Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark #1)(6)

“What’s happening?” He recognized that voice—it was Ori. She moved into the pool of orange light by the east stairwell. Standing in front of her was her aunt Badha, looking more disheveled than he’d ever seen her, pieces of hair hanging around her face, escaped from its knot, and her sweater buttons done up all wrong.

“You are in danger,” Badha said. “It is time for us to do as we have practiced.”

“Why?” Ori demanded. “You come in here, you drag me out of class, you want me to leave everything, everyone—”

“All the fate-favored are in danger, understand? You are exposed. You must go.”

“What about the Kereseths? Aren’t they in danger, too?”

“Not as much as you.” Badha grabbed Ori’s elbow and steered her toward the landing of the east stairwell. Ori’s face was shaded, so Akos couldn’t see her expression. But just before she went around a corner, she turned, hair falling across her face, sweater slipping off her shoulder so he could see her collarbone.

He was pretty sure her eyes found his then, wide and fearful. But it was hard to say. And then someone called Akos’s name.

Cisi was hustling out of one of the center offices. She was in her heavy gray dress, with black boots, and her mouth was taut.

“Come on,” she said. “We’ve been called to the headmaster’s office. Dad is coming for us now, we can wait there.”

“What—” Akos began, but as always, he talked too softly for most people to pay attention.

“Come on.” Cisi pushed through the door she had just closed. Akos’s mind was going in all different directions. Ori was fate-favored. All the lights were off. Their dad was coming to get them. Ori was in danger. He was in danger.

Cisi led the way down the dark hallway. Then: an open door, a lit lantern, Eijeh turning toward them.

The headmaster sat across from him. Akos didn’t know his name; they just called him “Headmaster,” and saw him only when he was giving an announcement or on his way someplace else. Akos didn’t pay him any mind.

“What’s going on?” he asked Eijeh.

“Nobody will say,” Eijeh said, eyes flicking over to the headmaster.

“It is the policy of this school to leave this sort of situation to the parents’ discretion,” the headmaster said. Sometimes kids joked that the headmaster had machine parts instead of flesh, that if you cut him open, wires would come tumbling out. He talked like it, anyway.

“And you can’t say what sort of situation it is?” Eijeh said to him, in much the way their mom would have, if she’d been there. Where is Mom, anyway? Akos thought. Their dad was coming for them, but nobody had said anything about their mom.

“Eijeh,” Cisi said, and her whispered voice steadied Akos, too. It was almost like she spoke into the hum of the current inside him, leveling it just enough. The spell lasted awhile, the headmaster, Eijeh, Cisi, and Akos quiet, waiting.

“It’s getting cold,” Eijeh said eventually, and there was a draft creeping under the door, chilling Akos’s ankles.

“I know. I had to shut off the power,” the headmaster said. “I intend to wait until you are safely on your way before turning it back on.”

“You shut off the power for us? Why?” Cisi said sweetly. The same wheedling voice she used when she wanted to stay up later or have an extra candy for dessert. It didn’t work on their parents, but the headmaster melted like a candle. Akos half expected there to be a puddle of wax spreading under his desk.

“The only way the screens can be turned off during emergency alerts from the Assembly,” the headmaster said softly, “is if the power is shut down.”

“So there was an emergency alert,” Cisi said, still wheedling.

“Yes. It was issued by the Assembly Leader just this morning.”

Eijeh and Akos traded looks. Cisi was smiling, calm, her hands folded over her knees. In this light, with her curly hair framing her face, she was Aoseh’s daughter, pure and simple. Their dad could get what he wanted, too, with smiles and laughs, always soothing people, hearts, situations.

A heavy fist pounded on the headmaster’s door, sparing the wax man from melting further. Akos knew it was his dad because the doorknob fell out at the last knock, the plate that held it fast to the wood cracking right down the middle. He couldn’t control his temper, and his currentgift made that pretty clear. Their dad was always fixing things, but half the time it was because he himself had broken them.

“Sorry,” Aoseh mumbled when he came into the room. He shoved the doorknob back in place and traced the crack with his fingertip. The plate came together a little jagged, but mostly good as new. Their mom insisted he didn’t always fix things right, and they had the uneven dinner plates and jagged mug handles to prove it.

“Mr. Kereseth,” the headmaster began.

“Thank you, Headmaster, for reacting so quickly,” their dad said to him. He wasn’t smiling even a little. More than the dark hallways or Ori’s shouting aunt or Cisi’s pressed-line mouth, his serious face scared Akos. Their dad was always smiling, even when the situation didn’t call for it. Their mom called it his very best armor.

“Come on, Small Child, Smaller Child, Smallest Child,” Aoseh said halfheartedly. “Let’s go home.”