CENSORED 7: GRADY

“Is Ainsley awake yet?” I yap, feeling the heat in my cheeks over the question I just keep repeating.

We’re eating lunch together at the Oculus, our group of charges having grown during the ceremony thanks to the dressing down she gave Luke. I’m worried about her, the first person to make me feel like I was worth a crap in this place. She’s still unconscious after three days.

“Not yet…” Nick whitetrails.

“Hopefully soon,” Elaina tinks.

“Do you think it’s because she went first?” Fiona squeaks.

Nick yaws his head. “The ring isn’t power weighted in any way. There was no extraction. She didn’t take anything from it. It’s the same for each charge passing through, just an ignition switch and nothing more.”

I snuff, lazily bringing my hand up in front of my face. The spark hovers around me like a tease, never quite touching me, yet always staying close enough to keep my interest. I sweep my fingers back and forth slowly. The particles scatter around the movement, but like there’s a shiny crap magnet in my hand, they don’t drift far.

“Pritchett’s saturated!” someone yells from the doorway.

Nick and Elaina fly out of the Oculus in a hurry. Some charges follow, but most of us just stay sitting at the table in the center of the massive space. I don’t move. Like a giant jerk, I’m rooting against Pritchett. I’m unapologetically pleased his scales have remained empty so far despite our leaders claiming that doesn’t mean a doggone thing. They swear if a spark has ignited it’s going to be a combination of fire and air since the spark dust surrounding him is red and silver. That makes sense considering he’s full of more hot air than a flying fart balloon.

Pritchett has told us more than we could ever want to know about his father, the Orderman. He championed this process. He amended that process. He knows every royal sheath and wielder personally and Pritchett does too.

Fap.

Fap.

Fap.

Even Nick and Elaina, the most patient puffers I’ve ever met, seem tired of his incessant devotion to S.W.O.R.D., or maybe it’s more about his lack of need for them. Either way, I can tell they don’t much care for the snobby slit, and that’s earned them my good graces.

I’d like to stay mad at him and Elaina both for how my extraction was handled, but it really wasn’t their fault. I shouldn’t have run like a little wussy. Honestly, I wouldn’t have run if my mom hadn’t freaked out. But she did, so I did. And here we are. No regrets, really. I’d do anything for her.

Best.

Mom.

Ever.

I’m her only child. Her baby. Her everything. In most ways, she’s my everything too. I’m already missing her like crazy. Separation anxiety is a real sad sack.

Wonder what she’d think of this spark dust. She’d probably chew a strip off me for being dirty. I snort a laugh which turns into a whimper. Like I said, separation anxiety is a real sad sack.

My residual spark is strictly green, but there’s some distinct white and black flecks messing about. That means the earth element. The spark dust has grown significantly less in the last day. It’s doing its job of either absorbing back into me or dying around me. There’s just no way to know which until I’m fully saturated.

I look over to Fiona. She’s doing the same sweeping motion as me, though her spark dust is barely there anymore. Her eyes meet mine and she smiles, an expression I’ve quickly realized is a prequel to the hundred questions she’s about to start asking. Not really in the mood to look like a dipstick because I can’t answer any of them, I figure I’ll go ahead and get my daily weigh-in over with. I gather my tray, along with the ones Nick and Elaina left in their haste, and make my way to the garbage bins along the wall.

As I step outside, the mid-day sun runs down from the sky to greet me. It’s beautiful here. There are gardens with every kind of flora imaginable from flowers to shrubs to trees. There are stone paths carved into the green earth with benches strategically placed throughout the expanse so the beauty can be idly enjoyed by all those who seek it. It’s a sort of peaceful that makes me forget for a moment where I am.

There’s a courtyard directly in the center of the five buildings making up the academy: the Stadium is a large arena for physical training and run by the Fighting Sect; the Ward is a hospital and training area for the Healing Sect; the Oculus is the cafeteria; the Registry contains a massive library and indoor classrooms for Sparklers, as well as Orderlies, and is run by the Scholar Sect; and the Dormitory contains our sleeping quarters and common areas where we’ll spend the rest of our free time.

I head on the east path toward the Ward where the Spark Scale is located. Upon arrival, I give a chin lift in greeting to the Orderly at the main desk. They acknowledge my entrance but don’t really pay much more attention to me than that. They don’t need to. There are Ward Guards blocking the entrances to the left and right hallways.

