ANGIE. ALMOST TIME FOR CLASS.

“I know who you are, Chris Gramyre,” Angie said. “They did a big write up on your family in the Society section of the Times. Your dad’s a famous hero and your mom’s a normal hero and a big time lawyer and you and your sister are unusually talented for your age, even as far as Light Bearers who have trained their whole lives go.”

Chris seemed at a bit of a loss to be interrupted once again, but Angie was done with this shit. “Listen,” she said. “You’re being very persistent and I understand why. But I was not by any stretch popular in middle school, and you’re—you’re a lot, and I’ve never spoken with a strange Light Bearer before[1], really, and that’s a lot of people staring at us, and I really couldn’t possibly begin to explain how much of a morning I’d already had before the puking magpies started shrieking at me, so please, this is all too much, I need a couple of minutes to just, like, breathe. I’m Angie McMillen, track me down later, I’d be happy to talk more if you can manage it without a hundred people watching us. Let me be now, though, Chris. Please.”

[1] This was a lie, but it was true in spirit. She’d never spoken with a rich Light Bearer from an old, important Light Bearing family before, let alone one whose dad, as Ryan had been entirely too psyched up about the back half of the summer once they’d gotten wind that the new family was coming to town, was kind of a famous hero.

Chris took a moment to absorb that, and with a gentle sigh, he bowed his head and said, “My apologies again again.” Angie couldn’t help but smile briefly at that, while his face was down. She’d have said the same thing. “You’ve got really good self-control,” he went on as he returned his eyes to her, “So much I misread how much this was bothering you. I would like to talk later, if you don’t mind, since you’re not really telling me the whole truth about this augury thing.”

Angie wrinkled her nose. She’d grown up surrounded by sharp people and she’d seldom managed to slip one past anyone. She’d given up on trying to develop any talent for lying a long time before, especially since the only person she’d ever really wanted to lie to anyway, Katie Konigsmann, had never been particularly good at spotting lies, and Angie hadn’t even had to deal with Katie for three years at that point.

Closing her eyes, Angie said, “I’m sorry. I just don’t understand anything about it myself. And I don’t… But my gut is telling me that…” Angie didn’t even know how to put it into words without sounding crazy. “I think there’s someone you should meet before I try and explain what they said.”

“I see,” Chris said, clearly considering that. He looked at her with those crazy eyes, sea-glass green with those bright gray stars, and quirked one eyebrow up slightly, and said, “What’s she like?”

“I don’t know anymore,” Angie said, and started walking away. She’d gone five steps when the great silvered bell in the belfry of Persephone High’s Tower, where Angie was headed, started to chime for the first time since the end of May.

BRONG

BRONG

BABONG

Time for class.

RYAN. TIME. FOR. CLAAAAASSSSS!

“Please hear me out!” Katier said. Nisha was now eyeing Katie as if she had grown a second head, while Megan’s expression seemed to see a third head, at least. Katie continued: “He’s so hot, and so charming, and he’s just your type. He’s perfect for you. But he’s so bloody hot he’s everyone’s type really, so competition’s gonna be fierce. You’re really going to want to get your face in his brainspace sooner rather than later, and he’s doing the whole thing where he wants to meet everyone in the school before whatever, I think that’s probably the why of the whole production with the lines and the crowd and such.”

As she spoke, Ryan checked the time on his phone.

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Katier continued, “We could all go over and get in line and d’Maughn can tell us how it’s possible for someone to gossip within earshot of who they’re gossiping about and it not be bullying, and with that sort of show of camaraderie hopefully people won’t make too big a thing out of how we’re having this weird confrontation right here and right now.”

“Katie—” Megan started, sounding like things were about to get pretty het up.

“It’s not a terrible idea,” Ryan said, holding up his phone, “But we got like four minutes until first beel so I doubt we’d make it anywhere close to the front of the line, even if people were willing to let us cut to the actual lines, which isn’t likely.”

“Beel?” Katier asked, in the tone of voice of a girl who was simply at the end of her wits.

“He still thinks it’s funny to say beel instead of bell?” Megan asked Evan.

Evan shrugged. “Probably, but he just kinda got in the habit of saying it that way and now embarrasses himself occasionally.”

Ryan, whose cheeks were not feeling warm, that was just a natural result of standing in the sunlight, did not deign to acknowledge any of this and said, “So, on gossips. Some people totally gossiped about us with the goal of making us feel shitty, it’s true, and they liked to repeat all the nastiest rumors going around as if they were clearly, obviously true. These sorts didn’t really get going for a few months, not until it became clear we weren’t engaging with anyone who talked about us within earshot. Had we tried to confront them they would have fled, I’m sure. Cowards, one and all, and most receive no more respect than they deserve from the student body at large. They are capital T Trashkids and we need concern ourselves with them no longer.

“The other category of gossip I call the Curious, capital C. This group, who comprised the other seventy-seven percent if I’m doing my math right, which of course I am—”

“What is the deal with that?” Nisha asked. “Did you seriously keep a tally of everyone you overheard gossiping about you and do percentage calculations about them in case you had the opportunity to talk about this?

Ryan regarded Nisha with an expression meant to convey the sheer depths of his disapproval at being interrupted. “Of course not,” he said. “I tallied them all and did the math on the fly just earlier when this first came up. Why do you think I had to pause so long?”

Nisha and Katie both wore expressions of the sort that must have inspired the word ‘incredulous.’ “I don’t—” Katie said.

“Bullpiss,” Nisha said. “No way.”

“Are you actually human?” Katier asked.

“I couldn’t possibly care any less if you think that’s bullpiss, Nisha Twighs, and I’m more human than some of us in this conversation, Mst.[1] Ryuyama,” Ryan replied tartly. “A rich question coming from the five times great granddaughter of an elder dragon.”

[1] A gender-neutral equivalent to Mr. or Miss commonly used in Fredonia.

Katier shrugged.

“I have, in fact, had my humanity checked and confirmed by my guardians on a biyearly basis, if you must know, and I’ve never come out as less than one hundred percent genuine homo sapiens.” They both looked taken aback at that one, as they should have been, and then they got appropriately frustrated looking when he didn’t further address it. “And anyway, I mean, we’re talking about a pool of forty-three gossips here, it wasn’t that hard to tally and math out real quick. The percentages aren’t even that important to the subject and we’re running out of time. No more interruptions, if you please.”

Nisha and Katier continued to look incredulous, but they didn’t interrupt him, which is what counted.

“So,” Ryan continued, “The Curious would repeat much the same sort of drivel as the Trashkids, but in tones of voice that showed that they thought that stuff was too unbelievable to be true, ‘but everyone said so, could it possibly be?’ I believe the Curiouses’ goal was to try and get us to engage with them, as they were, well, curious about us, but unwilling to actually defy Lauren’s wishes directly by talking to us first. I’m sure they had all kinds of excuses lined up about us talking to them first, if they could have just gotten us to do so. Alas, no dice.”

“Makes sense to me,” Katier murmured, more to herself than anyone else.

“The various gossips were not, I think, entirely aware of each other, or how many of them there were overall. We stayed quite well informed as a result, though hearing the same piss and shit over and over again in varying levels of credulity and meanness could wear on one after a while. Three, two, one,” Ryan finished, and then the great silvered bells of the Tower began their booming chime.

BRONG

BRONG

BABONG

Time to get to class.