Steel Lily

Chapter One

CHAPTER

ONE

Steam hissed, billowing from the brushed steel teapot my mother always used. Within seconds, the vapors wrapped around me like wispy tendrils that tickled my arms. The mist left a dewy web that sunk into my tattered suede gloves, creating a miniature constellation of droplets. The other students stopped what they were doing at their own stations and watched as I waved the evidence of my ability away.

Do your best, they’d said.

It’ll help us survive, they’d said.

But what good did it do to survive if you were stuck being exhausted, and your classmates thought you were a freak because of your “gift”?

Professor Evans, my Elemental Concepts professor, clapped her hands together, then shook my shoulders excitedly. Her silver bangles clinked and clanked, and her soprano voice trilled through the air. "Excellent, Avery, excellent! I've never had a student embrace their abilities so quickly! You’ll help our society rebuild what the war took from us. Be proud, be proud! Dome Four needs more students like you, ready to keep our steam rations up."

I glanced at the rest of the class. Their haughty glares and eye rolls told me they weren’t as impressed.

One of the many perks of being in an advanced class.

"Showoff,” my desk partner, Erin, muttered as she wiped the condensation off her goggles. She flicked the water toward me, and I flinched as it hit my eye.

I frowned. I didn’t want to let the age difference get to me, but it seemed to bother everyone else. Being fifteen in a classroom full of nineteen-year-old, fourth-year Elementalists was like being thrown into a pit of vipers that hadn’t been fed in forever.

“I could help you, you know,” I whispered to the girl as Professor Evans turned back to the chalkboard, where theories of element manipulation were scrawled in her flowing script. “You can do this. I can tutor you if you’d like–”

Erin snorted. “You? Help me? Sorry, I don’t need any contributions from the resident golden child.”

“You’re going to have to test to see if you are capable of contributing to the Dome soon. Do you want to fail with flying colors? I can help you, help you give your family a better life,” I said under my breath. “You fail, and you’ll be in government housing living ration to ration. You pass…they give you a home, food, opportunities. Let me help you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you saying you have that?”

I’d said too much. If the rest of the students knew the government took care of me better than the other students, it would make this suck-fest would become even worse. “Do you want me to help you or not? It’s a simple question.”

Chase, the brown-haired boy in the row ahead, leaned back. He winked at me as he whispered to the girl. “Hey, she tutored me for a couple afternoons, and it really helped.”

He actually listened when I tutored him! Heat warmed my cheeks as I looked down and bit back a smile. Chase was too gorgeous for his own good, and I’d spent most of our time stumbling through explanations and avoiding eye contact. It was a miracle he’d understood anything I’d said.

Erin merely closed her eyes. I shook my head and turned back to my teapot, giving up on helping her.

That’s when I felt it.

Waves of heat rolled over my face, and my eyes watered from the acrid scent of melting metal. My heart sank as I watched the remains of my teapot bubble and hiss. Drops of steel splattered on the table and solidified like permanent teardrops. Everyone fell silent, and the weight of their stares made me feel three feet tall. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Erin smirk as I tried to absorb the scene before me. Along with a part of my heart, the only physical reminder of my mother since her disappearance hardened into a contorted steel lump before my eyes.