We joined the other senior students at our assigned table. A wooden chair had been added to accommodate the Vine Keeper, who was nowhere in sight. The senior girls were huddled together whispering and didn’t notice our approach.

“What we need to know,” Covington said, “is exactly which Senators voted against the New Seed Bill. If possible, we must contact Director Kumar and—”

Jetson coughed. She glanced up, saw me at his side, and fell silent.

I looked between them. She snatched a book from the table—but not before I recognized it. It had been required reading in Teacher Rowan’s New World Government elective. On its cover, Director Kumar wore a military uniform. Instead of a sword, the sheath that hung from his waist held a rolled copy of the Compromise; evidence that, despite his garb, the Director was not a military leader.

The last military leader of the Kongo had been General Obi Solomon. Upon Obi’s death, the Assembly had dissolved the military, expanded the diplomat program and created the Directorship, tapping an English man to assume the first life tenure. When Kumar had assumed power over twenty years ago, he’d caused a scandal. Being half Clayskin, Kumar was the first Director in fifty-three years who was not full-blooded English.

Covington glared at me and adjusted her beaded arm cuff. “What are you doing here?”

I stared curiously. She was trying to distract me. Why did she have the reader now, months after Rowan’s class? And why was she whispering about the Senate? Did she know of the open seat? My heart drummed.

“You’re nutty if you think you’re sitting here,” she said, fiddling with a gold earring.

Jetson set our trays down. “Now, Covington, be nice. Where else would she sit?”

“Why not with the Teachers, where her loyalties lie?”

I slid my tray to the far end of the table. “Gossip all you want. I care nothing about French braids, manicures, or anything else you care to discuss.”

I sat down, anticipating Covington’s retort.

Instead, Hannibal replied. “We weren’t talking about nail varnish, Arika.”

I paused, the spoon at my lips.

Hannibal rarely spoke and never to reprimand. She was nothing but gentle. I recognized her keen intelligence from the start. Up on the desk on that first day of school, when I’d cried out—Comrades—there’d been a query in her eyes, burning to be answered. She looked undecided, even as I fell from my summit. Later I thought that perhaps she wanted to join me. That, given answers, she would have. Over the years, however, I kept to myself and she fell in with Covington.