Chapter 2

Ifelt very underdressed in my plain black Apprentice uniform, walking next to Kato in his shining white armor. I also felt weird—but that was mostly because everyone we passed gawked and pointed at us.

I hated being the center of attention.

"It's better if you ignore them." Through his helmet, Kato's whisper sounded more like a hiss.

He must have noticed me recoiling under everyone's gaze. Or maybe he'd just read my mind.

I flinched. "Ignore them. Right." I focused on the path in front of us.

"You're still looking at them." He sounded amused. "You're just doing it out of the corners of your eyes."

I wiped my sweaty palms on my leggings. "It's not so easy when thousands of people are staring at me."

"You'll get used it." The soles of his boots clicked against the pavement. "When you're a Knight."

IfI ever got to be a Knight. As of this morning, I'd earned three hundred and ten points. And that was after Governor's Meyer's gift of sixty points. The General really was doing everything he could to make sure I didn't make the cut. Five hundred points felt further away than ever before.

"About all that…I wanted to thank you for what you did for me." I stuttered a step. "Saving me from the General."

"I've never heard of an Apprentice making such an impact on him before becoming a Knight."

"Impact." I let out a choked laugh. "That's one way of wording it. Though I bet it's not the word he would use."

Unless he was referring to the impact crater an asteroid made against the perfect little world order he'd created.

"No, he would not," Kato agreed. "But you shouldn't allow other people's shortcomings to stand in the way of your being the very best person you can be."

"I'll try my best." I exhaled a little too loudly. "But the General can be so…"

"Cruel?"

Wow, had a Knight just criticized the General?

"Dealing with the General is complicated," he said. "But don't give up."

"I'm not giving up. I just think he's already made up his mind about me and doesn't want to change it."

"Because when you weren't Chosen, you decided to take matters into your own hands?"

My cheeks warmed. "Heard about that, did you?"

"I've heard the gossip. The other Knights have been talking about you."

Fantastic.

"Here we are," Kato said.

We'd reached a small brick building off to the side of the Oval. Kato waved his armored wrist in front of a panel on the wall, and the door swung open.

"This way," he told me.

I followed him into the building. The moment I was inside, the door swung shut with a resounding thump—and six pairs of eyes locked on to me. Those eyes belonged to the six teenagers, the six Knights, the six masters of magic who would be competing in today's Tournament. They were also the Apprentices' six mentors.

"Savannah Winters, allow me to introduce the Knights of Gaia." Kato removed his helmet, and his voice lost its deep echo.

"Oh, we know all about Savannah Winters."

One of the Knights—a boy with a piercing stare and big, bronze, muscular arms as thick as my thighs—jumped down from the windowsill he'd been perched on. He landed with inhuman grace, a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that the windowsill was nearly at the ceiling.

"She's pretty small to be causing the General so much grief. This girl survived Shadow Fall?" The Knight's hazel eyes looked me up and down, and he scoffed in disbelief. His armor, gold in color, creaked as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Surviving Shadow Fall is more about brains than brawn, Jareth," said the Knight with messy black hair, the tips highlighted bright blue. He wore blue armor, and a small glass orb hung from a long, gold chain around his neck.

His muscles were leaner than those of his bulky companion, but he still had lots of them. In fact, all of the Knights in the room looked strong enough to hurl me clear across the Oval. And their Tournament armor was super cool—in a fear-me-I-am-freakishly-powerful kind of way.

Jareth slammed his fist into his open palm. He met the blue Knight's gaze, and a slow, predatory smile curled his lips. "You'd be surprised how far brawn will get you, Orion. Especially in the Tournament."

"How just like a Metamorph to think you can punch your way through any problem," another Knight simpered. She had long blonde hair, tied back into a waist-length braid, and purple eyes that perfectly matched her armor.

Jareth rolled his eyes at her. "And how like an Elf to think she can bat her eyelashes at any problem to make it just go away."

She puckered up her coral-red lips and blew him a kiss. There must have been magic in that air kiss because Jareth's face took on a very dopey look. She'd mesmerized him.

