I wondered if he noticed I was using Grove’s spare pen and ink? Probably not. He was doing a much better job of ignoring me than I was at ignoring him. You see what a noble’s upbringing can do for you, hey?

  From somewhere far away came a voice, something about my bodyguard being on strike today, but I ignored it. Students chattered and someone dropped a book, cut through by Fletcher’s tactical promise that even if there was no History on the fast-approaching exam, a strong grasp of this semester’s topics would aid us invaluably in the year ahead.

  Who could even think about that now? Still many weeks away, so many things to fix before then, and the clock ticked ever onward. I stared up into the rafters and I swore they stared down at me, the way I felt small. so small. Alone. Frustrated. Helpless. Fraught. And sick to the far hills of the treatises of the Grand Refinement age.

  *

  I’d never eaten with Kaspar here, so the wave of loneliness as I lunched and dined alone – in the hall if I could stand it, but usually not – caught me off guard. Or maybe it wasn’t that… Maybe it was a call to action. A need to prove I wasn’t so much less without him. Because he’d been right, of course he had. We were two outsiders together. And as the scores of Clearlander faces took no interest in me whatsoever, other than an occasional and less-than-inconspicuous surprise that I was still here, I sought the other outsiders.

  The higher-grade Foresters stalked the halls in packs. Sometimes they strolled, sometimes they skulked. Heads covered, like me; still obvious, like me. I’d thought at least once, any of them would try to talk to me. But catching them was a pain, and they never hung around to make conversation.

  After a week of trying, I tracked some down to an alcove in the dining hall, a smattering of student groups tucked away from the rest. If this whole castle had once been the seat of the kings of Wrevondale then this is where their squires would have feasted. Shadowed, secluded, low of ceiling and of table, a lone chandelier drifting above. I wedged myself in next to one of the pillars, and the Foresters looked at me like they were tavern-goers and I was calling last orders a hundred early for the night. “Hey, I don’t really know anyone here and I was wondering if I could join you,” I said. Somehow it sounded even lamer aloud than it had in my head.

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  “Yeah, we’ve seen ya,” came the reply. A crackling rasp from a tall figure with a pale, sharp nose. They set an elbow on the table with a dreadful creak. “Didn’t quite get it, did ya?”

  My claws dug into my palms. I swore a breeze rustled through me. “Get what, sorry?”

  “Hack off, turncloak,” they snapped. I knew I looked unconvincing and they harshed a laugh.

  “We ain’t selling out,” one of the others said, and another joined: “No sale today, ya spineless, nor ever.” They spoke different, like the Foresters way down the valley who’d been hit by the same changes but flocked northwards instead. The wave of loneliness crashed back over me and this time it was true, this time I felt myself beginning to drown.

  “What do you think I’m… That I’m recruiting for the war? I’m not, I swear on the spirits! I ran from it,” I said and it felt like a punch to the chest. “I did. And I wanna get to know you guys because right now, I don’t have anyone else.”

  Their faces only grew more stony under their cowls. “They don’t let anyone useful get away,” rasped the tall one. “I never seen it. But I’ve seen informants and lackeys and sell-talks. Ya stink of it.” They leaned in and folded two bone-fingered hands around their bowl. “If they let ya run, why ain’t there more of ya?” they asked and spat another laugh at me.

  “Cos… we were scared. Isolated. Probably didn’t think we had any other option, but I – I had to make one for myself. This one.” I fought at the waves but the surface was so far overhead and none of the people before me cared to help. “I ran so I could get here. Please, I just wanna sit with you.”

  “So go run back and tell ‘em we ain’t for selling out to the war, ya turncloak.”

  *

  Should’ve been in classes this afternoon. Vital exam coming up soon, so they kept telling us. I needed the solitude of my empty dorm more. And I think I got it now. I think I got why Kaspar left like he did.

  Because alone in my room was the only place I could let myself cry.