The results hall was a wide, stone-floored room. It was clear the academy wanted the chairs to be uncomfortable to teach people patience. Holden had been waiting and suffering in his seat for about twenty minutes when the display screen turned on.
The display screen on the wall turned on and started showing names, scores, and ranks from the top down. The room had been noisy with people moving around and coughing, but now everyone went silent.
He saw the name at the top of the board.
Holden Voss. Score: 1,847. Rank: 1st.
Then he saw the name directly below it.
Draven Cayne. Score: 412. Rank: 2nd.
The name was new to him. Across the hall, a tall, sharp-looking boy who seemed used to being the best was staring at the board. He looked very unhappy.
Holden looked away before their eyes could meet.
This did not seem like the kind of person who handled second place well. Holden was already dealing with too much, and he didn't need any extra trouble from someone like that.
The examiner stepped to the front of the room.
"These scores are official," she told them. "If you're ranked 20th or below, you will receive standard dormitory assignments from tomorrow. If you ranked second through fifth, you will get priority room selection. If you ranked first." She paused. "Holden Voss. Stay behind."
The room started to clear out. Draven walked right past Holden without looking at him. Avoiding his eyes on purpose like that felt even meaner than if he had just stared at him.
"Prime Zone," the examiner said, laying a map flat on the desk between them.
The academy grounds were large enough that the map needed to be folded three times to fit. She tapped a section near the center.
"It's a residential area inside the main campus. Senior instructors, high-rank active fighters, and the top recruit of each annual intake."
She looked up. "That's you, this year."
Holden looked at the map. The buildings in the Prime Zone were drawn larger than the outer dormitories. He traced one with his fingertip.
"That's a house," he said.
"It's an estate," she said. "Academy property. You're assigned it for the duration of your enrollment."
He sat with that for a moment.
The village Quarter apartment was two rooms. One proper room with a bed, which Maeve used, and a sitting room where he slept on a mat next to a shelf.
"Can I bring my sister?" he said.
The examiner blinked. He looked like he was trying to figure out what to think next.
"The academy has no formal policy against it," she said finally.
"First-place housing is private property under your tenancy. What you do with it is your business."
"Okay," he said.
He stood up, folded his copy of the map, and kept it in his pocket.
"Voss," the examiner said, as he turned for the door.
She watched him closely for a moment. It was like she was trying to figure him out but didn't know what to think of him yet.
"Whatever you did in that ring today," she said, "do it again."
He nodded and left.
The Village Quarter looked smaller than he remembered.
He took the stairs two at a time and knocked twice before he remembered he lived there and just opened the door.
Maeve was sitting on the bed with her knees pulled up, reading a book she'd borrowed from the district library some days ago.
She looked up when he came in.
She looked him over quickly, checking for any injuries. Ever since she was nine, she had looked for bruises because he used to come home from training with marks he never explained. It was a habit she never broke.
She found the bruise on his arm.
"That's new," she said.
"Exam thing," he said.
"Exam thing," she repeated, with the tone of someone who had given up on getting more details and was done trying to ask.
"Maeve." He sat down next to her on the bed.
"Start packing."
She looked at him.
"We're leaving," he said. "Tonight."
"Where are we going to?," she asked. she wasn't looking worried or looking panicked.
He put the map on her knee, opened to the Prime Zone section.
She looked at it for a long moment. She saw the estate. She looked at the scale of the map in the corner and did some quiet math.
"Holden," she said.
"Yeah."
"This is a house."
"I know."
"A very big house."
"I know."
"We live," she said slowly, pointing at the room around her, "here."
"We did," he said. "Pack your stuff."
She stared at him. He could tell she was trying to figure out what was happening. She was very smart but she never expected this.
She closed her book and began pulling her belongings from under the bed.
It took eleven minutes. That was how much they had.
She packed some clothes, her books, and a tin cup she really liked for some reason. She also took a sketch he'd drawn for her a few years ago and some dried herbs that she thought smelled nice.
Holden took his mat, rolled it up, then put it back down.
He wasn't going to need the mat.
He dropped it on the floor and left it.
The academy grounds were quiet by the time they arrived.
The outer gate guard checked his results certificate. He looked at Maeve, then back at the paper, and then opened the gate without saying a word.
The inner gate to the Prime Zone required the key they'd given him in the results hall.
Their new home was the third estate down the path. It was behind a garden filled with grass.
Maeve stopped walking.
He stopped beside her.
It was a two-story house built from wood. When they walked up, the lights on the porch turned on automatically. He noticed three windows on the first floor alone.
He heard Maeve take a breath.
He got out the key and went to unlock the door that opened into a hallway.
He found the kitchen first.
The fridge was already full of food. He guessed the school gave this to everyone who moved in. He stared at it in shock because he had never seen so much food that was actually his to eat. There were fresh vegetables, fruits, a good piece of meat, and bread that wasn't old and hard.
He heard Maeve's footsteps in the hallway. Then the kitchen doorway.
He turned around.
She was standing at the door with her bag and her book. Her face started to wrinkle like she was about to cry. He hadn't seen her look like this since she was very small.
"Hey," he said. "Don't."
She pressed her lips together. It didn't help.
"Maeve."
"I'm not," she said, which was not accurate.
"I know."
The tears were coming steadily now, but she didn't make any noise. She just stood in the doorway of their own kitchen, looking at the full fridge.
He crossed the kitchen and put his hand on top of her head the way he had since she was small.
She reached up and gripped his wrist. Not to move his hand. Just to hold it there.
They stood in the kitchen for a while.
Outside, the academy grounds were quiet and dark.
Holden looked at the window, at their faint reflection in the dark glass.
Nobody, he thought. Nobody is going to touch this. Nobody is going to take this back. Not from her.
He didn't think it like a promise.
He thought it like a fact about the world that simply hadn't caught up with him yet.
Maeve sniffed, composing herself, and looked at the fridge.
"Are those grapes?" she asked.
"Yeah. Those are good grapes"
She cleaned her face with the back of her hand and straightened up.
"Okay," she said.
"Okay," he said.
Leaning on the counter, he watched her and thought about how he felt ever since he saw his name on the board. It was a nervous, scary feeling. He just wasn't used to good things happening to him.
Tomorrow, he would have to face the academy. He would be around the other recruits and Draven, who looked like he wanted to fight.
Tonight, Maeve was eating grapes in a kitchen with glass windows. For the first time in a very long time, Holden Voss did not have anything that needed solving before morning.