’s not something you broadcast in Cavale unless you’d like to be tortured for the rest of your existence.” Josefyn’s lips pulled up at the corners. “If I were you, I’d ask Kellen to explain the story to you. He teaches History of the Gods, so he would do it justice far better than I ever could.”

“Thanks, but if that’s my only option, I’d rather search for the story myself.” Ella turned back to the students. “Which one is Jamie?” She lowered her voice to maintain discretion.

“Middle row. Third pair from the left.” Ella’s eyes followed Josefyn’s directions, landing on a blue-haired, average-height female. She was dressed in an oversized Delmarth Academy crewneck sweatshirt and black leggings that flared out at the ends, finishing off at her ankle, only a ghost of the fabric grazing her white sneakers. Josefyn had been correct in describing Jamie as clean—not a single blemish or spot of dirt scarred the surface of her shoes, her ponytail pristine and yanked high above her head so the strands couldn’t drip down her back. Jamie awkwardly passed the sword from one hand to the other, as if weighing the damage a real sword could do and struggling to picture herself brandishing one. Where one might have walked into the room and only noticed the students swinging their rapiers wildly and using the exercise as an excuse to exert their aggression, Ella paid close attention to Jamie’s body language and her facial contortions.

The class began practicing the eight different angles of attack, directed by Mr. Armstrong to strike at the air first before attempting to run the drills with each other. It didn’t take long before the class erupted into a frenzy of frothing energy and dangerous excitement, jamming their wooden blades into the cushioned floor. Jamie remained reserved with her blade, only half-heartedly attempting the different movements. She kept clutching her chest, her fingers clawing at the material of her sweatshirt.

With every cry of excitement, Jamie flinched, her body folding inward, her hand jerking to her chest.

“Do Cerebri emotion-manipulators feel other people’s emotions in their minds or their hearts?” Ella asked Jo.

“I’m not sure. That’s an Akio question. I’m not that intimate with Cerebri sensations.”

“Come on, Jamie,” Mr. Armstrong shouted to her from the front of the room, clanging his hands together. “Look around you. Everyone else is doing the drill. Pick it up.” Jamie’s eyes narrowed into slits.

“ No,” she snarled, chucking the wooden sword at Mr. Armstrong’s head. The rapier instead crashed into the head of the student in front of Jamie. The female whipped around with a strident cry, cupping the back of her now throbbing skull, and grabbed her own sword from off the ground, lunging at Jamie.

“Shit!” Josefyn hissed before she and Ella dove off the bench to sprint across the room. “Rain, stop!”

Rain crawled on top of Jamie, a curtain of her magenta-pink hair showering down over their intertwined bodies, and flattened the even surface of the wooden blade into Jamie’s trachea to cut off her air supply. Jamie writhed beneath Rain’s weight, spluttering choked wheezes as her fingers slapped the mattress in vain, searching for something she could use in retaliation to defend herself. Mr. Armstrong reached Rain first, wrenching her off Jamie by lifting her around her waist and dragging her away. Rain’s legs flailed in their quest to stretch back towards Jamie and make contact with the side of her head. Ella lowered to the ground beside Jamie, proffering her hand.

“Are you okay?” she asked in a soft, subdued voice to preserve some semblance of privacy in a room filled with students whose undivided attentions were latched onto them. Jamie raised topaz-shaded yellow eyes, glazed over in a sheet of tears, and subtly shook her head. Ella nodded her head in answer. She pulled Jamie to her feet, then turned to Josefyn and said, “We’re going to talk outside.”

Ella draped her arm over Jamie’s shoulders to lead her outside. Rain bellowed nonsense behind them, lobbing insults at Jamie’s back.

“If you ever come close to me again, I will fucking destroy you, Jamila Finley!” Ella tightened her embrace around Jamie when she felt a tremor ricochet through the Varmin’s tense muscles.

“Let’s sit here,” Ella suggested, guiding Jamie out the front door and directing her to squat on the asphalt. Jamie hunkered down and curled up in a crushed ball against the metal dome, burying her face between her knees to shroud her face. She expelled a sob that sounded as though it had been trapped inside her imploring to be released, the kind of scream that escaped in a throttled, vicious cadence, so nasty that it scraped against her throat. Ella settled on her knees in front of Jamie, gifting her a moment to feel before laying her hand on Jamie’s shoulder. She whispered, “Jamie, I want you to breathe. Inhale for four seconds, exhale for six. Can you do that?” At first, the only response Jamie granted Ella was a strangulated, hoarse wail. Jamie shook, then squeezed her knees inward to dig them deeper into her temples. “Jamie, please don’t do that. It’ll give you a headache.”

