112
“So,” said Alden spitting toothpaste into the sink while Lute brushed at the one beside him, “when did it happen?”
Lute looked at him in the mirrored medicine cabinet. “When did what happen?”
“What do you think, man? You can’t tell me all about your childhood and then leave out the big magical stuff.”
“I wasn’t going to.” He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “What was being selected like for you, though?”
“I was in the bathroom at school, looking at an anatomically suspicious cactus someone had drawn on the wall. I had a really weird feeling and then the System started whispering in my ear. It was a shock. I just left without talking to anyone. But I was forewarned that I might get that shock, so it probably wasn’t as—”
“You were?”
Gorgon was actually the one whose warning had made the biggest difference, but that wasn't something Alden was prepared to try explaining.
“The superhero who saved my life when I was a kid had a spell that didn’t work properly on me. It was supposed to completely knock me out, but I stayed awake. Hannah was curious about it, so she went and tested the spell on a ton of different people and animals. Several years later, she told me the only ones that had the same reaction I did were a few Anesidoran children.” He rinsed his toothbrush. “She thought maybe it was related to peoples’ theories about chaos potential. She was careful to emphasize that I shouldn’t expect anything, and I didn’t. Exactly. But it did fuel my hopes. I wanted it way past the age when it’s reasonable for a person to still be hoping, ‘Maybe one day I’ll be magical!’”
“Chaos potential is totally a real thing,” said Lute. “The average citizen just doesn’t have a lot of info on what it is. I bet at least some of the heavy hitter combatants who get summoned know. I just assume the Grandwitch knows stuff like that, too. Not to compliment her, mind you, but she is antique and very interested in involving herself in all things Artonan.”
“Wanna hear my theory?”
“Sure.”
“It’s bad.”
“I’m sure I’ve heard it before. Anesidorans love nothing more than guessing at all the things the Artonans are still refusing to be one hundred percent forthcoming about. We even guess at the things they are forthcoming about, in case they’re lying.”
Alden typed a mental text out and left it hanging with no recipient:
[If you’ve got a problem with me sharing a little of the theory I came up with on Thegund, you should let me know.]
He waited a second. The System didn’t shout, “Stop, idiot! That will cause a global catastrophe!”
So he figured it was safe.
He gave Lute his cheerfullest smile. “I’m ninety percent sure the phrase ‘chaos potential’ has to do with how likely a person is to turn into something that could be classified as a demon in the event of a chaos exposure.”
Lute blinked. “I’ve heard similar things, but those ideas seem to be more popular with anti-Avowed hate groups than with Avowed.”
“Well, part two of my theory is that the System fixes the chaos vulnerabilities a person might have in the process of making us Avowed, so there’s no reason for the hate groups to use it against any of us. We’re better for handling chaos than regular people, not worse. As promised really. The Artonans did say they were ultimately making Avowed to help them out with chaos problems.” He paused. “Also, just because some Avowed might have high chaos potential prior to being chosen, that doesn’t mean all of us do. I don’t think that, actually.”
The System had said it stabilized existences. It could be picking just the people who had a mix of high enough authority and an unusual vulnerability to chaos. Or it could be picking everyone on Earth who was naturally above the authority threshold for F-rank and granting them affixations and further stability. Or it could be weighing multiple qualities to assess a person’s value as a future Avowed as well as their risk of demonifying.
He didn’t know which it was or if some third or fourth factor was at play, but he didn’t believe it was pure chaos potential.
Because Gorgon had done something to Alden before the System had gotten to him. And he had done such a good job at it that the Earth System had mentioned it was a positive, and she had commented on how exceptional Gorgon’s work on his was.
But the Earth System had still picked him. And stabilized him some more with the affixation.
It might have done it just because I was already on its to-be-Avowed list, and it wasn’t able or willing to remove me from it for some reason.
He doubted that was it.
“Oh, so you don’t necessarily think chaos potential makes us Avowed. You think it’s an additional wrinkle in the situation? What do you think makes the System pick someone then?”
“In the interest of not having an extremely long talk about alien philosophy,” said Alden, “let’s call it power.”
Lute nodded. “Power. Most people I knew growing up thought that they either had an ability to contain more power than regular people and that was why the System would choose them to hold magic or that they were born with some kind of power and the System has the ability to wake it up and turn it into magic.”
More the second one, thought Alden.
“As far as I know, my family pretty much all thinks some version of the second. There are some other theories. But it doesn’t really matter which one you look at…if it’s even a little reasonable, it has to take into account the fact that two superhumans usually have superhuman children. Which means it’s not random. The special thing, whatever it is, is inside you.”
He stared at his own reflection.
