“Congratulations are now over though,” said Casey, her eyes suddenly getting serious. “That’s right, wipe that ‘I’m-the-greatest’-look off your face, because you’re not going to like what I say next.”

Max suddenly straightened up in his chair.

You’re not going to like what I say next. What could that be about? What did she know that he didn’t?

“Go on,” said Max.

Casey grinned.

She took another sip of her matcha latte and dropped another biscotti crumb into her pocket for Toto.

“Tell me, Max, have you only been training your stats this entire time?”

Max nodded. Of course that was what he had been doing. It’s what all the students were doing. How else were they going to train for the midterms.

“See, that’s what I was doing too,” said Casey. “But then I thought about it for a second. Why did they give us so much independent study just to train?”

Max grinned, picking up on where she was going. “You mean: it’s a test within a test.”

“Exactly,” she smiled. “Sure, training might help you pass the midterms, but you know what would be even more of a guarantee? Actually knowing what the mid-term test was going to look like. That way you could really prepare.”

“Good thinking, Casey,” said Max.

He was slightly irritated that he hadn’t thought of this himself. He’d been so focused on ranking up and gaining in power that he’d lost sight of the hidden message within the assignment of the midterms.

“So we have a week until midterms,” said Max. “How are we going to find out what the test is?”

Casey grinned widely.

“Don’t worry about that,” she said. “I already found out.”

56

“How did you find out?” said Max.

“It was easy,” she said. “I actually don’t think they wanted finding out to be super difficult. The test within the test wanted to see if you were clever enough to explore researching the test itself as an option. Anyway, I just climbed a tree and used my trait to blow out some papers from one of the academy windows.”

“Genius,” said Max.

“Both Toto and I agree,” she grinned, dropping another cookie crumb into her pocket.

Max was seriously impressed. Casey was probably ahead of every other student right now in terms of passing the test. There was just one question he couldn’t quite understand.

“So why are you telling me?” he said.

“We made a deal,” she shrugged.

“We’re all technically in competition with each other, are we not?”

“Yeah, but there’s obviously alliances between different students. Just look at Cyrus and his goons.”

“Fair enough,” said Max.

“Plus,” Casey continued. “I’m telling you so hopefully we can work together on the day of the midterms. Sound good?”