“It…it hurts,” Jamie whimpered, tears escaping down her cheeks in hurried, unbridled streams.

“What hurts?”

“ Everything!” She finally lifted her head out from between her legs to yell at Ella. Jamie’s yellow eyes now appeared as rounded pupils surrounded by vertically elongated irises, the gaze of a serpent blinking back at her.

“Can you tell me where you feel it hurt?” Jamie rocked forward, her fingers tearing at the soil, mashing the pulverized dirt within her fist. Her hand then released the loam and trembled on its journey to splay over her chest.

“H…Here. And…” Quivering fingers danced over her temples, her cheeks drenched in pools of sadness. “Here.”

“What is it you’re feeling that hurts so much?” Jamie sunk her teeth into her bottom lip, a string of blood trickling down her chin. Ella used the sleeve of her jacket to smudge the crimson droplets off Jamie’s face. “Do you know who I am, Jamie?”

“You’re the human everyone hates.” Ella’s lips twitched in a small smile.

“Well, yes, but I also have a name. It’s Ms. Rose. I’m your school counselor. Do you know what a school counselor does?” Jamie shook her head. “I’m here to be academic, social, and emotional support for you. That feeling that you have right now? That pain? It’s my job to try and help you deal with that.”

“H…How?” Ella crawled around Jamie to position herself against the steel dome, flanking Jamie’s side.

“Talking helps, unburdening that feeling so you’re not carrying it alone. Sometimes there are truths inside you that burn longer when you keep them contained. By sharing with me, you pass some of that burden to me, so you’re not burning alone.” Jamie licked the flood of tears off her lips.

“It’s heavy,” Jamie mumbled. “Too heavy. I don’t know if you can handle it.”

“Trust me. I’m stronger than I look.” Jamie rested the back of her head against the metal dome and exhaled a trembling breath.

“Sometimes I fantasize about taking my own heart out.” The words rushed off Jamie’s tongue like she was afraid that if she didn’t spit them out, they would remain stuck inside her, burning her from the inside out. She quickly added, “I wouldn’t ever do it, though. It’s not a serious thought. It’s not that I want to die. I just…don’t want to feel anymore. I walk around this campus and am bombarded with what everyone else is feeling. I can’t escape it. It’s just too much. And Rain —” Her voice ensnarled with a sob before her eyes fluttered shut to squeeze out more tears.

“What happened with Rain?” Jamie hugged her knees to her chest.

“Rain is my girlfriend. Was my girlfriend.” The word was sounded like it ached to produce. “I broke up with her at the start of the year. I…I didn’t want to.” Jamie buried her face in her palms, sobbing into her fingers.

Ella waited a second, then asked gently, “Why did you?”

“Because! I…I didn’t want to feel anymore.” Her fingers slipped off her face, drooping to her sides. “Loving someone hurts enough. Try loving someone and also feeling the pain of how much they love you at the same time. It’s not as magical as it sounds. It’s fucking exhausting to always feel what your partner feels. I couldn’t shut it off. I had to sit with that feeling all the time. It just got to be too much, so I ended it. Now all I feel when I’m around her is how much she hates me. She hates me, Ms. Rose, and I have to feel it all the time, every second of every day because we’re in all the same classes. Hate hurts even more than love does. I don’t want to feel anymore.”

Jamie arranged her elbows to rest on her arched knees. She dropped her head into her hands to stare down at the ground.

“What would it look like for you not to feel anything?” Jamie twisted her head to look at Ella.

“I can’t stop feeling,” she protested with an edge to her tone. “That’s impossible.”

“I know. I’m saying, in a hypothetical situation, what would it look like to not feel anything?”

“I…I don’t know.” Jamie itched her nails down the length of her thighs, straightening up against the wall. “I’d feel lighter? Less heavy? I would finally be able to breathe. I wouldn’t be in pain anymore.”

“What would you do if you didn’t feel that pain?”

“I…I don’t know.” She tipped her chin at Ella. “What do you do, Ms. Rose? How do you not feel pain?” Ella smiled wistfully.

“We all feel that pain, Jamie. Maybe not to the same extent that you do, maybe not as strongly as you do, but we all feel it. It’s uncomfortable and tragic and beautiful. It’s a consequence of living.”

