"Eleanor!" 

My voice sharpens as it bounces off the curved Seer's archway: Videns supra Affectum. I ignore the motto's irritating glare as I stomp up to the Orbs Hall welcome desk.

Eleanor's green eyes widen, her surprised gaze traveling from the ring of burns around my wrist down to the gash at my hairline to the small tear in the weapon's belt around my waist. She's never been one to skip over the minute details or blood, for that matter. Sometimes, I swear she was born part bloodhound.

"Miss James!" she yelps, jumping to her feet immediately. "What happened? Is Emily Collin's orb—?"

"It's safe, and I'm just fine, thank you for asking."

I toss the iron-tipped arrow that skewered the Obake onto the marble slope of her desk. It rattles to a stop, rolling up against the blade that draws our blood, and Eleanor looks from it, to the vitrum blade still grasped in my opposite hand, and then back to my harried expression, her strands of pink-blonde hair falling out from behind her ears. "Guinevere, you know that creating and using your own, rudimentary weapons is frowned upon by the Council. Stated in Conclave Combat Decree No. 312, Settlers henceforth are prohibited from any access to tools unlisted on the licensed weaponry armory detailed in the Seers' Archive—"

"Spare me, Eleanor; I practically dream in decrees," I interrupt. "Just look at the arrow."

She has to swallow her textbook chattering, puffing out her cheeks with air to keep it all in. Her attention lowers back to the black, plastic shaft. "Where'd you get it?"

"I was going to ask you the same question."

There's a pause as we watch each other; she's the first to glance away. "It's not Seer regulated," she begins to explain, running her index finger along the length of it in a calculated perusal. She flicks the artificial feathers. "Our arrows have fletchings made from thin fibers of vitrum, forged by the hands of the Nephilim Mercenary—"

I nod absently even though I do remember my studies as clearly as if they had been taught to me yesterday: the Nephilim Mercenary: the circlehood of Seers who have dedicated themselves to the orbs' fight for the rest of their human eternity, melding the weapons used to pierce the darkness. Eleanor's hand drops off the arrow's sharpened tip and glances back at me. "This weapon belongs only to the Peripherals."

Though I already suspected all of that, my throat clogs with cotton swabs all the same; it's hard to swallow. My next words are thick. "What other Settlers are assigned to my Providence?"

She purses her lips in thought. "None at this present time. Guinevere, I'm not exactly sure what happened tonight—"

My hands grip themselves so tightly that I swear I hear my joints strain and pop, the noise only amplified by the words that erupt from my mouth like glass shards. "It was him." Each one rips me open a little bit more until I break. "I saw him, Eleanor, and his voice. His eyes. His face. It was him, but it wasn't, and a Settler shot him with that, and it saved me..."

I'm gasping out sharp breaths by the time Eleanor takes me by the arm, her eyelids lowered sympathetically. I can't stand to look at her expression, but I'm not sure where else to look, my eyes lost in the seas that swamp me. I feel dizzy. Eleanor reaches behind the desk with her free hand and plops a "Back in 10 minutes" sign onto her tabletop, and for some reason that infuriates me all over again. Ten minutes. What is this place? Some small town public library in downtown Liberty Forrest where Granny Librarian leaves on breaks to check in on her county fair, prize winning calf? I want to strangle that sign. Ten minutes? Really? That's all the time I'm worth, apparently. These thoughts are needles to my corneas. My lungs burn for someone to make me feel like I belong, to ground me, to make me feel wanted.

It guts me when I realize I may have killed that person.

Anger rises so quickly inside of me that it releases itself in the form of tears; they roll down my cheeks, the slithering feeling of it shocking me so badly that I utter a muffled sob; Eleanor's hands are heavy on my shoulders as she guides me quickly down the entrance hall and through an oak door.

"It was an Obake demon, wasn't it?" Eleanor prods gently, the door shutting behind her with a soft snap. She guides me to a cushioned chair, and as I raise my head to look at her, I realize that we're in her office. Behind her, on the wall, hangs a poster of some 70s boyband I found in a vintage store in Venice Beach; Eleanor loves all things that have to do with the Peripherals. There's even an antique phonograph in the corner that probably hasn't played any sounds since the 1800s.

"Obake demons have been portaling into the Peripherals in droves lately," Eleanor continues, trying to soothe me with facts, but I'm not thinking logically enough to compute them anyways.