“I really don’t know what it feels like. To grow up knowing you have something that will become magic. I was so sure I didn’t. I’d been training myself not to even want it since I was a little older than a toddler. By eighth grade…I was just trying to hold on until I was old enough for my real life to happen. Somewhere far away from here.”
******
******
Nilama Paragon Academy Theater
January 14, 2039
******
******
One day, thought Lute Velra, I will live thousands of kilometers away from this place.
He sat in a group of his classmates, right at the base of the stage, waiting for his name to be read. It was the end of the first week of school, and the principal was calling them up one by one. This little ceremony was just for the eighth grade; the speech had been short and casual.
It didn’t matter. The excitement was so strong, he wondered if the sound of all the racing heartbeats was annoying one of the new teachers. She was an Audial Brute.
“Konstantin Roberts!” the principal called, and Kon flew out of his seat and up the stairs to shake her hand and take a small wooden case, engraved with his name and the name of the school.
I will live so far away they forget my name.
At the start of the eighth grade year, Paragon students received their graduation pins. It was a tradition nearly as beloved as the fifth grade trips. The pins were a single logogram made of titanium. It was an unusually intricate and elegant symbol, and the principal’s speech had mostly been defining the Artonan word it represented.
“It means an ending and a beginning that arrive at the same time,” she’d said. “And so it’s appropriate that we give them to you. You will walk through the doors of this school wearing them one day to announce that a wonderful phase of your life has ended and an equally wonderful one has begun.”
When I see the powerful ones on television screens, I’ll think, ‘Oh, there’s Kon electrocuting a serial killer with a lightning spell. Haven’t thought of that guy in years.’
Konstantin bounced off the stage and raced over to reclaim his seat. He opened the box so that he could stare at his pin. They were all doing it. Most of the grade had been called up, and they were now gazing at the pins. Or even touching them lightly with their fingers, like they were checking to make sure they were real.
Normally, they’d have gotten them on the first day. Instead, the whole grade had been brought to the auditorium on Monday not for the pin ceremony, but to have a lecture on their general behavior the previous term. It was the most blistering talking-to Lute had ever experienced.
The gist of it was that they were expected to behave with maturity this year, dammit, and anyone who couldn’t do that should raise their hand right then and there so that they could be taken back to the primary school building and start over with the five-year-olds.
“Carlotta Sullivan!”
Carlotta headed up to get her pin.
In the seat in front of Lute, Vandy was staring down at her own pin. She was wearing light blue earrings shaped like clouds—a subtle announcement that she’d decided on Shaper of Sky for herself over the holidays. He doubted she would change her mind. She wasn’t someone who liked to reverse course.
Vandy’s parents were both S-rank superheroes. Quite famous. She probably would be, too.
I wonder what it will feel like if I see her one day, decades from now, and she looks almost exactly the same. More beautiful because of Appeal. In a fancy outfit because of her job.
But the same, pretty much.
Lute forced that thought away from him, as he always did. It was too frightening to look at for long.
Assuming true rejuvenation remained a rare skillset among Earth’s top Healers, not all of his classmates would have access to it. But…some of them would. The best and most well-connected of them. And he probably wouldn’t.
If his mother didn’t, after a lifetime at Aulia’s side, then Lute wouldn’t after a lifetime spent staying as far away from Anesidora as he could.
When I get old and sick, they’ll treat me with medicine that only exists thanks to the Contract. Thanks to Avowed. I guess I’ll have to think of them all then.
He wondered if he would still feel guilty about the dice when he was an old man. If some of his classmates really did die in one of those ways…if someone they loved suffered in one of those ways...
Stop thinking about it.
Nobody had spoken to him all week, unless it was necessary for class. He hadn’t initiated a conversation with any of them himself. Lute didn’t know how they were thinking about it, but for his part, a show of maturity was just a return to silence.
Stay out of their way. Don’t whine anymore about the fact that their world surrounds you without letting you in. If the class assignment doesn’t apply to you, do it quietly anyway. If things go badly again, don’t respond.
Yield to it all. Be the doormat.
Until you finally get to leave this place forever.
It was quieter than last year—not a single incident that could be called bullying.
“Lute Velra!”
He stood. No laughter. No anything.
It was better, wasn’t it? Even if it was so very cold sometimes.
He walked up to get his pin, then he sat back down with it. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to open the box or not.
Of course they had given him one. Since his mom wouldn’t let him quit or transfer schools, he would graduate one day. Sort of. The high school at Paragon was not a building, but a single hallway that emptied rapidly throughout the year as the people who hadn’t been selected in the later half of ninth grade all got their turn in tenth. Eleventh grade would be one classroom by the end of the year. Just a handful of straggler future low ranks with parents rich enough to keep sending them here.
