Surprise is a thief.

It steals breath and the regular pace of a heartbeat. It robs any feeling of normalcy in the hands: palms heat, sweat blooms in the cracks between fingers, the whole hand trembles. Surprise loots the weight from stomachs and rips the voice from throats, leaving one merely gasping, gaping, and gawking.

Upon entering Treasurer's Place for her first meal at Elliott Way, surprise robbed Lilly blind.

Wyx, who was at her heels, laughed at her sharp inhale.

After last night, she should have known better. Elliott Way wasn't subtle.

Treasurer's Place was a dining room of sorts—there were wooden tables of various sizes with mismatched chairs around them. Five giant windows filled up the wall directly opposite of the entrance doors, showcasing the bridges that led from Elliott Way to the lawn and hilly clearing beyond. Light fixtures hung from the ceiling without rhyme or reason; some bulbs were naked, some had colorfully and texturally diverse shades, and some were not lightbulbs at all but rather three-inch-high winged humanoid creatures clinging to the end of cords while balancing small globes on their bald heads.

"You like?" Wyx asked over the drone of chatter in the cafeteria. There were so many people here...way more than Lilly had seen in the crowd last night. In addition, most of them were older, taller, and more muscular than she was. Intimidation crept up her back, uncomfortable as spiders on skin. This was a foreign feeling to her—she didn't let older kids bother her in Eldnac, but something about these kids...the way they walked, the way they so properly held themselves, made her feel on edge.

"Yeah," Lilly replied. "But...there are so many more kids here than I saw last night."

"People have been training here for the Bria Hungrian army for the past century," Wyx replied. "Original Bria Hungrian patriots, if you will. Yesterday all the youngsters like yourself came in cycles of two hundred at different times during the day. Everyone else was pulled from all the smaller training facilities and placed here in the ranks they were in when they left."

"Sounds complicated."

"War is coming; complicated is everyone's new middle name. And with those eleven monsters raging through towns, the Bloom is eager to produce new soldiers as fast as possible. Plus, Elliott Way has the best instructors in the world." Wyx paused, climbed atop Lilly's boot, and wagged a perfectly manicured talon at her. "You need to eat, and I've got some rats to kill on the training grounds before drills start. If you could please kick some trainee-butt for me on your first day, I would be most appreciative."

Lilly grinned. "I'll try my hardest."

As Wyx scampered through the shuffling combat boots back into the rotunda, Lilly planted her hands on her hips and stepped over the threshold into Treasurer's Place. The wonder and absolute rapture could have stolen her attention for a long time if it had not been for the commotion in front of her.

There was a sudden shift in the people around her; she was shoved and a girl behind her yelped as Lilly accidentally trampled over her foot. Despite the loud waves of chatter in the rest of the cafeteria, Lilly heard the unmistakable smack of a head against the granite floor.

"That guy just...pushed him!" the girl in front of Lilly whispered to her friend. "For no reason at all."

Lilly regained balance and looked up. Through the cracks between heads and shoulders, she could see the pusher...he was tall and lithe, narrow at the shoulders and hips, his bright blond hair shining white beneath the variations of light shining above. His back was to her, but she could see his victim's face, which was that of perfect horror and shock.

The boy on the ground propped himself up on his elbows.

"You were in my way," the pusher said simply, smugly.

There was so much of Hailey Vatakai in those five words that Lilly's throat shriveled and heat rose rapidly behind her eyes. "You wasp," she muttered.

Unfortunately, when most angry people mutter things, those mutters turn out to be loud growls of frustration. What Lilly had thought was a muttered insult beneath the roar in her ears was actually loud enough for the pusher, his victim, and everyone gathered around them to hear.

The pusher spun on his heel with the grace of rippling water.

His left eye was swollen, a bruised smear of dark blues and purples. There was a split right down the middle of his lips, red and puffy from scarring. Crusty black and red scabs marred his forehead, cheeks, and chin. Eyes narrowed, the pusher said, "Wasp?"

The kids stirred, whispered, and Lilly nodded yes because words refused to fill the space between her lips. Wasp, she thought, was a fantastic insult, especially considering the ugly monsters she'd hacked into yellow gas yesterday.

The pusher snorted. "Okay then." He made it a point to step on his victim's fingers as he sauntered into the swirling mass of trainees.

The boy on the floor dragged himself to his feet, stretching his long, tan fingers, grimacing through the pain. He rubbed the back of his head.

The girl in front of Lilly asked him, "Are you going to get him back?"

The boy stared at her, parted his chapped lips, and after a long moment, he wiped the blood from his cut fingers on his pants and shook his head. The girl crossed her arms; the boy merely climbed to his feet and slumped into the crowd.

Stunned, the rest of the gathered kids dispersed. Lilly spotted Kaitlynn through the throng heading for a high table by one of the vast windows.

As soon as Kaitlynn saw Lilly approaching, she smiled, and that smile was brighter than sunrises. "Sleep well? I missed you this morning."

Lilly rubbed her eyes. She was still sleepy...her body was adjusting to this new world's time zone, and the problem between the two boys had jarred her into the uncomfortable space of physical exhaustion and mental alertness. "Are you always this happy?"

