Page 41 of Tear of Destiny

“No, sorry. I can’t even read music.”

“No problem, leave it with me.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, but I get no reply.

It’s late afternoon when Kate and I return to school. We’re still in high spirits after fun times with Alex and Chrissy.

“It’s a shame we don’t get to see them more often,” says Kate.

I nod. “But that would make it more difficult to keep all this asecret from them.”

“True,” she agrees. “It sucks having to lie to them all the time. But one indiscretion and we could lose our key spirits and be expelled from this world.”

I nod again. I now know how harsh the punishment for such offenses is. A key carrier who’s in a relationship with an ordinary person is eventually forced by the Council to choose between an ordinary human existence or that of a key carrier. Because past experience shows that it’s impossible to maintain the deception in the long term with someone you share your life with.

“Miss Franklin,” says a voice, interrupting my train of thought. I look up in surprise. Kate and I have just entered the foyer, and Mr. Collins is coming down the stairs toward us. “I’m glad I ran into you. I have something to discuss with you. I was planning to call you into my office tomorrow.”

“Okay,” is all I can think to say. I have no idea what Mr. Collins wants from me. When I think back to our last encounter, I get a sinking feeling.

“Do you have a moment now?” he asks.

“Sure,” I say, hoping to put the conversation behind me as quickly as possible.

Mr. Collins shoots Kate a sideways glance and nods as if to dismiss her. “Let’s go to my office then.”

Without waiting for an answer, he starts walking. I get the feeling that this conversation may take a while. Why else would he need me to come to his office?

I follow at a distance as he strides swiftly along the corridors. It’s little weird that he doesn’t turn around once or say a word to me the whole way.

We reach the front office, walk past the secretary’s desk – she’s already gone home for the day – and step into his office. He closes the door behind me and points to the chair in front of his desk. I sit down, and he takes a seat in his large high-backedleather chair and folds his hands. He looks at me expectantly.

“You’ve been here a while now, and you’ve been through a lot – more than most of our students will ever have to face. For that reason, we wanted to give you some leeway. But the Council and I feel that the time has come.”

I raise my eyebrows. What’s he driving at?

“You have the gift of seeing destiny threads, and that makes you especially valuable to us key carriers. You could be of considerable help to us. But we certainly don’t want to force you into anything.”

So that’s what this is about. I figured this conversation would happen sooner or later. But it still catches me off guard, and I wait to hear what he has to say.

“The Council and I have discussed you at length and decided that we should start by finding out how well developed your ability is and how we can support you.”

“And I suppose it’s irrelevant whether I actually want to get better at seeing the threads? For the key carrying world, the important thing is that my gift enables me to identify goddesses.”

“Well, that’s our hope, of course. But what we’re most concerned about is your well-being. I can imagine it’s not pleasant when a gift like yours crops up out of nowhere. In a large crowd, the impact of all those threads must be overwhelming. If I were you, I’d want to be able to access the gift consciously and prevent it from overwhelming me unexpectedly.”

I bite my lip, unsure what to say. Mr. Collins is right. It would be a major advantage if I could control my ability. But I resent the idea that I may eventually be deployed as a destiny thread detector, or maybe even forced to go on scouting missions to expose the goddesses.

“Miss Franklin, rest assured that we would never put one ofour students in danger. What we’re hoping is that, in time, you’ll learn to control your gift, feel at home here in this school, and then later choose to join the hunters. It can’t be denied that your gift would be enormously useful to us in that capacity – but only in that capacity.”

I raise my eyebrows and can’t believe what I’m hearing. They want me to become a hunter? You have to be one of the best fighters in the school for that. Or maybe they’ll turn a blind eye because of my gift, which I really wouldn’t be happy about. Never mind the fact that I don’t even want to be a hunter. But Mr. Collins is right about one thing. It would be a huge advantage if I could master my gift.

“Are you saying you want to train me so that I can learn to control my powers? How would that work? As far as I know, there’s nobody else in school with one of these special gifts. And when would I start?” I studiously avoid mentioning Kate at this point.

“First, it’s important that we find out where you’re currently at, how your powers manifest, and what problems there might be. Once we know that, we can make someone available to you who’s worked with a number of key carriers with special gifts. This person is sufficiently experienced, I assure you. But first, the Council would like to get to know you personally.”

I sense Mr. Collins’ scrutiny and his unspoken expectation that I agree to this meeting – although I suspect it will be more of a parade.

I hesitate, shifting uncomfortably in my seat.

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