We were onto the second-to-last flight of stairs by now, and the street sloped down before us. The stopping zone was loaded, as usual, with a line of swanky cars sent by the richer parents to pick up their kids. Wyatt Ponsford—a particularly obnoxious classmate of mine, the son of the Lieutenant Governor—was sidling casually into the backseat of his family’s shiny black Tesla. Considering that the Ponsfords’ bayfront mansion was probably only a five-minute walk from the Academy, it always seemed a bit ridiculous for Wyatt to get chauffeured back and forth while most of the rest of us had to hoof it. But I supposed it didn’t matter to the truly rich if their legs atrophied.

“Where could you have seen it?” Henry scrunched his nose up. “You mean, like, online? Or in real life?”

When the Tesla pulled out, I noticed a rundown blue pickup truck had been parked behind it. The truck stuck out like a sore thumb in the midst of the usual luxury sedans. Its sides were caked with red-brown mud, and the paint on the roof was badly oxidized. I wondered vaguely what a deathtrap like that was doing parked outside the Academy. Maybe they were lost.

“Neither. You know that box of junk we found in my mom’s garden after my dad took off? It looked like something I—” I broke off as I realized that the driver of the blue truck was gesturing wildly at me. “Oh, geez.”

I trudged up to the driver’s side window. There was Erick, smiling with way too many teeth again. “Hey, Isaak. Fancy seeing you again so soon.”

Yeah, imagine that. And I was sure it was a coincidence and everything. “What are you doing here?”

“I told your mom I’d give you a ride home today,” he said blithely.

I looked at him in horror. “You didn’t tell her—”

“No, no. Well, not all of it. I only said you’d decided after the presentation to volunteer to work at the site on weekends. I omitted the rest of it.”

I suppose he probably expected me to thank him or something, but I just stared at him warily. After a moment—when he realized I wasn’t going to say anything—he went on, with a bit less enthusiasm, “I do think we need to talk, though, Isaak. And I thought it might be easier to do it this way. You know, without your mother here.”

I blinked at him, uncertain whether that was a threat or not. Probably better not to find out. I glanced over my shoulder at Henry and Tamara. “Uh, I guess you guys better go on ahead.”

The two of them stared incredulously at me for a moment, Tamara’s mouth drawn into a frown and Henry’s burly arms crossed. I shrugged helplessly at them.

“Whatever,” Henry said at last. “But you’d better be on Speculus later.”