Dr. Diast lined us all up by the tree in our void node, our usual spot for her in void pep talks. Despite the fire inside me that desperately wao fix things inspired by my talk with Arctus, I hadn’t even walked to any of my csses with Oka and Kalei or sat by them for like a whole week of csses. It sucked. It reminded me again of how much I sucked.

  “So as I said in css, this thing has been named lots of different stuff. The ter point, usually a temple, has also been called a torme. The process itself of going in there for the first time aing your vision is only called Jump Fifteen, but it also be called a memory trial—”

  “Why?” Aira asked.

  “I uh, well,” Diast said. “Because…you know…wait, which the torme or the Jump Fifteen?”

  “Because the i stists who discovered it had to test fifteen ‘jumps’ to verify the occurrence.” Lillia said.

  “Thank you, Lillia, I pletely froze up there. And now my own students will think I don’t know anything.”

  “I mean, did we ever?” Kalei said.

  Diast swatted Kalei with rolled-up papers, then expihe deal with her, me and Oka going in first. Lillia gred at me when Diast said I had goo the temple actally first, which was really scary.

  “While they’re doing their jumping and fifteening, the rest of yoing to determihe order for the rest of the trips.” Diast said.

  “Why?” Aira asked.

  “Because I already asked the rest of you what order you’d want to go in and you and Kalei nearly started wrestling.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” Aira said.

  “I wao show my physical domio prove I was deserving of the sed to st one.” Kalei said.

  “And that would have gotten you suspended, and you would definitely have not gotten sed to st. And now you have a ce to!” Diast said. “Plus, I literally just told you you were going first or sed, why are you talking about sed to st? Seriously, was there extra sugar in the food this week? This is like wrangling toddlers. And not that reality shlin’ Toddlers on the reality work, that show is pletely fake. CGI babies.”

  Somehow, the topic lin' Toddlers got Aira and Lillia in a heated debate. While they argued, Diast leaned close to Oka, Kalei, and I. “You guys wanna just go? This is gonna take a while. You just walk up now, I made sure it’s unlocked.”

  I nodded and headed down the sloping grass, hearing Diast bark out ands to try and calm the group down, and Laenie’s cries of terror after Diast fired off a warning bst of energy from her bloodsaber into the sky.

  We stopped at the doors to the temple and the three of us had a real aause. I turo Kalei.

  “Hey, so—” I said.

  “I was such—” Kalei said.

  We both stumbled over whatever we were trying to say.

  “Let’s just try to get through this,” I said.

  “Right,” Kalei said.

  Oka didn’t say anything.

  “Are you alright?” I asked, leaning onto a ledge that had a weird sludgy substan it like melted moss.

  Oka flinched, and her eyes widened in a way that looked like she had just woken up.

  “Oh! Hey, sorry,” Oka said. “This is just. Kind of really weird for me.”

  “I’m not really used to it either,” I said. I guess I had fights with Jeans stantly, but this one didn’t have the same feeling.

  “What do you mean?” Oka said.

  “Like how things have been super awkward between us this whole week?” Kalei said. “The fight?”

  “Oh,” Oka said. “I wasn’t even thinking of…”

  “What were you thinking of then?” I asked.

  Oka sighed. “I’m…not sure I’m ready to face my memory trial. Or my Jump Fifteen, whatever.”

  “I could go first,” Kalei offered. “This thing just beams a bunemories at us, right?”

  “Kinda,” I said as I smeared the sludge on the door’s handle while opening it, feeling a little warbly as we passed through. The main room of the temple looked just like we left it. I was worried Oka or Kalei would have the demented monster looking version of their statues, but instead Kalei’s looked pretty much the same, just with her eyes closed. Oka’s remained unged. Maybe the peere going to Kalei first?

  “Alrighty.” Kalei said. “So what am I…doing here?”

  “We just gh your door,” Oka said. “Then it starts.”

  “Huh,” Kalei said. She tapped her foot.

  “If you want, I could go first too—” Oka said.

  “No, no,” Kalei said. “I’m just trying to think about what my thing would be.” She shrugged. “Guess we’ll find out.”