beats per minute (12 page)

Liana smiled. ‘The crystals are essential. We do great work
here, but for many of our pupils time is still an experiment.’ she explained,
in that even, serene manner. ‘We must have safeguards in place to protect the
equilibrium. The merest skip of a Regent’s heartbeat, cadet or not, and for
whatever reason – physical exertion, anger, fear – would cause time to jump.
Your traverse’, the name given to the phenomenon of altering time and
functioning within the altered time plane, as Max had explained on that first
night, ‘might last only seconds – but that is enough. Your bpm is still too
fragile to take chances with.’

The crystals helped the teachers to channel their powers,
keeping the cadets within a linear, constant time continuum. Raegan now
understood that in Max’s office she had been held in place by his power; except
for those few seconds when their eyes were locked together and she had begun to
break free. Now that she knew more, the memory was incredibly scary – and she
wondered how he felt about it. She was sure that she should not have able to do
that to him, the Magister, the Praetor of the camp. She had not mentioned the
incident to Liana.

Not that she and Liana had much time to talk, anyway; her
class was about deep concentration, feeding into Yali’s work, following the
instructions and the rhythm of her drum. Raegan would stand inside a circle of
salt and Liana would murmur incantations, all the while instructing her, in a
low tone, to do various things. Raegan had never been in a trance, but this
must be close to what it would feel like: it was weird, intense, as if her body
was broken up into tiny molecules and each one was thrumming, connected to
everything else in the room, stemming from her own heartbeat.

Last night, something else had happened. For the first time,
Liana had stepped into the circle with her. Before Raegan could feel distantly afraid,
or nervous, Liana was moving; she placed her right hand into the middle of the
circle, and Raegan followed suit. By this time, deep into whatever zone Liana
had put her in, she mimicked her actions without pause for conscious thought.
Liana then elevated her right hand to Raegan’s chest, lightly pressing over her
heart; Raegan did the same. They stood there for what felt like a very long
time. Their hearts beat at the same rate as the drum had the moment before,
passing up and down their alternate fingertips.

‘I release you,’ Liana said.

She stepped back.

‘Raegan, can you hear me?’

It was like being underwater with music playing at surface
level. Raegan was submerged, but the pounding of some heavy, unknown bassline
was still prominent. With all the strength she could muster, she nodded.

Liana begin
to pour water from a
thin, twisted glass jug into tall tumbler. Raegan watched as if from behind a
veil, appreciating the tiny, sluggish trickle as it began to ooze from the lip
of the glass.

‘Slow it down.’

It took what felt like forever for Raegan to raise her eyes
to meet Liana’s once more. She swallowed thickly. Words unfurled as slowly as
butterfly from chrysalis.

‘
Wh-
what?’

Liana’s eyes dilated until they were almost completely
black. She was terrifyingly wonderful. ‘Slow the water down. Concentrate. I
have relinquished my hold on you.’

Raegan felt a peculiar sensation, exciting and frightening,
like a charge of electric current tingling up and down her body. Her heartbeat,
loud in her ears, was now indistinguishable from a ticking clock.

This must be what the Level 5’s meant by ‘zoning’; the
charged, deeply focused state a Regent reached when he/she was completely
Awake
. To be zoning meant that time was within their grasp.
That a full traverse was possible.

With Christian, on that horrible night, Raegan had managed
to traverse without being Awake – without being close. An incomplete traverse,
Max had called it.

The resultant mess of jumping time and fear she’d
experienced was actually a lucky escape: even what the Fay had planned for her
was nothing compared to the damage she could have done to herself. Regents had
torn themselves apart by trying to traverse without the necessary skill or
preparation.
Literally.

She tried not to think about it.

‘Raegan,’ the shimmering, raw voice whispered again, calling
her back to the here and now. ‘Listen to the clock.’

It was hard to focus. The water was moving faster now;
iridescent, it rushed like a waterfall through the shadows, hitting the
receptacle with a hollow glug.

‘Slow the clock down.’

