We were outside now; I had to catch Kalei as she was midstep before it happened and nearly fell over. Oka was a bit older and was training with the man that picked up baby Oka at the start. She was holding back tears as she blocked attacks from his twin swords.

  “Mikkel, slow down!” Oka said.

  The man gred down at her, barking instrus as to what stances she o take as he sshed at her.

  “The first css of Tesata ended in agony and paio their foolishness.” Mikkel said. “Will you tiheir legacy or fe a new one?”

  “I’m eight years old.” Oka said. “How a-year-old fe anything?”

  Arike.

  “By being strong. And you are strong. You have a gift few in the world possess. If you start now, you ge everything.”

  Mikkel sounded like Jeans there. I looked to Kalei, and she looked simirly troubled.

  “That’s enough for today, Oka.” Mikkel said. “Follow.”

  But Oka and Mikkel tio train in front of us, speeding up as time passed in front of us. Oka grew taller, atacks more precise, now including bsts of jured pnts.

  “Where is your strength?” Mikkel said, swiftly striking her as time lurched back to normal. “The fire I know so well?”

  “It’s cold. Snow stops fire.”

  “I had retly turhirteen,” Void Oka echoed around us. “And with my age brought new responsibilities, namely w with Mikkel for longer periods of time with less breaks. Also, puberty. So much fun.”

  “I’m sorry I have to resort to this, Oka.” Mikkel said, pulling a slip of paper out of his pocket.

  “What is that?” Oka asked.

  “This is a letter from Caelum,” Mikkel said.

  Oka instantly jumped at it, but he held it farther than I could reach.

  “Prove to me that you still want to learn,” Mikkel said. “That your rebellious spirit only fuels you more.”

  Oka punched him iomach, but he didn’t even flinch.

  “Not strong enough.” Mikkel said, burning the letter.

  “No!” Oka screamed, jumping at the pieces that fell before her.

  “I’ve been saying for years to let go of your past,” Mikkel said. “And now it looks like you have no choice.”

  Oka tried to get up, but she slipped and fell on her face. Mikkel didn’t offer a hand to help her up.

  “I think I wanna be doh this,” Kalei said. “How was this allowed?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  As if in respoo Kalei, a steel door appeared before us.

  “Just one?” I asked. I was kind of hoping it was the Kinder one, but reading the door firmed it was the door Oka didn’t want opened.

  “There isn’t much to say about the Kinders, really,” Void Oka said. “They found me because they needed someone like me to find. Berin adopted me, and he’s kind of taken care of me. I am apparently riow. It doesn’t make seo me. But it doesn’t really make me feel flicted, just awkward.”

  The rest of the world around us faded again. Only the steel door in front of us was there, like a spotlight in the darkness of the void. “Who’s Caelum, then?” I asked.

  “I...don't know," Void Oka said. “Mikkel always told me about him, that he was someone I knew when I was much younger. I thought he'd be someohat'd take me away from here. Mikkel always said his letters would be a ticket out of here. He probably just made the whole thing up. It's something for ter, I guess. All that remains is this door.”

  “ we skip it?” I asked. “Oka, if you hear me, I don’t care about what’s behind this door. If you never want to tell us, I really don’t mind.”

  “Hey, wait,” Kalei said. “Do you hear that?”

  I tried to listen. There was a faint sound near us.

  “It sounds like something moving,” I said.

  “It’s…the o,” Kalei said. “It’s this way.”

  Kalei and I walked into the darkness beside the door, holding each other to make sure we didn’t get separated. It felt like my eyes were cmped shut, until we found her.

  Oka sat on the edge of a roation that touched the o. Waves spshed up against her legs, which dangled into the water.

  “Oh,” Oka said. “Hi, guys.”

  “Are you real Oka or Void Oka?” Kalei asked.

  “Real Oka,” she said.

  We copied her and took our shoes and socks off ahem soak in the o for a bit. I watched the ripples that formed from s kig, making sure not to spsh on our emerald Rising Shards skirts.

  “I’m sorry I’m being so weird,” Oka said. “It’s really hard to be back here.”

  “It’s alright,” I said.

  “These things really suck,” Kalei said. “I kinda wish we were told how much these would suck beforehand. we be done?”

  “I think we just have to get that st door,” Oka said.

  “ we skip it if it’s that bad?”

  Oka bit her lip.