Eleventh was the accelerated year. Six days of instruction instead of five and no holidays for that tiny class of left-behinds, so that they could be ushered out the door directly into university instead of bothering with application and transfer to an Avowed high school for twelfth grade.
Graduation for them was sugar cookies with their parents and the faculty in the teacher’s lounge and everyone wishing them luck with the rest of their lives. They would get to wear their pins that day, if they hadn’t already put them on.
It sounded immensely depressing. None of these people would be beaming down at their pins if they knew for sure, as Lute did, that they’d only get to wear them once. On sugar cookie day.
“Haoyu Zhang-Demir!”
Haoyu gets called last for everything like this. Because of the Z. He might be the first one who gets to wear the pin, though.
He had to be one of the frontrunners for that honor. His parents weren’t just S’s; they were strong ones.
The tradition at Paragon was for students to wear the graduation pin starting on the first school day after their selection. Since you weren’t allowed to keep attending the school indefinitely as an Avowed, selection was the beginning of your graduation process. People wore the pins to school for a few weeks or months, while they were trading for their desired class, sorting out their next steps, and applying for Avowed high schools.
Then they were gone for good. Into the world of adult superhumans.
An ending and a beginning that arrive at the same time.
Ninth grade was all about checking your classmates’ lapels every morning, to see if the System fairy had come to bestow gifts on them in the night.
But they received the pins in eighth because…
“What if it happens for one of us this year!” a girl squealed as Lute tried to find his way through a cluster of his fellow eighth graders who were clogging up the hall at the end of the day. “It does sometimes!”
Paragon was the kind of school where an eighth grader got selected once in a while. Not a U-type, of course. A true pre-fifteen. It had happened to a girl the year before last, and it had been like an emotional bomb went off in the middle school building.
The eighth grade had gotten so wild they’d just let them skip classes and fling their enthusiasm back and forth at each other for a day.
It tended to be similar when the first ninth grader walked through the doors with their pin each year, but that usually happened around February or March to someone who had turned fifteen earlier in the year. Everyone knew it was coming. After that initial sign that it was finally starting for all of them, the ninth graders settled into a routine of freaking out over their new selectees for the first half hour of a school day and getting back to business.
The eighth grade selectee had taken over the school’s collective mind for weeks.
“It could be you, Vandy! Or you, Haoyu!”
Haoyu smiled nervously. “I don’t think I’d want to be picked this year,” he told them. “I’d have to leave and head to high school without any of the rest of you. I’d be younger than all the other students in my new school. And I’m almost sure about what I want but not a hundred percent. I’d have to make important decisions in a big hurry. I think it would be really hard.”
He sounds like he’s seriously thought about early selection, thought Lute.
At least he wouldn’t do something horribly arrogant…like throwing himself a premature Coming of Age party.
I think Hazel jinxed herself with that. She’s going to be a late fifteen instead of a fourteen like she wanted.
It would probably happen in the next few weeks. Before her sixteenth birthday. She’d been attached to Aulia like a favored parasite for the entire past two years. Their grandmother had been so busy with her that Jessica had been forging Aulia’s signature on all the gifts and birthday cards, even for the important relatives.
And Aulia had forgotten to kiss Miyo on the cheek when her family walked through the door of the mansion for the big Christmas breakfast, because Hazel had made a pronunciation error during one of her “Hold on, let me perform a wordchain,” moments.
Grandma’s Cheek Kiss was a whole ritual Aulia used like a spell on all of them on Christmas morning. And it was Miyo, who was probably her second most beloved pre-Avowed grandchild.
Miyo was almost as good at wordchains as Hazel had been at her age. So was Roman. They spoke Artonan just about as well as she did. They were both learning to read logograms even though a massive memorization project of that scale would probably be way easier for them in the future, after the System had whacked up their Processing a little.
They just couldn’t feel special mystical feelings when they chained or when other people did. So they weren’t considered competition for Hazel at all.
Lute didn’t care much for either of them, but he’d felt annoyed on their behalf a few times recently.
Oh wouldn’t it be crazy, he thought, heading for the train station. He liked riding the train so much more than the helicopter. Train and bus rides took longer, extending the blissful transitional period when he wasn’t in school or at home. Wouldn’t it just be crazy, if Hazel turned out to be an A instead of an S?
The idea of her getting a lower assignment than that didn’t cross his mind. Even an A-rank Hazel felt like a flight of fancy he was allowing himself as a response to pin day and his future as a member of the sugar cookie class.
She could already do something like magic. The Artonans all the family Chainers worked with were reportedly fascinated by her.
She had had the S in the bag since birth.
At least she’s not having a party this year.
The idea seemed to be that she’d be such an in-demand, important Avowed that there was no point in planning one. She might be off working on another planet on her birthday.
