“That’s enough,” Victory called, gathering the class around her. “I can’t say many of you have impressed me, so we’ll repeat this every day until you do. Return your weapons to the armory and be ready for dinner in half an hour. Remember: constant vigilance.” She stared at each student as though she could glower them into greater alertness. She saved her most powerful glare for Seven. “Seven, I want to talk to you.”

Glancing over her shoulder as she walked to the armory, Twelve guessed Victory was giving Seven an earful for not taking part. The girl looked upset. For a moment, Twelve considered waiting for her, then shook her head, guiltily pushing away the image of Seven’s hunched shoulders, her despondent expression.

The armory was a long, low building and Twelve’s favorite place. There was something comforting about the smell of steel, polished wood, and the boiled leather armor they wore in training. Row after row of gleaming spears, swords, and axes stretched away into the gloom, while farther back were more unusual weapons: morning stars, flails, and war hammers.

She took one of the flaming torches off the wall inside the door and made her way past familiar rows of longbows to where her axes were kept, squeezing past her laughing classmates. As she passed a tall rack of arrows, she heard Five’s voice on the other side.

“It just makes me sick. She’s disruptive and awful every day! If it was up to me, she’d be banished like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“Well, it’s not up to you,” Six pointed out. “And you know the Hunters won’t do that. Where would she go? Where would any of us go?” There was a heaviness in his tone that made Twelve flinch. “Besides, you started it today and I think you got off pretty lightly.”

“Ugh, you’re too reasonable,” Five groaned. “But does it really not bother you? We’ve given up our families, our homes, even our names to be here. And in return we have to put up with her, the worst girl in all of Ember. Even if she still has a family, they clearly wouldn’t want her. She’s terrible, a total cave-creeper.”

“Five!” Six gasped.

The case beside them creaked as Twelve pushed it as hard as she could, her face set, a muscle in her jaw twitching furiously. She would make Five pay for that. The case rocked, squealing as it tipped past the point of no return to crash against a rack of spears.

Five and Six flung themselves to one side just in time. A deadly rain of arrows and heavy shelves missed them by a hand’s breadth. Shouts of warning and surprise rang along the rows as each rack toppled into the one beside it. Weapons clanged, wood splintered, and students shrieked.