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“Don’t let them see any fear,” I whispered, taking her elbow and steering her near the gramophone, where people wouldn’t be able to overhear us.

She shot me a look I couldn’t quite place. “I never do,” she said. Then she shook me off her arm and moved to the edge of the party. Her body was stiff, her face too schooled. Something was wrong—something more than Tomus being an ass.

“Wounded puppy, you are.” I hadn’t realized Tomus had approached me again; the gramophone was louder than I’d thought.

Soon, the band started up, and the real party began. It was a whirl of ale and noise and furious motion as we all spun atop the roof. The entire world was at our feet, or so it felt, and we were a storm about to be unleashed upon it.

Except Nedra. Nedra sat on the edge of the roof, her feet dangling over dangerously. The bright glow of Yugen’s clock tower illuminated the rooftop dance floor, but Nedra’s eyes were on a different clock, one halfway across the bay.

“Come dance,” I said, holding out my hand to her.

She shook her head. “This isn’t the kind of dancing I’m used to,” she said.

“Not much dancing in your village?”

She smiled. “Not this kind, anyway.”

“What kind of dancing did you do?” I asked.

If she noticed my flirting, she ignored it, turning back to look out toward the bay, to the clock tower in the distance and the quarantine hospital beneath it.

“Dance with me?” I asked again, more urgency in my voice.

I could feel the others watching us. I was starting to get used to the way people looked at us, the way their eyes slid from me to Nedra, a question never spoken but always present about why we were together. But weweren’ttogether, not like that, not yet, even if...

Finally, after what felt like ages, Nedra stood. She placed her hand in mine. My whole body relaxed, and she laughed at me.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” Nedra said, standing up on her tiptoes to whisper in my ear. Her breath made the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up, made my heart race, made my body forget that anyone was watching us. “I learned a long time ago that as long as you don’t care what others think of you, you’re much, much happier. And besides, no one ever really cares about anyone but himself.”

Well, that just wasn’t true. I whirled Nedra around, relishing the feel of her body pressed against mine, then tilted her so she could see the crowd dancing on the roof, and the eyes that watched us.

“That girl’s staring,” I said in a low voice, nodding subtly to a girl standing by the clockface.

“Not at us,” Nedra said, her voice much louder. “She’s looking in our direction, sure, but she’s not really thinking about us. She’s wondering if she should dance, too. Her feet are tired and she wants a break, but she’s not sure what others will think if she leaves. And that guy?” She nodded to Ervin, who leaned down to whisper something to his partner as he stared at us. “He’s asking his boyfriend when he thinks they can leave and no one will notice. And her? She’s upset that she didn’t eat more before coming up; her stomach hurts. And he’s worried people will notice the mustard stain on his shirt. No one cares about you, about us, not really. They may use us as words to fill the silence because they can’t think of anything else to say, but we are not their true focus.”

She wrapped her arm around my neck. “So quit worrying about what others think, Grey,” she said in a soft voice. “Worry about whatyouwant.”

I’d gotten used to the hard glint in her eyes, her stiff spine, the way she never let herself betray an ounce of emotion in front of others.

But she had emotion now. There was fire in her eyes.

A fire for me.

My body stilled. The whole damn world stilled. Because she had said my name like it meant something to her.

She looked at me, and it was as if she had only just then realized that she’d let her walls come down for a moment. She stopped dancing, and she glanced around, and she saw that I was right.

Everyone was watching us.

She took one step back, and then another. And then she turned around and fled, away from the party, away from the prying eyes of our classmates.

Away from me.

TWENTY-ONE

Nedra

The letter inmy pocket weighed a million pounds. It clattered against my leg, it bruised my skin, it threatened to crush me under its weight.