The Paladin Prophecy

NICK AND ELISE

When they left the soda fountain, Ajay excused himself to go to class. Will made a quick grocery run for staples like peanut butter, crackers, and milk. He saw no junk food on the shelves and tons of health foods; his parents would have approved. He bundled up in his new gloves, hat, scarf, and jacket for the hike back to Greenwood Hall. He felt like a sausage but didn’t shiver once and covered the ground with surprising speed. So chalk up one plus for Nordic weather: It helped get you where you were going a whole lot faster.

Back inside, the door to the provost marshal’s office was open. Will noticed a camera on the wall above the door. Inside the room, he caught a glimpse of Lyle speaking intently to Todd Hodak.

Somehow he knew: They’re talking about me.

They saw him as he passed. Todd’s eyes fired with anger. Will started upstairs and heard Lyle’s door slam.

He reached his floor and used his key card to enter the pod. As he carried his bags to the kitchen, he felt someone else watching him. He turned.

Stretched out on one of the sofas and propped up on one elbow, a book open in front of her. Jet-black hair cut in a sharp pageboy and bangs that framed her face like a chain mail helmet. Porcelain skin and arched black brows above almond-shaped eyes. Big eyes, a dazzling jade green that he’d never seen except in pictures of tropical waters. Her bone structure echoed some statue of a lost Egyptian queen. She wasn’t conventionally pretty. There appeared to be nothing conventional about her. Words that came more immediately to Will’s mind: Commanding. Arresting. Intoxicating.

She was dressed in dark blue from head to toe: a tight skirt, leggings, and a turtleneck sweater. She didn’t move, secretly amused, still and regal as a Persian cat, and never took those unnerving eyes off him.

“You must be Elise,” Will said finally.

One eyebrow rose slowly. “Must I?”

Will felt like a mouse. Being toyed with by a cat. “Yes. ‘Must be.’ Sticking with my original call.”

“Well, then …”

She wants to know my name.

“Will,” he said.

“Well, then,” said Elise. “Advantage, Will.”

Not for long, he thought. He snapped off a two-finger salute, then, on purpose, tripped over his own feet and sent his bags flying.

Elise rolled her eyes and shifted back to her book. Dismissed. Humbled, Will put his groceries away, coaching himself: Just pretend she’s a person, too. He reentered the great room prepared to make small talk, but she held up a hand.

“Working,” she said.

Whatever witticism he’d been preparing flew out of Will’s mind. He hurried into his room and took some deep breaths. Brooke and Elise under the same roof? You cannot be serious. So far Ajay wasn’t exaggerating about the girls at the Center.

Will noticed something sitting on his desk: his new “computing device.” He examined it from every angle; it was nothing like a traditional laptop, more like a slightly thicker iPad. It was solid and metallic, with a soft black matte finish that looked and felt like velvet. Less than an inch thick, it weighed about a pound and a half and had no visible ports or drives. On the back, in the lower right-hand corner, stamped into the metal, was a sixteen-digit code number followed by WWEST. The same information that was on his black school card.

Will searched for a way to start it and found an indentation on the right side. He pressed it. Motors whirred. Legs unfolded in back and raised the entire unit to an ideal viewing angle. Then the thing expanded in size by a third—the way Robbins’s magical slate had done—and powered on with a musical chord. The whole face sizzled to life, a screen, and in the middle words appeared: INSERT CARD.

Will took out his new school ID card. A slot had appeared along one side of the machine. He inserted the card, and the tablet read its metallic strip, then ejected the card.

Words appeared on the screen: AUTHENTICATE, PLEASE.

A pulsating outline of a left hand appeared on-screen, fingers spread, like the outlines he’d seen on Robbins’s device. Will extended his left hand toward the outline. An inch shy of it he felt a burst of warmth.

As he touched the screen, the outline locked onto his hand. Subtle currents flowed beneath his skin, then with a flash of light the outline faded. A majestic major chord filled the room. The display dissolved to a greeting screen that featured the Center’s crest floating on a shimmering dark blue field. Moments later, a row of conventional interface icons faded in along the bottom of the screen.

Words appeared: WOULD YOU LIKE TO BEGIN THE TUTORIAL NOW? (RECOMMENDED) YES/NO.

Will tapped NO. A mailbox icon appeared. He double-tapped the icon, and the screen opened to a graphically familiar in-box.

There was one message inside: To wwest@thecil.org. From sroarke@thecil.org.

He double-tapped the message. A video file opened of Headmaster Stephen Rourke, at the desk in his office, looking straight into the camera. The image quality was so good he appeared to be on the other side of a window.

“Greetings, Will. I hope you’re bouncing back from that bump on the noggin. Sorry I couldn’t wait around, but the docs assured me you’d be okay. And I apologize for taking you in there in the first place. That one’s on me: headmaster brain-lock. Hope you’re getting settled. Let’s catch up tomorrow. If there’s anything we can do to make your first days here easier, all you have to do is ask. Have a good night now.”

The mailbox came back up. Instead of using his finger as the cursor, Will tried another way to interact with it. “Close mailbox,” he said.

The mailbox collapsed into the icon at the bottom of the screen. Cool.

“Open hard drive,” he said.

A file cabinet icon opened in the screen’s center. A drawer opened into a list of folders and files from the hard drive on Will’s laptop. He verified that the data from his laptop had landed safely.

A muffled buzzing sounded somewhere in the room. He traced it to the bed, under the mattress. Nando’s cell phone.

“Power off,” said Will.

His tablet shut down. Will couldn’t see one, but he worried there might be a video camera built into its frame. There was no way of knowing who might have remote access to its feed—Lyle, for instance. Will dropped his sweatshirt over the screen for good measure.

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