Even if my mom did insist on checking in every few days, it hadn’t marred my fresh start at the mountain at all. If anything, I found her sporadic phone calls to be comforting. I hadn’t realized that I’d miss her like I did, and having that one connection back to the Academy made me feel more grounded in this new space. The mountain definitely wasn’t home yet, but it was beginning to feel more and more like one every day. I shifted in my bunk to a more comfortable position and tapped the screen of my tablet to wake it back up. It had gone dark while I sat thinking over things, and I only had a few more minutes before lights-out to study. The screen came to life, and I narrowed my eyes at the words as though if I just glared at them hard enough they’d behave and not jumble themselves up like spaghetti.

“Whatcha doing?” said a voice at my elbow, and I jumped so badly that my head cracked the stone ceiling of my bunk. I winced and rubbed it as I turned to look at Tess. Her red hair was piled haphazardly on top of her head, and she was sporting an impressive black eye from our combat training that day. It had been a particularly interesting lesson, since all of us girls had to learn how to take someone down while wearing a gigantic hoop skirt from the 1800s. Tess had momentarily forgotten about her skirt and attempted a roundhouse kick, which sent one of the steel bars used to support the huge bell-shaped skirt right into her eye. She didn’t seem to mind, though, and she smiled at me as she peered over at my tablet.

“We only get an hour of free time a night,” she said. “Why in the world would you want to spend it studying? Didn’t you get enough of that today?”

“Oh, I did,” I agreed, remembering how Elliot had tried over and over again to help me remember the important information about the Gettysburg Address with limited success. My eyes automatically flicked past Tess, looking for her counterpart, Eliana, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Tess noticed my glance and smiled. “She was hungry and decided to sneak out to grab something from the kitchen.”

“We’re allowed to do that?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “But everyone does. The security here at night is, well . . .” She shrugged. “As far as we can tell there really isn’t any. The professors all go to bed, and the only one you have to worry about is Callaway, and half the time he’s raiding the kitchen for cookies and the worst thing he’ll do is share with you.”

“Really?” I asked, thinking about the nightly patrols at the Academy.

“Really,” she said.