Lindsey Lunarly wanted her yellow star crest at the very top of the honors leaderboard, and the exam that decided it was in two days. She sat at her white desk in Honors Hall, phone open to what she thought were her study notes. She scrolled. "Mall snacks. Lip gloss. Who Mina likes." She scrolled faster. Every page was a shopping list or a gossip note. Nowhere had she written a single fact from class. She dropped the phone in the yellow star pen holder and pressed her hands to her face. The pack was gaining on her. She needed an edge, and she had nothing but errands and secrets. Stella came in without knocking. She dropped onto the bed, glasses pushed up in her long hair. "You look like you lost the list," she said. "You never lose the list." "I lost the notes," Lindsey said. "I never took any. It's all this." She turned the phone around. "Two days. I'm going to crash." Stella read the screen. She did not laugh. "You track who owes who a spot the same way," she said. "Color-coded. Every trade. You never forget a debt." "That's different." "It's exactly the same skill," Stella said. "You just point it at the wrong subject." Lindsey stared at her. It was true. Her secret note tracked twenty people and never slipped. She could do that. She just never aimed it at the exam. The door opened again. Brennor stood there, holding a stack of worn cards. He looked at Stella, then away, quick, the way he'd been doing all month. Stella caught it and said nothing. "Practice cards," Brennor said. He set them on the desk. "Coach makes us drill this way. Question one side. Answer the other. You forget it, it goes back in the pile. You quit lying to yourself fast." He shrugged. "Figured you honors people didn't know we did that. We're not just legs." "Thanks," Lindsey said, surprised. "Stella said you were drowning." He glanced at Stella once more, then left. Stella watched the door close. "He's trying," she said flatly, to no one. Lindsey grabbed her yellow journal and tore it in half down the spine. One side for cards. She started rewriting her notes as trades, the way she tracked spots. Fact owed. Fact paid. Missed one, back in the pile. Her system, aimed right at last. By midnight the desk was buried in cards. She quizzed herself until she stopped missing. The blind cramming was gone. She had a real method now, and two days to run it. Stella stood to leave. "Top of the board," she said. "Do it, and half the school will owe you a spot they can't afford." Lindsey laughed, then stopped. Stella wasn't joking. If she won, the pack wouldn't just fall behind. They'd come for her.

Lindsey walked into the school castle with her cards zipped in her bag. She had a real method now. She felt ready. Then she saw the huddle by the lockers. Three girls glanced at her and went quiet. One laughed behind her hand. Lindsey slowed. She knew that look. It was the look she used when she was talking about someone. Stella cut through the crowd and reached her first. "You need to hear it from me," Stella said. "Word's out that you're gunning for first. Mika's telling people you cheated your way up. That you can't actually study." Lindsey's stomach dropped. "I didn't cheat. I built the cards myself." "I know that," Stella said. "They don't. And Mika talks louder than you." Mika Hayashi leaned against a stone column near the athletics banner. She was Lindsey's rival, and she never let a stage go empty. She wore her panda-crest jacket like armor. When she saw Lindsey, she smiled and raised her voice for the hallway. "There she is. The girl who found her notes overnight. Real cute." Heads turned. Lindsey felt her face go hot. Her first instinct was to snap back, to fight loud with loud. But loud was Mika's game, not hers. Lindsey stopped. She thought about her cards. Facts owed. Facts paid. She traded in proof. "You want to see how I study?" Lindsey said. She pulled the deck out and held it up. "Ask me anything from the exam material. Right now. In front of everyone." The hallway went still. Mika's smile flickered. She hadn't planned for this. Brennor pushed to the front, the one who gave Lindsey the card method. "I'll read the questions," he said. "I know the drill. No warning, no cheating." He took a card and read it flat. Lindsey answered. He read another. She answered again. Ten cards. She missed none. The laughing stopped. A few students nodded. One girl who'd been in the huddle said, "Okay, she actually knows it." The doubt drained out of the crowd and left Mika standing alone with her mouth open. Mika recovered fast. "Cute trick," she said, but nobody laughed with her this time. She shoved off the column and walked away. Stella watched her go. "You just made her look small in her own hallway," she said. "She won't forget that." Lindsey slid the cards back in her bag. Her hands were shaking, but she'd won. The whispers were dead. "It was worth it," she said. "Maybe," Stella said. "But now the whole school knows you're first before the exam even starts. Everyone's watching your score now. If you don't top the board, you don't just lose. You lose in front of all of them." Lindsey looked at the honors banner hanging down the stone wall. Her yellow star had to reach the top now. There was no quiet way out anymore.