“Do one pushup and I’ll let you go to the pool.”

  He grunts and struggles. As much as I enjoy watching him suffer, I believe I’ll enjoy breakfast more, so I bend over until I’m almost upside down and he can see my face. “Don’t worry, Rion. You’ll do great.” I give him a sarcastic encouraging smile and leave him to collapse under the weight of his trainer.

  Later that afternoon, I head to the shooting range where I know Judge Andrew Raines will be assessing his marksmanship. The Gate’s range is a hybrid traditional and virtual range, so any weapons training can be done indoors. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. And it comes complete with Andrew, or Drew, as most of us call him. With his salt-and-pepper hair and tweed jacket, he wouldn’t look out of place at a lectern. Most people who meet him find it hard to believe he’s our resident weapons expert, but the man just loves to blow things up. He’s also the most skilled marksman I’ve ever met despite his not having perfect eyesight.

  When I join him in the observation booth, Drew doesn’t even turn around. “Hello, Dowler,” he says.

  I stand beside him, cross my arms, and watch my younger brother try to look natural handling a McMillan TAC-338.

  Drew straightens his eternally crooked glasses and says, “We need to talk.”

  “That’s never a good thing.”

  He shrugs and reaches for the microphone. “Hold off, Bachman. I want to try something.” Orion obeys while Drew changes the virtual image at the end of the range. It’s projected onto a substance that not only stops bullets dead in their tracks but sends electrical impulses to an advanced computer system that accurately calculates the shot. It’s more precise than an outdoor range, with the ability to simulate specific wind and weather conditions at the touch of a button. Currently, Drew is simulating clay targets.

  “Begin,” he says into the microphone, and I watch as Orion takes aim and fires. For a kid who’s likely never handled a rifle, he’s not doing badly. He even has a couple hits.

  “That’s good,” I say, proud of my brother for once. “He’s really good.”

  Drew shakes his head and flips a switch to change the simulation. Suddenly, Orion is shooting at human targets, and his skill level drops to almost nothing.

  I narrow my eyes at the range. “What the hell?”

  “Exactly,” Drew says. “Your boy doesn’t have a killer’s instinct. In fact, he has the opposite. His skills are fantastic as long as no one gets hurt. That’s going to be a big problem in the field.”

  “I can see that.”

  Drew flips the switch so the targets go back to clay, and Orion’s shooting dramatically improves. “I suggest you work on it,” he says without taking his eyes off Orion. “Since killing isn’t a requirement to become an Acolyte, you’re going to have a problem if he passes. He’ll be the perfect soldier… in theory. In practice? Well, let’s just say I wouldn’t want to end up in any sticky situations with him.”

  * * *

  One night, weeks into Orion’s training, I find myself struggling to fall asleep. This is not like me at all. By evening, I usually have to fight to keep my eyes open. I roll out of bed and throw on the clothes I wore earlier that day. My first attempt to wear myself out involves jogging several laps around the upper deck. This does nothing but invigorate me, so I head to the computer room. It’s after 1:00 a.m., and Judah is already there. By the dark shadows under his eyes, I can tell he’s been working all day.

  I sit next to him and nudge him. “You’ve gotta rest sometime, old man. Is this something you can pass off to me? I’m giving up on sleep for the night.”

  “I don’t know.” Judah groans and massages his temples. “It’s complicated.”

  “What isn’t?”

  He leans in and clicks through several windows. “It’s old shit.”

  I’m not going to let him get away with vague answers. “Tell me.”

  He sighs. “Okay. You know the House of David’s been around a long time, and we’ve understood from the beginning that some holy artifacts were… more powerful than others. These are invariably contaminated with a new type of microorganism. They aren’t identical, as you know, but there’s something they all seem to have in common—quantum entanglement. It was monumental when we discovered it. Quantum entanglement in living organisms was unheard of at the time, but it explained so much about how these organisms behaved. The thing is, we weren’t the only ones to discover them.”

  I sit up a little straighter. “Go on.”

  “In Paris, France, a Dr. Beatrice Denau was secretly working with these microorganisms. No government entity, no megacorporation, no military knew about it. Just an elite group of scientists, determined to learn what they could and tell no one until they fully understood the implications behind their findings. Then the police received a call from the Denau house. Their young daughter had come home from school to find both her parents dead. The scene was grisly, but it looked staged. Injuries were inflicted after death. The house had been gone through, but nothing was taken. When authorities received the autopsy results, the only thing out of the ordinary was the presence of unknown microorganisms in the blood of both victims.”

  “Whoa.” I lean in to examine the images on his screen. The carved-up bodies of a man and woman lie on the floor of an expensive-looking kitchen. Police tape is strung everywhere like crêpe streamers at a party.

  “That’s not even the weirdest part,” Judah says. “The microorganisms were found in the blood of their daughter, too. Only she wasn’t dead when they found her.”

  Judah lets a dramatic silence permeate the computer room, but he doesn’t need the theatrics. I’m well aware of how huge this is. “How long did it take the daughter to die?”

