I woke the next morning in a comfortable bed, wishing for hard, wet ground under me, insects buzzing around, and an idiotically smiling ball jumping up and down on my stomach. I was glad that Arilla also woke with the sun. At least that was one ritual that would remain the same.

Arilla led me again to the dining hall for breakfast, and told me that I would be a student with her teacher, Baria. Since Arilla was her only student right now, Baria would be able to take on another with no trouble. I was glad to hear I'd be learning with Arilla, but confused, since she'd been here for so long already. Arilla patiently explained when I asked about this.

"It's not like a military training school here, where one Captain instructs many students. Here each teacher has only a few students, whom they get to know and understand very well," Arilla answered my anxious queries. This only made me more nervous about meeting my teacher, for I'd obviously be spending a major portion of my time with her. It would be important to make a good first impression.

Baria did not make things easy for me. She looked terribly annoyed at being given another student to train. I was as polite and tactful as anyone could have asked, but the old woman wanted nothing to do with me. Actually she wasn't all that old � her short hair was half gold and half silver, and her face was plump enough not to be creased with many age lines � it was her crabby disposition that made her seem like an old lady.

Once Baria accepted the fact that she had to train me, however, she had a lot to teach. My first lessons were not actual lessons � I merely observed while she instructed Arilla, and moved around to various rooms and watched several mentors teach their students. Sometimes I was bored almost to sleep; sometimes I was fascinated beyond belief. Though I still wished I were back in the forest with Tuck, Spike, and Shay, I was also very eager to begin my own Pathic Training.

I had my first real lesson when I'd been there for three days. I was in Baria's teaching room with my instructor. Arilla had switched places with me and was now observing my lesson.

"Look around this room," Baria told me, spreading her arms, "and tell me everything you know about me."

I was bewildered by her vague instructions but determined not to show it. I was completely unprepared for this test; no one I'd seen had had to do anything like it. Doubtless they'd already passed it to begin training.

"This is not a test, Brytani," Baria said in a stony voice not meant to be reassuring. "I am obliged to teach you no matter how poor your raw abilities prove to be, so relax and think."

I cleared my mind of all antagonism for the woman and called up everything of this type that Captain Gill had taught me. I was relieved to make my first observation fairly quickly.

"You're left handed," I told my teacher.

A pleased look crossed Baria's face, if only briefly. "Very good," she said, glancing at a leaf on her desk. "Actually I'm not, but another empath here is, and she wrote that note for me to use in this exercise. An important trait for a fighter to notice. Keep going."

Encouraged, I turned back to the room, no longer seeing it as my nemesis but as a gamebook.

"You despise insects," I said, noticing poison in several places. Arilla laughed and Baria shuddered. "I'm infamous for that," she confessed.

"You had an accident and hurt your leg," I deduced from the crutch gathering dust in the corner. "But that was a long time ago."

"Yes, it was icy and I slipped on the walkway," Baria explained. "Which leg did I hurt?"

I stared at my teacher, but she gave nothing away. As hard as I tried, I couldn't figure out which leg had been injured, and there was no point in guessing with an empath. So Baria told me to go on, indifferent to my failure.

I made several more observations, mostly about Baria's strengths and weaknesses as the first three had been, for these were the types of things missioneers were taught to notice. My final observation was that Baria was a writer.

"Oh?" Baria asked me with eyebrows raised. "And what leads you to that conclusion?"

Flustered, I answered quickly, pointing. "The callus on your finger. It's from holding a marker often, right?"

Baria examined her right hand as if for the first time. "You're right," she conceded. "I used to be a writer, before I was forced to teach as a public service. I wish I still could spend my full time writing, but as I haven't served the ten years in the military that the government requires of all citizens, I am forced to either show my value as a public servant or go to war now. And I'm forty-five years old � too old to fight."

