“I got a splinter,” Nolan said. “That’s it. This is what happens when I get a splinter.”
“Lame sauce,” said Cyrus. “On the other hand, you don’t die.”
“Shut up and do your Latin. This is your third time taking this test, Cyrus. No more chances. You can’t sluff it again.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Cyrus said. “I passed that Creole thing this morning, didn’t I?”
“You did. But this isn’t a ‘Creole thing.’ It’s Latin. And you have to pass it, too.” Nolan slammed his chair down. “Get to work, Cy. Seriously. You have to finish this time. After all you’ve been through and all you’ve learned, I don’t want you kicked out over Latin.”
“Rupe wouldn’t really do that,” Cyrus said.
Nolan laughed. “Rupert Greeves? Cyrus, please. You know he would. He’d have to. And you’ve still got your Medicinal and Occult exams later. Both long ones. Did you finish with Jax already?”
Nodding and scrunching his lips, Cyrus turned back to his Latin.
The distant sound of steel on steel crept into the room. A crowd oohed and aahed.
Cyrus tried to ignore it. He was supposed to be there, watching Antigone’s Weaponry exam with Greeves. He glanced at the hourglass, and then at the dead language in the dead book in front of him.
A red-winged blackbird landed on the snow-drifted windowsill.
Why were there so many distractions?
A piece of skin shaped exactly like a nose drifted across the table.
Breathing hard behind her wire mask, trying to stand tall, Antigone walked back to the weapon table. The Galleria was full to overflowing. She scanned the faces. Clumps of girls and boys in long white trousers and white sweaters — black symbols patched onto cable-knit chests. Men in jackets. Nervous women. Even the fat-faced monk who had once attacked her in the dining hall. The Galleria had been full for Cyrus’s exam, too, but he’d passed Weaponry two months ago, even before she’d passed Linguistics.
“Saber!” Rupert yelled. “One adversary!”
Her last one. She’d done well enough with the foil. Not so well with the dagger. But saber was her worst — the most tiring and the most painful of the fencing blades. Slashing was harder for her than touching with a point.
Setting down her dagger, she picked up the heavier blade and returned to the starting position. The crowd was silent, all except for Dan. He was whistling like a football fan — not exactly in keeping with O of B decorum. Adjusting her mask, she patted the symbol embroidered onto her own chest. Cyrus’s leather jacket had chosen it for them. A boxing monkey inside a shield — the symbol of the Polygoners.
A thick Journeyman walked out in his white suit and wire mask, taking his position across from Antigone.
“Dice him, Tigs!” That wasn’t Dan. Cyrus had arrived. She almost smiled. For good or ill, his Latin exam was over.
The signal came, and sabers clashed.
Diana Boone stood in her large Eskimo coat, bouncing in the snow and rubbing her hands together. The airstrip was clear of drifts — for now — and the old Bristol Scout biplane sputtered beside her, idling, remaining warm until Antigone arrived.
Poor girl. Diana didn’t know who had it worse. Cyrus was spending his day moving from dry paper test to dry paper test, while Antigone’s day was a trial of physical endurance. Lifesaving and resuscitation, the gun range, fencing, and now her first solo flight — and in a canvas-bodied museum piece, too. How either of them could fit it all into a day, she didn’t know. But the year was dying. By midnight, one way or another, they would no longer be Acolytes.
Diana heard the crowd before she saw it. Rupert Greeves, hatless, snowflakes tangling in his pointed black beard, was walking between Cyrus and Antigone, followed by the many spectators eager to see the testing of the outlaw Polygoners.
Antigone was still in her fencing suit. She walked straight to Diana and gave her a hug.
“Whatever happens,” she said, “thanks for everything.”
Diana nodded. “You ready?”
“I have to be, don’t I?”
“She’s ready,” Cyrus said. “You should have seen her with the saber. Carved through two Journeymen. It took an Explorer to bring her down.” He gave his sister a boost and watched her climb into the open cockpit.
Once seated, Antigone brushed back her short hair before pulling on her cap and goggles. “Cy-Rusty there didn’t do too bad, either!” she yelled above the engine. “He actually finished a Latin translation.”
“Without strangling Nolan,” Cyrus said. “That’s the impressive part. We’ll see if I passed.”
Antigone wrapped a long white scarf around her face. The crowd stepped back, and the old World War I biplane sputtered and bounced down the snowy airstrip. Slowly, perfectly, effortlessly, the plane rose into the air and climbed out over the icy lake, a hillful of people whistling and whooping as it did.
Cyrus raised his Quick Water and waited. His sister’s bundled face, the sprawling lake, the tail of the plane, Ashtown — all of it appeared in the palm of his hand, bent and warped in glorious fish-eye. Cyrus smiled at Antigone, and then scrunched his lips and flared his nostrils, knowing she could see his clownish face.
For a moment, and only a moment, the image in his hand flickered. Cyrus blinked, and he was again looking at Antigone. But in that brief flash, he was almost certain that he’d seen a black beard, an ear, and a wobbling golden bell.
That night, New Year’s Eve, the new cook put out his best spread yet — and it wasn’t any good. But no one cared. Snow was falling while the old year died, and fireplaces were roaring in every room in Ashtown.
Cyrus and Antigone Smith sat on an empty bed. Dan sat between them. Their mother, still lost in peaceful dreams, slept on the bed in front of them.
“I’m proud of you two,” Dan said. He slapped their knees, and then pulled them in tight. “You did it. And I think it’s good that you’re staying. We’ll still be together a lot.”
“And I’m glad you’re starting school,” Antigone said. “Get rid of your lazy ways.”
“Right,” said Cyrus. “California is good for that. Can we go eat? I did Latin today, so I’m starving.”
Antigone started to stand, but Dan pulled her back down. His once-blue eyes had been darkening over the past few months, and his pupils seemed to bulge a little … vertical. The Order hadn’t been willing to let him leave at first. They’d poked and prodded and tested and observed until they’d been sure that he was fine — that his mind was undamaged and that he was, well, who he thought he was. But that didn’t mean that Antigone was used to his eyes. She didn’t mind his new height or the size of his shoulders or the shape of his teeth or his quick bursts of strength when he picked her up or squeezed her. He was more than healthy, and that made her happy. But she missed the blue sparkle when he smiled.
Dan cleared his throat. “Just one more thing I need to tell you. Not a big deal, but I thought you’d be interested.”
“And …,” said Cyrus.
“I sold the Archer.”
“What?” Antigone asked. “How? Who would buy it?”
“Well, it’s not like I was asking a lot for it, and it does have a certain truck-stop beauty.”
“Who?” asked Cyrus. He felt a strange tug inside him, a tug he knew well. This was another goodbye. Another piece of him gone. But he didn’t mind. Not this time.
“Pat and Pat. They’re fixing it up. The pool, too. And they’ll move their diner in. I threw in the waffle maker.”
Laughing, three Smiths stood. Three Smiths bent and kissed their mother on the head, and as they left the room in each other’s warmth, outside the window, a red-winged blackbird sang.
In the dining hall, the men and women of the Order mingled, laughed, and occasionally shouted. But one table — a round table in a corner beneath a battered and bullet-pocked vent — was especially rowdy. People called them the Polygoners, but only three of them were actually members of the O of B.
Dennis Gilly, sailing instructor, was explaining the origins of certain rules to Nolan, who was telling a joke to little Hillary Drake from Accounting, who didn’t get it but was laughing anyway. Jax, the twelve-year-old zookeeper,