  “I really want to talk about it,” Oka said as she sniffed. “I’m just scared.”

  “Scared of what?” I asked.

  Another waved spshed near us. Oka wiped her cheeks, and I couldn’t tell if it was tears or the seawater she washed away.

  “That you’ll hate me,” Oka said so softly I could barely hear.

  “We won’t hate you.” Kalei said.

  “She’s right,” I said.

  Oka looked to Kalei, then turo me a my eyes again, and I could see they were red from her tears.

  “Promise?” Oka said.

  Kalei and I nodded.

  “Please, for me, just say it,” Oka said. “I know it’s stupid and weird but—"

  “I promise,” I said. “I promise I could never hate you.”

  Oka took a few deep breaths. “Alright, I have an idea," She said. "I kind of want to expihing else first. In my words, not this pce’s. Then maybe...maybe it won't...”

  “Just take your time and tell us whatever you gotta say." I said.

  “When I was really little, they could tell my fangs would e in early.” Oka said. “So they sent me here. But Tesata’s nothing like Rising Shards. You saw it.”

  Oka gripped the rocks by her sides.

  “But they didn’t send me here to train my gifts,” Oka said. “They put us here to protect people from us.”

  “What do you mean?” Kalei asked.

  “When I said Tesata was closed off, I meant it,” Oka said. “You know I didn’t get to learn about anything fun like the stuff you two show me. All we did was train. All day, every day, we’d push ourselves past our breaking point to train our powers, then even further to supress them. It was relentless. You saw it, Mikkel didn’t teach as much as he just…yelled. They treated us like monsters.”

  “That’s horrible,” I said.

  “The only escapes I had was that one Raina book and musical tapes.” Oka said. “But they only had really old ones.”

  “At least you had that,” I said. “I know they helped me a lot.”

  “It did,” Oka said. “Which was good because I needed some pce to escape to, because Mikkel pushed me more thahers.”

  A big wave hit near us, like a natural soundtrack to Oka’s story tinuing to darken.

  “Anything good this pce could have made, he ruined,” Oka said. “He made me hate being a i, hate being here in such a beautiful pce. Every day he’d tell me I was worthless, and that I wouldn’t amount to anything, that I was dangerous, that I was a monster.”

  Oka tried to hold back her shivering.

  “And I believed him,” Oka said. “I tried to find a way to get out of here. I’d try to run to the train and sneak on. Or build a boat. They always caught me. I didn’t know what to do.”

  I wao reach out and hold her, but something told me she’d push me away right the her talk, waiting for her as she stopped to wipe her tears away.

  “So I started to sh out,” Oka said. “I learo be strohan my power blocker. Just so I could feel like I was something, maybe even to try and wiher teachers over, I don’t know, I became the mohey thought I was. There was a student here who made me mad, and I shed out at him. I hurt him really badly.”

  Oka uned her wrist cloth. The skin u looked like it had rope burn.

  “I made a vine and whipped him across the face,” Oka said. “And it burned my wrist. The energy from juring it was filled with so muger, it made it almost burn like fire.”

  “Oka…I had no idea…” I said.

  Oka wiped her eyes.

  “It’s alright,” Oka said. “I realized as soon as I did it how awful it was. I kept this cloth to remember what I’m capable of. And to try ater than it.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. I felt at a loss. What could I even say to all this? "That's why you didn't want to see all this, right?"

  "I didn't want to see anything from here again," Oka said. "I’ve tried to ge from who I was here. But I don’t know if I ever . As crappy as the Kinders are, at least they took me from here.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry they put you through all that.”

  Oka didn’t look up at me. She still bmed herself.

  “One mistake doesn’t define you,” I said. “Especially one in a pce like this.”

  “They basically tortured you,” Kalei said. “It’s not your fault you blew up in a pce like this. That’s probably what they wanted you to do.”

  Oka’s lip quivered.

  “You’re the farthest thing from a monster,” I said. “I know you, and I know you wouldn’t do something like that unless you were basically tormented into doing it. That school was cruel, and you’re kind.”

  “Zeta…”

  Kalei and I hugged Oka. She didn’t push us away like I was worried about.

  "So is that what's in that st door?" I asked. If I went through something like that, I'd try to avoid going back to that memory too.

  Oka didn't answer me, though. Another wave hit us, knog us back. Wheurned around, the st door still waited for us.