I thought of Old Harley, who'd been over sixty when he'd retired. But then I looked at the plump, short, argumentative woman in front of me and decided that she couldn't do the military any good anyway. I wisely said nothing, though.

"So, you agree with me, young missioneer," Baria said in a caustic tone. "You'll have to learn to mind your thoughts as well as your words in this place, girl. Off with you now, and return the evening session for the next lesson. Scat, the both of you!"

"I didn't mean to offend her," I told Arilla guiltily as we hurried out of the teacher's studio.

"It's not your fault, Bryt," Arilla assured me. "First of all, it's true. Baria couldn't help us as a soldier, but she's great at training empaths. And secondly, all newcomers are easy reads. You'll learn to control your expression better as you learn empathy. Now you give all your feelings away."

"Great," I muttered.

"Secrets you'd like kept?" Arilla teased.

"Yes," I said with a slight grin, knowing I couldn't keep this fact from her.

"Then you'd better learn control quickly," Arilla said with a sly smile as she danced through the door back into our room.

I worried about this problem for the rest of the day. I paid special attention to keeping my expression neutral whenever I was talking to someone, which probably led most people to decided I was incredibly dull. I was still nervous from my accidental insult that morning when I arrived promptly for Baria's evening session. Arilla also was there once again. Baria smiled when I entered, and I was filled with a deep dread for whatever punishment I was in for. As it turned out, what she had in store for me was not a punishment, but it was worse than one.

"Glad to see you, Bryt," Baria greeted me. I'm sure she read clearly from my mind that my sentiments were exactly the opposite.

"What's wrong, Bryt?" Baria asked sweetly. "You haven't heard about the blackwine ritual, have you? That's not supposed to be gossiped about openly."

I shook my head, short hair no longer brushing my face. I hadn't heard anything about a "blackwine ritual."

"This is the favorite part of Training for some students," Baria went on, "while others hate it with a passion. It's very simple, really. The students learning to recognize facial nuances must have some practice material, and tiny idiosyncrasies are more pronounced after a little blackwine. Eventually miniscule variations can be translated into valuable information."

My mouth dropped open as I understood what she was actually saying; that, in short, the new students would become drunk so that the experienced ones could read their secrets from their minds. This woman could not be serious! I turned to Arilla.

"It's okay, Bryt. I won't ever tell your secrets. We take an oath when we reach this level never to reveal personal information learned in Training without permission," Arilla said in a placating tone.

I was not placated. "You knew about this!" I accused her.

"Of course I did," Arilla smiled soothingly. "I had to do it when I was new. Everyone does."

"You can refuse if you want to," Baria informed me. "You always have that right, of course. But failure to complete this part of Training will make moving on very difficult for you. Everyone must give in order to take, must make a sacrifice in turn for the power to read minds. If you refuse to take part in this activity you will most likely be dismissed from the school."

You'd like that, wouldn't you? I thought, deliberately making my feelings clear enough for my instructor to read. Baria just smirked.

"Can I think about it?" I asked Arilla instead of Baria, aware of the insult I was giving my teacher. But at that moment I hated her too much to care about the consequences.

Arilla looked at Baria, deferring to her in the manner that a good student should. Baria answered my question. "As you so very well know, I am old and need my rest. I won't be kept up by your petty desire to keep secrets. You have two minutes."

It was at that moment I realized that Baria was a telepath. That she could not only read my emotions but also cause me to feel as she wanted me to. That her piercing black-eyed gaze was meant to fluster and confuse me. And I had never been so scared of any one person in my life.

Two minutes, she'd said. I forced my brain to think. I could not, under any circumstances, tell anyone about the jailbreak. Even if this interview was supposed to be kept confidential, I'd heard the amount of gossip loose in the center. I could guess that a good deal of it was born from this blackwine ritual. However, I couldn't exactly leave either, though this would be the perfect excuse. I had nowhere to go. I had no idea where Shay and Tuck were by now. If I left now I'd be lost, alone, and a failure. If I stayed I'd risk ruining the lives of my teammates; splitting them up at the very least. But if I could stay and succeed in keeping my secret � keeping it safe from an empath four years into Training and a telepath � I would prove how strong I was.

