I glanced up. His eyes were on me, looking to me for an answer!

“So, what?” His gaze bore into mine.

My back stiffened. “Peace matters because war would destroy us all, that’s what!”

He pondered this. “So the workers must lose themselves for northerners they don’t even know? Why not leave the union and start our own nation?”

“If you read the Compromise,” I snapped. “If you can read at all, you’d know that the Second Brother doesn’t lose himself in the Rebirth. He becomes himself.”

“He loses his mind.”

“He begins anew.”

“Without a spirit.”

“Without the bitterness and hate that ruled the old world.”

“Better bitter than docile. Hating hateful things is part of being alive. And what do we get in exchange?”

“We get peace for the Kongo!”

“You saw the arrest today. Is that peace?”

His words smacked me, cold in the face. I stared. How had he known? The arrest had not invigorated me, as it had the others. There had been no contest, no hunt. Just a caged animal. The whole show had made me sick. It was lawful but it had felt—wrong. A bolt of lightning shot through my legs, forcing me to my feet. “Any harm done in pursuit of peace is necessarily justified by it!”

The Vine Keeper stared up. “It’s justified, you say, even when you know, in here, it’s wrong?” He tapped his chest, once, twice, just over his heart.

I breathed. He’d spoken softly but his words, that motion, resounded inside me—like a rooster’s call.

“Yes,” Jetson said, making me jump. “Arika is right. Peace is justification.”

“Always.” The twins spoke together.

“Besides, they aren’t merely northerners,” Covington said. “They’re our countrymen.”

“Yes,” several voices agreed.

The Vine Keeper eyed them all, but settled on me. “You contend for the North so convincingly. I wonder, have you been there? Does the North contend for you?”

He knew the answer. The Obi Forest separated the Kongo from the northern territories, and travel into the Obi Forest was verboten.

“It’s forbidden,” I said.

He shook his head, amused by my logic. “Of course it is.”

I had a retort—I did!—founded on years of education. But, for some reason, it lodged in my throat. I just stood there, staring.

“Arika, sit down,” Jones said.

I tore my eyes from the new kid to glance at Jones, braced against her desk. Her face was shiny red. I shifted unsteadily, scratching at my legs that itched and twitched beneath the skirt of my aura. No field for him, I thought, with queer satisfaction. And no ruler either. Open defiance was no childish prank. Jones was on the brink of true violence. I sat—waiting for her to drag him to the Pit.