Akari stepped across the playground, searching for her best friend. Woodchips crunched beneath her shoes, and she had to dodge a few muddy areas from last night’s storm. Even the play equipment still glistened with raindrops, from the aluminum swing set to the massive yellow slide.

Shouts and laughter filled the courtyard as her classmates ran back and forth. A small crowd stood around the sandbox where Reoko was building a massive castle. The boy had become a Sand Artist last month, and he’d clearly used his aspect on this project.

Akari continued past the crowd toward the gate. There, she spotted a familiar pink backpack leaning against a thick oak tree. Emberlyn Frostblade stood with her back to the tree, clutching a half-open alchemy textbook. A group of three other kids surrounded her, with four more watching from a distance.

“Thanks for the offer,” Emberlyn told them, “but I’m not much of a surgeball player.”

“Come on,” one voice said. Akari stepped around the tree and recognized him as Kazo Shiro. A full head taller than her, the boy had shaggy black hair that fell into his eyes. “You’ll never get better if you don’t practice.”

“Thanks.” Emberlyn gestured at her book. “But I really need to study.”

One of Kazo’s friends snatched her book and read the cover. “This says ‘high school.’ You’re not even in high school yet!”

Kazo’s face darkened. “So you think you’re better than us?”

“She does,” a girl named Rina spoke up from the crowd. “Just last week, I heard her say that surgeball players were stupid.”

“Yeah,” another girl joined in. “I heard that, too!”

Emberlyn probably hadn’t said that, but it was true. Surgeballs had mana-based cores that responded to pressure from the players’ channels. This let them pretend to be real Mana Artists without using any real techniques.

Akari quickened her pace, but she wasn’t fast enough.

“Catch!” Kazo hurled the ball at Emberlyn’s forehead, and the impact sent her staggering into the nearby oak tree. She caught herself against its thick truck, and her textbook flew into the woodchips.

The crowd erupted into laughter, and Kazo opened his mouth again—probably to say something stupid. Before he could, Akari leapt between him and Emberlyn.

“Hey!” She punched the boy in his sternum. “Back off!”

Kazo staggered back, but not as far as she’d hoped. Mana raced through her channels, and she fell into a combat stance. It was the same stance Kalden Trengsen had shown her two years before.

“Roots are everything,” he’d said. “Even the biggest tree will fall without them.”

The entire playground held its breath as Kazo recovered. Dozens of their classmates stopped playing and gathered in a loose circle to watch. Last Haven had more Combat Artists than most small towns, and that meant more fights among the kids.

Kazo grabbed his surgeball and stepped forward, looming over Akari. “What are you gonna do, Zeller?” He raised his eyebrows as if daring her to reply.

Akari knew better than to look away. “I’m gonna kick your ass.” She’d never said a bad word at school before, and her cheeks grew hot. The laughter started again. This time, it came from the crowd rather than Kazo’s friends.

Kazo took a few steps back, but it was only a feint. A second later, he spun back toward Akari and launched the surgeball with blinding speed. “Heads up!”

Akari matched his speed and shot a Missile at the approaching ball. She focused her pressure on the center of the technique, sharpening it into a crude blade. Kazo’s ball crashed into it with a thud, and it deflated with a rapid whoosh of air.

Akari held his gaze as she caught the ball and touched its mana core, pulling the power into her channels. Then she threw the sagging orb of rubber over her shoulder, letting it land in the woodchips.

Emberlyn stepped up beside Akari, but she didn’t say anything.

“You can’t do that!” Kazo blurted out. “You’re gonna get suspended.”

Akari shrugged. “Ask me if I care.”

Alton Tusk stepped up beside Kazo and grabbed him by the arm. “Let’s go, Kaz. Zeller’s a freak.”

Kazo made a snorting sound and turned to leave.

“Let me guess,” Akari snapped. “Kazo is Shokenese for craven?”

“Craven?” The boy froze, spinning his head to face her. “What the hell does that even mean?”

“Means you’re scared of me,” Akari said. “You’d know that if you actually read books instead of tossing them in the dirt.” She glanced back down at Emberlyn’s textbook. “Now pick it up and apologize, or I’ll—”

“It’s fine,” Emberlyn spoke up for the first time. She leaned down and retrieved her own book from the ground, wiping it clean on the front of her jacket. “See? Everything’s fine.”

Kazo’s friends took that moment to lead him away. Akari almost chased after them, but Emberlyn grabbed her by the arm. Akari kept her eyes on her retreating opponents. It wasn’t too late to break free and finish this . . .

“Hey.” Emberlyn stepped in front of Akari. “Take a deep breath with me.”

Akari laughed and met her friend’s bright violet eyes. “You sound like my mom.”

“Come on. Just do it!”

“Fine.” Akari rolled her eyes and leaned back against the oak tree. Then she took a good long breath, in through her nostrils and out through her mouth.

Emberlyn smiled at her. “Feel better?”

Akari shrugged. “I’d feel better if I taught him a lesson for real.”

The other girl gave a nervous chuckle. “You’re my best friend, Akari, but you scare me sometimes.”

“You can’t back down from kids like that.” Akari thrust a finger in the group’s general direction. “They’ll just come after you again.”

“Kazo didn’t want to fight you,” she said. “But he would if you kept pushing it. Then you’d both get in trouble.”

Emberlyn led her toward the play structure, which was mostly empty. Akari followed her friend, but she kept her eyes on Kazo’s group, just in case they tried to pick on someone else. This went on for a few minutes before Emberlyn shot her an annoyed look. “Are we gonna hang out, or are you gonna go play hero again?”

