“You said it earlier, Isaak,” I interrupted, scowling at him. “Iamos isn’t Mars. So why don’t you just keep your opinions to yourself until we can figure out a way to get you back to your own time?”

He stared at me, his eyes cold. “Fine. You got it, Madam Gerouin. But if we can’t find Gitrin, how exactly are you planning on accomplishing that?”

“I don’t know,” I said, suddenly feeling exhausted. “But for right now? All I really want to do is go home.” I straightened the hood of my cloak and brushed past him.

Chapter 21

My old classroom—the side room in the geroi’s villa where I had done all my years of learning—was cold and quiet. The dim glow of the phosphorescent stones cast multicolored shadows across the woven-copper table and chairs, the potted fraouloi, Gitrin’s antique globe. My footsteps echoed across the stone floor.

I didn’t know what I expected to find here. Answers, maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to hear Gitrin’s voice again, if only in my own mind. Everything was such a disaster all of a sudden. Gitrin always used to know what to do. Figuring it out on my own was just too hard.

I paced the room a few times before finally sitting on the floor, my back against the wall, staring at the darkened classroom space. The quiet was a welcome relief after the riot in the plaza. My ears were still ringing from the protesters’ screaming—and Isaak’s incessant questions afterward. I was so tired of having to give him answers when I didn’t know what they were myself. I was just so tired.

Maybe Gitrin had been right. Maybe I wasn’t ready, after all.

I didn’t even realize I’d closed my eyes until I heard the voice.

“Where is Ceilos?”

My head jerked up at the words. I was no longer alone in the room. Gitrin sat in a woven-copper chair in the room’s center. And across the table from her sat another person.

Me.

I gasped, looking down at my hands, only to find I wasn’t really there. The only Nadin in the room was the other me, sitting anxiously on the copper stool, her hands clasped tightly together in her lap. “The evaluation is supposed to be taken as a partnership, isn’t it?” she asked. Her voice—my voice—sounded strange in my ears.

“You cannot rely on Ceilos for everything, Nadin,” Gitrin said, a knowing smile playing at her lips. “The head will never survive if the heart is too weak.”