Jamie choked on a sob. “But it hurts so much. Every second. It never ends.”

“It shouldn’t end. That pain lets you know you’re alive, and there’s so much beauty in being alive. I know you think there will be freedom if you can’t feel it, but there’s only one thing worse than the pain of love. It’s the pain of loneliness. The only way to stop feeling is complete isolation from the world, and that is the farthest thing from healing. You are idealizing feeling empty when that loss of feeling would be the most painful experience of all.” Jamie turned her face into the metal wall, pressing her forehead against the cold, smooth surface, tears rolling onto her chin.

“I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” she wept, her fingers skulking across the asphalt in search of something to clutch. Ella extended her hand as an option. Jamie took it, crushing Ella’s fingers in her grip—not enough to truly hurt her, just enough for Jamie to unpack a tiny drop of the burden weighing her down, passing some of her pain to Ella. “I’m so tired all the time, Ms. Rose. I feel so fucking weak.”

“What does being weak mean to you?”

“I can’t do anything with all these emotions. I can’t use them to defend Cavale against Lantari. You saw me in there. I was fucking pathetic. I couldn’t focus cause everyone was getting so riled up and all their emotions started flooding me at once. Imagine if that was an actual battle with the Sireres. I’d be fucking toast. I can’t do anything productive with emotions. All they do is bring me down.” Ella squeezed Jamie’s hand, bidding Jamie’s serpent eyes to elevate from off the floor.

“So you think being strong means you have to have powers that can be useful in a fight?”

“I think being strong means you have to be able to provide something that can be of real help to the Gods,” Jamie replied, then added tersely, “You’re not from here, so you might not get that.”

“You’re right. I’m not from here, so it’s hard for me at times to understand that way of thinking. I understand that this is what you’ve been taught to believe, but Jamie, there are infinite ways to be strong. Being able to fight or having powers useful in a fight is just one of them. Another is being able to use that ability of yours, to empathize deeply with others, to help people learn how to manage their own emotions, which in its own way can be useful in this war, if you’re able to help others to regulate their feelings in battle. That is real help, Jamie, or it could be if you learn how to separate your feelings from others so it doesn’t overwhelm you like this.” Jamie rested her head on Ella’s shoulder, dissolving into tears. Ella pulled Jamie closer, then said, “Feeling intensely does not make you weak. You of all people should know that. You walk around this school every single day, carrying not just your emotions, but everyone else’s inside you. It should be considered an accomplishment that you’re able to stand at all, let alone that you’re able to be in a classroom and complete all your work. You think feeling emotions makes you weak because you’re attributing strength to something physical or tangible. Feeling intensely makes you stronger than every person who wastes their breath telling you not to feel at all.”

Jamie and Ella sat against the dome for another five minutes in silence. Jamie cried into Ella’s shoulder. Ella became a soundless pillar of support, wordlessly encouraging Jamie to drown in her emotions, to welcome that pain of feeling rather than shove it away, one step closer to learning how to manage it. When Jamie was ready, she began inhaling for four seconds and exhaling for six to abate her tears, emulating what Ella demonstrated.

“On a scale of one being Terminus is looking mightily attractive and ten being I could burst from happiness , how’re you feeling right now?”

“A six?” Jamie answered uncertainly through a slight chuckle, not quite understanding Ella’s system of measurement.

“We can work with a six. I think we can get you to a higher number, though.” Ella used the wall to help rise off the ground, then pulled Jamie up to stand. “Let’s start meeting together once a week. I’ll look at your schedule and figure out a time that works. Do you have any preference for a time?”

“Um…can we meet during lunch? It’ll be less obvious that I’m going to counseling if it’s during a period when everyone’s in different places on campus.” Jamie spat the word counseling like it tasted vile.

“Let’s meet on Thursdays during lunch, starting this week.” Jamie departed for the dome, but Ella called out before she made it to the door, “Jamie?” The Varmin rotated around, the ends of her blue hair whacking her cheek. “There is no shame in going to counseling. There is no shame in needing or asking for help. Anyone who tries to shame you for it probably needs the same help.”

For the first time since they’d been sitting together, Jamie’s lips settled into a smile—a tiny one, a barely sturdy one hanging on by a thread, but a sweet, beautiful smile, nonetheless.

“You’re not so bad for a human, Ms. Rose.” Her fingers gripped the door handle before she tossed over her shoulder, “See you on Thursday,” and headed back inside the dome to rejoin her class.