Orion didn’t look over at me again, even when he surfaced in between the killing waves; he was too busy. It was just as well, because if he’d looked over at me, I’d have smiled stupidly back at him. I was glad, so glad, even pinned down in this room with all the monsters in the world trying to come at me, at Orion, because it wasn’t despair in his way after all; it was just the clumsiness of learning. He could want other things. I wasn’t the only thing he’d ever want; I was just the first other thing he’d wanted.
The mals were still pouring in, a sea of horrors, and as the seniors started to go, even bigger ones started to come as well: these were the mals who’d been further away from the portals, who’d caught the song calling them in when freshmen or sophomores had first gone through, and now had reached the same induction point and were making it through. Some of them were so monstrous you could barely stand to look at them: zjevarras and eidolons, pharmeths and kaidens, deep nightmare creatures that lurked beneath enclaves waiting for a chance to devour. But even when the worst twisted unreal things came in, there wasn’t any screaming or panic anymore. It was only seniors left now, and we were the survivors of a nightmare ourselves, the ones who’d endured the Scholomance—the last ones who would ever endure it. That wasn’t just a dream anymore; I could see that hope being made real in the sheer number of mals coming through, and Orion was making room for more almost as fast as I could bring them in.
I was starting to believe that it was going to work. I didn’t want to; I was fighting hope away as fiercely as Orion was fighting mals. But I couldn’t help it. The golden seconds were counting away—Liesel had inscribed the timing midair in letters of fire so we could all watch them going. When they reached the two minute mark, that was when I’d stop singing and strike the final blow instead. Only seven and a half minutes left, only seven minutes left, and then Aadhya was calling, “El!” and I looked over and found her: she was almost at the front of the swiftly moving queue. She was smiling at me, her face wet with tears, and in their shine I wasn’t a glowing marvel after all, I was just me, just El, and I wanted to climb down and run to hug her, but all I could do was smile back from up on the platform, and as she took the last few steps forward, she pointed at me and then held her palm against her face: Call me! Her phone number, and Liu’s and Chloe’s and Orion’s, were all inscribed on the thin bookmark that held my place inside the sutras. I didn’t have a phone, and neither did Mum, but I’d promised I’d find a way to call her, if we made it—
And then, the promise was different. It was only if I made it: Aadhya took the last few steps up the dais, and she went through the doors, and she was—out. She was out, she was safe, she had made it.
I knew all the faces going out now. Some of them didn’t like me; Myrthe stalked past without looking towards me, chin up and mouth tight, except as the last kid in front of her went, and she saw the gateway seething right in front of her, her whole face crumpled into sobs and she was fighting to keep her eyes open even while she ran headlong out, and I was glad, I was glad for her, glad that she’d made it, too; I wanted them all to make it. I’d missed Khamis going, and Jowani and Cora; they were already gone. Nkoyo blew me a kiss with both hands before she ran up the steps and out. I didn’t spot Ibrahim, I’d missed him going out, but I saw Yaakov go past with his head bowed and rocking slightly, wearing a beautiful worn prayer shawl whose fringe was shining with light, his lips still moving even as he walked, and when he passed me, he looked up and I felt a warmth like the feeling of Mum’s hand stroking over my hair, calming and steadying.
The New York seniors were coming up: Chloe waved wildly to catch my eye and put up heart-hands in the air before she went through, and right behind her, Magnus gave me a thumbs-up, condescending to the last, and I didn’t even mind. I’d got them out. I was going to get everyone out. There were only maybe a hundred kids left in the queue—ninety—eighty—no one left I knew, except Liesel going hoarse and Liu beside me playing steadily on, the guiding notes I couldn’t hear but felt in my feet, and Alfie and Sarah and the rest of the London seniors—who should have gone by now; I knew they’d got a higher number than New York in the lottery. But they’d all stayed back, to help Alfie hold the aisle for everyone else.
I wouldn’t have expected it of them, of enclave kids; they’d been raised to do the opposite, to get themselves the hell out. But they’d also been raised on the party line, hadn’t they: they’d been told, just like the school itself, that Manchester and London and their heroic allies had built the Scholomance out of generosity and care, trying to save the wizard children of the world; and maybe just like the school, it had sunk in more than their parents might have wanted. Or maybe if you only gave someone a reasonable chance of doing some good, even an enclave kid might take it.