The Last Fallen Star by Graci Kim (ebook reader with highlighter .txt) 📕

feel stupid. It’s not like I knew of them before today, and I have loving parents who raised me. I shouldn’t care what happened to the Seos, let alone be disappointed they’re not here.

“Where have you been living all this time?” Sora asks. “Who have you been living with? And how are you even…alive?”

When I think of the horrible things the Horangi have done, both to Emmett and the gifted community, my first reaction is to shut down. She doesn’t have the right to ask me any questions.

But I see genuine concern in her eyes. She must have been close to Mina and Yoon. And if I want these scholars to help me, I need them to trust me.

So I hunker down and give her the highlight reel of my life. Right up until coming here with my best friend to save my sister’s life. And when it’s all off my chest, I feel a weird sense of relief. As if the burden is lighter for having shared it.

The three of them listen intently. No one says anything after I finish. Instead, Taeyo silently releases my water shackles, while Sora swings open the white wooden door with a flick of her hand. With that, the three of them walk toward the exit, and Sora says, “Follow me.”

The door leads straight out into fresh air, and to my surprise, I’m in the upper branches of a tree. The room is suspended up here. It’s a windowless rectangular tree house with a wooden staircase spiraling down to the forest floor.

When my feet land on the soil and I look back up, I frown. All I see is a leafy canopy.

“Wait, where did the building go?” I ask, confused.

“All the campus structures have camouflaging mirrors on the outside,” explains Austin, “so they blend in with the forest.”

“The campus? Is this a school?”

Austin nods. “That and more. The campus is what we call our entire network of tree houses. The water-training room is merely one of the buildings. We have offices, dorms, cafés, restaurants—everything you need to live, study, and work here.”

I raise my eyebrows. I don’t want to admit it, but I’m low-key impressed. I wish Emmett could be learning this, too. I look around for him, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Sora had said he wouldn’t get far. What did that mean? I hope he’s okay, wherever he is.

“I have some business to attend to,” Austin says, turning to leave in the opposite direction. “But Sora and Taeyo will give you the grand tour.”

He hurries off, and Taeyo smiles at me shyly. “Come on, we’ll show you around.”

Sora and Taeyo lead me through the trees until we get to a sparser part of the forest that opens onto a lake. Sora rubs her wrists and chants some incantations, and a nearby fig tree stretches and morphs until it transforms into a staircase up to the canopy.

“Can you see the building?” Taeyo asks, his eyes sparkling.

I squint and look up. Now that I know the walls are covered in mirrors, I can just make out the edges of a structure above us. This one is much larger than the one we were in earlier.

Sora twists her wrist, and leafy green vines wrap around the staircase’s banister, weaving themselves all the way to the top. I admit it’s a nice finishing touch, giving it a fairy-tale look.

“When the council excommunicated us, we had to reestablish ourselves from the ground up,” Sora explains, as we climb the newly built stairs. “We and all the other Horangi clan chapters around the world lost our Gi, our access to the temple, and with it, our library and source of knowledge. So we had to adapt. It was the only way to survive.”

When we get to the top of the stairs and walk into the building, my jaw drops. This one doesn’t look like the inside of a cooler. It looks like Google’s headquarters.

“Welcome to the campus HQ. This is one of our main office blocks.” Sora waves at a few people who walk past and greet her.

I look around curiously. There are people sitting at shared desks, typing on laptops; others lounging on beanbag chairs while drinking coffee from reusable cups; and kids playing with dogs in the designated playground areas. I spy two huge gumball machines—one full of Skittles and the other with M&M’s—and a big vending machine with the largest variety of Pepero sticks I’ve ever seen. The walls seem to double as whiteboards, and people have scribbled notes, spells, and illustrations all over them. One section has Knowledge and Truth spelled out in impressive graffiti.

Taeyo sees my expression and grins. “Sora says we started using tech to strengthen our spellwork way before we were cut off from the community. And afterward, even though we lost access to our sacred texts, we figured out a way to upload as much of the knowledge as we had left to the Cloud.” He holds up his phone. “My spellbook’s in here now.” He then waves to the space around us. “Who needs a temple when you have all this, amirite?”

Sora smiles and puts her hand around Taeyo’s shoulders. “By relying on the Horangi hive mind around the world, we also managed to hack the five sacred elements on Earth so we can do magic without a Gi.”

I stare wide-eyed at them and down at their Gi-less wrists. “Is that how you were controlling water before?” I ask Taeyo. “And you, wood?” I say to Sora.

Taeyo proudly holds up his wrist. “Some of our best scholars programmed a biochip that can be inserted into the wrist and do the job of a Gi. Without the need for divine intervention.”

I frown, not following.

Sora explains. “In a traditional Gi ceremony, the cauldron reveals the element you’re not born with. The focus is on what you lack. And then the goddesses channel their divine power through the witch’s Gi for the witch to do magic.”

“Yeah,” I say. “That’s how it’s