Page 92 of The Amber Sunburst

“Why wouldn’t it work?” Zeno asks.

“We have no money. We have no plan. We have nowhere to go.”

“I have money,” Ophelia chimes in.

“And that doesn’t begin to—wait, what? How do you have money?” Eudoxia asks.

Ophelia looks from Eudoxia to Zeno and back before responding, “I’ll tell you later. But, in short, I have money. A lot of it.”

“Would you be willing to give it to us?” Zeno asks.

Ophelia smiles and shakes her head. “I’ll do you one better. I’ll keep it with me when I join you.”

Eudoxia needs to stop this hovertrain before it leaves the station. “Whoa, whoa. We can’t seriously consider this. It’s crazy.”

“Well, what else are you gonna do? Zeno’s right—this is the only way,” Ophelia says.

“You can’t just throw everything away—either of you. Not for me.”

Zeno’s brows furrow, and he plants his feet, looking her in the eye. “‘You and me,’ Xia, remember?”

She recognizes those as the words he said to her in the training room weeks and weeks ago, when Alexander had just moved in.

Ophelia, standing next to Zeno with her arms crossed, gives her a stubborn nod.

“So we’re leaving the Academy, then?” Ophelia asks, almost like she’s excited to go.

“We’re leaving,” Zeno says, resolute.

She stares at them both in awe. This is too much. It’s too lucky. She’s blunt and brazen and doesn’t have the tact she should. How has she found people who are this loyal, this loving?

She doesn’t know what she could say to express how she feels, so she nods. Zeno beams at her when she does. She basks in the warmth it brings. It almost feels like everything is going to be okay, for this moment in the light.

23

ALEXANDER

“So we’re leaving the Academy, then?” Alexander hears as he opens his door.

“We’re leaving.”

When Alexander steps all the way into the room, his friends spin toward him.

“You’re leaving,” Alexander says, not a question.

Zeno eyes him warily. “Wh—What do you mean?”

“He heard it,” Eudoxos says, shaking his head. “We should just tell him.”

Zeno looks at Alexander, then back to Eudoxos. “Xia, are you sure? It’s your call.”

It stings that Zeno doesn’t trust him. But to protect Eudoxos, Zeno would do anything.

Plus it’s clear that⁠—

Wait a second.

Xia?