Akari pulled her gaze away and sagged her shoulders. “Sorry.” Her friend had a point; they didn’t have any classes together this semester, so recess was the only time they had to see each other. An idea kindled inside her, then. Lots of kids were intimidated by Emberlyn, but she also made herself an easy target by sitting alone. Akari could respect that, but she should know how to defend herself. Emberlyn didn’t.

“What if I gave you some fighting lessons?” she suggested.

Emberlyn bit her lip. “I don’t want to fight anyone.”

Akari gave her a frank look. “Did you tell Kazo that?”

She shrugged. “He would have walked away eventually.”

“We’ll be in high school soon,” Akari said. “There’s gonna be a lot more fighting there.”

“Says who?”

“There’s a whole dueling program, and it gets you ready for college-level fighting. Some of the best students even go to Koreldon University.”

“So? That doesn’t mean there’s gonna be fights in the hallways.”

“You sure about that? Have you ever seen a high school Mana Arts movie?”

Emberlyn laughed. “You know those aren’t real, right?”

“Come on,” Akari said. “Let me give you one lesson, okay? Just enough to keep those stupid surgeball players away.”

“Fine.” Emberlyn bobbed her head from side to side. “One lesson.”

~~~

Akari’s eyes snapped open as the dream came to an abrupt end. What the hell was that? She pushed the blankets aside and sat up in the bed. Images of the playground flashed in her mind’s eye, and her heart still raced at the thought of battle.

“You okay?” Kalden murmured from the other side of the bed.

“I don’t know.” Akari grabbed her glasses from the nightstand and switched on the lamp. The light filled the pool house, from their bed to the kitchen. Akari had moved her things out here last night, and piles of clothing still covered the space around the closet.

Well, she’d moved most of her things out here. Elend had insisted that she keep some stuff in her old room in case they got into a fight and she needed a private place to storm off to. Akari had seen enough movies to know that he was probably right. Also, they both liked to study alone, so she’d kept her school supplies in her old room.

Kalden sat up behind her, and his bare chest brushed against her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“I had a dream,” Akari said as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

“Bad?”

“Not bad, just . . . weird.” Elend had given her another dream Construct yesterday—the same thing he’d given her in Creta to help her regain her memories. This time, she was trying to develop her spacetime techniques, and she’d been hoping for more dreams of her parents. They’d taught her a lot over the years, and it seemed good to refresh her memory.

Her subconscious must have disagreed.

“I was on the playground,” she said. “At Last Haven Elementary. I don’t know how old I was . . . Maybe ten or eleven.” Kalden nodded beside her, and Akari forced herself to remember the stranger parts of the dream. “I was best friends with Emberlyn Frostblade.”

“That’s not so weird.” Kalden wrapped his arm around her waist, and he planted a kiss on her bare shoulder. “We didn’t have the ranking system from the Archipelago.”

Akari shook her head. “We didn’t get along in my other dreams, either.” More specifically, Akari’s old self had been a bitch to Emberlyn for no reason, but she kept that part to herself.

“Okay,” Kalden said. “So you two had a falling out?”

“That’s the thing . . .” Akari rubbed the side of her head. “I don’t remember any of this. I remember elementary school, but not being friends with Emberlyn.” She and Kalden had both regained all their memories at this point, so this shouldn’t be happening. She’d expected this wave of dreams to bring her more clarity, not more confusion.

“What if it was just a regular dream?” Kalden suggested.

“No . . . It felt like one of Elend’s. It was perfectly clear.”

“Right, but he said the Construct could mix with your subconscious. Maybe you were friends with another girl, and your mind mixed her up with Emberlyn.”

“Maybe,” Akari said. Now that she thought about it, this wasn’t exactly like her other dreams. Before, her present self had always been watching in the background, as if she were trapped in Dream Akari’s head. Here, she hadn’t realized she was dreaming until after she’d woken up. That didn’t prove anything, though. Elend said there were lots of ways to experience these dreams.

Could her best friend have been someone else? No . . . that girl looked exactly like a younger version of Emberlyn Frostblade. She had the same slender build, violet eyes, and long golden hair. This Emberlyn wore no makeup, but that made sense if they were still in elementary school. Her friend had also been studying advanced alchemy, which matched up with her other dreams.

“What else happened?” Kalden asked her.

They relaxed back into the bed, and Akari told him everything she remembered, from her confrontation with Kazo, to how Emberlyn had tried to calm her down.

When she finished, Kalden closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Okay, this is coming back to me. You remember how Emberlyn and I used to date in high school?”

Akari nodded and tried to keep any jealous scowls from her face. Kalden had dated Emberlyn in both lives. It started in Last Haven, and they’d gotten even more serious in the Archipelago. They’d even slept together, but Akari didn’t let that bother her, and she definitely didn’t compare herself to the other girl.

Kalden blinked several times as he gathered his thoughts. “I think she mentioned you once . . . In Last Haven. She said you two were friends, but then something happened between you and her mom.”

Akari’s blood turned to ice. Something about this dream had left her uneasy, and now her instincts told her not to dig any deeper.

“I met her mom in Last Haven,” Kalden said. “But she wasn’t around in The Archipelago. The same goes for her younger sister.”

Akari glanced at her nightstand clock and saw that it was five in the morning. Oh well. That was earlier than usual, but she probably wouldn’t get any sleep after this.

“I’m gonna go train.” She jumped out of bed and retrieved some clothes from the floor. “Sorry for waking you up.”

Kalden furrowed his brow in confusion. “Maybe you should talk to Elend about this? It might be important.”

“I’ll be fine,” Akari said as she dressed. “It was just a stupid dream.”