As I pull them on there is a light knock at the door.
“Come in!” I call, and the guard opens the door, with a glass of cloudy liquid in his hand, which I can only assume is my sedative. And once again I’m painfully aware of my two lives—my gentle one in Pembrook and my deadly one as a Strategia.
I pull on my boots and zip up my bag. I would ask him what happens next, but he wouldn’t answer me, so there’s no point. He hands me the glass and I scooch back on the bed, not sure how fast this stuff works and not wanting to concuss myself by hitting the floor. I smell the cup, but there’s no scent. I look questioningly at the guard, but he just stares at me with the typical detached expression.
I don’t know why, maybe I’m just buzzing with excited anticipation that I’m going back to Pembrook, but I sing, “Put the lime in the coconut and shake it all up.” Then I chug back the slightly briny liquid and hand him the glass. And even though his expression remains cold, I swear I see a glimmer of amusement dance across his eyes.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I won’t tell anyone that you think I’m funny.” For a moment nothing happens, then gradually the world gets fuzzy, as if I were looking at it through a rainy window. “I think I’m funny, tooooo.” And as I speak, I fall back onto the cushioned bed. “Wheeee!”
* * *
I lift my head off a crisp white pillowcase with a gasp, the world suddenly blinking back into existence. My eyes flit about rapidly, my heart racing, trying to make sense of the disorienting room. I’m in a king-sized bed. There’s an armchair near a large curtained window. And there’s a desk, above which hangs a large flat-screen TV. I rub my forehead and sit up, frowning at the modern objects. Then I remember the sedative, remember that I left the Academy.
I swing my legs out of bed to find a plush carpet with a pair of white slippers on the floor. I’m in a hotel? I almost want to laugh, like when you wake from a strange dream and you’re so relieved that you actually feel giddy. But this room, which I would once have found awesome and immediately taken pictures of to send to Emily, now strikes me as foreign after my time at the Academy.
I stand up and stretch my sore body. Everything smells sharp and pungent, like floral laundry detergent and lemon-scented cleaning products, none of which existed in that medieval castle. I’m fairly certain a bar of soap was a fix-all there.
I open the heavy curtains, letting in what appears to be the late-morning sun. I scan the room with its fluffy white linens and spot a row of light switches on the wall. For an instant I’m stunned; it didn’t even occur to me that I could flip on the lights instead of opening the curtains. It’s baffling that after only a few weeks I would feel this out of place in a world I’ve existed in my whole life. I’ve heard of reverse culture shock, but like food poisoning, you don’t think it’s going to happen to you until you’re running full-speed for the bathroom.
I grab the remote on my bedside table, examining it for a moment, and switch on the TV. A local news station appears on the screen and I wince. The sound is jarring and the bright colors make me squint. I turn it off again, feeling relieved when the image disappears. But I love TV, don’t I?
“Ash?” My voice cracks with roughness.
“Out here,” he says, and I make my way into the attached living room with tall bay windows and oversized couches. I’m instantly struck by how many electronics there are—another TV, a coffeemaker, speakers for music, and my phone. A zing of excitement runs through me at the sight of it.
A split second later I’m moving toward the coffee table, but as I get closer, I realize it’s not my phone at all, just my empty phone case. I pick up my Spirited Away Miyazaki cover, which is cracked in the corner from when I dropped it on my kitchen floor a couple of months ago, and turn it over, frowning at the hole where my phone should be. I run my fingertips over the sparkly star charm that’s hanging from it; Emily has a matching moon.
I look up at Ash, confused.
But he seems to have expected this. “Cell phones aren’t allowed at the Academy,” he says. “If it was on your person when your dad dropped you off, they would have destroyed it.”
“Destroyed it?” I say, looking up at him in disbelief. “Couldn’t they just shut it off or take out the SIM card?”
Ash’s dark hair is wet and neatly combed and he’s wearing a white button-down with a light gray sweater, a black blazer, and a pair of expensive-looking jeans. I stop dead in my tracks. I’ve never seen him in anything besides our school uniform and right now he looks like he just stepped out of a magazine.
“With the right technology, your cell phone can be tracked, with or without a SIM card,” he says. “It’s easier to locate if it’s on, but it’s not impossible to locate if it’s off. It’s not worth taking the risk.”
My fingers linger over the familiar case. I drooled over that phone for most of the year and bought it for myself for my birthday after painstakingly saving up my babysitting money. It’s only four months old.
I frown. “I know it’s silly that in the midst of everything that’s happened I care about my cell phone,” I say, and sigh. “I just…do.” What I don’t tell him is that it feels like it was the last thing linking me to normal teenhood, and I really didn’t want to give it up. Missed texts from Emily, pictures from the last two months that I never uploaded to my computer, and notes on the knife and sword tricks I was learning. My old life is being stripped from me piece by piece.
He nods, but instead of silently judging my frivolity, he smiles. “You really are beautiful,” he says, and chuckles to himself. “I never thought I would say that to a girl with a very sparkly cell phone case. But it couldn’t be more true.”
I laugh, too, taking the edge off my phone massacre. My braid is messy and strands of it hang around my face. My jeans are worn and cuffed at the bottom, my socks mismatched, and I’m in the same oversized cable-knit sweater as when I arrived at Academy Absconditi.
“You’re clearly still feeling the effects of that sedative and your brains are scrambled,” I say. “Speaking of sedatives, how did we get to this hotel?”
Ash shrugs like he doesn’t think it deserves much thought. “The Academy transportation system is as mysterious as its location. It helps keep the school hidden. Every time Layla and I have returned to Egypt, we’ve been dropped off and wake up in a different location.”
I look around the living room, like there might be an answer among the couch cushions, but the room is perfectly average for an upscale hotel and lacks any defining features. I’m reminded of the time Ash told me it was futile to try to figure out where the Academy was located, but even so, I couldn’t stop analyzing every inch of the grounds.