Chapter 8

I heard the bell ring a few minutes later, and I strode to the entrance of our residence to open the door, pausing only slightly as I slid my hand to the knob to open it. Cas waited outside, his Third Level Academy backpack still slung over his shoulder, even though we were due for new ones by now and he probably didn't need to carry anything around. Besides, his looked just as bad as mine - like it would fall apart if he moved a muscle.

"Hey, Cas," I said.

"Morning, Miranda," he said. "How are you?"

"I'm okay." I shrugged. "Are you ready to go? Or do you want to come in?"

"We can go." He watched me pick up the sheath of my sword, which stood in the corner next to the door. "Are you bringing your sword?"

"After yesterday? I have to." I smiled, but the expression felt bitter on my face.

Cas reached around to his backpack. "I hope my sword's still in there, in that case."

"You'd better hope so," I teased. "Otherwise, you won't have any way to defend yourself."

"Ahh, so you're taking that angle now?"

We left my family's residence and walked through the streets of the housing area, passing by lot after lot, house after house, family unit after family unit. The Edge Districts began at least a mile after the yards, streets, and houses disappeared. Short barbed-wire fences made up the borders, cutting them off from the rest of Incipio.

They'd taught us about the Edge Districts when we were in Second Level, telling us it was dangerous to make trips there. The cliffs led right to Terminus, and the fall was too far to survive. We'd best stay away, they said, regardless of who else was with us.

But we'd started to walk to the Edge somewhere during mid-Second Level. The view of Terminus from there was better than any other place on Incipio, and besides that, there were establishments there - restaurants, houses, shops - that I hadn't known could dare to exist this close to the cliffs.

Cas stepped over the fence, and I followed, making sure that neither my uniform pants nor my sword got caught on the wire. I hadn't set foot in the Edge Districts for a long time, and I realized how much I'd already forgotten about them. Even the grass here looked different than the grass in the Plaza and the residential districts. Sparse and yellow-green, it covered most of the area right up to the cliffs.

And the cliffs. The grass ended where they began, and they were made of pale, uneven base rock that dropped off sharply into the air. Beyond them, the clouds hovered in ghostly clusters, drifting tentatively over the grim horizon below. As I stepped closer to the edge, I could see through gaps in the clouds the ruin that was Terminus.

I was fascinated. I'd been fascinated by the fabled land of ruin ever since they'd taught us about it. The ravaged paradise, our place of origin. They would allow us to travel when we were well and of age, but until then we were to fear it, to revile it, to be glad we would never be forced to set foot there again.

I would hear none of it, even in Entry-Level Academy. I looked over Terminus whenever I could, even when my parents tried to pull me back from the sight. I daydreamed about going there and discovering what it was like. The miles and miles of thick fog and lifeless gray rocks were just so different than what I saw every day on Incipio. I could hardly imagine what it looked like but for the small glimpses I caught on the way to the academy and back. And though our instructors reminded us time and time again that Terminus was created because of some sort of fault our ancestors had made, they never told us what that mistake was.

"Kalle, what do you think is down there?" I asked her once in Second Level, when we were sitting in the Edge Districts for lack of anything better to do.

"Nothing," she said, looking surprised. "Why would there be anything down there? It was destroyed a really long time ago."

"Right." I forced the word through my teeth. I couldn't bring myself to tell her how much I disagreed - how many things I'd dreamed up to live in the lost world of Terminus, all the dangerous monsters and living dead who'd fallen to the surface hundreds of years ago. And how much nothing could there have been, if the expanse of land stretched far beyond Incipio and far beyond what we could see? I couldn't say anything, so I looked away instead.

Now I took a deep breath and asked Cas the same question. "Do you think there's anything down there?"

He stared at the clouds, momentarily hypnotized by their slow movement across the horizon. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe. Do you know anyone who's been down there?"

"No one's gone to Terminus normally in forever." There were, of course, those who had decided leaping to their deaths from the Edge was easier than living. Than taking the damn Elevator, for the sake of the Triad.

"You're right," he said. "Then maybe we'll never know."

"Don't say that." I swatted him on the arm. "There's still a chance. They could reopen the Terminal, and we could take a transport down."

"And you want to?" He raised his eyebrows. "Like I said, Miranda, we don't know what's down there. And I don't particularly want to meet my end before I even finish Fourth Level."

"Whatever you say." I blew out a sigh and slumped down in the grass, freeing my sword from its sheath and standing it upright in the rocky soil.

"It is interesting," Cas said, staring out over the clouds. "Looking at it from here." He turned his eyes to the stiff grass, where his hand closed around a patch of green. "Do you remember that time we almost lost Shiri at the waterfall?"

"Shiri?" I laughed. "We almost lost you, too."

"And I almost pulled you in with me." He smiled, reminiscent.

I let the silence hang in the air for a moment. "Maybe we should go back to the waterfall before we start Fourth Level," I said quietly. "It'll be like revisiting the past."

"Right before we leave it," Cas added with a bitter smile. "Well, it's easier than visiting the version of the past that's Terminus."

"Hey." I hit him on the shoulder again.

"Miranda, you know, when we're done with Fourth Level . . ." Cas began.

Oh, dear Triad, please spare me, a part of me pleaded. But some other distant, reasoning voice inside me knew this conversation was necessary and unavoidable. Damn that reasonable voice. I waited for Cas to finish.

". . . we'll have to go through the Pairing Ceremony," he continued. "And I don't think we're really acting like we're Paired."

"We don't have to act like we're Paired," I said. "As long as we know we're Paired, and we don't . . . look at other people, or anything like that."

"Yeah, but Miranda," Cas said. "If we weren't Paired, I couldn't do this." He leaned over, his shoulder colliding with mine, and slung his arm around my shoulders, pulling me against him.

"Cas."

"Or this." With his other hand, he reached up and brushed his thumb across my cheek.

Something struck my memory, hard, like I'd felt the touch before - even though I knew I hadn't. I stood up, breaking away from his grip. The look on his face made me want to throw myself off the Edge.

"What is it, Miranda?" he asked. He squinted at me, his lips taut in an injured frown.

"Nothing. I mean . . ." I wrung my hands and stared at the cliffs. "I just don't think I can do this right now. There's too much else in my head. Too many other things to worry about." I squeezed my eyes shut. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I understand," Cas answered and patted the ground next to him. "You can sit back down. I won't do it again."

"Cas, it's not your fault. It's just . . . it's me. I'm not ready to think about it." I remained standing, too stunned by the phantom memory that his touch had elicited.

"Okay," he said, nodding once.

I removed my sword from the ground and replaced it in its sheath. "Let's go somewhere else for now." I turned and walked on, following the strip of Edge and the cliffs. I heard Cas get up and, gathering his things, follow me.

"Wherever you want, Miranda," he said.