  “She didn’t. She survived. It’s crazy, I know,” he says when he notes my shocked expression. “This wasn’t two varieties of this type of microorganism either, like what you’d find if you looked at the Finger of God alongside the Chains of Peter. They found the exact same organism in the daughter and the parents, but it killed the parents and not the daughter. They had to put the daughter in protective custody, not because there was a killer after her, but because she was so valuable to scientists everywhere. Everyone wanted a piece of her.”

  I can’t imagine what it must have been like for this girl to come home and find her parents dead, to lose her family and identity all at once, just because a tiny organism survived in her blood. She must have been devastated. I wonder where she is now and whether she was ever able to find some happiness in life. We all have to deal with shit from time to time, but some have more to deal with than others. This poor girl had a burden the size of an aircraft carrier before she was even grown.

  Judah gives me a minute to process the new information before he hits me with another twist. “It gets even weirder,” he says.

  “Christ, Judah. Are you shitting me?”

  “No. And you’re going to want to brace yourself for this one because it may not be easy for you to hear.”

  I believe him. If there’s anything Judah is not, it’s a liar. He wouldn’t tell me to brace myself unless something major was coming. “I’m ready,” I say.

  “Today, I ran a comparison between samples taken from every contaminated artifact we’ve secured and the Denau family’s blood. There are slight variations in the microorganisms from every artifact, except one—the Blood of Mary.”

  My muscles slacken and my jaw drops. “White Rabbit” is playing at the music festival, the last three words skipping over and over, drowning out any coherent thoughts I might have had on the matter. The hyacinth crawls toward me, begging and bloody.

  “Eden.” Judah shakes me by the shoulder.

  I rub my eyes and swallow my pain until it’s too deep to recognize. “Wow. Sorry.”

  “No, I felt the same when I first realized it. I didn’t want to go back there or relive any of it. That mission was… one of the most troubling I’ve ever been part of.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “And it was your first.” He reaches out and squeezes my arm. Judah is the only Judge who understands exactly what I go through every time I picture that day. He was on the stage with me. He saw everything I saw. “I didn’t mean to bring it to you like this, but maybe this is for the best. You’ve heard it from me before you’re briefed in a room full of people. You can process it in private.”

  “Yeah.” I try to shake the memories off. “Yeah, thanks.”

  “Anyway”—he rolls his chair back in front of his computer—“it’s possible we may learn more about that mission, what it meant and why it happened. The blood was kept in a vial, which makes me wonder whether it might have come from a lab. I think we should look into all the scientists who partnered with Dr. Denau. Could one of them have poisoned the family with the Blood of Mary before releasing it into the wild? It sounds like something Seditio would do, but… I don’t know. I think we may need to consider the possibility that there are more unsecured samples out there. Either way, finding the person responsible might give us all a little closure.”

  I doubt it, but I nod anyway. Judah doesn’t question me when I walk out without another word. It’s going to be a long night, and I have nothing to read. I don’t want to think about reality anymore. Sarah may say I’m not ready for Don Quixote, but Don Quixote better get ready for me because I’m taking on that brick tonight if it kills me. Hopefully, it will at least knock me out for the count.

  * * *

  During Orion’s final week of training, I find it impossible to relax. His tests loom on the horizon. I spend extra time on the treadmills in an attempt to sweat my stress away. I barely eat at meals. I don’t know whether I’m worried Orion will fail his tests or pass them. Do I really want him to live the kind of life I’ve lived? Can I, in good conscience, sacrifice him to the House of David? Am I truly so loyal that I’d give my only brother to the cause?

  In the cafeteria, Sarah plonks down beside me. “You took Don Quixote,” she says, pointing an accusing finger. “I wasn’t done with it yet.”

  “I thought you said I wasn’t ready,” I remind her. “So why would I have taken it?”

  “Apparently, you don’t care whether you’re ready, and you’re going to dive right in without a single swimming lesson.”

  “It’s how I do things.” I shrug.

  “I hope you know you’ve forced me to engage in literary stalking,” she says. Then she points at my untouched sandwich. “Eat, Eden.”

  I take a bite to appease her and wash it down with several gulps of warm beer. “What the hell is literary stalking?”

  “This.” She slams an open book on the table. I recognize The Great Gatsby without even having seen its cover.

  “Thought you’d already read that.”

  “Sure, but it’s been years, and I’ve never read it right behind you.” She points again to my sandwich, and I force myself to take another bite.

  “What difference does it make?”

  “This difference.” Sarah’s long finger falls on a page with an underlined passage. Her nails are cut short, and her knuckles are still pink from the bag she likely spent most of the morning pummeling.

  I clear my throat and try not to stare. “So? Isn’t that what people do when they read the classics?”

  She leans in a little too close and whispers, “These. Aren’t. Yours.”

  I lean in even closer and whisper back, “So. Fucking. What?”

  “Well,”—she pulls back and takes the open book with her—“when you mark a book that isn’t yours, you leave yourself open to interpretation. So, let’s see which passage Judge Eden Dowler thought worthy of his attention. Hmm…” She fakes a careful read when I know damn well she’s already cruised through the passage and made up her mind. “He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is… Interesting.”

  My whole body breaks into a sweat when she reads that passage aloud. The truth is, I don’t know why I marked it. Maybe I thought it was poetic. Maybe it was something else.

