Well, everything except my job at Pilar’s Potions, which Mom wasn’t a big fan of me spending my time on. But I wanted to save to get my own car sometime before I died, and I felt guilty always asking my parents for money for new potionworking supplies. That stuff is expensive.

Just when I’m about to give up on learning anything real from this meeting, Mr. B pauses, and his tone shifts. I sit up straighter in my seat. This is something new, something he’s never said before.

“This year, we want to stress the need for diversity in our applicant pool. Brockton Scholars should represent the true diversity of T. K. Anderson.”

That almost pulls a laugh from me. The true diversity of T. K. Anderson has been fairly well represented by the series of middle-class white girls who have won the scholarship. There are about five non-white faces in the auditorium, including me and Ana. I watch as the DictaFire adds Diversity underneath the pillars of the Brockton Scholarship.

I just can’t get over how people randomly started caring about race last year. There was a big article published in The New York Times about how, even counting the three HBCUs, only 4 percent of graduates from licensing colleges were Black. Which, you know, didn’t surprise me at all. What did surprise me was how the article went viral. Then this anti-racism organization that I had only vaguely heard of—Don’t Hate, Educate—blew up.

Suddenly, people who had never cared about racism were talking about going to local rallies. Students who had made jokes about me and Ana being identical posted Don’t Hate, Educate slogans on their WizConnect profile pages. Schools were scared they would get protested, so they started saying things about reconsidering their affirmative action policies to be more effective. And now I guess that’s trickled down to the Brockton Scholarship.

Mr. B gives us all a serious nod. “The committee would like to encourage a wide range of applicants to join the competition this year,” he finishes. Then he looks right at me.

I stop breathing.

Mr. B is otherwise pretty nondescript, but he has thick dark eyelashes and eerily blue eyes. When you’re as close to him as I am, they bore into your soul. I stare up at him, feeling the possibility of the scholarship hurtling toward me in his gaze. Then he starts talking about the due dates for the application materials, and the moment is gone.

Maybe it was all in my head. Mr. B could have been staring at nothing. Or maybe he was looking at Ana. Oh god, please don’t let him have been looking at Ana. I sneak a glance at her, and she’s sitting ramrod straight in her seat, as unperturbed as usual.