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snarled nearby.
    She and Jonathan both stiffened, silently drawing apart. He shook his head in response to her quizzical gaze, indicating that she should stay quiet. The statues concealed the speaker but, despite the low tone in which he spoke, his voice carried.
    "I don't know what you're talking about," another male voice replied, in a blandly distant tone.
    "That's Javier," Dara whispered, shocked. "And the other person is Ryan."
    "What do you think is going on?" Jonathan whispered back.
    Just as she opened her mouth to reply, something thumped against a statue, making them both jump.
    "That design was mine. I don't know how you made it work, but you had no right to take it," Ryan hissed.
    "I have no idea what you're talking about," Javier drawled. "And LeTour, it's unwise for you to touch me."
    "Oh, really?" Ryan sneered.
    "Really." A second later, there was another thump, followed by a stifled cry of pain.
    "This isn't over!" Ryan grunted, his words followed by a slight groan of pain. He limped right past Jonathan and Dara's path, so caught up in his own outrage that he didn't see them. A few seconds later, Javier strolled by, his hands in his pockets.
    "Creators," Jonathan muttered. He looked every bit as shocked as she felt. "Is that what you've been putting up with?"
    "Yes. Though the violence has just been verbal up to this point."
    "You really think Javier would steal Ryan's idea?"
    "I don't know." Dara chewed her lip. "Javier is so hard to read, but he does seem to be very...calculating."
    "This is unbelievable." Jonathan rubbed the side of his nose, a nervous gesture of his, and Dara knew he was genuinely concerned about her situation.
    "Letizia told me I'm lucky the two of them are locked in battle. She says it should make things easier on me."
    "She's right, but if either of them acts remotely like that toward you—" he began, his voice lowering.
    "I'll punch them myself, thanks," she said lightly.
    Shaking his head, he smiled. "Yeah, I guess I should be more worried about them than about you."
    "Got that right. I'm fierce," she declared. They began walking again, observing a companionable silence for a few moments, Dara deep in thought about what they had just witnessed.
    She couldn't deny that Javier's determination rivaled Ryan's, but she simply could not imagine he would steal someone else's work. She told herself it was stupid to feel too much sympathy for him, that he gunned for her every bit as much as he gunned for Ryan. But as much as she'd like to, she couldn't write Javier off, which was a huge problem. Seeing her competitors as friends would do her no favors.
    "Are you still stewing?" Jonathan's voice broke into her thoughts. "Seriously, Dara, you have nothing to worry about. You're the best there is, and you know it."
    "I'm not sure that's enough anymore, Jon. Things are so...so different from how they were in school," she said slowly.
    "You have to have faith in the system," he told her firmly. "Remember: The system provides for those that provide for the system."
    "Right," she said, her voice faint. A chill ran down her spine and she shivered, hoping he wouldn't notice.

Chapter 8

    Things were quiet for a while, but the tension between Ryan and Javier only increased, while Dara did her best to steer clear of it. After several days, she realized it was much easier to focus on what she could control than fret about what she couldn't. She had achieved a level of such focus that she became almost entirely unaware of the world around her as she worked.
    "Dara," Letizia said, her voice insistent. She shook her apprentice gently by the shoulder.
    "Oh, Letizia. I think I finally made a breakthrough with…"
    "There's something I need to tell you," Letizia broke in. She put her free hand on Dara's other shoulder, turning her apprentice to face her. Dara's hands began to sweat.
    Oh no! They're going to throw me out of the program! Andersen hates me and he's decided he'd be far better off with Javier or