On the train, Lute stared at his pin case for a while, then stuffed it back into his backpack. He wouldn’t open it. He’d do it for the first time on the day they tossed him out of Paragon Academy.
That felt more appropriate for someone like him.
******
Lute turned fourteen on a Saturday. Instead of a party, he asked Jessica to spend time with him. She’d been so busy dealing with all the things Aulia was letting slide because of Hazel that it felt like they weren’t seeing enough of each other.
He’d planned the whole day himself, taking full advantage of his family’s money in a way he rarely had any real desire to do. He booked out an entire movie theater so that it could be just the two of them, and his mom wouldn’t feel like bringing bodyguards.
She didn’t usually do it when she traveled alone. He didn’t do it when he traveled alone. But she still wanted the guards every time they were together.
He hated it so much for her—the fact that she couldn’t stand the idea of someone like Declan or Hazel saying things about her where he could hear them. But there was no way for him to say, “It’s fine. They do it even when you’re not around. I’m old enough now. We can just go get burgers wherever we want and ignore them.”
Not yet. He didn’t know how to put the words so that they wouldn’t upset her even more.
Instead, he did this—just the two of them blowing Velra money and eating their favorite takeout while, on the screen, the lineup of famous musical performances he’d chosen played. Not a single Avowed musician in the entire bunch.
“Mom,” said Lute, dipping a fry in the remoulade that was suppose to go with the crab cakes, “when I move to Austria, you’ll come with me, won’t you?”
Jessica chuckled. “You’re still on Austria? I didn’t realize!”
Lute frowned at her. “But you know I’m planning to go there. As soon as I’m old enough. At twenty-one. I’ll finish uni at a music school if I can. I’m hoping they’ll let me take some of the early curriculum long distance because of my situation, but even if they don’t, it’ll be fine.”
The details had all been coming together for the past few months. He hadn’t actually discussed the specifics of timing and coursework with her yet because she’d been so busy, but since everyone else his age was career planning right now, Lute was career planning, too.
One of the only great things about being born on Anesidora as a non-Avowed was that nearly every country on Earth was a signatory to an agreement that said you could have your pick if and when you made an exit. When he turned twenty-one, Lute could declare himself a citizen of wherever he wanted.
His mom’s eyebrows drew down. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it… “Baby, you’re not really serious about that, are you?” she said slowly. “You don’t really want to leave?”
Lute was sure his own mouth was goldfishing.
“What?” he said at last. “Mom, I’ve wanted it forever. Since Mrs. Yu first told me about…”
He gave her a smile. “I mean…you know this.”
“You can’t want the same thing you wanted when you were six!”
Yes I can, thought Lute. I do.
He was completely confused by the fact that there had been a misunderstanding of this magnitude. Somehow. He couldn’t quite believe there had been because he’d never, ever told her he wanted something different, not since he was too young to swim without floats.
“I wanted it when I was seven. And when I was eight. And ten. And twelve. And last year. And now.” He was getting a little upset. “Mom, this is…it’s practically the main thing about me! I’ve told you. I’ve told Dad. I even told Grandma a couple of times. You could ask anyone in my entire class at school and they would tell you. It’s—”
“All right! All right,” said Jessica, hastily. “I understand. Don’t…don’t get upset on your birthday. We’ll talk about this.”
There’s nothing to talk about, thought Lute. The words almost popped out of his mouth, but he clamped down on them. The thing was, he did want to talk about it. Really seriously. With her. An adult conversation.
Because it was very important to him that she come with him and get away from this place where she picked up trash her sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews dropped. Where she was ashamed for people to say things Lute might hear.
Where she had to grow older, watching her own relatives grow younger.
Hazel had rubbed Lute’s face in a monstrous truth a couple of years ago. Not a monstrous lie.
Lute hadn’t been able to ask Jessica about something so awful, but he’d started to pay attention. He’d been unable not to. Everyone had their calendar month for it—the rejuve. Even Keiko, who acted like being part of the family was beneath her while she was walking around with their signature class by her own choice, had been penciled in for a few years from now.
Keiko was younger than Jessica. Cady was on the list, and she was a C-rank Brute who wasn’t even blood related to Aulia.
Mom, thought Lute, staring blankly at the conductor on the towering screen. Mom, you can’t keep cleaning up after someone who doesn’t think you’re worthy of it. The big gift.
Most people didn’t get everlasting youth. Not even most Avowed.
But Aulia was very good at getting her hands on it. She’d locked one of the S-Healers into a contract when they were both, like, thirty. An eternity ago.
That dumbass had been taking rejuve talents ever since, and he belonged to her. And what drops of eternal youth couldn’t be squeezed out of him, she extracted from other Healers with money, favors, and backroom deals.
