I kept my cowl up through the week.
Each class provided its own workbook, a wadded odorous thing that felt like an antique before it had so much as a mark in it, and the professors expected it to be filled with notes, essays, diagrams, and addendums by the end of the semester when it would be presented for appraisal before the Final Exam. These weren’t even the same species as the books churned out by the printing presses of the Wrevondale cities, all trimmed and pure and synthetic. These were wild and agricultural. Free-range books. If you laid an ear to their cover, you could hear them breathing.
And of the professors? Shoreshell, who captivated our interests in transmutation with a demonstration of making water start to fizz ever so slightly. Brucker took history, a tar-haired wedge of a man who approached his sentences with the same tact and guile as a backgammon player tackling a tricky move. Starravius in elemancy, a croaky and besuited gentleman so ancient I suspected he wasn’t awoken each morning so much as exhumed. In diviny, we had Windsong, an ethereal and gliding woman who’d lost her shadow in an unfortunate lightmagic incident. I was happily surprised to see the head of accommodation also heading the case studies, although my mood dipped as he handed out biographies of a primitive and dusty transmuter. And of course Field in the conjury room, which I realised I was glad to have as my last class of the week.
I’d ended up sitting near Kaspar in any classes we shared, but unlike how friendship radiated from Holly and Grove, who both already were plenty happy to tell me things in the dorm like they’d known me for years, the more I tried to get to know him, the more guarded he seemed. Even I felt a little lighter now I’d reached the end of the week, but when I asked while waiting outside the class if he’d like a hand figuring out how to burn his paper, he stared into his little, neat fingernails and seemed to find another krull to add to the weight on his shoulders.
My wandering mind was brought back from tomorrow’s attempt at finding paid work by the professor’s tremendous announcement of, “...and especially to our new student Oakley, who nailed this month’s aim to the wall in his very first hour!” I winced. Even this deep into my cloak, I knew they were all looking at me.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“That’s cos the Foresters commune with the spirits!” someone called out and I dropped my head, propping the lower half on my hands, my fingers finding a stray hair on my [chin/jaw/cheek] I must have missed this morning and plucking at it in the smallest way. “It’s their way of cheating the system. He’s been trying to hide it every lesson, but we can all tell what he is. And he’s probably not even a first year. Probably a secondie or thirdie who went loopy and had to restart his courses – that’s why he could do it so quick!”
“A fine set of baseless accusations there, Stack,” said Field firmly. “Quite enough, thank you.”
“Hey!” called the voice again. I kept my face down. “Hey, Muncher, I’m talking to you! How’d ya even pay for your courses? I dunno what the conversion rate to leaves and twigs is lately!”
The stool screeched back and I was on my feet, fists on the desk. Everyone oohed but I didn’t care. “Don’t call me that again,” I said in a low and deliberate voice.
“Oh yeah?” I spotted him. “Is bark-eater better?” A tall, wiry Clearlander with a narrow nose and a slap of a smug grin and eyebrows like the ink stains on my kit back. “Bug-chewer? Dirt-mouth?” My claws dug into the flesh of my palms and a dozen brutal visions flashed through my mind, all of which I knew I’d regret.
“Shut the fuck up, Stack-wad." I barely recognised Kaspar’s voice. He sounded like a complete different person. “Better not tire your pretty mouth out if you’re gonna be sucking off the chancellors again tonight.”
Another chorus of oohs rippled round the room. “Veritably plenty enough now,” declared Field. “Simmer down. Competition is healthy but keep yourselves in check – would your parents be proud of those comments?”
“The Forester probably doesn’t even know who his parents are cos they spent his whole life away on a battlefield somewhere.”
“Stack! Rather enough! Eyes on your paper. You’ve got an hour to impress me. Get on with it.”
*
Several students managed to burn their papers that lesson. Not me. Didn’t try. I sat in silence, head down, and thought about tomorrow for the whole hundredtime.
Holly and Grove were nice enough not to pry when I brought the transmuter’s biography back to the dorm and silently worked through it, tucked into the corner of the alcove where my bed sat, the curtain pulled all the way across. They toasted marshmallows on forks over the Ooh. They asked a couple of times, but I didn’t want one.
