The Last Fallen Star by Graci Kim (the mitten read aloud .TXT) 📗

family that raised me. Be a traitor or something, you know?”

He nods. “And now?”

“Now I’ve realized it’s not a betrayal. It’s a sacrifice. Just like our clan motto. By sacrificing my Gom identity, I can save Hattie.”

“Service and Sacrifice,” Emmett echoes under his breath. “I get it. Well, I just want you to know you’re not alone. I’m here for you.” He tips the dragon scooter up so that a little flapping wing can give me a high five. “Me and Boris both.”

“I’m so grateful for you. For both of you.” I sniffle.

“Geez, you don’t have to get all mushy on me now. Ugh.” He takes off his cremation ring and shoves it into my hand. “Don’t ask why, just take this, okay? It’s not for you—it’s for me. It would just make me feel better if you were wearing it.”

He looks away, his nose in the air. He’s getting worse at hiding his feelings with each passing day. Emotions look good on him, though. I put the ring on my finger and draw him in for a hug. “Love you, boo.”

“Guess you’re not a bad egg, either, Riley Oh.”

Austin comes over to our quiet corner. “Shall we go?” he says to me.

I nod.

“Emmett, you come with me,” Sora says, ushering him away. “We’ll wait for Riley outside.”

With that, Austin leads Taeyo and me to a smaller tree house in the south end of campus. It’s separated from the rest of the buildings in the network, as if it was designed to be hidden. The door is highly secured with what looks like ten separate metal locks. Austin rubs his wrists, and, as his gifted mark glows, he waves his hand over each of them. One by one, the locks move like clockwork until all of them have clicked open.

He pushes the door wide. “After you.”

It looks like a science lab inside. People are sitting on benches at various tables, working with microscopes, mini blowtorches, and tech parts I can’t identify. A small group in the back is crowded around a 3-D printer that’s spitting out something too small for me to see. AKMU is playing softly in the background, and no one is talking. Everyone is intently focused on their work.

Austin leads us to a man huddled over a table in the front. He’s wearing a head light and squinting through a magnifying glass attached to the rim of his glasses. As he works on a minuscule chip with tiny tweezers and pliers, his movements are so painstaking, I have to stare at him for a good ten seconds to make sure he’s a human and not a robot.

He finally raises his head. “Yes?”

Austin gestures to me. “We have a new initiate.”

The man doesn’t even look at me. Instead, he turns back to the chip he was working with. “Sit.”

Taeyo grabs a stool from a nearby workstation, and I take a seat opposite the man.

“Wrist,” he commands. I guess he’s not much of a talker.

I hesitate. As Hattie says, it’s all about choice. I am choosing to do this. But I still waver. What if my Gom parents reject me after I do this? What if the gifted community shuns me even more?

“Wrist,” the man says again, his tone impatient. “I don’t have all day.”

I take a big breath. This is for my sister. And for stopping the prophecy. For service and sacrifice.

I lay out my wrist in front of him. “Is it going to hurt—?”

Click!

Before I even finish my question, the man has held a syringe-shaped metal tool above my wrist and pressed it down onto my skin.

“Done,” he says.

“Wait, that’s it?” I ask, surprised. “I hardly felt it.” I run my finger over my left wrist and feel a tiny little bump where it was inserted.

“Rub them,” the man commands.

I look at him blankly and he scowls. “Chop-chop. Let’s make sure you’re not faulty, or else I’ll need to take it out. Rub your wrists.”

I wince at the insinuation I could be deemed faulty. Tentatively, I rub my wrists together. It’s an action I’ve watched my entire life—a movement I’ve wished over and over again I could perform, too. And finally, I’m doing it. Even if it’s in this weird science-tech lab with the Horangi clan.

The little bump scratches a little as I put my wrists together, and suddenly there is heat on my right wrist. It feels as if the sun is shining directly on that patch of skin. I gasp as the heat intensifies and the gifted mark of the two suns and two moons appears on my wrist. It glows red like a siren, reminding me of the clan I’m about to enter.

“Oh my Mago,” I whisper. “I can’t believe it actually works.”

I know it’s the wrong color, and seeing red instead of gold makes my stomach churn in a weird, homesick kind of way. But at the same time, the feeling is momentous. I’ve spent my whole life thinking I was devoid of magic. Now I know—no, now I can see—that I am gifted, too.

“Congratulations,” Austin says. “You are now officially biochipped.”

Taeyo grins and claps his hands. “Congratulations, Riley! Now all you have to do is channel your inner dominant element, and you’ll be able to wield it.” He studies me curiously. “What is your element, by the way? How rude—I never asked you.”

For a moment, I recall my Gi ceremony. The way my elemental profile of four fires had branded me a freak of nature. Then I remember what Sora said—that the Horangi cared about what I had in abundance, and not what I lacked.

I puff up my chest. “Fire,” I say to Taeyo. “My dominant is fire.”

“Cool!” he says. “Uh, I mean hot.”

I groan and then ask, “But how exactly do I channel it?”

“Well, everyone activates their chip a little differently, so you’ll have to find your own way of making it work. But for me, I think of floating in the sea and feeling completely weightless. Like I’m a part