One of the oldest adages about the university was that the school looked infinitely large from the outside and infinitely small from the inside, and that, though neither was really true, it was impossible to divorce oneself from either perspective. The wordiness of the adage aside, Benji was finding it absolutely true. On an evening when his homework load was lighter than usual, Benji went to a teashop by himself.

  Maynard had responded to an invitation to accompany him by saying, “I don’t have the pores for tea.” Upon closer inspection, which Maynard graciously allowed, Benji realized that he didn’t have pores at all. The surface of his skin looked like scuffed porcelain. It wasn’t perfectly smooth, but its roughness was only attributable to weathering rather than the natural imperfections of a human face. It was deeply, deeply unsettling, especially when Maynard smiled in response to his discomfort, stretching his skin like elastic.

  Part of Benji wanted to find a tavern and a hearty mug of mead to process this. He’d never been much of a drinker, though, and he thought he might be able to achieve greater anonymity at a teashop.

  The teashop he chose was close enough that most of the clientele were still students, tucked around square tables and seated on cushions. A whole row of tables in the back were for individual patrons, each in their own wooden cubicle enclosed by a curtain, separated by latticed walls. A hundred different smells hit Benji’s nose as he entered, and the proprietor walked him to one of the individual tables. He was a tall man with a worn face and a soothing voice. He told Benji to take as much time as he needed with the menu, and to just flip down the flag protruding from the side of his cubicle when he needed anything

  “And if I take too long, just yell my name real loud,” the man said as Benji sank into the threadbare yet immensely comfortable cushion, and tucked his knees under the table. “That tends to get people’s attention in a quiet teashop.”

  “I guess that means I need to ask your name. I’m Benji.”

  “Good to meet you, Benji,” the man said, wrapping long, gnarled fingers around his hand. “I’m Warren. Make sure to really draw out the syllables as you’re yelling. Like this: Waaaaaarrrr-ennnnnnnnnn.”

  “And when in doubt I’ll just use the flag.”

  Warren smiled. “You’d be surprised how many people have taken me up on the yelling method of contacting me. It’s a good way to introduce myself, and to determine who lacks the social graces to be in my establishment.”

  “I’ve heard getting kicked out of a teashop is a rite of passage for any university student.”

  Warren nodded gravely and turned to go. “You might think. I’ll leave you to it. I’m just up front at the counter if you need anything, Benji. Take all the time you need.”

  A cold carafe of lemon water left a ring of condensation on the wood table, and dampened his hands as Benji poured himself a glass. At home he would’ve been yelled at (lovingly) for not using a coaster. Here, he assumed the wood had been spelled to prevent water damage. Benji settled into the cushion as he looked over the menu. The first few days at the university had been such a whirlwind, it felt like this was the first time he’d been able to sit by himself and just exist.

  There was plenty to process. He had made some friends—or at least classmates who were more than acquaintances—and learned that he wasn’t totally useless at magic. He still felt the rift between himself and his fellow students, that unspoken gap of experience between those who had taken the standard path and those who had only recently managed to find its beginning. He also felt he’d stumbled headfirst into the university’s politics. Jurni’s mission to help him not feel on his own at the university did make him at least tangentially involved with the Completists. She was still awkward when it was just the two of them—or maybe he was the one being awkward. Things were more normal in larger groups.

  Then there was Nella. Benji found himself looking forward to metalworking, despite the ever-present danger of incineration, just so he could sit next to her and try to make her laugh. Though she worked most of their plantworking classes, there was a distance there, enforced by her official position and her obvious expertise in the subject. When they were struggling at metalworking together, it was easier to forget how much magical space and time lay between them. When she was shaping vines into intricate patterns around their feet in order to demonstrate how growth acceleration worked, not so much.

  Warren brought him a steaming pot of chamomile a few minutes after he ordered. As the teashop’s owner poured the tea, splashing a perfect arc into the mug and filling the air with its delicate scent, Benji felt something he hadn’t expected. He felt taken care of. Not in the familial, loving way that his parents took care of him, but in the implicit we’re-in-this-together way of everyone affiliated with the university, and whose businesses were specifically created to support its students.

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  Warren explained that he shouldn’t be alarmed if he felt a little sleepy at first. The tea’s plantworking promoted deep relaxation, which many people took for fatigue at first, but which should resolve into a sense of peace and wellbeing. Benji thanked Warren, shocked to find he was holding back tears. Warren obviously noticed, and gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

  “I meant it when I said you can take all the time you need,” Warren said. “Enjoy your chamomile.”

