Lighting the Fire by Sarah Rees Brennan

Author:Sarah Rees Brennan [Rees Brennan, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2022-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Water

The white boy who was bombing past Aisha’s window, fair hair flattened in the wind, was going faster than the bus. He must be a Specialist.

“Whoa, I can’t run like that,” muttered the guy across the aisle from her.

Aisha raised an eyebrow at him in friendly inquiry. “Specialist?”

He gave her an apologetic little smile, white teeth flashing. “Supposedly. I’m not sure.”

Aisha nodded sympathetically. “I’ve heard the training’s rough.”

The smile disappeared. “That’s not what I’m unsure about,” he said distantly.

“I’m Aisha, by the way.”

“Dane,” he muttered, but she’d already lost him. He’d turned his head, black hair buzzed short, back toward the window.

She couldn’t blame him. Aisha looked, too, and was thoroughly distracted by the sight of the gates of Alfea, flung open to receive them.

The gates themselves were black iron, golden leaves curling into a fretwork of ebony-painted thorns. Set over the gates was a large golden A, with crossed swords intricately woven in and behind the emblem for Alfea. The bus reached the end of the long, tree-lined avenue and passed through the black-and-gold gates.

There was a gravel drive in a sinuous shape, leading up to a great gray edifice with towers and pinnacles. There were so many different types of windows—casement windows and gable windows and oriel windows, arrow slits and embrasures—that must let all different shapes of sunlight in. The bus rounded the circle of grass in the gravel driveway and stopped before the doors of Alfea.

They climbed out of the bus, into a courtyard with black iron lampposts and green ivy running up the gray walls. On the balcony over the huge doors there was an unfurled golden flag. Aisha couldn’t see the symbols on the flag, because affixed to the flag was a sign reading in bright flowing script: WELCOME TO ALFEA!

Someone very extra was at work here.

Aisha and the others climbed out of the bus and stood facing Alfea. The school was sprawling, like a whole country encased in stone. Its mountains were towers and chimney stacks, its lakes wide windows. Aisha felt very small looking up at the castle.

Two men stood in front of the open entryway doors, under a light fixture shaped like a lantern. One was bald, wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches over a flannel shirt, and peering at them all with mild, kind eyes behind round glasses. The other man, with very direct blue eyes and very short dark hair that had the appearance of being hastily sleeked down, wore all black and gave the impression that he was bristling even while standing at attention.

“Hello, hello,” said the man with glasses. “I’m Professor Harvey, and this is Specialist Headmaster Silva.”

The man in black nodded curtly and looked away, as though he found an introduction an embarrassingly personal interaction.

Professor Harvey kept talking, but everyone’s eyes had moved past him to the sight over his shoulder. Including Aisha’s.

Beyond the flung-open doors there was a hall, and a flight of stairs that lit up now like a galaxy being born. Down

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