The room was completely open without a partition or a dividing wall in sight and set up like a pie, with each slice of the circle housing something different. I guess if there were only six of us training here, walls were kind of pointless. Directly in front of us was what looked like a smaller version of Professor Watt’s gym, complete with a training mat. To the right of that was a classroom with only ten desks and a floor-to-ceiling projection screen on the wall. My eyes kept tracking around the room, taking in a small library, a simulation setup, lounge area, and cafeteria. It was like they’d taken the sprawling complex of the Academy and shrunk it. I was so busy looking at everything that I almost didn’t notice that there were other people in the room until Regan elbowed me hard in the ribs.

“Stop gaping like an idiot and look alive,” she whispered as Callaway excitedly motioned a small group of kids over from where they’d been sitting around a table eating breakfast. Realizing that Regan’s gaping like an idiot description was 100 percent accurate, I shut my mouth with an audible click.

“Good morning, cadets!” Callaway said. “It’s time to welcome our newest team to the program.” I wondered if Callaway was always this cheerful. I hoped not.

“This is Cadet Regan Fitz and Cadet Elliot Mason, our youngest recruits to the program to date,” Callaway said, and Regan and I both nodded greetings. Callaway motioned forward two boys who I was pretty sure were the year above us. I’d seen them on occasion in the dining hall, and we’d bumped into one another at the library, I was almost certain. The taller of the two had inky black hair and skin a shade or two darker than my own. The other boy was much shorter, with pale, almost translucent-looking skin and hair so blond it might have been considered white.