Zephyr left Granite standing a few feet away, his jaw hanging open in shock, and joined the party. “Danielle, remember how you asked me a few hours ago if I wanted to be considered for leadership and I said no?” Zephyr asked.

  “I remember,” Danielle said. “I also noticed how the several speakers who asked people to vote or otherwise choose you for party leadership all had the same reasoning, and it was ‘because his dad is a leader,’ which sounds like something that would make your blood boil,” Danielle said. “Don’t worry, you said no and I intend to honor that.”

  “Yeah, well. It does, but I’m changing my mind anyway,” Zephyr said. “I’m not an experienced leader in the sense you’re really looking for, but I’m experienced at being shoved in with actual youth leadership groups and seeing how they go dysfunctional. I’m also experienced at helping people who can’t really leave a group but aren’t being treated right subtly work around the more powerful but less sympathetic leaders affecting their lives. Also, I’m probably going to be a building three council candidate whether I really want to or not. I can be useful to this party’s leadership by helping our leaders, and our councilors if we get any elected, figure out how to work around the pushier Systemists, and you all can help me figure out how to keep my cool and stand firm when subtle and subversive isn’t the right answer.”

  “All right. Do you want to be the hunting party’s leadership person?” Danielle asked.

  The entire party’s reactions told her the answer was no, even before Zephyr stopped laughing and said so for himself. “Come on Danielle, council or not, you’re the only person in this party who can really be called the leader,” Zephyr said. “Besides, someone will nominate me separately.”

  “I’m pretty sure if I’m not the one for the SHAD party, someone will nominate me separately too, so I don’t think I’m the only option here,” Danielle said.

  “I think you’re the only option that fits what you asked everyone else to do,” Heather said. “I mean yeah, technically we could send any of the council as a ‘representative’ – which is still not Zephyr, you know, but anyway, none of the rest of us really lead the way you do. You’re the only one who can honestly be said to have ‘leadership experience’ from leading this party.”

  “We’re going to be over-represented anyway,” Gideon said. “From people who have been talking to me, it sounds like Peter and I are both going to be there with Zephyr on the list of nominees that aren’t hunting party leaders, because of our student-leadership roles in the CYC interest groups, so with me and Zephyr and you, that’s three people from our party already.”

  “All right, so I’m the official SHAD Party leadership choice? Show of hands, for the sake of setting a good example.” Danielle asked.

  “All in favor?” Akari called, raising her hand. Everyone else joined her except Danielle herself, since the party charter said people didn’t get to vote on themselves. “Nine votes in favor, Danielle abstains because it’s about her; it’s unanimous,” Akari announced.

  “Thank you for your literal vote of confidence,” Danielle said, a reluctant smile creeping onto her face. “Pray for me, this is super stressful, and if people don’t accept the charter after all this discussion, I don’t even know what I’ll do. Um, except I’ll need everyone but me, Zephyr, and Gideon to go clear our snares, we left them way too close to the Access Point path to leave them overnight and risk attracting cougars or whatever right there.”

  “Akari stays with you,” Sadie said. “I’ll take everyone else and clear the snares if you have to call a meal break before the charter is voted in. I can use Find Material to find you guys’ snares – they’re nylon cord, that doesn’t grow on trees.”

  “All right. Hope it doesn’t come to that, but it’s good to have a plan, in case,” Danielle said. “I guess for now I’m going to go back to the fire and try to look like I know what I’m doing.”

  “You’re doing a great job of that, so far!” Zephyr told her with a grin.

  “Thank you I think,” Danielle told him. “Just remember, when someone nominates you and I let them, you volunteered first.”

  “I did. Thank you for that,” Zephyr said, suddenly serious. “I’m not used to having a real option. The whole thing feels more real, knowing you were actually going to take no for an answer if I didn’t say anything.”

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  “It’s also more real because there are no adults in the corners, making sure we ‘lead’ exactly how they want us to,” Gideon said. “I don’t think I ever had that in the extreme way you keep talking about, but still, the training guides are off now; if I start to screw up, nobody’s going to take me aside and tell me I can’t do that, and the consequences are bigger than a few people ostentatiously sitting at different tables at lunch.”

  Danielle laughed. “It was always so hilarious when someone tried to pull that,” she said. “Do you know, Arabella Klein actually sat with Sadie and me once, because she was trying to snub someone and there weren’t any other seats? Haha, Vanessa was shoving trash in our lockers for a week, she was so mad! Arabella was actually pretty nice, though, even though it was really awkward and we all knew Vanessa’d make us pay for daring to talk to her.”