"Stop it, Ainsley." He slapped himself in the face. "I really hate when you do that," he growled, then slapped his face again.

Eris—my mentor and the only one of the six Knights that I knew at all—laughed. "And I love when you do that," she told Jareth. "It's so cute!"

His face flushed a very bright shade of red, even redder than Ainsley's lipstick. "You think everything is cute," he muttered.

Eris tossed her wild, strawberry-blonde locks over her shoulders. "I like to see the best in people." Her turquoise eyes twinkled. "Even you, Jareth."

Still blushing, he leaned back against the wall.

"So please tell me it wasn't you who was rummaging through my things. Again." Eris leveled her gaze on him, and suddenly she didn't look so cute and harmless anymore.

Jareth folded his arms over his chest. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"When I went to my dressing room earlier, the furniture was flipped over and all my things were scattered across the floor." Eris wrinkled her nose at him. "And my WAND was missing."

"WAND?" I asked.

Eris's eyes snapped to me. "W.A.N.D. Well Augmented Neo-magical Device," she explained. "An enchanted object which Knights use to focus and boost our magic. Portable and versatile, it changes shape to suit our needs. It can be a sword, a staff, a pen, an orb…anything we need." Her gaze slid back to Jareth.

"I don't know anything about your WAND," he told her.

"My WAND is missing too," Orion chimed in.

Jareth folded his arms over his chest, and a ripple of ten pops! told me he'd managed to crack his knuckles in all ten fingers; Dante would have been impressed. "I didn't take your WAND either, Orion."

"I don't believe you," replied the blue Knight. "And I don't like it when people borrow my things without asking permission first."

"You're lucky you stole from them and not me," Ainsley told Jareth with a sugar-sweet smile. "I don't like it when people steal from me—period."

"I didn't steal anything!"

Nodding, smiling, Ainsley gave him a big, exaggerated wink, and her uncommonly long eyelashes kissed her blush-brushed cheekbones.

Jareth glowered at her in response.

"Well, I believe you," I declared.

Every Knight in the room turned to look at me.

Trying not to shrink under their combined gazes, I lifted my shoulders in what I hoped was a casual shrug. "He has a trustworthy face."

The third female Knight, dressed in red armor, moved toward me. She caught me in her gold gaze. When I'd seen her at the Castle two days ago, her long hair had been silver. Today it was crimson, the exact shade of her armor.

"You aren't like the other Apprentices," she commented. "You aren't afraid."

"Of what?"

"Of speaking your mind," she replied. "Even in the presence of Knights and Generals."

"Yeah, I guess that's why I'm so popular with the General."

Eris snorted.

"Hmm." The red Knight's vague response contradicted her piercing stare.

"Enigmatic as always, Nala." Ainsley looked at me, her hands windmilling a pair of pretty purple clubs that matched her armor perfectly. I had a feeling those ‘clubs' were just one of many forms her WAND took. "I like your conviction, Savannah."

I was heartened that at least a few of the Knights nodded in agreement.

"But will conviction be enough?" said the final Knight in the room.

His armor was a dark, rusty orange. Lots of tiny vials were fixed to the brown leather straps that crisscrossed his chest plate. Each vial contained a swirling, sparkling liquid of a different color. And attached to his belt were a few rippled balls that kind of looked like grenades—but I really hoped weren't grenades.

"Well?" The orange Knight arched his dark brows at me. "What do you think, Savannah Winters?" His eyes were as black as a starless night. "Will conviction be enough?"

I tried my best not to wither under his obsidian gaze.

Apparently, I wasn't doing a very good job because Eris chided the orange Knight, "Stop it, Altair. You're freaking her out."

He gave his hand a dismissive wave. "She'll be fine. Kato said she doesn't snap under pressure." His midnight stare cut past her to land on me. "Well? Will conviction be enough?"

"Enough for what?" My voice was a dry rasp.

"Enough for you to become a Knight." When he took another step toward me, the sunlight streaming through the window hit his black hair, lighting it up with auburn highlights. "Enough for you to make a difference in the world."

