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I heard Eleanor take a deep breath "The other day I alking to the Megaron, and I saw one of thebehind the bushes when he was supposed to be watering the plants He only looks a little older than , why does he get to have a full life when I don’t?

Whatthan me?"

"He’s not," I said

"I wanted to take his soul, Renée I wanted to go up to him and just take it"

I went quiet

"Are you still there?"

"I’h He doesn’t have your soul"

"I know," she said "I wasn’t thinking I was just so angry I felt like I had no tiive me more time"

I felt the sah I never would have admitted it to Eleanor, ever since Latin, when the professor told us about the Liberu to suppress the one thought that I kneas too terrible to consider: if the Liberum could take souls to extend their lives, so could Dante "I kno you feel," I said "But I wonder if it’ll always feel like we have no tihty"

"Not me," she said "When I was little, I used to put on makeup and picture the way I would look when I was older But when I try to i the way she put expensive lotion on her face every night ere at Gottfried "You were obsessed rinkles"

"I still am," she said "Only noant them"

Eleanor’s words echoed in my head as Headmaster LaGuerre drove us to a small wooded area outside of Montreal It was an overcast November afternoon, the trees bare and frostbitten In front of me, Clementine’s head rested on Noah’s shoulder as we crossed a planked bridge I studied her slender neck and the short waves of her hair, trying to iine what she would look like in twenty-one years, what Noah would look like By then, Eleanor would be dead

Noah and I hadn’t spoken since our fight at the waterfront, and even though I felt terrible about what I’d said, I was still angry What gave hiht?

We parked on a shoulder and carried our tools to a clearing in the woods, now dusted with snow

"In order to be a great Monitor, you must treat burial rituals as an art form," the head it in your fingers; dig the deepest holes, craft thea mannequin in delicate silk

"The object of today’s exercise is to build a funeral pyre You ork alone, gathering your supplies fronite the and handed each of us an ax "The characteristics of a good funeral pyre are as follows: First, it nited Second, it ht of a huenerate as little s attention to a funeral pyre is never in our interest"

When he was finished, we dispersed, running to the trees to collect asoff the branches of a birch tree; Brett, orking at a deco together despite the headht, Cle her ax at the underbrush to ed fro

Across froh, and began to weave his wood together, his handsa loo when I bent down and stacked the wood in pairs, threading the staircase

Cleround, and her shirt was marked with sweat as she tiptoed around a pile of sticks that seemed to collapse in on itself every time she tried to set a new piece of wood on top Frustrated, she threw a branch to the ground and took a big gulp frolimpsed my half-finished pyre, a look of shock flashed across her face, but quickly hardened into a glare

Ignoring her, I wiped my hands on my skirt and traipsed off into the forest to collecton the ground surrounded by sticks and twigs and leafy branches, looking dejected Her face was streaked with dirt

"Are you okay?" I asked, stooping next to her

She threw her hands in the air "No e them, they always fall over It’s hopeless"

I waited until no one atching, and with swiftof a cylinder "Like this," I said, before going back to my place

By the end of class, Noah and I were the only ones who had finished pyres that could support the weight of a person; all of the others collapsed Mine looked like a spiral staircase that climbed around a pedestal "Lovely," the head the bottom level to check its foundation But Noah’s was exquisite It was hundreds of thin sticks latticed around the center platform like the inside of shell He looked nervous when the headmaster stood up, his face ith shock as he ran his hands across the joints of the wood

"Remarkable," he said "Tout simplement remarquable"