It was one of those things that enraged people…but only because they wanted to do the same themselves. Life was life, not a luxury good. How could you reasonably blame anyone for buying themselves more years to breathe?
But Lute could blame Aulia. He found it very easy. Because Aulia wasn’t just buying years for herself, she was choosing who else in the family got them. And it looked like she was choosing everyone except for his mom.
This whole country was just…not for them. There was a world out there for them. They needed to get there.
It might still be hard for Jessica in the real world, but there, at least, their name wouldn’t add to their troubles.
Lute would even have taken his father with them, if Cyril was the kind of person who’d be interested. He wasn’t. He’d literally never had a job and never wanted one. He wouldn’t do well in an environment that didn’t allow him to loaf endlessly.
Lute and Jessica could both get jobs. He wanted a job. How cool would it be to play his harp for people who appreciated it? For money?
Even if he didn’t start out formally, he’d always wanted to try busking.
Let’s do it, Mom, he thought. He couldn’t even hear the music playing on the theater screen. Let’s get out of here. Let’s leave.
If he was going to grow old, if he had a single century ahead of him instead of who knew how many, then Lute Velra wanted to spend it with other ordinary humans beside him. Not here, on this island, with millions of Avowed crushing him and his dreams beneath their feet.
“I want,” he said, as they left the theater that evening in his grandmother’s Bentley, “to have a serious talk about this.”
“About what?” Jessica asked.
“Mom, I’m not going to work for the family one day. Like—” Like some kind of servant instead of a relative. “Like a lot of Velras do. I am going to be a musician. I’m going to travel the world. I won’t live here. I really, really want…no, I need…for you to come with me. I think you should. We should. It’ll be amazing.”
“I understand,” Jessica said, paying an enormous amount of attention to the contents of her purse. “I see that you feel that way. But you’re only fourteen, Lute. Let’s wait and see how you feel in a couple of years. Let’s wait and see what happens.”
Why won’t she talk about this with me?
Why didn’t she believe me every other time I’ve told her about this? Has she even been listening to me at all?
“Mom, I love you,” said Lute.
“Oh baby,” she said, leaning over in the sea to kiss him on the nose. “I love you, too. More than anything. I’m sorry if I upset you on your birthday.”
******
A few weeks later, Hazel turned sixteen. Her mood was so dark it eclipsed the mansion. She was so mad it went from funny to scary then all the way back to funny again.
Lute had basically been living with her for the past year and a half. She and Aulia being inseparable and Jessica being attached to his grandmother made that unavoidable. But they’d been on tracks that didn’t intersect for a while. She was so busy preparing for her ascension, so certain it would be any day, that she really only had time to bother him if they happened to run into each other by accident.
If Lute chose to eat breakfast on the way to school and hide in his room for supper, he could usually go days without hearing her opinion on anything. Her parents, who came along with her, were harder to hide from. But Cousin Hugh and Cady treated him like he didn’t exist even if they were standing three feet away from him, so that was fine.
That evening, Hazel was sitting in the White Parlor, staring at an arrangement of lilies like she was trying to wilt them with her aura. Cady, who had been trying to cheer her up all day, said, “Oh look, Hazel! It’s 8:04 PM! This is the exact minute you were born!”
Hazel stood up and rounded on her mother. She shouted something in Artonan.
Lute was sitting quietly in a corner social nook, eating one of the gourmet grilled cheeses, with light butter, that Chef Kabir had been making periodically since noon. Just in case Hazel decided that she couldn’t live on indignation alone.
This one was brie, arugula, and apple. Seasoned with schadenfreude.
It’s delicious.
He looked down at his phone. He’d had it opened to an Artonan translation app for the past hour, since Hugh and Hazel were both speaking the language like they thought not doing it would add to the curse that was her sixteenth birthday.
<
She has lost her marbles.
Cady was a real social climber, and Hazel was her ladder; but she didn’t hate her daughter. She’d been trying to talk Hazel into having some people over or going out for the night so that she wouldn’t just sit here and stew.
<
Hazel glared across the room at Lute, her chest heaving under her sweater vest. She’d decided prep was the look to have recently. All of her socks were knee highs, all of her skirts were pleated, and she was never without something argyle.
Lute did not laugh around his mouthful of brie. But he did smile.
“I’m just doing my homework in here.” He gestured at the notebook he’d been doodling in with his latest fountain pen. “Quietly. Not bothering anyone.”
I should say Happy Birthday, he thought, staring at her red face. Or better yet, play it for her on the piano like she demanded that time. Right before she read all those jokes to me.
Before he could decide if that was cruelty or justice, Hazel picked up a wooden figurine from its place of honor on the coffee table. She flung it. Lute couldn’t even track the motion. There was a whistling sound and then a crash as it impacted the stone wall beside the fireplace. Splinters flew.