"It transformed itself into him," I say, swiping at my eyes. I clamp onto the arms of the chair. "And you know what that means, right? Obakes only take on the form of those they've had contact with, but Jericho is dead."

The word snaps out, and Eleanor's lips flinch. She kneels in front of me and places her hand over my clenched one. "Guin, you've been through a lot—"

I snort. "I don't want your sympathy card, Eleanor—"

"It's not sympathy; it's the truth, and you're not the only one that misses him!" Her last words are a rush, her cheeks flushing at her admittance.

I glance away from her while she distracts herself by pulling the plastic arrow that saved my life from behind her back. She places it between us. When I chance it and look back at her, her eyes gleam like she may cry as well. I'm frustrated that she feels she has the right.

"Someone used this arrow and shot the demon?"

I nod, trying not to glare because I worry that if I even so much as narrow my eyelids a smidgen, tears will explode from me once more. Eleanor grips the arrow in her hand, and she raises her hazel eyes to look up at me. "Guin, Jericho was always perfect with a bow."

A pause rushes between us before I shove her comforting hand off of me and stand up quickly, forcing her to fall back. "Don't," I hiss, my anger lashing out in words now, "don't you dare, Eleanor Styles."

"I don't believe Serah Mallory," Eleanor pushes in a hush. "Jericho was too trained to make such a simple error. He was too dedicated to you—"

"He was dedicated to his dream," I snap.

"But what if it was him out there tonight, protecting you?"

My vision blacks out for a split second, and my limbs feel as if they're up in flames. I'm not sure when my world flipped around, but the words I always hoped to hear now make me want to hit something. "You know nothing, Eleanor. He's dead, and it's my fault, so don't you dare try to plant false hopes in my head just to make me feel better."

She reaches out to me again, but I scramble back, the look in her surprised gaze too painful. My fault. My duress. 

"Guin, what do you mean by that—?"

My fault.

Her words cut off when I rip the Settler ring from my finger and throw it at her. It soars away from me like a shot-down bird. For a moment, I regret it. Until I remember the Obake's accusations. Who will be the next person I love to die for the Sight? My dad? Leo? After all, it was my gift that has left a list of the dead. The fierce line of my mouth tightens, and Eleanor watches me with a pained expression on her far-too-innocent face as my ring hits the wall beside her ear with a low thunk.

"Take it!" I say. "I don't want it. I'm done."

"You can't—"

"I'm done," I annunciate harshly. "Stay away from my family, or I'll expose every detail of Jericho's plan to the Conclave."

"Guin..."

I feel globs of emotions constricting my chest: anger clawing up my throat, guilt swamping my stomach, a sense of loss emptying out my head until I'm left dizzy in the absence of all my past beliefs. I clutch onto the doorknob of Eleanor's office door. "Jericho was loyal to his dreams, and I won't ruin what's left of them. He's gone, and so am I."

O O O

All things considered, the school uniform doesn't look so terrible.

I finger the three buttons of my maroon polo before unbuttoning the top two and then brushing out the pleats of my navy skirt that fall to my kneecaps. I quirk my head at my reflection in the mirror, having a mad desire to hitch the skirt up a tad higher. It's such an awkward length. I've blown out my hair, so it lies in a slick sheet of black down my shoulders. I promise myself that today, when I enter the halls of Battlefield Prep, I will be the exemplary case of normalcy. The mascara I put on lengthens my already long lashes, and my eyes are large, no longer red-rimmed in betrayal.

Normalcy.

I want to be normal but noticed. Liked. I want to make normal friends. Friends who belong to the Peripherals and nothing more.

I slip my naked ring-finger in the pockets of my skirt before stomping down the stairs, grabbing my book satchel on the way.

"Guin," my dad calls from the kitchen. I smell chocolate chip pancakes, our traditional first day of school breakfast. It's enough to allow me to pretend that this day is just like all the first days from the years past. Except my dad's tone isn't as light. "Come in here for a second."

Leo's already sitting on one of the barstools propped around our small, boxy kitchen island. My brother glances at me once through a curtain of messy curls that are still clumped from slumber before turning back to his pancakes and dumping more syrup on them. His silent treatment has been going strong since the Emily Collins incident.

