Lauren DeStefano - Perfect Ruin

There’s so much beauty out there that Daphne Leander will never see again.

Lex has such a piteous look on his face, as though I’m the one to feel sorry for.

“Why do you say things like that?” I ask.

“Because I saved lives when I was a pharmacy student,” he says. “And you can’t be the reason someone is alive without giving thought to what being alive means.”

I pull my hand away from his. “Remind me to never implore your aid if I’m dying.”

“Don’t be angry,” he says. “I’m sorry. Morgan, I’m sorry. I wish it hadn’t happened. I wish you never had to know such things.”

“But you write about it,” I say. “Don’t you? People dying and getting sucked up into the swallows and things.”

“Sometimes,” he admits. “You’ve read dark stories, haven’t you? People die in them?”

“But I know they aren’t real,” I say. “I put the book down and I go on with my life.”

He frowns. “Things are changing, Little Sister, and not for the better. I have a feeling about that. But I would dock Internment to the ground and take you someplace brilliant if I could.”

“Internment is brilliant,” I say. “It’s more than enough.”

More than enough. I repeat the words over and over in my head, forcing them to be true.

Virtuousness—how is it defined? We are taught not to approach the edge, and certainly not to jump. But is bravery not a virtue?

—“Intangible Gods,” Daphne Leander, Year Ten

THE TRAIN RIDE TO THE ACADEMY IS SO quiet that I can hear the wheels squeaking on the tracks, and the hum of the electricity. The students, like the families in my building during the broadcast, huddle together, talking softly if at all.

Even Basil and Thomas aren’t speaking.

Pen watches the clouds blurring past us, and in the window’s reflection I think she’s watching the patrolman standing at the head of our car. As promised, there was no lack of them this morning, holding open doors for us, nodding, saying, “Good morning” as though to reassure us that our little world is safe. They cast suspicious glances at the men in particular. I don’t know that I like this. The vigilance of the patrolmen is supposed to make me feel safe, but all it does is further the knowledge that something has changed.

There are patrolmen watching us step off the train; Pen stays close to me, huffing indignantly as she tugs her skirt pleats down past her knees. “Are all these eyes really necessary?” she says.

“They’re only looking out for our safety,” Basil says. “Try to ignore them.”

She looks over her shoulder after the patrolman who opened the academy door for us; she crinkles her nose but says nothing more.

Normally we’d have at least ten minutes of free time in the lobby, but today we’re supposed to report to our first classes immediately. “I’ll see you at lunch,” I say to Basil.

He reaches for my hand, hesitates, and drops his arm back at his side. “See you at lunch.” I watch him disappear into a group of his morning classmates.

“What was that about?” Pen says after we’ve rounded the corner.

“I think he’s going to kiss me soon,” I say, suddenly feeling very awkward about what to do with my own hands. “It seemed like he wanted to yesterday when he walked me home.”

“At last, my little girl is growing up,” she says.

“I’m three days older than you,” I say.

She bumps me with her shoulder. “But I know all the things you’re too sweet to know.”

Her laugh gives me more reassurance than all the patrolmen on Internment combined.

The cafeteria at lunchtime, in contrast to the rest of the academy, is alive with chatter.

“I’ve found a few things out about Daphne Leander,” Pen says, setting her tray on the table across from Basil and me. She rifles through her satchel and pulls out a folded piece of paper. “These were tacked up in the ladies’ locker room. They’re all handwritten but they say the same thing. Look at the date—it’s from last month. It was her essay on the history of the gods. But we had to read our essays aloud, and this isn’t the one she read. If I had to guess, it was a draft she didn’t intend to have anyone find.”

As I’m unfolding the page, Basil says, “Should we be invading her privacy like this?”

“They’re all over the academy,” Pen says. “Someone wanted them seen, to be sure.”

I smooth the page flat against the table and begin to read. Intangible Gods, Daphne Leander, Year Ten.

“You look lovely today,” Thomas says, seating himself beside Pen.

She glares at her lunch tray and mumbles a dispirited, “Thank you.”

I fold the paper before Thomas notices it, and tuck it into my skirt pocket.

“How are you handling the news?” Thomas asks, glancing between Pen and me. “It must be pretty frightening for you girls.”

“Everyone’s frightened,” Pen says. “Not just the girls.”

“Of course,” Thomas says. “I only meant that you must feel more vulnerable. The fairer sex and all that.”

“How do you know it had anything to do with being a girl?” Pen says. “The patrolmen aren’t watching just the girls. They’re watching all of us. We don’t know why this murderer victimized a girl or if that even mattered, and we don’t know who could be next.”

“I didn’t mean to offend,” he says, looking between Pen and me. “Forgive me.”

I concentrate on my tray. It isn’t hard to understand why Pen is always avoiding her betrothed, even if to an outsider they’d seem like the perfect pair; he’s every bit as attractive as she is, in that pristine, bright-eyed way. And he has her same spiritedness, but they are far from compatible most days. She has confided in me that she’d cheerfully marry a dead trout in his place.

Thankfully, Basil is an excellent conversationalist, and he and Thomas begin talking about last week’s squares tournament and some apparent controversy about a referee’s call on a blunder.

Pen pushes her vegetables around with her fork.

“You should try to eat,” I say.

“I will if you will.”

We make a silent game of synchronizing our bites.

After lunch, we drop our utensils, trays, and uneaten food into the respective recycling and compost tubes and we move in four different directions to our next classes. The paper in my pocket feels heavy.

The evening train is less somber than the morning’s was. Basil is trying to cheer me with plans for the weekend. He thinks we should go to the theater; one of his favorite books has just been adapted into a play.

I rest my head on his shoulder. His collarbone presses into my cheek, and I breathe in the sharp linen of his uniform and something faintly spicy-sweet. Up until last year, he smelled only of soap, if anything at all.

“You don’t have to walk me to the door,” I say. His train stop is right after mine, and if he walks me inside, he’ll have to walk a section over to his apartment.

“I don’t mind,” he says as the train begins to slow.

“You’ll be safer on the train,” I say. “It’d make me feel a lot better. Please.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll protect her,” Pen says, tugging me to my feet after the train’s final jolt.

“Come by tomorrow afternoon,” I tell him. “We’ll see the play if you want.”

We step off the train and Pen checks her reflection in her wristwatch. “You’re lucky, you know,” she says. “You aren’t doomed to marry a complete ass.”

The patrolmen open the double doors for us, nod as we pass through.

“Maybe Thomas isn’t as bad as all that,” I say. Her being envious of Basil would defeat the purpose of arranged betrothals. “Plenty of couples argue.”