But that was ridiculous. How could she? She had no more
control over the clock than she had over the water. But the liquid was so
beautiful; she felt overcome with the sudden desire to see it catch the light
more slowly, to hold it in that moment forever…

Though her body did not seem to be moving, her cells were
shuddering with energy. The electric-like current of her power was flooding
through her now. She was zoning. Time was hers to command.

‘Don’t stop it,’ the voice cautioned. ‘Only slow it. Take it
gently; one degree at a time.’

The more she watched the water, the more she wanted it to
happen; the more she wanted to obey the voice echoing inside her.

And then her attention was solely on the clock and she felt
a kind of rage – she wanted it to bend to her will, like she had wanted to
mould Max’s heartbeat against hers inside his office. The ticking accelerated,
her eyes widened with the effort, and then it was if her will and the
electricity crackling in her veins were one, an invisible force she could use
to drive the clock back; she sent the power spiralling, down through her chest
and out through her toes, pushing on the roots of the earth to stop time in its
tracks.

As if anchored by a huge weight, the ticking began to slow.

And so did the water.

She was traversing properly for the first time.

With wonder, for a long, pure moment, she saw the trickles
of the water dissolve, breaking away from their fluid formation, moving as if
suspended on delicately languid strings, gently floating down towards the glass
at an extraordinarily relaxed pace.

Like the cars that had seemed to speed up when she was
running away from Christian, the water seemed to be moving more slowly: but she
knew now that it was not the water that was travelling at a different pace, it
was
her.
It was all a matter of perspective. She was in a different
time-zone (or ‘plane’, as the other Regents called it); while everything in
common time continued at the same pace, she had slowed down time and now stood
outside of it.

Watching the multitude of droplets now plopping frantically
onto the running track in front of her, Raegan couldn’t help but smile. She had
actually done it. She had managed to control time.

And then a particularly cold glob of rain splashed onto her
face, ending that happy train of thought.

If only she could slow time here, now, and stop this bloody
rain in its tracks!

***

The students moved closer to the starting line. Bree’s
clipped voice, unusually coarse as she struggled to be heard, cut through the
deluge.

‘Five minutes! You should be using this time wisely! Make a
plan. It’s not enough to be fast: you have to be smart. Prepare your body but
don’t neglect your brain! And take some deep breaths – you won’t have time for
breathing once the Lab gets hold of you, believe me!’

Trying not to be biased but unable to resist checking in
with her friend, she slid over to Raegan, who appeared to be lost in thought.

‘Ready? Feeling okay?’ Bree’s eyes twinkled as she lowered
her voice conspiratorially, adding: ‘Not too… tired?’

Raegan stopped stretching. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Read over the notes from Heart last night – all part of my
conscientious tesserarius duty, of course, I wasn’t being nosy at all. You did
it!’

‘Yup,’ Raegan said through chattering teeth.

‘I can just about remember my first complete,’ Bree closed
her eyes, savouring the memory. ‘What a rush!’

 ‘I still can’t believe it,’ Raegan shook her head.
‘I’ll never manage it again…’

‘Rubbish.
Gets easier every time.
Soon enough you won’t even need Liana’s help to flip the switch. It’s like
muscle memory, or something... Hey, did Liana show you hers yet?’

Raegan must have looked startled, because Bree smiled.
‘Her traverse!
Did she go in front of you? She does it out
of the blue sometimes - just to be wicked, I’m sure. Always scares the hell out
of newbies because she can go so quickly.’

Her friend looked a bit disappointed when Raegan shook her
head.
‘Nevermind, something to look forward to.’

When Rico marched down the track a second later, scowling in
their direction, the girls dropped down and pretended to fiddle with their
shoelaces so they could continue talking. Raegan waited for him to pass before
continuing in a low voice. ‘So what’s it like?
When you see
someone traverse?’

‘Nothing on earth, duckie.’

‘But how will I know?’

