Legend

“That is—I mean, you look well for the circumstances, given all that’s happened.”

“I know what you mean.” I reach over and pat his hand to reassure him. He gives me a smile. He looks like he wants to say something more, then decides against it and turns his eyes away.

It takes a half hour for everyone to find their seats and another half hour for the waiters to start arriving with plates of food. I don’t eat anything. Commander Jameson sits opposite me on the far side of our banquet table, and between her and Thomas are three of my Drake classmates. I exchange a strained smile with them. On my left side is a man named Chian who organizes and oversees all Trials taken in Los Angeles. He administered mine. What I don’t understand is why he’s here—why he even cares that Metias died. He’s a former acquaintance of our parents, so his presence is not unexpected—but why right next to me?

Then I remember that Chian had mentored Metias before he joined Commander Jameson’s squad. Metias hated him.

The man now furrows his bushy eyebrows at me and claps a hand on my bare shoulder. It lingers there for a while. “How are you feeling, my dear?” he asks. His words distort the scars on his face—a slice across the bridge of his nose, and another jagged mark that goes from his ear to the bottom of his chin.

I manage a smile. “Better than expected.”

“Well, I’ll say.” He lets out a laugh that makes me cringe. His eyes look me up and down. “That dress polishes you up like a fresh snow blossom.”

It takes all my control to keep the smile on my face. Stay calm, I tell myself. Chian is not a man to make into an enemy.

“I loved your brother very much, you know,” he continues with overdone sympathy. “I remember him as a kid —you should’ve seen him. He used to run around your parents’ living room, holding out his hand like a little gun. He was destined to enter our squads.”

“Thank you, sir,” I say.

Chian saws off a huge piece of steak and shoves it in his mouth. “Metias was very attentive during the time I mentored him. Natural leader. Did he ever tell you about that?”

A memory flashes through my mind. The rainy night when Metias first started working for Chian. He had taken me and Thomas, who was still in school, out to the Tanagashi sector, where I ate my first bowl of pork edame, with spaghetti and sweet onion rolls. I remember the two of them were in full uniform—Metias with his jacket open and shirt hanging loose; Thomas neatly buttoned up, with his hair carefully slicked back. Thomas teased me over my messy pigtails, but Metias was quiet. Then, a week later, his apprenticeship with Chian ended abruptly. Metias had filed an appeal, and he was reassigned to Commander Jameson’s patrol.

“He said it was all classified,” I lie.

Chian laughs. “A good boy, that Metias was. A great apprentice. Imagine my disappointment when he was reassigned to the city patrols. He told me he just didn’t have the smarts to judge the Trials or organize the kids who finished taking them. Such a modest one. Always smarter than he thought he was—just like you.” He grins at me.

I nod. Chian made me take the Trial twice because I got a perfect score in record time (one hour ten minutes). He thought I had cheated. Not only do I have the only perfect score in the nation—I’m probably also the only kid who has ever taken the Trial twice. “You’re very kind,” I reply. “My brother was a better leader than I’ll ever be.”

Chian shushes me with a wave of his hand. “Nonsense, my dear,” he says. Then he leans uncomfortably close. There’s something oily and unpleasant about him. “I’m personally devastated by the way he died,” he says. “At the hands of that nasty boy. What a shame!” Chian narrows his eyes, making his eyebrows look even bushier. “I was so pleased when Commander Jameson told me that you’d be tracking him. His case needs a pair of fresh eyes, and you’re just the doll to do it. What a gem of a test mission, eh?”

I hate him with all my being. Thomas must notice my stiffness, because I feel his hand cover mine under the table. Just go with it, he’s trying to tell me. When Chian finally turns away from me to answer a question from the man on his other side, Thomas leans toward me.

“Chian has a personal grudge against Day,” he whispers.

“Is that so?” I whisper back.

He nods. “Who do you think gave him that scar?”

Day did? I can’t keep the surprise from my face. Chian is a rather large man and has worked for the Trial’s administration for as long as I can remember. He’s a skilled official. Could a teenage boy really wound him like that? And get away with it? I glance over at Chian and study the scar. It’s a clean cut made with a smooth-edged blade. Must’ve happened quickly too, to be such a straight line—I can’t imagine Chian holding still while someone sliced him like that. For a moment, just a split second, I’m on Day’s side. I glance up at Commander Jameson, who stares at me as if she’s reading my thoughts. It makes me uneasy.

Thomas’s hand touches mine again. “Hey,” he says. “Day can’t hide from the government forever—sooner or later we’ll dig that street brat out and make an example out of him. He’s no match for you, especially when you put your mind to something.”

Thomas’s kind smile makes me weak, and suddenly I feel like Metias is the one sitting next to me and telling me everything is going to be okay, reassuring me that the Republic won’t fail me. My brother had once promised to stay at my side forever. I look away from Thomas and toward the altar, so he doesn’t see the tears in my eyes. I can’t smile back. I don’t think I’ll ever smile again.

“Let’s get this over with,” I whisper.

IT’S GODDY HOT EVEN THIS LATE IN THE AFTERNOON. I limp through the streets along the rim of Alta and Winter sector, along the lake and out in the open, lost in the crowded shuffle of other people. My wounds are still healing. I wear the army trousers our caretaker gave me with a thin collared shirt Tess found in a garbage bin. My cap is pulled low, and I’ve added to my disguise with a bandage patch over my left eye. Nothing unusual, really. Not in this sea of workers with factory injuries. Today I’m out on my own—Tess is keeping a low profile several streets down, tucked away on a hidden second-floor ledge. Never any reason to risk both of us if I don’t have to.

Familiar noises surround me: street vendors call out to passersby, selling boiled goose eggs and fried dough and hot dogs. Attendants linger at the doors of grocery stores and coffee shops, trying to win customers over. A