The Hangman's Revolution Read Free Page A

had been hauled out of class, interrogated for two days, and then executed. And all because Deirdre had been discovered unsupervised in the director’s study while the war maps were on display.
    She was a Jax spy, they ’ d whispered in the dorms. Gathering intelligence.
    DeeDee a spy?
    Chevie had been shocked.
    Shocked because DeeDee was dumber than plankton, Traitor Chevie whispered in her ear. DeeDee was your friend, but she couldn’t gather enough intelligence to spell c-a-t . Deirdre Woollen probably got herself turned around while searching for the bathroom, and Gunn shot her for it.
    It was true, Chevie knew, but she couldn’t allow herself to think it, in case she talked in her sleep.
    Sister Witmeyer knuckled Chevie’s skull. “You have been summoned.”
    Chevie found the courage to grasp the doorknob and turn it, and as she walked into the office, she heard Traitor Chevie in her mind.
    You better let me out of here, Cadet, because if you don’t, neither of us is leaving this room alive.
    Please, thought Chevie. Please be quiet.
    The director’s office was long and narrow with a red carpet stretching down the center like the tongue of some gigantic animal. Director Waldo Gunn was a fan of the art of homodermy—a special type of taxidermy—and the stuffed and preserved corpses of notable academy martyrs lined the walls. Chevie knew that the waxy, rouged cadavers were a testament to the dedication of these graduates, but secretly she thought that she would rather be burned to ashes and forgotten forever than end up as a lifeless sentry in this room. Chevie kept her eyes front and tried not to feel the frosty gaze of the Empire’s heroes on her shoulder blades.
    The director was seated at his desk, and from ten feet away Chevie could smell the aroma of must and garlic that traveled with him like a personal cloud.
    Being a committee member had its privileges, among them smelling however the hell you felt like.
    He stinks, said Traitor Chevie. Somebody power-hose that guy.
    Director Gunn had been tapping a stylus on a Boxnet tablet, and he suddenly stopped, almost as though Chevie had spoken aloud.
    Oh no, thought Chevie. Oh no.
    Director Gunn seemed elfin behind the large desk, with his too large head and pinhole blue eyes peering out above a faceful of gray beard.
    “Did you speak, Cadet Savano?”
    The voice was curiously low. For some reason, Chevie had always expected it to be higher.
    “No, sir, Director. I don’t think so. Not that I know of.”
    Gunn sighed. “ ‘I don’t think so’? ‘Not that I know of’? These blurtings of yours are why you stand before me today.”
    “Exactly, Director,” confirmed Witmeyer, who, along with her partner, had followed Chevie inside.
    “Umfh, Director,” muttered Clover Vallicose.
    Chevie started, surprised to find the Thundercats at her shoulders.
    Silent assassins.
    Gunn leaned back in his antique chair with its turned-down armrests.
    “Come closer, Chevron. Stand before me.”
    Chevie walked forward in a daze, her progress halted by the bang of her thighs on the desk’s rim. She noticed her own photograph displayed on the tablet’s screen. The director had been reviewing her file.
    Gunn sighed again. “You showed such promise, Savano. Such aptitude….But now…”
    The director set down the pad and intertwined his tiny, hairy fingers in his lap.
    Hobbit! shouted Traitor Chevie in her head. Hobbit. HOBBIT. HOBBIT.
    It was silent, but somehow deafening. Chevie felt a line of sweat trace her brow.
    “I am aware, Director, that the past few months have been disappointing…”
    “Disappointing?” huffed Clover Vallicose. “Catastrophic.”
    “All of these bewildering outbursts,” continued Waldo Gunn. “These strange terms. FBI, what is the FBI?”
    “I…I don’t know, Director.”
    “And yet you used these letters to describe our academy.”
    Chevie couldn’t even remember this specific outburst, though the letters did seem