  “Who’s Arabella Klein?” Zephyr asked.

  “Richest girl in our year at Tree of Knowledge,” Sadie said. “Kinda has your problem, a little – lots of people who want her to be their friends, not nearly as many that she wants for friends, and the first group keeps trying to get rid of the second group.”

  “She’s here at the meeting,” Heather said. “I noticed her when I stood up to talk about supporting a Healer’s org and quarantine rooms.”

  “Huh. I think she was an interest-group leader at school, too – gardening club, right? I wonder if we’ll see her nominated for the leadership team too?” Danielle asked.

  “Go find out,” Sadie said, and Danielle returned to the fire with a laugh.

  She checked her watch; that hadn’t taken long, they still had a few minutes. “Four minutes left,” she called out. Her voice was going to be hoarse after this – she was definitely advancing Amplify Voice next time she had mana. Well, maybe not the very next time, but it was going on the short list, anyway! “If your party is done, feel free to send your leader up here to start introductions. We’ll move on to group voting and non-hunting-party leader nominations in four minutes!”

  Lauren came up to the fire almost immediately. Danielle gave her a nod. “Lauren, predictable to see you,” she joked.

  “Likewise,” Lauren teased back. “Looks like we’re getting Lucy, too, and Candice – I wasn’t sure if it’d be her or Bethany.”

  “Do they – well, she’s almost here.” Danielle paused until Candice got to comfortable speaking distance. “Hey, Candice. Do the ABCs actually have more than three members?”

  “No, but we’re a hunting party together with three more friends from school, so I got elected from a party of six,” Candice said.

  “Ah, that makes sense. Hi Lucy. Your hunting party is your room, right?” Danielle greeted the girl from Booker – well, now from building one.

  “Yeah. They’re going to nominate Peter for general leadership too, though, just so you know,” Lucy said.

  “That’s fine,” Danielle said, “I had people like him in mind when I said we should do both. Hello, uh, Rillian, right?”

  “Hi. Did you go to Tree of Knowledge?” the boy asked. “You look just slightly familiar.”

  “Yeah, I was in the younger class, though. You were in the class that was moving up, right?” Danielle asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Well, it turned out to be more of a moving out thing than a moving up thing, but now I’m leading a party of eight – I think six are joining. The other two are still trying to convince us we should join the Six Elements Legal Party, but I think McPherson had a point about our kiddie-court of people that mostly don’t even have elevated Classes unlocked, let alone advanced, maybe not being allowed to take even more authority than a real court of the elements would have.”

  Danielle nodded. “Can I get your full name and room number, so we can contact each other?” she asked. “Now or after we do the votes,” she added.

  “It’s Rillian Levine, 3024,” he said. He watched in bemusement as Danielle created an illusory keyboard and typed it into her Planner, muttering at the System when it missed a ‘keystroke.’ “Dare I ask?” he said.

  “I have a Trait that gives me a way to take notes in my Interface,” she said. “It’s new to me, though, and I’m still training the non-verbal inputs.”

  “How’d you make it project the keyboard?” Candice asked.

  “Oh – I’m doing that with a separate Skill,” Danielle said. “Drawing the keyboard on paper and tapping it works too. Better, even! This way takes mana, but also lets me do it standing up.”

  “I’m surprised you weren’t using it before,” a new boy said. “I don’t know if we’ve met – I’m John Jokullson.”

  “I was actually doing a lot of verbal input in just really quiet muttering while everyone was talking,” Danielle said. “I made a lot of tweaks to the charter based on what everyone was saying, so I’m really hoping when I read it out in a few minutes, people will find it a good enough compromise to get through the weekend with. Not adding anything we didn’t need to be in the charter is critical, though, because we can add stuff easily enough later, but I’m pretty sure whatever we put in now will end up being set in stone. Not that there isn’t technically a method to change it, but just in terms of psychology and stuff.”

  Lucy came up to the fire. “I’m here, I’m not late, right?” she asked.

  “No, you’re good – ” Danielle glanced at her watch. “Just in time, actually. Let me call us back to order.” She turned back to the crowd and raised her voice. “All right, that’s ten minutes! Any more hunting party leaders, come on up; for the rest, we’ll get to nominations in a minute. In the meantime, everyone please sit down so we can vote on a party name!”

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