  As the curtain closed behind him, Benji sniffed away a couple tears. They were tears without any particular antecedent. They were based more on the accumulation of new experiences and uncertainties over the past few days than any one feeling.

  He cried a bit more, felt a bit better, cried again, and then he had some tea.

  If the god Varai themself had come down from their Seat of Knowledge in the clouds and told him he was a good person, that he was on the right path and could just take it easy for a while, it wouldn’t have done as much to set his mind at ease as this tea.

  The flavor was immaculate.

  The warmth filled his soul.

  The sensation in his hands brought him to life.

  And the chamomile’s soothing effects made him feel that everything would be okay.

  He’d brought a couple textbooks with him, but found he now understood that it was okay to spend a few moments not studying.

  A few minutes later, a head peeked around the curtain. When a second head appeared, he knew he was going to need a lot more soothing chamomile.

  Simon and Lucy didn’t wait for his invitation before swarming the table, Simon splaying out on the cushions next to Benji, and Lucy sitting cross-legged and very properly at the opposite end.

  “You didn’t tell us you were studying in here,” Lucy said. “Your study group is incomplete.”

  “I wasn’t aware I had signed up to keep you updated on all my movements.”

  “We’re a study group,” Simon said, “it’s what we do.”

  “Blood pact,” Lucy said, nodding seriously.

  “Delusion,” Benji said, nodding just as seriously.

  Simon, who had for reasons known only to him turned so he was upside-down with his head facing Benji and his long hair falling away from his face, removed something from his cloak pocket.

  “We have something to show you,” he said as he struggled back to an upright position, choosing to move in a full circle rather than just sitting straight up. It reminded Benji of the way a dog would maneuver around its own tail.

  “Is this fibbett-related?” Since giving the twins the attracter device, he’d intentionally avoided any reference to their experiments, except to remind them that the device was due back at OPMI after two weeks.

  “You’ll see.” Simon set the object, which turned out to be a tiny wicker basket, down on the table. Lucy opened the top with a flourish.

  It took considerable willpower for Benji not to recoil at the writhing mass within. The creatures inside had the alien aspect of insects moving together, churning over one another as if ordered to travel in the same direction, but getting nowhere as they moved in a single, sickening spiral. Individual fibbetts were not the most pleasant creatures to look at, with their protruding signal antennae on top, and layers of chitin forming a hard, gray shell. Each articulated leg moved separately, forming the mass into a roiling wave.

  “Aren’t they amazing?” Lucy said. Whatever she and Simon had been trying to do with the fibbetts, it had clearly worked.

  “What in Varai’s name did you do?”

  “It’s sort of just an escalation of the attracter,” Lucy explained. “If we can attract the fibbetts, we can also point the attraction in a specific direction.”

  “At least in theory,” Simon added. “There are still some kinks to work out. They keep toppling over each other.”

  Benji stared into the wave of insects, his stomach beginning to imitate their motion. “Do I need to be concerned about this?”

  “Only as much as you’re usually concerned about us,” Lucy said, closing the basket’s lid with a snap.

  “So I’m concerned a lot about this, got it.”

  Simon patted him on the arm. “You won’t need to be concerned until we figure out how to give the ‘Eat the Tall Man’ command.”

  Surely these little creatures couldn’t eat a person. Looking into the gleaming eyes of the two teenagers who he’d helped to control the fibbetts and were now looking at him with a disconcerting hunger, however, he thought it was probably best not to assume anything, and prepare for a carnivorous fibbett invasion.

  Before the conversation could go any further, Warren appeared outside the curtain, disapproval all over his face.

  “These tables are for tea drinkers,” he said. “Tea drinkers who are actually customers.”

  “Alright, alright,” Simon said, getting up and tugging his sister along behind him. She had stealthily tucked the basket into her bookbag.

  “We know when we’re not wanted,” Lucy said.

  “You’re welcome here,” Warren responded, his chilled tone suggesting there were serious stipulations tied to their welcome.

  Simon smiled. “There’s more to come. Enjoy your tea.”

  When they were gone, Warren leaned against the cubicle’s wall.

  “You know, my whole goal in making this shop was to give people a place to get away from it all, to escape whatever pressure they’re feeling at the university.”

  “It’s done exactly that, thank you,” Benji said.

  Warren’s stare followed the twins, long after they must have left his line of sight. “I have a feeling those two might be the ‘all’ people would be trying to get away from.”

  “You have no idea.”