For a moment, I’m relieved. At least we’ll have more adult backup.

Then Hewett gives them an order. I lip-read the words Buy us time.

The guards nod grimly. They jog over to the shuttle bus. Bernie sits behind the wheel, the engine idling. As soon as the guards are on board, Bernie closes the doors. He gives me a listless wave, his expression part concern, part apology. Then he drives away, shells crunching under the wheels.

Why would Hewett dismiss three perfectly good guards? Why would he send Bernie away, along with our bus?

There’s no longer any school for them to return to. Buy us time sounds disturbingly like a command you’d give a suicide squad.

This whole situation is wrong. I don’t want Hewett as our only adult supervisor. I remember what Virgil said: He used to teach at Land Institute.

Not to mention his less-than-robust physical condition. The professor’s face is almost as colorless as his droopy mop of hair. I try to guess how old he is. Sixty? Seventy? It’s hard to tell.

I wonder when he taught at Land Institute, and how he ended up here. I don’t know much about our rival school. They follow the same basic curriculum as HP—marine sciences, naval warfare. Maybe LI is slightly more on the warfare side, while HP leans slightly more toward scientific research, but our grads often end up working side by side in the world’s best navies and maritime institutes. The way the upperclassmen talk about LI, you’d think its students are all sociopaths and their teachers have devil horns and pointy tails. I always assumed the upperclassmen were exaggerating. After this morning, I understand.

Hewett gives his tablet a sour look. Then he regards us as if he can’t decide which is the bigger disappointment. “Freshmen, you need to understand that this is no longer a weekend trip. This is an indefinite assignment. All of you are in danger, not just Ana Dakkar.”

The others glance at me. Awkward.

“Yes, yes,” Hewett says, acknowledging their concern. “I will explain once we are out of range.”

He doesn’t say out of range of what.

I look past him. The school’s 120-foot training vessel waits at the end of pier six. The Varuna is the biggest yacht in the harbor by far. I love that it’s named after the Hindu sea god. Usually, when I see its gleaming white hull, I feel proud and excited. Painted on the prow is the HP logo with the four house icons—shark, dolphin, cephalopod, orca—inside the quadrants of an old-fashioned nautical wheel. The words HARDING-PENCROFT scroll below. Today, the sight makes me blink back a fresh swell of tears. The ship is all we have of the academy now.

Hewett continues, “I know you have questions….”

“I do,” says Rhys Morrow, one of the bolder Orcas. “Sir, our families will think we’re dead. We have to contact them—”

“No,” Hewett snaps. “Miss Morrow, I know this is hard to hear. But for now, your families are safer, you are safer, if the world thinks you are dead. We must hope that Land Institute doesn’t yet realize this class escaped the attack. If we can disappear before they…”