"I'll do it," I said quickly before I could argue against myself again. As soon as I'd spoken I felt a wave of fear so strong I gasped, and I knew it came from Baria, who wanted, for whatever inexplicable reason, to get me out of the school as fast as possible. One more reason to stay. I also saw the angry set of Arilla's eyes and paint-red lips, and knew I had an ally.

"I'll do it," I repeated. "I trust you." I tried to look at Baria while I said this, trying desperately to make some kind of peace with the woman who had such power over me, but my voice got all quavery as soon as I saw her face. I felt like a ridiculous fool, lying through my teeth to a person who could see through me like a glass window keeping out the rain. Then in a shrill, panicked voice I cried, "Let's just get it over with!"

Arilla, looking quite disgusted, started to get up and move toward me, but Baria held up a hand, and of course, Arilla obeyed. Baria opened a large cabinet in the corner of her teaching room and removed a bottle of blackwine and a cup. "Small thing, aren't you?" she commented. "Half a glass ought to be plenty. Not a heavy drinker, are you?"

I shook my head, half dazed with fear. Baria filled the cup halfway with the thick, black, and extremely potent wine, and handed it to me.

I stared into the cup. I'd never been completely drunk before. As a Mission Training school is such a dangerous environment, alcohol of any type was strictly forbidden. Though of course I'd had some (in fact I was often an important medium by which it was secured for my peers) I'd never tasted blackwine, and certainly never managed to achieve drunkenness. It had always been more for the thrill of breaking the rules than for the actual liquor. As I recalled, it had actually tasted pretty foul. But this was blackwine, the most potent beverage known on planet Skye, and, while not hard to come by, one of a kind. I was terrified for what this small amount of liquor could cause me to say.

"Drink it," Baria ordered me, and I felt my hand involuntarily raising the cup to my lips. The blackwine was not bad tasting; sweeter than the grain alcohol we'd used to smuggle in at Mission Training. Or maybe my sense of taste had just gone numb from eating slimeberries in the forest. It made me feel warm inside, protected from Baria's ill will. Almost immediately I could feel the wine taking effect, and it actually made me feel better. My irrational fear melted away. I just had to remember not to say anything about the jailbreak.

"She's all yours, Arilla. Show us you skill," Baria said as she got up and moved off to a corner to observe and regulate, but not control. Arilla was on her own.

Arilla was kind and gentle with me in my state. I wasn't even sure if I were actually drunk or not until late that night, when I realized that I remembered very little of what Arilla and I had talked about. I was afraid that I had said something I wasn't supposed to, but Arilla assured me that tonight we hadn't even gotten into personal matters, that she'd only asked extensive series' of "yes" and "no" questions in order to get to know my basic tendencies upon positive and negative sentiments. Then she told me some stories in order to see how my simple emotions registered. She told me the deep delving into my mind would not begin until later.

Barely sober, I asked her as we were going to sleep, "You mean I'll have to do this again?"

"Yes, Bryt," she answered honestly. "Many more times. If all goes well I'll know more about you than you do by the time we're through."

I took a breath and looked over toward her bed, barely able to make out her shadow in the dark. "I don't think I can let that happen," I said matter-of-factly.

"Please trust me, Bryt." Arilla was not quite begging. "Don't you trust me?"

I hesitated. "Yes," I realized. I did trust Arilla, even if I'd only known her for three days. "But I don't trust her," I explained, "And she's always watching."

"I won't let her hurt you, Bryt," Arilla promised.

I would have laughed except that my head hurt too much. Baria was a telepath and Arilla was an empath trainee. As far as Arilla was concerned, Baria could do whatever she wanted. Compared to Baria, Arilla was not much more powerful than me.