Kahlee Sanders knocked lightly at the door of Nick’s room.

“Come in,” he called from the other side, his adolescent voice cracking on the second word.

She passed her hand over the access panel and the door whooshed open to reveal Nick and Yando, one of the newest students at the Grissom Academy, sitting side by side at the desk in the corner of the room.

“It’s past curfew,” Kahlee said. “Yando should have been in his own room thirty minutes ago.”

“We’re studying,” Nick said, pointing at the haptic interface screens projecting up from the terminal on his desk.

Kahlee glanced at the assignment floating before her, then at the two boys. Nick stared back at her, his expression one of total innocence.

Nick had just turned fifteen. Always small for his age, he looked at least a year or two younger. His shoulder-length black hair and the wispy, curling bangs that fell down across his forehead did little to offset the impression of youth. But she knew he was mature beyond his years; if any of the students could look her straight in the eye and lie to her without giving anything away, it was Nick.

Yando, however, was another story. Eleven years old, he had had his amplifiers surgically implanted only a few months ago. Everything here was still new to him, strange. The instructors of the Ascension Project still filled him with a sense of awe, towering figures of authority looming over this unfamiliar world.

Kahlee wasn’t above using that to get to the truth.

“Yando,” she said, keeping her voice low but firm, “what were you really doing?”