I cleared my throat. "Conviction is always good," I said, reaching for the shreds of my own fleeing confidence. The orange Knight's stare was seriously unnerving. "But that alone won't be enough to change the world. I will need help: friends and allies. And to gain them, I need to prove myself a worthy Knight."

"And what makes someone a worthy Knight?" Altair asked.

I considered the question. "A good Knight does the right thing because it's right, not to score points." I stole a peek at Kato. "After all, motive is more important than merit."

A slight smile cracked the orange Knight's serious face. His gaze flitted to Kato, and his small smile upgraded to a gruff chuckle. "Spoken like a true white Knight."

Kato dipped his head in acknowledgment and set his hand over his white chest plate. Unlike the others, his armor was made from metal, not leather. But it wasn't his armor's material that made him stand out; it was its color. I'd never seen—or even heard of—a white Knight before.

"Yes, well said," Altair continued. "Though I might point out that there's a Scoreboard. And all Apprentices compete to reach the top of it."

"Yes, there's a Scoreboard," I agreed. "But the Scoreboard has nothing to do with being a good Knight. It's just something the Government does to maintain control over us. You know that as well as I do."

Altair chuckled. "Yes. You were right about her." He glanced at Kato. "She's going to get into all kinds of trouble."

"She already has," replied Kato, and when his gaze fell upon me, he looked oddly impressed.

"What happens when?—"

The earsplitting screech of an alarm sliced through the room, cutting off Ainsley's words. All of the Knights' hands flew to their ears.

The alarm fell silent.

Jareth growled, "What the?—"

A second screech cut him off. The Knights scrambled to cover their ears again.

The room went quiet.

"Are we under attack?" Orion wondered.

The headache-inducing alarm screamed again.

The Knights formed a circle, their backs to one another. Kato grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the middle of the Knights' circle-shield.

"Stay here," he commanded me.

Like I could have escaped the circle anyway. The Knights were now standing practically shoulder-to-shoulder, and each of them was holding a weapon.

"It's not an attack!" I shouted over the next shriek that cut through the room.

"Then what is it?" Ainsley asked.

I pointed up at the ceiling. "A misbehaving smoke detector."

They all looked up at the small, round device attached to the ceiling, and it let out another screech. The Knights relaxed. Eris even laughed.

"So how do we…" She winced when the smoke detector beeped again. "…turn it off?"

Everyone looked at Altair.

"I'm an Alchemist, not an electrician," the orange Knight grumbled, squaring his shoulders. "I craft complex magic. I don't fix shoddy household appliances."

The smoke detector shrieked, as though in protest for being called ‘shoddy'.

Ainsley massaged her temples. "Would someone please turn that blasted thing off before my eardrums melt out of my ears?"

"As you wish." Nala flickered her sword, and it transformed into a very long spear.

Altair joined her as she positioned herself under the smoke detector. "It probably just needs a new battery."

"Killing it will work too." Nala gripped her spear, preparing to hurl it at the annoying device.

The other Tournament Knights gathered around her, their eyes locked on to the screeching smoke detector like it was a ferocious beast they were preparing to take down.

"I don't think this is a good idea," I told them. "Someone is going to get electrocuted."

"It will be fine," Nala assured me, her muscles tensing for the throw. "We do things like this all the time."

"You do battle with household appliances all the time?"

Beside me, Kato snorted. He hadn't joined the others under the smoke detector.

"No one is getting electrocuted. The power hasn't worked in this building for years," Altair said.

If the building had no electricity, I wondered how the fancy door lock worked. But then the answer came to me. Magic. Of course it was magic.

Nala angled her spear for the throw.

"Nala! Nala! Nala!" the others chanted, and for a moment, I almost forgot they were all-powerful Knights. They sounded just like normal teenagers cheering on a teammate in a sports match.

The Knights burst into applause when Nala's spear hit its mark, and the smoke detector latch popped open. But their applause cut off almost immediately, when something dark and odious poured out of the open device.