She was always the favored one.
“Ember,” Mr. Gordon sighed for the second time that hour. “Please pay attention. This is important. Are you listening?”
“Yes,” my twin muttered, not looking up from her desk, where she was doodling cartoon figures into her textbook. “I’m listening.”
Mr. Gordon frowned. “All right, then. Can you tell me what the fleshy part of a human’s ear is called?”
I raised my hand. As expected, Mr. Gordon ignored me.
“Ember?” he prompted when she didn’t answer. “Do you know the answer to the question?”
Ember sighed and put down her pencil. “The earlobe,” she said in a voice that clearly stated, I’m bored and I want to be somewhere else.
“Yes.” Mr. Gordon nodded. “The fleshy part of a human’s ear is the earlobe. Very good, Ember. Write that down—it will be on the test tomorrow.
“All right,” he continued as Ember scribbled something in her notebook. I doubted it was the answer, or anything to do with the test, so I jotted the definition down, just in case she forgot. “Next question. Human hair and fingernails are made of the same substance a dragon’s claws and horns are made of. What is this substance called? Ember?”
“Um.” Ember blinked. Clearly, she had no idea. “I dunno.”
I started to raise my hand but stopped. There was no point.
“We discussed this yesterday,” Mr. Gordon continued sternly. “All through class, we talked about the human anatomy. You should know this. A human’s hair and fingernails, and a dragon’s claws and horns, are all made of...?”
Come on, Ember, I thought at her. You know this. It’s in your brain, even if you were staring out the window most of class yesterday.
Ember shrugged, slumping in her chair in a pose that said, I don’t want to be here. Our teacher sighed and turned to me. “Dante?”
“Keratin,” I answered.
He gave a brisk nod but turned back to Ember. “Yes, keratin. Your brother was paying attention,” he told her, narrowing his eyes. “Why can’t you do the same?”
Ember glowered. Comparing her to me was always a surefire way to make her mad. “I don’t see why I have to know the difference between scales and human toenails,” she muttered, crossing her arms. “Who cares what it’s called? I bet the humans don’t know that hair is made of kraken, either.”
“Keratin,” Mr. Gordon corrected, frowning back at her. “And it is highly important that you know what it is you are Shifting into, inside and out. If you want to mimic humans perfectly, you must know them perfectly. Even if they do not.”
“I still think it’s dumb,” Ember mumbled, looking longingly out the window at the desert and open sky beyond the chain-link fence that surrounded the compound. Our teacher’s expression darkened.
“Well, then, let’s give you some motivation. If you and Dante don’t make at least ninty-five percent on your tests tomorrow, you both will be banned from the game room for a month.” Ember jerked in her seat, eyes going wide with outrage, and Mr. Gordon gave her a cold smile. “That is how important you knowing the human anatomy is to Talon. So I would study, both of you.” He waved a hand at the door. “You’re dismissed.”
* * *
“It’s totally unfair,” Ember raged as we walked across the dusty yard to our dorms. Overhead, the Nevada sun beat down on me, chasing away the chill of the air-conditioned classroom and warming my skin. Or, should I say, my epidermis?
I smirked at my own joke, knowing Ember wouldn’t get it. And, in her current mood, she wouldn’t appreciate it even if she did.
“Gordon is a bully,” Ember growled, kicking a pebble with her shoe, sending it bouncing over the dusty ground. “He can’t ban us from the game room for a whole month—that’s completely insane. I’d go crazy—there’s nothing else to do around here.”
“Well, you could try paying attention,” I suggested as we neared the long cement building at the edge of the fence. As expected, the suggestion did not go over well.
“How am I supposed to pay attention when everything is so boring?” Ember snapped, wrenching open the door. Inside, the living room was cool to the point of chilly. A pair of leather sofas sat in an L around a coffee table, and a large television hung on the opposite wall, its huge screen shiny and dark. It had over a hundred channels, everything from sci-fi to news stations to movies and sports—an attempt to keep us pacified, I suspected, though it never really worked on Ember. She would rather be outside
