Page 17 of The Amber Sunburst

When he leaves his room and closes the door behind him, he sees someone down the hall entering their own. All he catches is the most golden hair he’s ever seen, shining even in the windowless hallway.

Alexander only returns when Zeno comes to get him.

“Thanks for waiting,” he says when he opens the door.

“Jesus, Zeno, it’s just common courtesy. All you have to do is ask and I’ll be out of there,” he says with a smile.

Zeno squints. “Jesus? What’s that?”

“What’s Jesus?”

Zeno laughs nervously. “Yes?”

No more Bible references, then. Good to know.

“It’s a countryside thing. Just a turn of phrase.”

“Oh, cool.”

“As I was saying,” he recovers. “It’s our room. So you do nice things for me and I’ll do nice things for you. Coexistence at its finest.”

“You have a point,” Zeno concedes. When they reach their room, the sun is setting over the sea, shining through the window like a heavenly light.

Eudoxos stands from where he’s seated on the ground. “Sorry for being an ass. Just protective of Zeno is all. You seem cool. Kinda.”

Alexander’s pretty sure that wasn’t a joke, just an observation. He loves Eudoxos already—he needs some honesty in his life.

“You do too. Kinda.”

Then a very unpleasant bell starts to ring.

“Shit, dinner,” Zeno realizes in distress. Not for himself, though. Distressed because, “Forms, Alexander, you must be so hungry. Change into one of your uniforms—they’re in the closet—then we’ll run.”

Alexander whips open the doors to his too-plain, wooden armoire, and finds it full of boring Academy uniforms and nothing else. He’s not sure what he was expecting, but he’s still disappointed. He has never enjoyed blending into the background; his coronation outfit had peacock feathers on it, for God’s sake.

He rips off his dirty, shipwrecked clothes, and stuffs them into the back of the closet. It’s almost bittersweet to have all of the ocean salt off his body, both a release from suffocation and a feeling of being too light, in danger of floating away.

Then he pulls on a pair of briefs under tan cargo pants and a flowy linen top—forgoing the white undershirt because no one has ever looked good in an undershirt—leaving several of the top buttons undone. He ruffles his hair just enough for the bedhead look.

There may not be mirrors in the room (he hates it here) but he knows he looks good. He usually does.

When he emerges, Zeno’s and Eudoxos’ eyes both go wide.

“Wow,” Zeno says. “You really pull that off.”

Oh, he loves ego boosts. He loves them so much.

“Why, thank you. I could say the same to both of you.” He motions to them with a dramatic flourish. “Okay, let’s eat. I’m starving.”

“Oh, shoot,” Zeno says before dragging him back into their room, Eudoxos following.

“What?” he asks. Zeno is sifting through a pile of Academy-branded items on Alexander’s bed. It’s mostly books and notepads, but there is one of those cool rings that everyone has. Zeno is definitely going to have to set it up for him.

“Aha!” Zeno pops back up, holding a necklace with that same symbol Alexander has been seeing everywhere.

In the center is an almond-shaped piece of amber, cracked like a perfect sunburst on the inside. Then, in crescents on either side of the amber are rose quartz and what he thinks is iron. Together they make a small, circular pendant.

“Can’t be here without one of these,” Zeno explains, pushing the necklace over Alexander’s head. Eudoxos wobbles on his tiptoes to tighten its leather cord from behind. Alexander isn’t particularly tall at five-eleven—okay, fine, five-ten—but Eudoxos is probably a foot shorter than him.