Finally, Doi skates us under a beam and yells to me, “Grab it!” I hook my legs under her arms, then I grip the edge of the beam and pull up with all my strength, lifting both of us up.
We swing back and forth from the beam. Suki sways on top of Etsuko’s shoulders and they both gape at us, unable to guess what we’re about to do.
Doi and I collect our Chi and then, on the forward swing, I send my Chi into her and we explode apart. She hurtles skates-first like a spear flying toward the point where Suki’s knees rest on Etsuko’s shoulders.
Etsuko throws Suki forward across the length of the hall to avoid being struck and crouches to let Doi fly over her. However, Doi twists around in her flight, curbs her blades, lands on Etsuko’s shoulders, and clamps tight onto her with her hands and legs.
Meanwhile, Suki comes shooting across the length of the palace at me, limbs spiraling wildly as she tries to grab anything to keep her from touching the floor and being disqualified. As she reaches for one of my dangling skates, I lift it ever so slightly out of her reach, like I’m letting an insect creep past.
She goes crashing onto the floor of the palace below me.
For the first time, I notice Sensei Madame Liao and the other girls crowded in the doorway of the palace, watching our final battle.
“Infuriate me to death!” spits Suki.
Doi pushes off of Etsuko as if she were covered with leeches.
I skate to Doi. I bow and say, “I couldn’t have done that without you.”
“You needed me,” she says.
“And you needed me.”
“No one can be in two places at the same time.” And then she surprises me by nearly smiling. She looks almost like Hisashi at that moment.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
My triumph at winning the fifth Motivation is brief. I have to get the wine for Chingu before the Chairman visits again. My Chi freezes every time I think of the pendant with the crushed body of a criminal inside. I suspect the Chairman isn’t the type to wait for sufficient evidence before enacting punishment.
After bowing to Doi in gratitude, I leave the site of the fifth Motivation and race toward the rail-gondolas leading back to the city. I have to get out of the academy while everyone is distracted with the aftermath of the fifth Motivation. Then I have to find wine in the city and get back before tomorrow, while the academy is still sleeping. And all of it before the Chairman arrives again.
“Iwi, it’s brushtime!” comes the call. The birds, wearing luminescent harnesses, take flight and begin writing logograms.
“Vicious. Third. Attack. On. Pearl. Famous. Inspires. Renewed. Calls. For. Arrest. Of. Chair—”
Suddenly, the words in the sky stop and the birds scatter, circling in confusion.
I don’t have much time to spare, but I sense that something’s wrong. I skate toward the spot on the campus over which the birds are swarming and squawking. When I pass under the Great Gate of Complete Centrality and Perfect Uprightness, I kick my heel to stop.
Near the rail-gondolas, Sensei Madame Phoenix is surrounded by the New Deitsu team. I duck behind an ornamental sculpture of the Enlightened One and peer around the corner. A man grips Sensei’s arm tightly. I can see the long nail of his little finger pressing into the sleeve of her arm even from here. Chairman Niu.
I skate as hard as I can in the other direction and almost trip on my nicked and jagged skate blades.
I hide on the original Conservatory of Music islet, which partially sank after a tsunami but was left there because people found the sumptuous ruins to be picturesque. No one ever goes there, because you have to hop across a series of tiny humps that rise out of the sea to access it.
I need to get out of Pearl Famous, away from the Chairman, and into the city as quickly as I can, but I don’t dare cross the campus and be seen in case he’s searching for me. I skate back and forth across the decaying floor of the conservatory, counting down the time.
After two hours, the air splits with a great clap, the same sound that I heard when they completed repairs on the Palace of the Eighteen Outstanding Pieties.
I wait another hour to be safe and then skate back toward the rail-gondolas, staying close to the edge of the Principal Island. The fifth Motivation must be long completed by now. My plan to sneak off the campus while much of the academy was occupied with the Motivation is ruined. I just have to hide if I see anyone between here and the rail-gondolas.
When I near the landing, I see someone under the Great Gate of Complete Centrality and Perfect Uprightness. I skate to hide behind a copse of false ornamental trees, but it’s too late. I’m spotted. Make me drink sand to death! The person is waving at me with both hands.
It’s Cricket.
“Peasprout!”
I hop off and race to him.
“What’s wrong?”
“I saw them restoring the temple!”
“Cricket! You broke the rules!”
“No! They only said that we may not face in the direction of the worksite. They didn’t say that we couldn’t see it. The third-year students who’d devoted to the Conservatory of Architecture were gathered on the edge of the Principal Island facing the worksite. They were given special permission to watch the temple being restored.
“One of them is named Deen Dei-Hwun. She’s ashamed that one of her eyes wanders a little in the socket, so she wears smoked spectacles even at nighttime, which is ridiculous since she’s the prettiest girl at Pearl Famous. She let me talk to her while she watched the work being done. And I realized that I could see everything that was happening reflected in her spectacles!”
“Cricket, what have you done?”
“The work team brought giant