  “What do you think it means?” she asks.

  “How should I know? Just seemed important was all.”

  She shakes her head and pushes the book back under my nose. “No, Eden. You have to discuss it. That’s what the kids do in school nowadays. They discuss it. You did want the full, formal-education experience, didn’t you?” The way she talks, you’d think a formal education was some kind of theme park. And maybe it is, in a way.

  “I don’t know,” I answer, swallowing another gulp of beer. “It was just… this guy Gatsby—he saw the world the way he wanted to see it. He saw Daisy the way he wanted to, and his house, and his parties, and all that. But it was just an illusion, wasn’t it? No matter how much he dressed it up, his world was still shit, and right before he died, he saw it for what it was.”

  Sarah’s smile fades, and she pulls the book away from me. “That’s bleak, Eden.”

  “Well, what do you think it means?”

  “That what matters in life isn’t always beautiful.”

  “That’s not right.” I laugh, and she glares across the table.

  “There’s no right or wrong in literary interpretation. That’s the whole point.”

  “I disagree.”

  She throws her hands over her head and groans at me. “Oh, man, you would have been so annoying in class.”

  “Probably.”

  “Anyway, this isn’t what I came to discuss.” She closes the book and tucks it away. Then she plants her elbows on the table and drops her chin onto her knuckles with a knowing smile.

  I have no idea what she’s about to say, but she’s making it clear that if I don’t ask soon, she’s going to spit it out anyway without the delight. “Okay, what did you come to discuss?”

  “Orion.”

  My stomach tightens when she says his name. “What’s he done now?”

  She grins. “He passed.”

  It takes me a second too long to process what she said. Even when it starts to make sense, I question myself. “What do you mean he passed? I didn’t think he was being tested yet.”

  “Of course you didn’t, dufus, because I didn’t tell you.”

  “But why?”

  “Because if I’d told you he was being tested, you would have stressed about it. And how does the great Eden Dowler deal with stress?”

  I glance down at the beer bottle in front of me. I know exactly where she’s taking this. If I’d known he was being tested, there would be way more than one empty bottle sitting there right now. She knows me too well; it’s going to become a liability at some point.

  “So…” She drums her fingers on the table. “When do you want me to write a formal invitation? Right now? Say right now. Please please please. You know I love writing formal invitations to new recruits.”

  I chuckle at her enthusiasm. “You can write his invitation, but you have to have a drink with me after.”

  She stands abruptly. “It’s a deal.” I know she won’t shake on it, but it doesn’t matter. This is as close as I’ve ever come to asking her out, and now my brother is going to be my new Acolyte. I don’t have much to compare it to, but I think I may be bordering on some kind of happiness.

  * * *

  I find Orion in the weight room, benching without a spotter like an idiot. This must be how he deals with stress. I suppose it’s healthier than alcoholism, so I decide not to criticize him for it right now.

  “Hey,” I say.

  He replaces the bar, sits up, and towels off. “What’s up?” When I hand him the letter, he stares at it like he doesn’t know what to make of it. “What’s this for?”

  “It’s your invitation letter, genius. You don’t get to just make yourself my Acolyte. I have to formally invite you, and you have to formally accept my invitation.”

  His eyes widen. “You mean I passed?” He looks like he can hardly believe it, so I nod to confirm. “I passed!” He leaps onto the bench and shouts it to the whole ship. “I actually passed! Wooo! Yes yes yes!” He punches the air, and I can’t help smiling for him. I remember what this was like for me, the feeling of finally belonging to something, of accomplishing something huge that very few people would ever accomplish. Of course, I didn’t have a ridiculous celebratory dance around the weight room when I received my letter—not that I didn’t want to.

  Then, before I can do a damn thing to stop him, Orion runs up to me and throws his arms around my shoulders, his acceptance letter dangling from his hand behind my back. My muscles tighten when he hugs me. I’m not used to physical affection, but this is my brother. He’s so happy, and it’s all because of me. I gave this to him. Maybe having a brother won’t be so bad after all. I take the risk and hug him back.

  “Congratulations, Rion,” I say. “Welcome to the House of David.”

  6: long

  Orion

  I wait in a dark room with Sarah, Joshua, and more people I don’t know. My heart is pounding. As many finals as I’ve studied for and aced, you’d think I’d be used to this kind of pressure. It’s my first mission, my first briefing. It feels like I’m taking my first steps in a new life, and I can’t seem to keep my balance. Sarah sits beside me and gives me a reassuring smile.

  “Where’s Eden?” I ask her.

  She shrugs. “Wherever the hell he wants to be.”

  “I mean, why is he not here?”

  “Because this isn’t his mission, Rion. He’s not coming with us.”

  However nervous I was before, it just tripled. “What? Why? I thought I was his Acolyte. Why am I going on missions without him?”

  “Because I snagged you.” She winks and turns back to the screen at the front of the room. “You speak Greek, so I asked to borrow you.” The idea that Acolytes are passed around like tools in a shop class bothers me more than I care to admit. Sarah picks up on my discomfort and adds, “I promised to return you in one piece. Don’t worry.”