"I like to think that if I'm not at least a little joyful, I'm missing out."

"Sounds grueling."

"Oh, but it isn't really. There's a time for sadness and anger and guilt and excitement. I find that most mornings are a time for joy." 

There were bowls and glasses set out for the four place settings. The glasses were filled with water; the bowls were empty. Kaitlynn said, "I'm starving," and drew a circle with the tip of her finger around the rim of her bowl. Suddenly, the bowl was filled with berries, star-shaped nuts, rice, and what looked like bits of scrambled egg.

Lilly gasped. "Did you just...that's...wait, what just happened?"

"It works with huge amounts of people. Fairy magic. My grandma sometimes lets me do it when I'm sick or when we have guests over. The portions are already spooned out, so you just have to add your touch and the portion of food reacts. It's like a chemical reaction with your skin! Isn't it so cool, Lilly with two ls?"

"I'm still trying to understand how fairy magic ties into people shooting elements and acid out of their hands."

Kaitlynn stabbed her fork into her rice-berry-egg-nut bowl and twirled it around. "Oh Gristin, you have a lot to explore. How wonderful it is that you get to experience magic with fresh eyes!"

Lilly traced a finger around her bowl. When it filled up with food and she took her first bite (avoiding the eggs), she found that it actually wasn't horrible. The berries were sweet and the salt-coated nuts soaked up the berry juice so that, together, the two ingredients gushed with rich flavor.

Kaitlynn watched the smile spread across Lilly's face. "It's called kukchi...it's a Té Shezekian breakfast dish."

"It's really good," Lilly replied, astonished. "I wasn't expecting it to be good."

After Instructor Sankem dismissed the older trainees from breakfast and directed the Privates about how the dish-cleaning system worked, he split them into three different groups by calling out names. Lilly and Kaitlynn were placed in Sankem's group. The other two groups were led by instructors from the cafeteria first, and then Instructor Sankem led his group through the entry rotunda, down a hall, and outside a pair of doors into a large courtyard. The grass was all sewn up with morning dew and the air had the sort of chill that flushed cheeks and pebbled skin with goosebumps. A concrete path teeming with sapphires cut right through the middle of the lawn. "Line up on the grass," Instructor Sankem commanded when he was sure everyone could hear him. 

There must have been a hundred and seventy kids in Sankem's group, so forming a perfect line wasn't the most possible feat. When they finally got into what could have passed for a cross-hybrid between a line and a blob, Sankem snarled, "We'll work on your lineup skills."

He began to pace back and forth in front of them. Lilly already felt jumpy at the way he'd spoken thus far, with his everlasting evil grin and his frog-like features sharpening into a wicked expression. Now he was pacing? How much more intimidating could one man get?

"After breakfast," he said, all fire,  "you will assemble here. This is where Privates do their stretching and attention drills for the morning. Sergeant Josey will lead you through that each day. After stretches and attention drills, conditioning and exercises begin. You'll eat lunch, then you'll have four different instruction periods dealing with magic. You'll go to dinner, do your discipline chores, and after those, you're free to rest. Or go to the infirmary. Or cry into your pillows. You frogs will be soldiers before you know it."

"Did he just call us frogs?" Kaitlynn whispered.

Lilly, who was thinking about the magical part of the afternoon and was worried about how she was going to spin the story that she didn't have magic, gave a half-nod as the doors across the courtyard opened. A tall, lean man cut through the grass towards Sankem, boots squelching in the wet grass; Sankem nodded to him.

"Break 'em before you make 'em, Sankem," said the man.

"Already did that," replied Sankem, touching his chubby hand to his forehead in salute. After a pause, he added, "Slaughter them all." 

The moment he disappeared through exit doors on the opposite side of the yard, the new man smacked a fist to his chest and bellowed,  "MY NAME IS SERGEANT JOSEY!" 

Kaitlynn clapped a hand to her chest. Lilly shuddered. 

"Look at how you're all standing. You're like lowers withered by the sun! HOW DO YOU THINK SOLDIERS SHOULD STAND?"

Perhaps everyone was too scared to offer an answer. Heads lifted, shoulders straightened, hands clenched to fists in a half-hearted response...but no one spoke.

Scoffing, Sergeant Josey demonstrated for them. He brought his left leg up and stomped it hard on the ground so his feet were in the shape of a V in relation to each other. He was astounding...chin jutted out like a king looking down at a noble asking for a horrible request. Shoulders back, regal as a noble taxing peasants. Body still as a peasant's standing up to a noble or a king before waiting to hear a verdict.

It was a stance that made the shadows shrink away from him.

Then he exploded to life again, and Lilly was sure she was going to have a heart attack by the time this portion of the day was over. "CHIN UP, SHOULDERS BACK, STOMACH IN! SAY IT WITH ME! STOMP IN TIME WITH MY STOMPS!"

The replied words were more of a mumbled tangle of chanting rather than a confident command, and it was only when Sergeant Josey screamed "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" that the mumbles increased to loud yet terrified shouts. 

