The Named Read Free Page A

unusual occurrence. Your new Apprentice is more adept than you imagine. She’s skilled in her own right.’ He chuckles, glancing down at his slender, ageless hands. ‘Quite surprisingly so.’
    I’m still taking in the part where he uses the word ‘she’. ‘I’m going to be training a girl ?’
    ‘Correct.’
    ‘How old is this girl?’
    ‘Fifteen.’
    Suddenly the idea of training a girl takes an interesting spin. ‘Oh, really?’
    His head tilts with a small smile.
    ‘What’s her name? Do I know her?’
    He remains silent and my body hair starts to prickle all over my skin with a sense of foreboding.
    ‘Her name is Isabel,’ he says softly.
    Even though it’s an unusually old-fashioned name, it draws a blank. Arkarian keeps looking at me as if I should know this name, or this person at least. Slowly a recognition somewhere deep inside my head starts happening. Isabel.
    ‘I think I do know that name. Remember, when I was younger I had a best friend called Matt? His kidsister’s name was Isabel. But you said my Apprentice wasn’t a child. And anyway –’ I dismiss this crazy idea quickly – ‘the Isabel I remember was a wild little monkey, a nuisance to society, always tagging along with Matt and Dillon and the rest of us guys when we had important things to do, like build fortresses in the woods, scour the dump for motorbike parts, play rugby. Stuff like that. It couldn’t be her.’
    Arkarian stares at me stubbornly, a funny knowing smile tugging at his lips.
    ‘No way, Arkarian. I’m telling you it can’t be her. Isabel’s a pest. She’ll only get in the way. She couldn’t possibly be right material for the Guard. You have to believe me. This girl is nothing but a headache. You must go back to the Tribunal and tell them. They’ve got it wrong this time.’
    ‘When was the last time you saw Isabel? The last time you exchanged words with this girl?’
    I glance away as I think, trying to recall. We have mixed-age classes at school, so it’s possible we have a lesson together, but surely I would have noticed her? I do remember, though, a couple of years ago, when Matt was still my best friend, a few of us guys went down to Devil’s Creek for a swim. It was a hot day and we’d stripped to our underwear. None of us knew Isabel had tagged along. When Matt spotted his sister halfway up a tree, he told her off for following us. The rest of us laughed and teased her about perving on us until she went beetroot red in the face. She clambered down that tree faster than a Ferrari in a drag race, disappearing into the woods. We went back to jumping into the river from the rope we’d fixed to an overhanging tree. None of us realised until hours later, when wewere ready to go home, that the little pest had taken all our clothes. Matt was mad as hell, and Dillon went feral, calling Isabel every swearword he could think of until Matt got so defensive that Dillon finally shut up. We had to ride our bikes twelve kilometres in nothing but our wet underwear.
    Arkarian is waiting, and for a second I have trouble recalling what he’d asked. ‘Oh, yeah, I haven’t seen Isabel for a couple of years.’
    He gives me one of his superior knowing smiles. ‘That’s what I thought.’

Chapter Two
    Isabel
    I’m late. Of course this is nothing unusual. But if I hurry I could still make the bus, otherwise I’ll be walking again. School is such a waste of time. I’d rather be on a mountaintop, abseiling down a hundred-metre cliff.
    ‘Isabel!’ Mum’s voice rings out from downstairs. ‘Ten minutes! Can you make it?’
    My brother Matt surprises me at my bedroom door, leaning his back against the door jamb, shaking his head and looking superior and smug as usual. He’s fully dressed in school uniform, backpack slung casually over one shoulder, towering over me. When did he grow so tall?
    ‘Yeah, sure,’ he says sarcastically, knowing Mum won’t hear a word. ‘She’ll make it, Mum.’
    He just wants to