Skandar frowns. “You look like you just fell asleep for a second.”
I give a slight nod, mostly ignoring him. “Yeah. Maybe.”
Eva’s eyes narrow. “It’s not like last spring, is it? In Dembo’s room on Visitation Day?”
“I’m fine.”
I wish I could believe it. Every time I blink I see it again. And visions like this-weird, random flashes-are never good in my case. The last one led me to Seattle, but that was months ago. I thought it was a one-time thing, a symptom of my Pearlbreaker powers being triggered. Why would some empty coastline pop into my head now?
“Anyways,” Eva starts up again. “I think if we run through this logically… get it all down in a… a chart or diagram, we can organize your thoughts into a coherent argument and present it to-”
“Cassius.” I stop myself. I didn’t mean to say his name out loud.
Her face drops. “What?”
“Sorry.” I flash a fake smile while I think it through.
Cassius is on the coast. Back in Canada, a continent away. Was this some kind of warning? He’s the type to get himself in trouble, even more than me, and I still don’t fully understand our bond after Seattle. Maybe I was seeing something through his eyes. A connection.
Eva groans. “Are you even listening to me?”
Skandar pokes her shoulder with the end of his fork. “Jesse’s not about to give Alkine some lame chart. That’s like something you’d do.”
“I’m just trying to help,” she mutters.
I pull myself up from my seat, abandoning the rest of lunch.
Skandar leans back, fork pointing at me now. “Where are you going?”
“Don’t worry. I just have to check on something.”
Eva frowns. “What could be so important? You just got here!”
“Cover for me in Tech, okay?”
“I can only cover for you so many times.”
“Thanks.” I walk away before she can respond.
I don’t look at anybody as I dart through the canteen on my way to the stairwell. I’ve gotten good at this lately, blocking out the curious glances and pretending that I’m the only one in the room.
I make it down four flights of stairs to my room in record time and slip inside. Door locked and doublechecked, I head directly to my desk, pull my identification card from underneath piles of junk, and open the safe in the bottom drawer. Grabbing Cassius’s secret communicator, I lay stomach down on my bed and set the device against the deflated pillow. It’s probably too late to hope that he’ll pick up, but it’s worth a shot. Our time difference is killer, but as far as I can tell Cassius doesn’t sleep. Guy’s a total insomniac.
I make sure that the dial hasn’t been turned off our channel before speaking. Then, scooting forward so that I can keep my voice low, I whisper. “Cassius?”
I’m answered with static as the signal strengthens. This is old technology, even by the Academy’s standards.
Cassius’s voice spills from the speaker after a few moments, tinny and small. It’s the only version of my brother I’ve gotten to know these past few months. “This isn’t a good time.” There’s a hardness to his tone. Imposing, even now that we’re allies.
I bring myself closer to the speaker, scared that Morse or someone could be out in the hallway listening. “Is something wrong?” I wait for a response that doesn’t come. “You’re still on the coast?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Why?”
“I just had the weirdest flash. Like, suddenly my eyes shut and I saw this place, right on the water. I haven’t had a vision that strong since last spring, when I saw Seattle clogged up with all that green mist.”
He’s silent. I’m not sure if he’s thinking it through or if he’s decided not to respond again, so I continue.
“I thought maybe, since it was a coastline, it might have something to do with you.”
“What kind of coastline?”
I close my eyes and recall the image. “Dirt, mostly. Bare.”
“That’s not the Polar Cities,” he responds. “There are buildings everywhere. Docks and… small forests.”
“Oh.” I move to a sitting position, resting on my knees. Suddenly the mad rush back to my room seems a little overdramatic, something a crazy person would do. Or someone with a massive anxiety problem.
I stare into the speaker, wishing that we were sitting face to face. These short bursts of communicator conversation are never enough. And it makes it impossible to tell if he’s being honest with me. “Where are you now?”
“Home.”
“Where’s home?” I know he won’t tell me. He never does.
He sighs. “Just home. Okay?”
“Okay.”
His voice calms. “The Academy… how are they treating you?”
“The same,” I start. “I broke a Pearl last night but they-”
“You’ve got to do something,” he interrupts. “I don’t have your power. I can’t do what you can. They’re still hiding the other Drifters?”
“They’re in Siberia somewhere. That’s all I know. We’ve had conference calls, but-”
“You’ve got to find them,” he says. We’ve been through this before, countless times. And the conversation always follows the same path. I can nearly predict it word for word. “Talk to them. We’re being kept in the dark. We can’t do anything if we don’t know what’s going on.”
“It would be a lot easier if you were here.”
He scoffs. “Yeah? I’m sure Alkine’d be happy to have me after all I’ve done.”
“But you’ve changed.”
No reply.
I wince. “I don’t know how.”
“Next time they hook you up to the video feed, look for clues.”
I think back to the last conference Alkine let me sit in on. He schedules them every few weeks, heavily scripted sitdowns with Ryel, one of the first, and most English-fluent, of the Drifters I’ve freed. Their prison can’t be far away. Otherwise Alkine wouldn’t have been able to install a video link.
“It’s only a room.” I close my eyes and visualize Ryel’s worried face filling the video screen. I picture the feed breaking in and out like it always does. I think the faculty manipulates the frames. I’m not even sure that the conference is live. The grammar Ryel uses, the words and phrases he chooses to put together… it never seems right. “There’s nothing behind him. No markings or maps or anything. Just a gray wall and a pair of Academy guards flanking him.”
“Maybe it’s on the coast,” Cassius says. “Maybe that’s what you were seeing. The Academy has to have the coordinates stored somewhere. You have to look around.”
“Yeah,” I mutter. I know that finding Ryel is more important than freeing random Drifters from captured Pearls. He was the one who was able to relay the message from our mother on the rooftop last spring. He knows things that we need to know. But finding him-hell, getting to him-seems impossible.
There’s a long pause. For a second I think Cassius has switched off his communicator. “Cassius?”
“I’ve gotta go, alright?”
“Is there anything I can do to help you?”
“From Siberia?” He laughs. “Doubt it. You focus on your end. Call me when you’ve got answers.”
I nod, not that he can see it.
He grunts. Or maybe it’s a cough. It’s hard to tell over the communicator. “I’ll talk to you when I know things are safe.”
“Alright.” That’s about all I can expect from my brother right now. But things are never safe. Not with him.
The static fades and the line goes dead. I turn off the communicator and flip over on my back, staring at the ceiling. I close my eyes and try to visualize that coastline again. It appears in front of me, one little piece at a time until I recall the entire horizon. Problem is, there’s not much to see. It could be any stretch of land. The whole of this country’s crammed with coastline. If I’m gonna risk my butt hijacking a shuttle to go exploring, I’ve got to be absolutely sure that I know where I’m going. There can’t be mistakes. I can’t give Alkine time to find me and bring me back.
I try to wind around inside my little vision, see if the image will let me zoom out and reveal a path to our Skyship. No luck.