I climb the unguarded stairs to the second floor where another Orderly looks up at me barely long enough to nod my approval to enter. There are guards blocking the left hallway. To the right there’s just a single pair of double doors. I push my way into the giant room, pausing at the entrance.

The charges having left with Nick and Elaina are all swarming around Pritchett like flies to dung. They’re patting his shoulders and murmuring soothing words in hopes of ebbing his clear disappointment. My stomach drops. I’d hoped for this fate for him, but the lingering despair is hanging around like a red onion fart. I look to Nick and Elaina for confirmation of my assumptions. Elaina has tears trailing down her cheeks while Nick rubs slow circles on her back. I know I’m right when he yaws his head. We’ve had our first spark death.

I start walking toward Pritchett, meaning to offer my condolences, but then the doors swing open behind me with enough force to knock me forward. I find myself in a pile at his feet. My cheeks bleed red for the embarrassing display.

“I. Am. So. Sorry!” Fiona squooshes, scrambling to help me to my feet before moving on to assist everyone else she toppled in her haste to enter.

“Are you alright?” she clatters sheepishly.

“Are you alright?” I bark back.

“I’m saturated!” she squeals with joy.

There are mutters from the charges surrounding us. “Get off me,” Pritchett grumbles, shoving people away from him. They spread out like a parting wave.

“Did you not…” her voice trails off as she realizes what’s happening.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m still the first to saturate.” He says it like it’s something to be proud of. Big lies, little man.

Fiona wisely curbs any response and steps around him and his boot lickers. I trail along behind her to where our blood will be drawn into a syringe, then squeezed into the center of a big, fancy bowl—the Spark Scale. It’s split into elemental quarters: earth, air, water, and fire. Each quarter has intricately carved details depicting the corresponding element. Once the blood fills the ring in the center, it navigates its own path, the spark drawn to its corresponding element like the shiny crap magnets in my hands. The stronger the pull, the stronger the spark.

“You go first,” Fiona clanks.

“No,” I yip. “Yours is a bigger deal.”

She squelches a sigh. “That’s why I want you to go first.”

I fling out my arm. The nurse tightens a band around it like they’re annoyed to be dealing with a two for one special, gives my vein a little love tap, and jams the needle in at the crease of my elbow. I flinch, but I’m not going to cry out like a little wussy in front of Fiona despite that nurse clearly wanting me to.

They take the drawn blood and unceremoniously squirt it onto the ring in the scale. I hurry over to look at it with Fiona in tow. Elaina and Nick draw closer to investigate too. Like yesterday, the blood trails a path toward the earth element. Except, more pools in the corner this time, and it ends up there much quicker.

“Looks promising!” Elaina chimes. Nick upthrusts his lips in agreement.

I blush hard. I’m not getting my hopes up, but my sparkling would mean a world of difference for my mom. No more struggling. Plus, they’ll move her close to the academy so I can see her every weekend.

I turn my attention to Fiona. “You ready?”

“Can you stay?” she clinks quietly.

We’re strangers, but we aren’t alone in this. She needs to know that. I lean in to hug her, and she collapses into my arms, ruining my shirt with her leaky snot faucet.

“I’ll stay on one condition,” I growl.

She squidges up her nose. “What condition?”

“You have to stop smearing snot on my shirt,” I whine.

She clacks a laugh and wipes at her eyes, then her nose. “Deal.”

I hold her hand as they draw her blood while Nick and Elaina hover far, far too close to us. The nurse treats her blood with the same blatant disregard they’d treated mine. I find myself wondering what sort of treatment Prince Pritchett was given.

“Wait,” Fiona clonks, halting them in their steps as they move toward the scale. “What happens now?”

The nurse looks annoyed to have to speak to us. Elaina saves them from having to. “Upon full saturation, if the blood pools to an element, or elements, your spark has ignited, and your fate will change to align with that.”

She stops her explanation for a moment. I can tell she’s thinking carefully about what to say next. Getting it right is important to her.

“If the blood stays in the center ring, it means you can begin a life of your choosing. Whatever path you take, it’ll be your steps leading you to that future. Yours and yours alone,” she continues finally, spinning the positive in a way that makes it sound like the more appealing option.

I headtilt. “Ready?”

“I’m ready,” she agrees.

The nurse rolls their eyes and plunges the blood into the center ring, leaving us to watch Fiona’s future unfold as her Saturation Ceremony commences.