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Bartie glares at er in his eyes, although his voice re up? Why aren’t you keeping the order? Eldest ht’ve been a chutz, but at least you didn’t have to worry about getting through the day when he was in charge ”

“I’ what I can,” I protest

“It’s not enough!” The words bounce around the roo into my ears

Without thinking about it, I pound my fist onto the table The noise startles Bartie; the shock of itup my arm

“What are you reading?” I growl

“What?”

“What are you frexing reading?”

When I glance up, Bartie’s eyes er melts We’re friends—even without Harley, we’re still friends And even if the ship hasn’t exactly been a friendly place lately, we can still hold onto our past

Bartie lifts the smaller book for me to see the title: The Republic, by Plato

“I read that last year,” I say “It was confusing as frex That bit about the cave made no sense at all ”

Bartie shrugs “I’m at the part about aristocracy ” He pronounces it “a-risto-crazy ” Eldest toldtoo, and besides, what’s the difference?

I know the part he’s talking about well—it was the center of the lesson Eldest had prepared for me It was also, essentially, the base of the entire Eldest system “An aristocrat is someone born to rule,” I say “Souide everyone else ”

Bartie can’t be thinking what I’: that the only reason I was born to rule was because I was plucked as an eenetically enhanced clones whose DNA had been modified to make the ideal ruler

“But even Plato says that the ideal state of an aristocracy can decay,” Bartie says

The word decay re is constantly spinning out of control, including the ship Including me