Austin leads us to a man huddled over a table in the front. He’s wearing a head light and squinting through a magnifying glass attached to the rim of his glasses. As he works on a minuscule chip with tiny tweezers and pliers, his movements are so painstaking, I have to stare at him for a good ten seconds to make sure he’s a human and not a robot.

He finally raises his head. “Yes?”

Austin gestures to me. “We have a new initiate.”

The man doesn’t even look at me. Instead, he turns back to the chip he was working with. “Sit.”

Taeyo grabs a stool from a nearby workstation, and I take a seat opposite the man.

“Wrist,” he commands. I guess he’s not much of a talker.

I hesitate. As Hattie says, it’s all about choice. I am choosing to do this. But I still waver. What if my Gom parents reject me after I do this? What if the gifted community shuns me even more?

“Wrist,” the man says again, his tone impatient. “I don’t have all day.”

I take a big breath. This is for my sister. And for stopping the prophecy. For service and sacrifice.

I lay out my wrist in front of him. “Is it going to hurt—?”

Click!

Before I even finish my question, the man has held a syringe-shaped metal tool above my wrist and pressed it down onto my skin.

“Done,” he says.

“Wait, that’s it?” I ask, surprised. “I hardly felt it.” I run my finger over my left wrist and feel a tiny little bump where it was inserted.

“Rub them,” the man commands.

I look at him blankly and he scowls. “Chop-chop. Let’s make sure you’re not faulty, or else I’ll need to take it out. Rub your wrists.”

I wince at the insinuation I could be deemed faulty. Tentatively, I rub my wrists together. It’s an action I’ve watched my entire life—a movement I’ve wished over and over again I could perform, too. And finally, I’m doing it. Even if it’s in this weird science-tech lab with the Horangi clan.

The little bump scratches a little as I put my wrists together, and suddenly there is heat on my right wrist. It feels as if the sun is shining directly on that patch of skin. I gasp as the heat intensifies and the gifted mark of the two suns and two moons appears on my wrist. It glows red like a siren, reminding me of the clan I’m about to enter.

“Oh my Mago,” I whisper. “I can’t believe it actually works.”