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By the tie of the bed, holding her cla as he traced her knuckles "We’ll have to be ilant," he said "Especially you She tells you s"

"Not when it comes to this," I said

There are many afflictions on Internment--viruses, sores, infections, diseases--but what’s to be done when the affliction is the remedy itself? Tonic is a peculiar medication I will never understand I’ve asked Lex and he says it ht I am inconspicuous when I check for the scent of it on her clothes and on her breath on the days when she’s especially morose She doesn’t see that I peek into her satchel on the train And when she brings tonic into the cavern, I don’t fight her I coh I ued with me about this He tells me I should take the bottle away But I know that if I did, she would only avoid me the way she avoids Thomas when she feels smothered I wish she would stay away from her mother’s tonic, but if she e her

"Let’s stay here," I say

I rest h her recorder

Even in a city so high up that the weather hardly changes, a fog has settled here I’ve passed at least three phar, delivering phars to the apartments of those who need a pill to cal the door in her work clothes, her hair still rurabbed my arm as I passed her, pulled oing to class today She hates relinquishing me to this city that has becole file to the shuttles Pen and I hold hands, saying nothing as we’re nudged up the train platforh

Wefor e about Tholad to have his arm around her shoulders now The boys sit on either side of us, and I let myself pretend it means we’re safe

"What do our instructors expect us to learn today?" Thomas finally says, his whisper loud in the car of so roo to be a broadcast"

"We could have watched a broadcast from home," Pen says to the clouds Even her hair is paler than usual today Internht eyes, because it was believed that fairer complexions caused sun disease and that they were too delicate for outdoor labor And for that reason they used to be a trait that distinguished the upper class, back when Interns Because of Pen’s fair hair, two hundred years ago, she would have been able to coirl like me to do her laundry We used to tease each other about it ere children; she would demand that I lace her shoes, and I would throw one of the to be a normal day," I say

Please let it be a normal day

Pen pats ht to the acade on a chair in the lobby, waving his ar us all to face hi before a hush falls over the roora still Basil holds one hand and Pen holds the other, and all around us, others are finding ways to cling to their betrothed and their friends It never used to be this way Closeness never came from fear

"In a moment, you will proceed to your scheduled classrooh to lend us a few of his specialists, and they will be speaking with you in lieu of your instructors today I’ll expect your best behavior That is all As you were Move on"

Pen and I turn to our betrotheds for a quick good-bye, and then the boys have to leave us for their classrooht Isn’t it?"

"Of course it will," I say "How’s yourup with all of this?" My mother has a penchant for headache elixirs, and everyone knows that a tonic addiction is far worse Inebriation is a sleep from which one cannot awaken; it steals the will to return to the waking world The eyes will still be open, but the stare will be vacant

"She’s out of her senses, of course," Pen blurts, like it’s nothing "This will knock her right off the edge She’s convinced I’ll be snatched from the cobbles"

I’ve known Pen all my life, and when it comes to her mother, I can never tell if it’s all as nonchalant as she makes it see, that’s when she turns indecipherably glib

I tug at one of her curls and she set sullen onat your pretty face? It’s why Basil is about the happiest boy alive"

She hears it right after she says it Alive There is soedy thatcertain words are

The specialist standing in our instructor’s place is as dull as death, though He stands tall and pencil straight, except for his hand, which waves at us so we’ll take our seats So arrangement to be near their friends

"Who here knohat treason is?" For such a slightWe all look to one another uncertainly Of course we knohat it means--the first years could boast that--but none of us has the ithal to answer