"Good morning!" I chirp regardless, whisking a smile onto my face as I kiss my dad on the cheek. "Is that my double-stack waiting for me?"

My dad grins in a tired way, the dark stubble on his chin and cheeks more pronounced lately. I wonder which invention has been keeping him awake at night. He slides the plate towards me, eyes locked on mine. 

"Watch out for your brother today."

"I'm in second grade. I'm fine!" Leo protests in a rush, his fork in the air like he plans on going to battle with it. "I'll probably be the oldest in my class."

Dad chuckles, kicking aside a brown packing box that we still haven't unpacked. "You're never too old to have someone watching out for you, Leonardo." His brown eyes are worried when he turns back to me. "Keep an eye on him, Guinny, alright?"

Something inside of me threatens to clench uncomfortably, but I nod and begin to cut my pancakes into meticulous square pieces. When I realize how precise I'm being, I lower my knife onto the countertop. "It's only school, Dad. Granted, it's a rich, private one founded on ancient battlegrounds, but it's school all the same." I lean over towards my brother, nudging the butter knife with my elbow. It teeters on the edge. "I bet you that there are even cannonball fragments buried on the playground."

Leo only huffs at me, but when I look back over at my dad, he's frowning. I can't help but wonder if he knows more about this school than he lets on.

Be normal. Be normal. Act Peripheral.

I drop Leo off at the primary campus first, two regal statues of military generals standing guard at the primary building's entrance. Parents are fiddling with their child's backpack, shuffling around us as we hover outside the second grade hallway. Leo wiggles away when I reach out to smooth back his hair. 

"Stop it," he demands, swatting my hand away. "I like it this way."

I grab him anyways, dropping a kiss on his head and then smoothing out the burgundy, collared shirt of his uniform before he can throw me off. "In case you're wondering," I tell him with a conspiratorial grin, "this uniform makes you look like you're off to Hogwarts."

I'm rewarded with a quick smile and a squeeze of my fingers. "Accio friends!" he exclaims before jogging off into his colorful classroom, already swarmed by a group of kids.

One James' kid down; one to go.

Now, it's my turn.

I lean my head back against the seat of my car and close my eyes. Compared to everything else I've faced in the past couple months, this should be relatively easy. I take a deep breath, hold it for a two seconds, and then open my eyes. A determined girl stares back at me when I check my reflection in the rearview mirror. I nod at this girl, a girl with bright blue eyes, smooth black hair, a Peripheral uniform. You've got this, I want to tell her, but I've promised myself not to talk to imaginary things, so I slide out from my car and into Battlefield's terrain.

The building's white facade looms three stories up, ornate pillars spiraling up to the tiled roof, supporting ornamental balconies, like this is the White House. An iron-cast fence surrounds the property, broken up every now and then by manicured hedges and pine trees. The sun glints off the iron posts, and I can't help but think that at least demons will be deterred from the place.

"Normalcy," I hiss to myself.

Teenagers clad in varying degrees of the maroon and navy school colors hop out of cars and buses, girls running up to each other and throwing their arms together in hugs. One girl walks by me with her polo tied with a hairband at her hip, revealing a flash of her stomach. At least my risqué attitude of unbuttoning my shirt doesn't seem to be so out of place. I stuff my hand into the pocket of my skirt and pull out my class schedule. The first bell should ring in about fifteen minutes, and my first class is pre-calculus in building E, room 202.

I approach the school's entrance, flipping my long hair away from my neck to prevent it from sticking to my sweaty skin in this humid weather. There are white picket signs pointing off in different directions, showing the way to the different buildings that make up the upper campus: Building A-Humanities Department, Building B-Science Laboratories. All the way to Building G-Gymnasium Facilities. 

"You've got to be kidding me," I mutter to myself.

Someone taps me on the shoulder. "Unfortunately, we don't joke here at Battlefield. Need any help?"

A shorter girl stands at my side, a sly, mischievous tilt to her magenta-painted lips, her black hair cut into a layered bob that just reaches below her chin. The ends are dyed a bright purple color in a trendy fad that I don't understand. 

"I'm okay," I respond. "Just trying to figure out where the math building is."

"Well, that's just perfect. My name's Annabelle Lee, the president of the Welcoming Committee, and I was joking about the whole no-joke thing. I've been told that my sarcasm can be hard to come by. Are you new here?" She offers me her hand to shake, standing on her toes slightly as if to raise herself to my height.

