With the sound of the slammed door still echoing, I faced the remainder of the class. Shame churned in my stomach, but I faced them squarely. They had every right to strike back at me for the strife I’d caused. Let them do their worst! I would stand it.

“I know a doctor,” I told Hannibal, quietly. “He’ll look at your limp. If there’s anything that can be done, he’ll see to it.”

Hannibal acknowledged me with the barest nod.

Several minutes of silence. My chin trembled, but I waited—resolved to stay.

Finally, Jetson spoke. “Why did you do it?”

“Obi, Jetson! I don’t care why she did it,” Covington snapped. “It’s done, that’s all that matters.”

“We don’t care either,” the twins added.

“Well, explain it to me then,” Jetson said. “If you can.”

“I can, and I want to,” I said, searching his eyes. The secrets I carried longed to be exposed. More than that, my peers needed to know the truth, for their own safety. I positioned myself in view of the door. Jones would be administering the test and I didn’t want her to sneak up in the middle of my story.

“It started the day Hosea Khan came to class,” I began. “I went to the kitchen that night to find Robin, and, on my way back to my room, Jones caught me out after dark.”

I went on to explain everything. The secret assignment I’d been given, the fever, nursing in the village and why, even after I promised to reveal myself, I kept all I knew a secret.

Jetson uncrossed his arms. “So, it’s as I thought! That Vine feral blackmailed you!”

“No,” I said quickly. “Hosea would never do that. He wants peace above everything. He saw what happened at Point Landing and he didn’t want it to happen at Cobane. I was in the wrong, not him. Hosea is—kind and good.” My voice trailed off as Jetson’s eyes narrowed on my face.

“So why did you go to Jones?” Covington asked. She didn’t look at me but her head was cocked attentively, waiting for my answer.

Seizing upon this encouragement, I explained. Telling them how my plan to bargain for medicine had backfired. I told them I had not escaped unscathed. Jetson spoke up for me then, confirming that Jones had, indeed, beaten me severely on the day of my departure.

East Keep came back just as I revealed the truth about the New Seed. She came to crowd around me with the others who were stunned to realize, too late, that they’d been on the wrong side of the political battle.

“So, the New Seed is actually bad for the workers,” Hannibal said.