Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
“We’ve waited ten years. We’ll be together forever before we know it.”
Then he pulls away, slips his hand around to the small of my back, and guides me over to the door.
Being with him feels like going home. And home is something that was always precarious with me as a child because my mother died when I was twelve and my father died just before I was Chosen. Finn Scott and his parents are all that’s left of my humbler beginnings as a valet’s daughter living in one of the serene and cozy, though not as glamorous, neighborhoods on a tertiary canal just past the Extraction Tower. My father was Aldo’s personal assistant. As has been every male in my father’s line.
Until now.
I don’t even know who the present valet is because I am not male, so the position was given to another family and I didn’t follow the news. I didn’t want to know.
All those generations, all that inheritance—gone in a blink with the birth of a daughter.
It was part of the reason my father encouraged me to try for the Spark Maidens. I was not blessed with much natural spark and probably would not have bothered pledging if he hadn’t urged me the way he did. He knew I would not inherit anything when he died and he couldn’t stand the thought of me being left coinless.
Being Spark Maiden number nine wasn’t my dream, but I did it anyway because my father worried about me so much and it was such a simple thing to be part of the Choosing process when you’re young like that. You just show up and learn manners, and propagate your tiny bits of spark, and get educated in society things, and anyway, it’s all free. So why not? What else was there to do? All the up-city girls were in these classes. If I didn’t go, I’d have been labeled weird and made an outcast.
I don’t remember having companions other than Finn before signing up as a Pledge. But after… even in the early, early days during my twelfth year, there were groups of girls around me who wanted to be friends. And, even after all the tower drama, two of them still are.
Never, did I ever expect to be part of ‘the ten.’ And getting drawn as number nine was an especially nice perk. A near promise that I had made it, that I would not walk into that tower for Extraction, and my reward, after another decade of service, was all but guaranteed.
All of that is still true. But only partially for the obvious reasons.
Finn is reaching for the door to his quarters, but then suddenly goes stiff and stops, bracing himself and looking at me with wide eyes. “What was that?”
I shrug, confused. “What was… what?”
“You didn’t feel that?” He stands up straight again, looking around. Then lets go of my hand and walks across the room to the window.
“What are you doing?”
“You really didn’t feel that?”
“No. I didn’t feel anything.” I join him at the window, peering out at the festival going on down below. He’s got a nice view. His place is not inside the Extraction Tower, but it’s practically next door. So I can see the canal, and the Maiden Tower across the way, and hundreds of people celebrating Choosing Day.
Nothing looks out of the ordinary to me, but Finn continues to look.
“What did you feel?” I ask him.
He lets out a long breath and drags his gaze from the window. “It was like a… crash. Or a… boom. Something… big.”
“Hmmm. Well, I don’t know, Finn. I didn’t feel any of that.” Then a terrible idea hits me. “You don’t think it’s a spark outage?”
He must see the panic in my eyes because his whole demeanor changes. He calms. His eyes droop a little, like nothing interesting at all is happening, and then he smiles. “No. Absolutely not. Look.” He points out the window. “Don’t you think if there was a spark outage people would be freaking out?”
I do think that, but he was the one who looked out the window in the first place. So he thought it might be a spark outage and he went to check.
“It was nothing.” He shrugs at me. “I probably imagined it. Forget I ever said anything, OK?” Then he’s kissing me again, murmuring words into my mouth. “I love you, Clara Birch. You’re my future and our love is destiny.”
I smile into the kiss, placated. “I love you too.”
We press our foreheads together and sigh, lingering in this embrace for one more moment.
When we leave Finn’s quarters and I go one way while he goes the other, I can’t entirely suppress the feeling of being set loose. Of being untethered and adrift.
Like he’s my everything. And he is. He’s my anchor to this world. His is the only family I have left. Yes, I have friends, but family is something different.