The Shifter Read Online Free PDF Page B

the way that always made me feel they had secrets to tell me. This time, Tali was the one with something to say.
    She waited on a red-veined marble bench under the big fig tree at the edge of the lake, a bright speck among the softer greens and browns.
    “I got in, can you believe it?” I called. My smile was almost genuine.
    “Oh, Nya.” She jumped off the bench and hugged me, her tears soaking the same shoulder Enzie’s had. I went cold. Had she been kicked out of the League?
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Vada’s gone.”
    For a terrible, guilty instant, I was glad. Tali’s apprenticeship was still safe. Vada was her best friend at the League, and too many of our recent visits had ended short with “Well, I gotta go. Vada and I need to study….” Wouldn’t bother me any if Vada left the League, except I’d prefer it if it didn’t happen when apprentices were already missing. “Are you sure she didn’t go home for a few days?”
    “She would have told me. We tell each other everything.”
    Everything? “Did you tell her about me?”
    “Of course not!” Tali wiped her eyes and dropped with a huff onto the bench. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you. Something’s wrong, I know it. She’s the fourth apprentice to vanish this week.”
    Saints save us, it was happening again. But why would the League kidnap their own apprentices?
    Tali twisted her skirt, her knuckles white as the fabric. “People are asking questions now. Four girls don’t just leave in the middle of the night, and some of the boys say their friends are missing too. They’re even limiting the number of people healed because we’re so shorthanded. The mentors tell us not to worry, but they act as if something’s wrong and they don’t want to tell us.”
    My shiverfeet came back. Apprentices missing. Trackers following me. Verlatta under siege. Just like the war, only this time, no cries of independence rang in the streets. Tali needed to be careful. We all needed to be careful. “Tali, there’s a—”
    “I’m scared. I hear things from the first cords.” She leaned closer and cupped the side of her mouth with one hand. “They say the Slab sometimes turns Healers away. Like it doesn’t want their pain.”
    “What? Tali, you can’t trust first cords. They’re barely older than I am. Listen, there’s—”
    “But they’ve finished their apprenticeship. They know things.”
    “They don’t know that much or they’d have earned more than one cord.”
    “They’re also talking about you.”
    “The first cords?” How many people knew about me? No wonder trackers were on me like fish stink.
    “No, the Elders . Not by name, but a rumor’s been running all day in the dorms about a girl who can shift pain. That chicken rancher came in for healing at first light and told a story too good to keep quiet. The Elders even asked me about you. Interrupted rounds to do it, too.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me this first ?”
    “They were asking everyone, and they called you Merlaina, so why worry you over nothing? No one knows who you are but me.”
    And the tracker. Even if he had my name wrong, he knew my face—and now he knew Aylin’s.
    A strong gust blew my curls around, and Tali’s hair jingled. We looked up in unison and gazed out across the lake, so large we couldn’t see the other side. Blue-black storm clouds darkened the horizon, mirroring the jagged mountain range on the other side of the city. The same mountains that made Geveg rich in pynvium, and a target for greedy men like the Duke. Several fishing boats were hauling anchor. Lakeside storms were the worst kind, and we got our share every summer.
    Tali handed me a roll and half a banana, wrapped in what looked like a page from one of her schoolbooks. “I smuggled this out for you at lunch. I’m sorry, it’s all I could get.”
    “Thanks.” I gobbled the food, hoping it would make it easier for me to think. “What do the Elders want with me?”
    “They