Page 67 - Fourth Wing

get, the only time they’ll be spoken of in the citadel, so I try to concentrate,

to commit each name to memory, but there’s just too many.
My skin is agitated from wearing the armor all night like Mira suggested,

and my knee aches, but I resist the urge to bend down and adjust the wrap I

managed to put on in the nonexistent privacy of my bunk in the first-year
barracks before anyone else woke up.

There are a hundred and fifty-six of us in the first floor of the dormitory

building, our beds positioned in four neat rows in the open space. Even
though Jack Barlowe was put in the third-floor dorms, I’m not about to let

any of them see my weaknesses. Not until I know who I can trust. Private

rooms are like flight leathers—you don’t get one until you survive
Threshing.

“Simone Casteneda.” Captain Fitzgibbons closes the scroll. “We
commend their souls to Malek.” The god of death.

I blink. Guess we were closer to the end than I thought.

There’s no formal conclusion to the formation, no last moment of silence.
The names on the scroll leave the dais with the scribes, and the quiet is

broken as the squad leaders all turn and begin to address their squads.
“Hopefully you all ate breakfast, because you’re not going to get another

chance before lunch,” Dain says, his eyes meeting mine for the span of a

heartbeat before he glances away, feigning indifference.
“He’s good at pretending he doesn’t know you,” Rhiannon whispers at

my side.

“He is,” I reply just as softly. A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth,
but I keep my expression as bland as possible as I soak in the sight of him.

The sun plays in his sandy-brown hair, and when he turns his head, I see a

scar peeking from his beard along his chin I’d somehow missed yesterday.
“Second- and third-years, I’m assuming you know where to go,” Dain

continues as the scribes wind their way around the edge of the courtyard to
my right, headed back to their quadrant. I ignore the tiny voice inside me