Page 68 of Anomalies

She’ll pass with flying colors, we’ve told her as much, but she hardly looks up from her books long enough to acknowledge that she’s hearing us speak.

“No clue,” Gemma shrugs, “maybe she’s⁠—”

A boulder slams down on the tabletop.

No, not a boulder, a book. If you can even call it that.

“For the love of the gods, Kimber, that book is bigger than you are,” I laugh, and she glares at me, blowing a strand of cinnamon hair out of her heavy green eyes, exhaustion wearing them down. Her patchwork tee is wrinkled, her jean shorts stained with what looks like ink and coffee and…I don’t even know what that green spot is.

“Bigger, smarter,” she prattles off, “and a giant pain in my ass.”

Gemma ceases her chewing, my brows shoot up, and Selene barks a laugh. “Kimber, did you just…curse?”

She sighs, “I’m not myself. The words they’re just…” She crawls over the bench, plopping down in a puddle of exhaustion. “There are too many of them and they’re all competing for spots in my head, busy little bees buzzing around and sucking the life out of me.”

Her head falls to the table with a thud.

“Take the book,” Selene orders quickly, but Gemma is already on it, attempting to pry it from Kimber’s papercut-ridden fingers.

“No!” she argues, pulling it back towards her.

“Gods, Kimber!” Gemma finally wrenches it from her hands, and I quickly replace it with my half-filled breakfast tray. The Diviner groans as if I’d shoved another book in front of her instead.

“Kimber. Eat,” I beg, practically holding a piece of toast up to her mouth, but she’s still attempting to reach for the book. “Finish this tray and you can have it back.”

She huffs, yanking the toast out of my hand and biting off the end of it, crumbs flaking off and into her hair. “Toast isn’t the answer to any of the exam questions,” she mumbles as she chews.

“Neither is starvation,” Selene retorts, eyeing the book like an unwelcome breakfast guest. “You’re spreading yourself too thin.”

“You’re wrong!” Kimber thrusts the toast towards Selene as if she might stab her with it, and Gemma and I exchange concerned glances.

“Am I?” Selene bites back. “You’re not sleeping, you’ve spent so much time in the Archives you smell like book-binding glue, and earlier this week you chugged enough coffee to make a grown man pass out⁠—"

“Six hundred and forty-three years after the Chiaros was formed,” Kimber starts, and the three of us groan. “Belvora experienced a winter so harsh, trade routes along the Ivory Canal were halted due to freezing temperatures. Civilians in the port cities were forced to either trek across the barren plains of Griseo for provisions, or they’d what?” she asks, pulling back her toast-dagger to take another bite.

Gemma shakes her head, throwing her hands up. “We don’t know, Kimber.”

“Or they’d starve.” The Diviner smiles at Selene, as if she’s won a competition that only she was competing in. “Starvation is one of the answers. So, you’re wrong. Give me my book back.”

Selene’s dark eyes bore into Kimber, flat and bored. “Shut up and eat your toast.”

She does, reluctantly, some color returning to the tops of her supple cheeks as she finishes off what was left of my breakfast.

Between the shocking news of my heritage, the brutal training sessions with the Captain, and the nightly torments my Velkan makes me suffer through, meals with my friends are the only sense of normalcy I have.

Gemma almost passed out when I told her I was a Van Reenan, but Kimber said she suspected it, and Selene admitted she stole the thought from my brain the morning after I’d found out. Then she reprimanded me for having my shields down.

Kimber is optimistic about it; she thinks it’s a good thing—the fifth Disciple-born bloodline did continue when everyone thought it had ended with Esme. And sure, that makes it sound worth celebrating, but my family’s name isn’t celebrated anymore; it’s tarnished.

Gemma tries to hide it for my sake, but she’s scared. She knows what being Esme’s daughter means and what it makes me.

A target.

My fingers flex around the porcelain mug, and my foot taps impatiently against the floor.

The nightmares are worse. They are more vibrant and real. I find myself avoiding shadowed corners and dreading sleep. I’ve been dreading darkness of any kind out of fear that my Velkan is lingering there…waiting for me⁠—

“Lucina, do you know what the Whistles are?” Kimber asks, cutting through my thoughtless spiral, and Selene and Gemma groan. I shake my head, taking my last good sip of coffee before it hits a lukewarm temperature. “Upon our Split, Diviners receive a direct line of communication with the ancient founders of our coven, it’s part of becoming initiated. We call them the Whistles because that’s how it sounds when they speak to us.”