"I'm embarrassed it was so obvious to spot." With a grin, I take her hand. "I'm Guin."

"Welcome to our illustrious academy, Guin." She holds her hands out wide, urging me to take it all in. 

It is rather impressive and beautiful in an old-plantation-estate type of way. Annabelle drops her chin into her hand and lets out an awed, dramatic sigh. "Don't let the place fool you. Despite its flawless exterior, it does hide dark secrets." Her dark eyes sparkle mischievously from behind her round glasses as she lowers her voice in a secret. "Rumor goes that two Confederate generals were murdered on this very spot. Killed by their own soldiers. Mutiny. Such a pity."

"I'm glad to know that I'm to be taught in a place that upholds such great sportsmanship."

Annabelle grins, waves at some boy as he walks past, and then loops her arm through mine and begins to pull me in the direction of Building E: Mathematics Department. "I think we're going to get along, Guin. Now, what's your ethnicity? Middle Eastern? Pacific Islander? I just love your skin," she exclaims. Her enthusiasm leaves me a little dazed, and it takes a while for my feet to catch up with my body.

"My mom's family was from Israel," I explain, trying to keep myself from tripping in my eagerness to keep up with her, "but my dad's from L.A."

"Ah, should've guessed that." Annabelle sweeps a sideways look my way. "You have that half-exotic look to you." She winks with a laugh and then readjusts her glasses. "My parents are both from China; I go to Chinese School three days a week, which isn't ideal, but at least I can swear in Mandarin without anyone knowing. I'm showing you to your math class, by the way. It's actually fairly easy to find your way around. Just follow the signs. The Yellow Brick Road—that's what we call the network of wandering paths around this place. You'll pick it all up soon enough." She swings us to a stop at a stone-topped round table and waves at the group of students sitting there. "Hey, y'all! This is Guin. You'll meet her later!"

Annabelle tugs me away before they can even make a response, and she laughs to herself as we retreat. "I don't even know them," she admits, "but did you see the look on their faces—?"

"What's that?"

I've stopped in front of a slab of granite that juts up from the ground about eight feet tall. Engraved in silver against the black of the stone is Battlefield Prep's seal. The emblem I've seen plenty of times by now—stamped on every piece of mail they send out, stitched into the articles of our uniform—but the way the sunlight just shined across it...I motion towards the two rifles in the middle of the crest, to the band the binds them together.

"What's that in the center there?"

Annabelle peers at what my finger is pointing out. "Ah, the unity band. You've just discovered one of Battlefield's favorite character traits. We have a list of them: the Upstanding Citizen Attributes. Unity is number one. Teachers often like to pull us all into a unity circle and discuss our feelings whenever some jock or drama nerd acts up in class—"

I stare at the unity band, narrowing my eyes until my head begins to throb. I always thought the band had been an old fashioned manacle, shackling the two guns together. For a moment, however, I swear I saw a golden engraving snake its way around its circumference. For a moment, it had looked like a ring.

A Settler's ring.

My empty fingers clench tightly into the pleats of my skirt. You're seeing things, Guin. Stop it. "Be careful," I amend, reclaiming Annabelle's arm in an attempt to regain normalcy. "I took a theatre class when I was seven."

"Well, I wasn't calling you a nerd," Annabelle assures me, and though I laugh, my heart still slams against my chest.

The force of it pumps the next words from my mouth. "I've heard that there's some antique key that belongs to the school. The key of shining glory, perhaps?" Internally, I cringe at myself—Damn it, Guin. That is not a normal, Peripheral question—but years of training in lies and secrecy keeps my expression politely interested and my tone sardonic enough that Annabelle snorts in amusement.

"Are you sure you haven't memorized our brochure?" she jokes. "Another one of our attributes: the reforge key: 'Battlefield will take your hormonal, rebellious kids and unlock their brains to reforge them into upstanding citizens of the world.'" She rattles off the quote as if she's impersonating a man with a stuffy, upturned nose, but I'm still caught up on her first few words.

The reforge key.

My fingers tingle unpleasantly, and I shove them into my pockets. That is not my mystery to solve anymore.

_ _ _

Well, now that Guin is ringless, whatever will she do now?? 

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