Page 7

“Sorry, Alex,” Bear said, still chuckling. “Rest assured, we’re as human as you are.”

Alex let that settle before her brain skipped a million miles ahead. “If I’m in another world, how can I understand you, and vice versa? How do you know English if there’s no England here?”

Even Alex had to admit that she was beginning to sound a little hysterical, but it was still a valid question, and one of many that were swirling around her head. Perhaps she should have asked something more pressing, though. Like, if she trulywasin a different world, how was she going to get home again? Especially since she didn’t even know why—orhow—she’d arrived to begin with! And her parents… Well, at least there was something good to be said about their inability to be contacted, since they would totally freak out if they learned she was missing. Alex shuddered just thinking about their reactions—or perhaps she shuddered because she was beginning to understand the gravity of her situation.

“English, England… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jordan said. “We’re speaking Medoran, or the common tongue, and since you seem to understand it just fine, then I guess we can presume there’s some kind of cross-world comparison. Let’s just be thankful that we don’t have to mime this entire conversation to each other, and leave it at that.”

Alex figured she couldn’t expect much more of an explanation, so she decided to move on. “Let’s talk about this school of yours,” she said, thinking over everything they’d told her in their ‘welcome to our world’ speech. “You mentioned something about Akarnae being a school for the gifted. What does that mean?”

Bear motioned for her to look at Jordan, so she turned to the blond boy. He smirked at her… and then disappeared into thin air. He literallyvanished.

She gaped at the empty spot in front of her. “How—?”

“It’s my gift,” Jordan said, reappearing again and laughing loudly at the gobsmacked expression on her face.

“Your gift?”

“Transcendence,” he said. “I can transcend—meaning I can disappear from sight and move through solid objects while invisible.”

“That is…” Alex was lost for words, so she settled on, “very cool.”

Jordan chuckled and squeezed her shoulder. “It’s okay. You’ll get used to it here. Everyone at Akarnae has a gift. Bear’s is pretty handy too, especially when we want to get out of detention.”

“What can you do, Bear?” Alex asked, even if in the back of her mind she was totally flipping out.

“I’m a charmer,” he said with a wink.

She felt her lips twitch. “I bet you say that to all the new girls.”

He laughed at that before explaining, “I can use my speech to convince people to do things. I literally charm them into action.”

“That sounds kind of dangerous,” Alex said. If what he said was true, then he had a gift that could cause a lot of damage in the wrong hands.

“It might seem that way, but it’s really not,” Bear said. “My charms are more like suggestions, you can either act upon or dismiss them depending on how much you like or don’t like the idea.”

Alex thought about that and said, “Can you show me?”

Bear shared a sneaky glance with Jordan before turning back to her and saying, “You must be hungry, Alex. I doubt you’ve eaten for hours, right?”

His voice sounded the same, but there was an almost hypnotic quality to his tone. Before she even realised what she was doing, Alex nodded in agreement.

“You’re probably so hungry that you would eat anything just to feel relief.”

Alex’s stomach clenched painfully. She wasstarving. What had she last eaten? A piece of toast for breakfast? She couldn’t even remember what it had tasted like, it seemed so long ago.

“I wonder if there’s anything around here that we can give you to eat?” Bear continued in that same mesmerising tone.

“Please,” Alex said, her own voice sounding strained. “I’ll eatanything.”

“Here, this will help.” Bear scooped up a handful of dirt and handed it to her. “It’s just like chocolate. It’ll taste delicious and you’ll feel so good afterwards.”

Alex reached her hand out and Bear passed the dirt over. Part of her was desperate to pour the chocolate-like goodness straight into her mouth, but another part of her was beginning to scream from deep within her subconscious mind. She paused in the act of moving her hand towards her mouth, her thoughts warring with each other.

It’s dirt, Alex thought to herself.Why would I ever eatdirt? Gross!

She threw the handful of earth to the ground and then turned to glare at Bear. “What did you just do to me?”

He and Jordan burst out laughing.