“Well, then, let’s give you some motivation. If you and Dante don’t make at least ninty-five percent on your tests tomorrow, you both will be banned from the game room for a month.” Ember jerked in her seat, eyes going wide with outrage, and Mr. Gordon gave her a cold smile. “That is how important you knowing the human anatomy is to Talon. So I would study, both of you.” He waved a hand at the door. “You’re dismissed.”

* * *

“It’s totally unfair,” Ember raged as we walked across the dusty yard to our dorms. Overhead, the Nevada sun beat down on me, chasing away the chill of the air-conditioned classroom and warming my skin. Or, should I say, my epidermis?

I smirked at my own joke, knowing Ember wouldn’t get it. And, in her current mood, she wouldn’t appreciate it even if she did.

“Gordon is a bully,” Ember growled, kicking a pebble with her shoe, sending it bouncing over the dusty ground. “He can’t ban us from the game room for a whole month—that’s completely insane. I’d go crazy—there’s nothing else to do around here.”

“Well, you could try paying attention,” I suggested as we neared the long cement building at the edge of the fence. As expected, the suggestion did not go over well.

“How am I supposed to pay attention when everything is so boring?” Ember snapped, wrenching open the door. Inside, the living room was cool to the point of chilly. A pair of leather sofas sat in an L around a coffee table, and a large television hung on the opposite wall, its huge screen shiny and dark. It had over a hundred channels, everything from sci-fi to news stations to movies and sports—an attempt to keep us pacified, I suspected, though it never really worked on Ember. She would rather be outside than sitting in a room watching TV all day. The room was also spotlessly clean, despite the mess a certain sibling made of it nearly every day.

Ember stalked to one of the couches and tossed her books onto the cushions. “They never give me a break,” she continued, ignoring the texts as one of them slid off the leather and fell to the floor. “They just keep pushing me—do better, go faster, pay more attention. Nothing I do is ever good enough.” She gave me a half joking, half sour glare. “They never do that with you, Tweedledum.”

“That’s because I actually pay attention.” I set my bag on the table and headed into the kitchen for something to drink. Our live-in caretaker, Mr. Stiles, was not in sight, so I figured he was either out or in his room. “They never have reason to come after me.”