Zodiac (Zodiac, #1)(7)

The three of us have taken it once before, for Instructor Tidus’s lesson on Macro Reads, under her supervision. Its sale is closely regulated, so it’s very hard to get. A smug smile steals over Deke’s features. “Nish, a true Zodai never reveals his secrets.”

“You totally stole it from the university’s lab,” she says, plucking a bottle. Abyssthe is produced in House Sagittarius. Nishi told me that if taken outside an Ephemeris setting, the tonic has a mood-altering effect, making a person feel light-hearted and less inhibited.

Deke hands Kai and me the other two bottles. I’m not sure how I felt about Abyssthe when we took it in class—the brain and body buzz was nice, but the disorienting effect lasted so long I started to panic it would never wear off. They only sell it to people seventeen and older on Cancer . . . which is what I’ll be in just a few weeks.

“What will it feel like this time?” I ask Nishi. She’s the only one of us who’s taken it recreationally before. Sagittarians don’t believe in age restrictions.

“Like you’re the Ephemeris,” she says, already opening hers and taking a whiff. I smell a hint of licorice. “You feel your mind broadening, like it’s expanding into infinity, the way Space swells out from the Ephemeris. Everything becomes tenuous and dreamlike, like you’re Centered, and there’s this body high that’s like being . . . weightless.”

“Which we pretty much are on this moon anyway,” Deke points out.

Nishi rolls her eyes at him. While most people study on their own planets, Sagittarius is one of the more widespread Houses because they’re natural-born wanderers. Sagittarians are truth-seekers who will follow a trail of knowledge to whatever end—having fun the whole way.

“How long will the effects last?” I ask, shaking the bottle. The Abyssthe bubbles and froths, like it’s half liquid, half air.

The peak dropout point for students at Zodai University is when they get to Galactic Readings in the Ephemeris, and they’re required to dose themselves with Abyssthe almost every day for a month. I read that students who’ve had prior experience with Abyssthe tend to endure it better and have a greater chance of graduating.

“It’ll wear off by the end of our first set,” Nishi assures me. “And no, it won’t affect your drumming,” she adds, guessing my next question. “You’ll still be you—just a more relaxed you.”

Nishi and Deke down theirs in one gulp, but I hesitate and meet Kai’s gaze. He only joined the band two months ago. Since he’s a year younger, he’s never tried Abyssthe before, and his eyes are round with terror.

To take the attention off him and ease his fear, I wink and drink mine. With a worried smile, Kai nods and takes his, too.

The four of us stare at each other. Nothing happens for so long that we start laughing. “Someone marked you for a sucker,” says Nishi, snorting, pointing at Deke.

Then, one by one, we fall silent.

Abyssthe begins with a body buzz I can feel down to my bones, and it makes me wonder whether the crystal dome has detached itself from the moon and is now floating into Space. Nishi was right: My consciousness is tingling, like I’m Centered, but the universe I’m diving through is actually my mind. My head feels so sensitive that it tickles when I think.

I start laughing.

“Countdown: five minutes!” booms a disembodied voice. It’s Deke’s pod-mate Xander, who manages the sound for our shows from his studio.

We all jump, and I unpack my drum kit, the Abyssthe making it hard to focus on anything in the physical realm. It takes me way too many attempts to fit four spindly metal pegs into their holes on the drum mat, a bouncy bed beneath my feet that has a plush burgundy chair at its center and a crescent of holes arranged around it.

When the pieces are in place and I sit down, the mat lights up and round metal plates unfold from the ends of each rod I’ve planted. They look like lily pads blossoming on tall stems.

“Lily pads,” I say out loud, laughing. If metal is starting to remind me of organic life, I must miss home more than I realize.

“Rho’s delirious!” shouts Nishi, collapsing in a fit of giggles on the floor.

So is Nishi, if she’s risking damage to her imported levlan suit—but the words that come shrieking out of me are: “No, I’m not!” I pounce on her, and we play-wrestle on the floor, each trying to tickle the other.

“Yes, you are!” calls Deke. He’s stuffed both feet into his helmet and is hopping around the dome, declaring the exercise an “excellent workout” every time he falls.

“She can’t be delirious!” blurts Kai, who hasn’t spoken more than a few sentences our whole bandship.

Nishi and I pull apart and stare at him. Even Deke stops hopping. Then Kai shouts, “Delirious isn’t real if you can’t touch it!”

We all explode in howling laughter, and Deke takes Kai under his arm and scruffs up his hair. “My boy! He talks!”

Kai slips out of Deke’s hold, and Deke chases him around, until we hear Xander’s booming voice again: “One minute!”

We scream and scramble for our instruments.

I plop onto the plush chair and fit my feet into a pair of metal boots with pedals built in. Two stacked plates—lily pads—bloom from the tip of my left foot, my hi-hat, and the largest plate of all, the bass drum, emerges from my right boot, along with a pedal-operated beater.