Cady screamed. Hugh was off the sofa in an instant and in front of Hazel…a little too late to shield her from the splinters, if that was his intent.
“What the hell,” hissed Lute, his heart racing.
Hugh was swearing too. “How many strength chains did you stack?” he shouted at his daughter. “Which ones?!”
“Just a few!” Hazel screamed back.
“You can’t act like that when you’re empowered!” her father said. “If you’d thrown that at your cousin, you could end up in prison!”
Uh… thought Lute. If she’d thrown that at me, I would be dead.
He felt like that was the more dramatic point to make, but he wasn’t about to do it himself. He decided to vacate the room as Aulia swept in to see what the crash was. Her blonde hair was in a clip, and she had a couple of crumbs from her own grilled cheese dinner on the front of her silk dressing gown.
She looked from Hazel to the pile of splinters on the hearth.
“That was one of the first gifts I ever received from one of my friends on Artona I,” she said mildly. Her eyes flicked up to meet Hazel’s face. “I hope you don’t expect me to defray the cost of all those chains you’ve piled on yourself as a birthday present this year. You’re in for a bad time paying them back.”
Oh shit, thought Lute, pausing on his journey up the staircase. She might actually be mad. At Hazel.
“You will be chosen any day now, dear,” said Aulia. “I understand you’re frustrated, but now is the time for you to act more like one of the leading lights of this family. Not less. Come with me to my office. We’ll talk about the future.”
Then, she glanced up the stairs toward Lute.
“Would you grab a dustpan or vacuum? We don’t want people stepping on splinters.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”
He was standing in the storage room where the cleaning supplies were kept before he even realized what he’d agreed to.
It was only because he really wasn’t busy. It was only because Aulia had brought up the danger of splinters, and he’d thought, Right, that needs doing. Don’t want anyone to hurt themselves.
The main housekeeper was off for the night. If a mess was made, it needed cleaning up. It hadn’t seemed weird until just now.
Lute grabbed a broom and dustpan, and he went back to the parlor and swept up every last splinter. He was afraid that if he didn’t, his mother would come down from her shower and clean it up herself.
He never made a single complaint about it to anyone. He wasn’t even very mad about it, considering how closely connected to all of his sorest points it was. But as he threw Hazel’s mess into the kitchen trashcan, he felt what he could only describe as the cleanest break in the world happening inside him.
Goodbye, Anesidora, he thought as he took one of the last grilled cheeses out of the oven they’d been put in to stay warm. Roasted red pepper and basil on homemade whole wheat.
I think I loved you a little still, right up until this moment. It’s all gone now. You can’t hurt me anymore. And every last magical person, place, and thing here can kiss my human ass.
******
Cousin Roman got selected two weeks later.
Seconds after it happened, he booked a car to come to the mansion. It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and he arrived just as Lute was walking up the driveway on his way home from school.
The car stopped, and Roman scrambled out of the backseat, smiling so widely that his eyes almost disappeared. His dark brown hair was tangled. He ran toward Lute, who stopped walking in surprise. He couldn’t actually recall any of his non-adult cousins ever greeting him with such obvious delight.
“Lute!” he said breathlessly. “Lute! I got it!”
Got what? Lute thought.
“The S!!” Roman said in a strangely jubilant sounding hiss. “I got S. Just now. I drove straight here. I mean…I rode straight here. In this car! With an S.”
“Okay,” said Lute. “That’s great. Congrats.”
His brain, not being tuned in to The Chainer Channel 24/7 like everybody else’s, hadn’t quite caught up with the significance of what his cousin saying.
“Lute, I’m eight months younger than her!”
Oh, thought Lute. Ohhhhhh.
“I’m not even fifteen and a half yet! They’re going to have to give it to me.”
Lute couldn’t process it all as fast as Roman clearly expected him to, but, yeah, that sounded like a definite possibility, didn’t it?
The S had been held for the past few years. Hazel had hit sixteen. She was…
Well, Lute hadn’t seriously considered this as much as he should have because she was Hazel and she was the most special of the special ones, but if they were going to be logical about this, then…
Wait a second. She actually isn’t that likely to get S anymore. She isn’t likely to get S at all. She’s not even that likely to get A.
It could still happen. Sometimes the System picked you late. But if you were betting the odds, you wouldn’t bet on Hazel over Roman today, would you? Not with such a big age gap. Not with him being so devoted to Aulia and Chainer himself.
Surprise shot through Lute. “They’re going to give you the S.”
Roman held a hand to his mouth. “I could’ve been a B. I was bracing for it. I expected A, but I told myself B could happen. And then…it’s this! And Miyo can take an A!” He looked at the car. “I can’t even get back in. It’s too slow. You take it. I have to run!”