"CHIN UP, SHOULDERS BACK, STOMACH IN! CHIN UP, SHOULDERS BACK, STOMACH IN!" The chant rose to fill the entire courtyard, rising up to the sky in imperfect harmony, keeping to the beat of when Sergeant Josey stomped his leg. They did that with Josey for several more long minutes. By the time he had instructed the Privates about drill commands and taught them the warm-up stretches they'd do every morning, the sun was high in the sky and the morning's chilly bite had turned warm and rather stifling. 

Next came conditioning, and Lilly quickly found out why her lowest grade in school was P.E.

The conditioning instructor, a woman who had to be at least eighty, did not hold back her venom. Her name was Instructor Kamaria, which, according to Kaitlynn, meant "bad breath" in Shezekian. "Bad Breath" was certainly just as awful as the conditioning itself.

There was a training ground just across Elliott Way's westernmost bridge, in a deep valley that had the look of an amphitheater with its circular shape and black granite terraces. Each terrace housed racks of blue foam mats rolled tightly and bound with leather straps, helmets, protective breastplates, shields, weaponry, water coolers, water bottles...if the equipment could be used for a workout, it was on one of the terraces. The ground itself had to have been a hundred yards in both length and width. The place looked like a startling cross between a track meet and a military training unit for Roman soldiers. 

And this was the Shifter World, so of course the granite terraces were painted with scuffed but glittering white words written in sweeping calligraphy: Incompetent, jentacular, gobbledygook, bumfuzzle, cattywampus...if the word was tacky and sounded hilarious, it was painted on the terrace. 

Upon Instructor Kamaria's command to run two laps around one of the circular terraces, Lilly wondered if giving up was an option, because even the sound of two hundred yards made her feel exhausted. By the end of the first conditioning period, the Privates learned how to do a proper push-up, learned how to do exercises for the abdominal, calf, back, and chest muscles, and started a course on biology. It was quite possibly the most grueling four hours of Lilly's life—and that said something, considering she had to sit through a four-hour therapy session with Hailey Vatakai last year.

When conditioning was finally, finally over and it was time for lunch, Lilly and Kaitlynn climbed a staircase that cut through the staircase and led out of the amphitheater. In a swell of sweaty, panting kids, they walked up the slope towards Elliott Way's bridges. 

"I think my bones have turned to chicken broth," Kaitlynn said as they reached the edge of a bridge. It didn't sound like a complaint...as a matter of fact, she was smiling. How could she possibly be smiling? "Breaking us to build us, just like Sergeant Josey said this morning." 

Someone snorted behind them. It was loud, obnoxious, the sort of snort the boys in Eldnac released when they texted inappropriate jokes to each other. Lilly was already annoyed by the mere action of the snort, but then words accompanied it, and her annoyance boiled to a more poisonous form of anger.

"I saw you running today. You can't be built. You'll be broken into a thousand tiny pieces before you drop out of Elliott Way."

That voice.

Kaitlynn's shoulders tensed. She paused in her tracks, smile faltering only a little. Then she continued walking. Lilly didn't understand how she could just walk away.

She spun around to face the obnoxious snorter, crossing her arms. She found herself face-to-face with the same guy who had pushed the other boy down in Treasurer's Place this morning. 

The line of traffic behind them stopped so abruptly that people crashed into each other.

"That," Lilly hissed, "was not very nice." 

Instantly, she wanted to facepalm herself—the insult sounded less elementary in her head.

Kaitlynn gently touched Lilly's elbow. 

"Your insults suck," the boy replied, his swollen eye twitching. The left corner of his split lips quirked. 

"You look like you've been broken into a thousand pieces yourself, so I wouldn't be talking about anyone else. What did you do to get scars like that, pick a fight with a bear?"

 "Does my face inconvenience you? I could pick a fight with any beast, lose, and my face would still look like an angel carved it compared to yours."

"Time to go," Kaitlynn said, yanking on Lilly's arm. They started across the bridge. Monsters gnawed in Lilly's stomach. She hated to admit it, but the insult stung. She sucked in a deep breath.

Behind them, the boy called, "You don't even look like a soldier! You're too fat! Those thighs!"

Lilly spun around, suddenly dizzy. She'd heard this before in P.E. It wasn't that she was unhealthy or fat...she was built thick, not lean, and she happened to like her body's shape very much, so the fact that his insults felt like a slap to her face made her eyes water. Why was he getting under her skin?

Maybe, just maybe, she could be like Kaitlynn, if not for a moment. No pranks, or aggression, no heat. She could walk away. She had too many other things to worry about and he wasn't one of them.

She would never be as gentle as Kaitlynn. 

She stomped up to him, grabbed him by the collar, and spat, "I don't know what idiot made you think people have to be skinny to accomplish stuff, but I'm here to tell you that that's as stupid as running through a magical military facility naked. I love my body's shape, and you can not make me feel bad about it. Besides," she let go of his shirt with a forceful shove and spun around to face smirking Privates who looked as if they could hardly hold in their laughter, "being thick is great; being an ass is horrible. I've got one up on you." 

The Privates exploded into laughter, and as Lilly continued over the bridge with a gaping Kaitlynn, she willed herself not to look back.