The city has lost its mind in the best possible way.
Red and white everywhere—flags on every lamppost, maple leaves painted on faces, the sound of twenty thousand people saying the same name at different volumes.
The bus moves through it like a ship through weather.
Elias is at the front of the upper deck, holding the cup, and the city is screaming for him. He looks like exactly what he is—the person who decided the outcome and knew it while it was happening.
Mia watches him absorb the crowd's energy without being consumed by it, and thinks that this specific quality—the ability to receive something enormous and stay exactly yourself inside it—is rarer than most people realize.
She edges toward Dr. Anderson. Post-game assessments, the academic requirements she still needs to satisfy b
