Zodiac (Zodiac, #1)(3)

Mom sat beside Stanton and rested her hand on his forehead. I expected her to tell Dad how she sliced the Maw in two, but she just sat there in silence. I couldn’t believe how brave she’d been. She saved us.

“What in the name of Helios was a Maw doing in the shallows?” mused Dad to himself, his eyes glassy and his breathing still heavy. He didn’t speak again after that, reverting to his quiet nature. I helped Mom sort the nar-clams into clam-cubbies, and when we finished, we sat with Stanton.

“Mom, I’m sorry,” I muttered, the tears falling before I could stop them, “I didn’t know what to do. . . .”

“It’s okay, Rho,” said Mom, surprising me by reaching out to adjust the pearl necklace so the Crab was centered on my chest. “You’re still young, so of course the world seems scary to you.” Then she looked at me—looked into me—and everything outside her bulletproof gaze grew blurry.

“Hold onto your fears,” she whispered. “They’re real.”





1


TWELVE HOLOGRAPHIC SYMBOLS DRIFT DOWN the Academy hallway, gliding through people like colorful ghosts. The signs represent the Houses of our Zodiac Solar System, and they’re parading to promote unity. But everyone’s too busy buzzing about tonight’s Lunar Quadract to spare them a glance.

“You ready for tonight?” asks my best friend, Nishiko, an exchange student from Sagittarius. She waves at her locker and it pops open.

“Yeah . . . what I’m not ready for is this test,” I say, still watching the twelve signs drift through the school. Acolytes aren’t invited to the celebration, so we’re hosting our own party on campus. And after Nishi’s brilliant idea to bribe the dining hall staff into adding our new song to their lunchtime playlist, our band was voted to play the event.

I dip my fingers in my coat pocket to make sure I have my drumsticks, just as Nishi slams her locker shut. “Have they told you why they’re making you re-

take it?”

“Probably the same old reason—I never show my work.”

“I don’t know. . . .” Nishi scrunches up her forehead in that uniquely Sagittarian I’m-curious-about-everything way. “They might want to know more about what you saw in the stars last time.”

I shake my head. “I only saw it because I don’t use an Astralator for my predictions. Everyone knows intuition isn’t star-proof.”

“Having a different method doesn’t make you wrong. I think they want to hear more about your omen.” She waits for me to say something more about it, and when I don’t, she pushes harder. “You said it was black? And . . . writhing?”

“Yeah, kind of,” I mutter. Nishi knows I don’t like discussing that vision, but asking a Sagittarian to suppress her curiosity is like asking a Cancrian to abandon a friend in need. Neither is in our natures.

“Have you seen it again since the test?” she presses.

This time I don’t answer. The symbols are rounding the corner. I can just make out the Fish of Pisces before they vanish.

“I should go,” I finally say, flashing her a small smile so she knows I’m not upset. “See you onstage.”

? ? ?

The halls still swarm with restless Acolytes, so nobody sees me slip into Instructor Tidus’s empty classroom. I leave the lights off and let instinct guide me through the black space.

When I’ve reached the teacher’s desk, I feel along its surface until my fingers find cold metal. Though I know I shouldn’t, I switch on the Ephemeris.

Stars puncture the blackness.

Hovering in the center of the room, countless winking pinpricks of light form a dozen distinct constellations—the Houses of the Zodiac. Larger balls of colored light swirl among the stars: our planets and moons. In the midst of it all burns a ball of blazing fire: Helios.

I slide a stick from my pocket and twirl it. Amid all the sparkles in the glittering universe, I find the churning mass of blue, the brightest point in the Crab-shaped constellation . . . and I miss home.

The Blue Planet.

Cancer.

I reach out, but my hand goes right through the hologram. Four lesser gray orbs hover in a row beside my planet; if connected, they look like they would form a straight line. That’s because the Lunar Quadract is the only time this millennium our four moons will align.

Our school sits on Cancer’s closest and largest moon, Elara. We share this gray rock with the prestigious Zodai University, which has training campuses on every House in our galaxy.

I’m forbidden from activating the school’s Ephemeris without an instructor present. I steal a last look at my home planet, a whirling ball of blending blues, and I picture Dad at our airy bungalow home, tending to his nar-clams on the banks of the Cancer Sea. The smell of the salty water engulfs me, and the heat of Helios warms my skin, almost like I’m really there. . . .

The Ephemeris flickers, and our smallest and farthest moon disappears.

I fix on the black spot where the gray light of Thebe was just extinguished—and one by one, the other moons go dark.

I turn to inspect the rest of the constellations, just as the whole galaxy explodes in a blinding blast of light.

The room is plunged into total darkness, until images begin to appear all around me. On the walls, the ceiling, desks—every surface is covered in multicolored holograms. Some I can identify from my classes, but there are so many—words, images, equations, diagrams, charts—that I can’t possibly take them all in—