At breakfast the next day, the boys are mostly quiet, but a few are speaking low.

“Hiro’s really looking out for you, West,” Jael says to me.

“I guess so--”

I’m interrupted by a Guardian that comes behind Jael. The whole table goes quiet. Jael’s body stiffens as he puts his hands on her shoulders. The way he rolls his hands down the sides of her arms makes me sick. Her face reddens. He grins and slithers away.

The wards at my table are all looking at Jael.

“You don’t have to take anything from him,” I say.

“Get real. They can do anything they want,” she snaps back. “I’m not safe and you aren’t either. Between the Guardians and the low-end trollers, we don’t stand a chance.”

The auction system is set up by a sort of status system. Each bidder is given a ranking based on their status, though I don’t really know much about how status is determined. I know that wards aren’t even on the map.

Black-level is the highest, then platinum, gold, silver, bronze. Each category comes with its own set of bidding rules that locks the bidders into only bidding for certain level wards. A black-level bidder can only place bids on wards that have made significant achievements and earned a certain amount of points. I guess this prevents them from buying low, then later selling high. Other than buying our way out, every ward’s goal is to make it to the black-level bids, but hardly anyone does. Our points are determined by some sort of combination of our grades, judgment of character, and appearance. Wards aren’t informed of their points, only our guardians know.

“Your Guardian’s just trying to intimidate you,” I say to Jael. “Don’t let it work.” She doesn’t say anything back, but in her eyes, I see more words than she’ll ever say.