He shoved Lute toward the car like he expected him to ride a few meters down the driveway in it, and then he sprinted toward the mansion.
Lute smiled. He could enjoy things like this now that whatever it was that tied a person to the place of their birth had completely ruptured for him. Ever since Hazel’s birthday, life here was like a very realistic movie he was watching. Anesidora, the Velras, and his classmates flowed past him. Occasionally they brushed against him. But his skin was diamond-hard, and nothing broke through anymore.
He liked it. Nothing wounded him. It was like he’d found easy mode for the first time ever.
He thought it might actually be making him a better person. The other day he’d held the door open for Carlotta to carry a project into the classroom because the disdainful looks she shot him just didn’t bother him anymore.
Good for Roman, thought Lute. What an interesting part of the Anesidora movie this is.
He hurried after his cousin to see what would unfold. He expected it all to be resolved in a single afternoon. Roman was eight months younger than Hazel. He was an S. He was thoroughly accomplished and prepared.
Lute would have to look up some numbers to see how the high-rank parentage played into it, but if they were going just by age, Hazel was now much more likely to be a C than any other rank.
He was betting the numbers were heavily in favor of Roman. He seemed so sure, and the cousins didn’t slouch on knowing this kind of thing.
The next three months were ludicrous.
Family members divided into camps. There were meetings of the high ranks. Aulia, Hazel’s parents, and her grandparents defended her right to the Chainer S. Aunt Hikari stepping in on Hazel’s behalf almost certainly had more to do with her trying to save the S in case her daughter Miyo needed it than anything else.
Aulia was busy putting out fires within the family, so Jessica was busy helping her.
Lute watched it all fall apart, feeling untouched. Though he was surprised that his grandmother really would burn down a success story like Roman, even for the sake of Hazel.
One morning before dawn, he woke up to the sound of Roman screaming his head off about superstitious bullshit ruining his life, and the next day, Aulia moved their little household to Libra and had it set sail.
Lute had to start going to school by helicopter again. But what did that matter? The important thing was that teenagers who were about to get Rabbit instead of Chainer couldn’t show up at five AM to condemn Aulia if she was a mile offshore.
******
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Nilama Paragon Academy
June 20, 2039
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Lexi and Kon had their heads together beside Kon’s locker when Lute made it to school. Lexi sounded annoyed with his little brother again. They’d always been close. Lute didn’t know why they were arguing a bit lately, and he saw no reason to pry.
Kon was still perky. With most people. And he was in the middle of one of those growth spurts that seemed to land on the other boys in their grade every couple of months. Lute suspected some of them were shooting up centimeters as they slept in their beds at night.
His own short stature was an annoyance but not the emotional crisis that his father seemed to think it should be. That was probably because he’d always had plenty of other difficult things to agonize over. If he’d had more Artonan-resembling features, like his mother, he was sure it would have been a larger issue. As it was, he had round cheeks and long lashes that made him look like a primary schooler who’d gotten lost in a pile of big kids.
Shopping for interesting clothes to wear when he wasn’t in his uniform was a pain in the ass. But other than that…
He was still growing, and the baby face would disappear soon enough. Did it really matter what he looked like between now and when his real life started at twenty-one?
Boy, I like not caring. It’s so much easier.
His locker was near Kon’s this year, too, so he had to slip past the brothers to reach it.
“Hey, Lute.”
“Hey, Lexi,” said Lute.
His eyes checked the ninth grader’s lapel. Even if Anesidora had become a movie recently, he couldn’t help doing things like that. They’d been baked into who he was for too long.
Plus, Lexi was still talking to Lute when they met in the halls, and Lute didn’t mind that at all.
The guy worked to be good at ballet even though nobody else in his age group was taking it seriously anymore, unless they wanted to be a dancer for the rest of their lives. Lute felt like they had an artistic compatibility or something, though he’d refrained from ever saying it out loud in case Lexi disappointed him by disagreeing.
And he’s doing all that hero prep stuff with Kon on top of it.
Lexi was hitting the prime time for his selection right now, and when he wore his pin, Lute planned to be sincere in his congratulations.
“Do you know what the rates are going to be for Meister trades for the next few months?” Lexi asked. “If they’re going up or down? I know it’s an out-of-the-blue business question, but if you happened to have heard anything…”
Kon was giving his brother an uncomfortable look.
“I don’t,” said Lute. “I’m not sure if Uncle Corin even knows things like that or if he just pretends to have his finger on the pulse of the class trading business. The System spits out what it spits out, and he just pays people to hold good stuff for bargaining…I can ask.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I’m living in the cabin next to his. He’s not there a lot, but it’s no trouble.”