‘Oh, you’ll know. You might notice Liana seem to vibrate,
blurring at the edges almost. Just for a second. Then she’s gone. Sometimes
it’s like she disappears right in front of you and then reappears in the next
instant, but way across the room!
Moving too fast for you to
see, if you’re in common time.
If you’re traversing too you might catch
the stream of her movement, like the tail of a shooting star.
Amazing.’

‘Wow,’ Raegan breathed, trying to think of another question
– partly because she was curious, and partly because this conversation was
proving a welcome distraction from her thoughts.

‘And forget focusing on water! Wait until you get to start
moving
while you traverse. That’s when the fun really starts.’

Suddenly the tesserarius broke off, looking at Raegan
intently as if for the first time. Bree didn’t believe in frowning; she said it
took too much effort and caused too many wrinkles. The tiny line that appeared
between her eyebrows now was as close as she got. ‘Look at the state of you!
Your fatigues are covered in mud - I could pull you up for improper
presentation, cadet. Count yourself lucky Rico didn’t get a hard look. Didn’t
you have time to change?’

And here was one of the things Raegan had been enjoying not
thinking about. She shook her head.
‘Got locked in the ladies
again.
Couldn’t find my spares, anyway.’
That
was lie. Raegan knew she’d put the clean set of clothes in her locker that
morning. It was funny how much of her stuff had gone missing since she’d got to
Unit Prime.

This had never happened before. Apart from her phone – which
she was always leaving at her friends’ houses – she never lost a thing. Some
people had called her anal; she preferred the term ‘organised’.

Bree was focusing on her earlier statement. ‘Got locked in?
I told you, if the latch is sticking again you should speak to the cleaning
staff-‘

‘It’s not the latch. I checked – all working fine. No
problems there.’

‘Then what...’ Bree fixed her with a non-nonsense look. ‘Not
this again.’

‘I guess it’s someone’s idea of a joke.’ Raegan fiddled with
the zip on her jacket. ‘No big deal.’

‘And who would ‘someone’ be?’

Raegan shrugged.

Bree made a disbelieving noise. The conversation was apparently
closed; and yet both girls could not prevent their attention wandering to the
other side of the track, where at that moment another competitor was preparing
to begin the race.

That competitor was Declan Kane, novice cadet – the only
other potential Regent of Raegan’s age who, until five days ago, had also never
engaged in any Regency training.

Raegan eyed him with dislike as he reached his arms forward,
cracking his knuckles loudly. He was a nightmare. Worst of all, he was only a
nightmare to
her.
No-one else thought Declan was a tool and Raegan could
see why.

First of all, he was good looking, with the dark, floppy
hair, long-lashed green eyes and muscular body that spelled instant popularity.
He was a bit short; but based on the reactions of the kitchen staff, who pretty
much fainted whenever he walked into the canteen, this didn’t matter. Even Bree
regarded him with cool approval. He could also turn on the charm. No-one else
had to deal with the unfriendly, moody Declan she knew: he was courteous to the
teachers and positively sunny with the senior cadets. Yet from the moment they
met it was like he couldn’t stand her.

And she had no idea why.  At first she was confused.
Then she was upset. Missing her grandparents and her mother more than ever, intimidated
by the senior Regent
cadets
, it would have been great
to make friends with the only other person going through the same thing as
herself. Instead, she felt Declan looked down his nose at her and everything
she did. Even her background seemed to count against her. When Declan overheard
Raegan explaining to Yali that she had grown up in Islington, he had muttered,
‘A rich kid.
Figures.’
The accompanying eye roll made
it even clearer what he thought of
that.
Declan had been raised in the
Bronx – on the street itself, he’d have you believe. Raegan had to stop herself
from rolling her own eyes. He thought he was such a badass.

Even more annoying was how quickly Declan picked things up –
much more quickly than her to begin with, but then he had already lived at Unit
Prime for ages. He wasted no time in voicing his opinion that Raegan and he be
split up as soon as possible, as it would make more sense to be allowed to ‘go
at their own speeds’. She could still remember exactly how smug he sounded. Not
to mention
her own
strong urge to slap him.