“Just rumors,” Rachel said. “The labor unions say it’s some new kind of core that can be programmed to run a machine. It’ll take a lot of jobs out of the undercity if it’s true.”
“That’ll never work,” Clem shot back. “Merging jinsei into traditional technology has never been done on any significant scale. The two types of power don’t work well together.”
“Is that what they taught you in your precious overcity elementary schools?” Rachel said, venom dripping from her words.
“Yes, that is what they taught us in the overcity,” Clem shot back, her eyes sparking dangerously. “It’s simply a fact of Empyreal science. Combining different types of energy work can have unpredictable results.”
“And no one wants to be unpredictable,” Rachel said. “After all, if we start questioning the status quo, what would become of the traditions that keep the overcity’s boots on the necks of all the little people?”
The temperature between my friends had risen several uncomfortable degrees. Anger aspects danced in their auras, and my stomach clenched into a knot. The two girls came from very different backgrounds and clearly had incompatible points of view on many, many things. I needed to distract them before things really blew up.
“I’ll just do this,” I said and dragged a polishing tool across one of the jagged slashes that marred the scrivening on our square. “It should—”
“No!” Both girls exclaimed together. Ray snatched the polisher out of my hand, and Clem used her inscriber to redraw what I’d erased.
“Ugh, we’re never going to get this right,” Clem grumbled.
“It is a mess,” Rachel agreed.
They both eyeballed me with irritation, which was an improvement over the boiling anger they held for each other. I could handle my friends being mad at me over something I’d done a lot more easily than I could handle them arguing with each other. Especially when I didn’t even know why they’d decided to fight.
My partners put aside their differences and dove into a frenzy of activity to undo the mess I’d made of our scrivened plate. While I felt a teensy bit bad about what I’d done, I mostly felt relief. I didn’t see any way for us to complete the work before the end of the class, especially because I kept asking questions so I’d understand what my partners were up to. That would cost us some points off on the assignment. On the other hand, I’d avoided a fight between two of my friends, who seemed much more interested in talking to one another when they both had something to gain.
“What if we added an inner border to connect these two pieces?” Rachel said excitedly.
“It is unorthodox,” Clem said with a frown. Her expression brightened, though, when she saw how Rachel’s unusual tactic could help them overcome one of the gaps in the scrivening. “It’ll work! I’ve never seen anything quite like it, but there’s no reason not to do it.”
“I had to teach myself scrivening,” Rachel confided. “We don’t get a lot of textbooks in the undercity. Most of what I learned came off the Internet. The rest I sort of made up as I went along.”
“I can help you,” Clem offered, much to my surprise. “It won’t be easy, but if we put in some extra time, maybe...”
“Oh, I couldn’t trouble you,” Rachel said. “I know you’re very busy.”
The two of them chattered on like that, bouncing ideas off each other, working feverishly to finish the assignment. I was shocked to see we’d actually finished with minutes of class time to spare.
“Nice work,” Clem said as Rachel closed the final loop on the scrivening with a smooth, spiral flourish. “I didn’t think we were going to make it.”
Rachel grinned at my pink-haired friend and slapped a high-five into her palm.
“No, thank you,” Rachel insisted. “I found a couple of shortcuts, but we would’ve never finished if it weren’t for your knowledge of the more traditional techniques. There were sigils that I just didn’t know were missing.”
“There are advantages to traditional training,” Clem admitted. “That’s what helped me fill in the gaps. But without your intuition and shortcuts, it would’ve taken much longer to fix the damage that someone caused.”
I raised my hands defensively but couldn’t hold back a chuckle.
“I’m terrible at scrivening,” I said. “They shouldn’t even let me have an inscriber.”
“We’ll remember that for next time,” Rachel said with a wink for Clem.
“I’ll turn this in,” she said. “I wouldn’t want it to get messed up on the way down to Professor Shan.”
“I wouldn’t mess it up,” I complained.
“No sense taking chances!” Clem said brightly and spirited the scripted square of metal away.
Rachel watched her go, a faint smile on her lips.
“I guess I’m the one who rushed to judgment this time,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Clem,” she clarified. “She dresses like a rebel, you know? The hair and those robes, I mean. It’s not very traditional. I thought she was more like me.”
“Well, she is,” I pointed out. “You’re an Empyreal from the undercity who taught yourself, and you don’t like rules. She’s from the overcity, but helped a kid from the labor camps survive his first year at the School of Swords and Serpents.”
“Maybe we do have some similarities on the surface.” Rachel gave me a faint grin. “You need to learn to look past that, Jace. Dressing like a rebel doesn’t make you a rebel. And acting out doesn’t always mean you don’t like the rules. The truth is deeper than that. For all of us.”
Before I could ask her what she meant, Professor Shan dismissed us. Rachel gave my shoulder a quick squeeze, gathered her books, and slipped into the stream of students pouring out of the scriptorium.
I watched her dark braid sway through the crowd as Clem climbed the stairs to retrieve her books, and I wondered if I’d ever really understand my friends.
The Raid
HAGAR PULLED ANOTHER vanishing act after our first mission. I rapped on her door