Roman was a Rabbit now, but they were still offshore. Lute wondered if Aulia was hiding from him out of guilt. He wondered if she even had the capacity to feel guilt.
Lexi nodded. “Thanks. I was in a big swap group. Some of them have gotten selected earlier than they expected and dropped out. If I’m a few months late…”
“I’ll ask,” said Lute.
The swap groups always left a ton of people with short straws, even if everyone was sticking to their agreements.
Lute had the impression that the Roberts family was right at the edge of being able to give their kids the best education and the classes they wanted. As long as the System didn’t throw a wrench in the works by giving them something awful to trade out of.
Lexi headed off to join his friends. A couple of them were wearing their pins already.
Kon stared at Lute. “Will you really ask your uncle or are you just saying that?”
“Why would I lie? I like your brother,” said Lute. “He’s always been nice to me. I’ll annoy Corin for him.”
“Most of us were nice to you. I’ve never been anything but nice to you.”
Lute felt a crack, just the smallest chink, in his diamond skin. Careful now, he thought. Careful.
“I guess,” Lute said slowly, “that I don’t mean nice. I mean that your brother acts like he sees me every now and then.”
And you never have.
“I thought he’d hate you,” said Kon. “When I told him about the dice. It seemed like the kind of thing that would make him hate you. He gets mad about stuff like that…but you’re right. He still gets along with you for some reason.”
He slammed his locker door. “Anyway, thanks for asking for him. He’s freaking out about his selection day.”
Lute went to class.
Conversation with a Mandarin speaker in one of the language exchange booths. Calculus 1. Chemistry.
Does anyone actually need to memorize the half-life of actinium? When is this going to be useful? When is this going to be useful in a situation where we don’t have a computer handy to look up the answer?
He was in the second row from the back, trying to draw a picture of what Angela Aubergine would look like if she were a girl with that name.
When I color it in I’ll give her purple hair obviously…does that make her look too Artonan? Maybe a purple t-shirt?
His whole body spasmed. His pen dropped from his hand and thumped onto the notebook.
Lute froze in his seat. What was that?
Some kind of…tiny seizure? Was he hurt?
I think I feel fine.
He didn’t reach for his pen, though. Is it going to happen ag—
“Hello, Lute,” a voice whispered in his ear. “In 1963, the peoples of Earth accepted an infusion of magic and technology, as well as a promise of future protection, as part of an agreement with the Artonan Triplanetary Government. In doing so, Earth became an Artonan resource world, with all the accompanying rights, privileges, and responsibilities afforded by that designation.”
Oh, though Lute. Oh, those assholes are at it again.
He guessed a few months of quiet cold-shouldering from his classmates was more than he should’ve expected.
This was the System’s selection speech. Everyone knew it verbatim.
He would not react. Not another flinch. He picked up his pen calmly and went back to drawing Angela.
“As part of this alliance,” the voice continued quietly, “Earth is required to deliver a number of suitable individuals into contractual servitude. You have been selected for this honor. You may refuse to sign your planet’s version of the Interdimensional Warriors Contract out of personal principle, and your objection will be taken into consideration hereafter. Ultimately, however, you may not refuse to serve.”
I wonder which of them it is.
Declan, Carlotta…someone else finally retaliating for me shoving the scariest parts of their future in their face?
“Upon signing, you will become one of your planet’s Avowed.”
They were probably using one of those devices that magically directed sound into a single person’s ear. There were toy versions, but this was extremely realistic. Someone who’d borrowed it from a parent maybe?
“As a signing bonus, you will receive an additional gift. Refusal to sign will result in the loss of this bonus.”
This is so savage of them, thought Lute. Before I was made of diamond, it might have broken me.
“Upon becoming one of the Avowed, you will be subject to summons, for emergency and non-emergency purposes, by members of the Artonan wizarding classes. By Artonan law, all Avowed are justly rewarded for any service rendered.
“Your rank has been determined. Your class has been randomly assigned based on the Triplanetary Government’s current requests. You have ninety Earth days to sign the Contract of your own free will. During that time, you may trade your class with equivalently ranked selectees from your own planet. Once affixed, your class assignment is immutable.”
Anesidora flows past me.
“Welcome, Lute. And thank you for your future service.”
None of this can really touch me.
It was over now. That was all there should be of the speech.
Lute was fine. He would be fine with things like this until he left this—
A single point of gold light appeared, at the center of his vision, and then it oozed outward.
It turned out he was not made of diamond after all. He was something much more fragile than that. Because words appeared, and they pierced right through him and everything he thought about himself:
Pre-affixed Selectee: Lute Stellan Velra
Divergence Rank: S
Assigned Class: Wright
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