Page 124 of Skalterra By Nightmare
I ignored the voicemail notification glaring at me from the corner of the screen, and I hit the callback button.
My bare feet padded across the wooden floorboards as I paced, waiting for someone to answer. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. I was going to practice in the mirror beforehand. I was going to put on a blazer and do my hair to feel more prepared. I was—
“Von Leer University Admissions Office, this is—”
“I missed your call!” I interrupted the woman. “I’m sorry, it was—”
I cut off and looked around my room for a lie. Any lie. Jonquil glared at me from her hiding spot beneath the dresser.
“My grandma’s cat. She was choking. She always eats too fast and- and you know. She’s a Persian, so she’s already pretty bad at breathing.”
What thehellwas I saying?
To my relief, the woman on the other line laughed.
“I’ll be sure to put ‘cat rescue’ down in my notes,” she said. “This is Wren Warrender I take it?”
“Yes!” I said. Was I talking too loud? “Sorry. I was, you know, with the cat.”
I was going tokillCiarán.
“Don’t worry about it.” She sounded genuine, but I was still worried. “This is Dr. Woodway with Von Leer University Admissions, but you can call me Carly.”
“Carly.” I repeated. “Nice to meet you.”
My heart was in my throat. I held the phone away from my face so she wouldn’t hear my heavy breathing.
I needed to calm down. I slapped a hand to my face, my fingers itching to pull at whatever eyelash or eyebrow they could find first, but I stopped when I saw the new mark slashed across the palm of my hand.
I’d lost another life, even though I hadn’t been under Galahad’s command when I’d jumped. Next time I died, I wouldn’t wake up.
“Wren?” Carly asked, and my stomach dropped when I realized she’d been speaking. “Did you catch that?”
“Sorry, the cat—” I could’ve sworn Jonquil narrowed her eyes at me. “My phone cut out. Could you repeat that really quick?”
If I didn’t calm the hell down in the next thirty seconds, I was going to completely botch this.
I fled to the hall, caught a glimpse of my tousled hair and oversized band t-shirt over pajama shorts in the bathroom mirror, silently mourned the interview outfit I never got to wear, and then continued to the kitchen.
“I was hoping you could tell me a bit about yourself.” How many horrible interviews had Carly suffered through to sound as casual as she did now?
“Right. Well…” I ripped the refrigerator door open and shoved my head inside. Mom had taught me this trick. The cold air helped. Kind of. It at least seemed easier to breathe with a container of half-eaten cottage cheese inches from my nose. “Both my parents are Von Leer alumni.”
“Okay, but what about you?”
“I’m not an alumnus, no.” I would’ve facepalmed myself if I wasn’t so deep in the fridge.
Luckily, Carly laughed.
“I imagine if you were, we wouldn’t be on the phone,” she said.
“Right, but don’t most legacy students get in?” I didn’t know where the words had come from, but now that they were out, I couldn’t hold them back. Maybe part of me had already given up—on passing the interview, on getting into Von Leer, on surviving Skalterra. “Both my parents went there, but I didn’t make it in. That’s not normal.”
“Oh, well—” Carly stammered.
“I’m not saying you should let me in because of my parents! It’s dumb that legacy admissions happen at all at any school,” I said quickly. “Actually, I think it’s because of my dad. He’s never met me. I wrote my essay about him and how much he sucks, but the university likes him, so now I think I might be the only legacy to never get admission on the first try.”
It was like I was still falling off that cliff. I couldn’t stop the words as they tumbled from my mouth.
