Chapter 8 A Friend
A FRIEND
Cygnus’s curriculum was determined by which disciplines best facilitated the transformation of desire into magic. Other fields were explored, but they were too arcane, too unpredictable, and too often fatal.
Claudia marches into the Treaty with a stack of books and the determination to make a friend.
An enormous moonlike window sits at the peak of the tall arched wall, letting in splashes of white light from the overcast sky.
Dozens of students are seated at long wooden tables with steaming mugs and full plates before them.
Throughout the room, there are plenty of open seats.
The farthest corner of the room hosts the largest table, where eight Mathematica students argue over an impossible equation.
Claudia doesn’t want to sit there—she’s terrible at math and has nothing to contribute to the conversation.
The table to her right has a trio of Musices singers playing with a haunting arrangement of “Dies Irae.” The eerie dissonance gives her the shivers.
She wants to sit far enough away so she can’t hear them.
While she walks forward, everyone is staring at her with strange looks and pinched faces.
She looks down at herself. Is she wearing her robes wrong?
She makes eye contact with Marcherie, who is sitting across from Cassius; he won’t deign to look Claudia’s way.
Did the two of them poison the school against her?
They’ve probably shared their baseless theories that Claudia murdered Odette.
Or maybe everyone remembers the last time Claudia walked through this room, when she was dripping fresh hot blood.
There are myriad reasons no one is eagerly inviting her to sit with them.
Her arms are growing tired from the heavy books, so when a Scientia student looks up at her from the far corner of the room and gives her a polite smile, she rushes toward him. His brows knit with concern at her swift approach. He clutches his book to his chest as if afraid she’ll steal it.
She drops her books on the table and sits across from him, extending her hand. “Hi there. I’m Claudia Jolicoeur, the new Rhetoric student.”
His large brown eyes, lighter than his dark skin, glisten when he sits up straight. He doesn’t make direct eye contact, though. He looks just below, either at her nose or mouth—she can’t tell. Warily, he takes her hand. “Alistair Salone, Scientia.”
Scientia; that’s perfect. Alistair can teach her about… plants? Or potions? She doesn’t exactly know what the other majors are studying day to day. But she doesn’t need to know yet—she needs only to be eager to learn. “It’s lovely to meet you, friend.”
He retracts his hand. “Friend?”
She pats her stack of books. “Two scholars, one table, and a dozen volumes between them? That’s camaraderie if I’ve ever seen it.”
“But we don’t know each other,” he says with an awkward laugh.
“That’s what I’m here to remedy,” she says, beaming. He doesn’t smile back, but his brow furrows. At the very least, he’s intrigued.
Noticing that both of them are without any food or drink, Claudia says, “After the grueling class I just endured, I need a warm tea and a sweet treat. Would you like me to get you anything while I’m up?”
He shakes his head. Claudia nods and departs. Just before she’s out of earshot, Alistair says, “Wait.”
She turns. “Yes?”
With a sheepish grin, he holds up two fingers. “Make two teas, please.”
“Milk and sugar?”
“Lots.”
“See, Alistair? We have things in common already.”
The tea table is at the front of the room.
There are pitchers of hot water, cold milk, and golden honey.
Silver bowls of sugar guard the towers of tiny porcelain teacups precariously stacked upon one another.
Claudia pours their tea swiftly—both sweetened with three sugars and made blond with milk.
She balances each cup on its own matching saucer and slowly turns back toward her new—and only—friend.
Hovering above him like vultures are Cassius and Marcherie. They’re speaking in harsh whispers when Alistair raises his hands in defense.
Cassius says something and turns his back to Claudia. She can tell he’s angry when his fist clenches around the back of her chair. His knuckles blanch. Marcherie points back at Claudia, scowling.
It seems Marcherie decided upon Odette’s death that she would accuse and ostracize whoever took Odette’s place.
It has nothing to do with who Claudia is as a person, and she won’t let Marcherie win.
She’ll be so kind, so warm, and so godsdamned pleasant that she’ll force everyone to like her.
It’s just like back home when her father sullied her family’s reputation, and it was up to Claudia to uphold it while her father searched for her marital match.
She hates thinking of her father, hates the sour tang of guilt that always follows. Maybe her tea will make it go away.
Despite her rivals, she returns to her seat and carefully sets down Alistair’s tea in front of him. Looking up at Cassius and Marcherie, she politely asks, “Will you two be joining us?”
Marcherie laughs. “You and Alistair are not an ‘us.’”
Claudia holds up her cup. “We are for the duration of this tea. Isn’t that right, Alistair?”
He takes a sip and smiles. “Apparently so.”
“Lovely. So, as I said, would you like to join us?”
Marcherie turns her back to Claudia and crosses her arms over her small chest. “Alistair, you need to come with us.”
“I don’t need to do anything. Will the two of you please leave us? Our tea is getting cold.”
Cassius looks shocked. “Alistair, we’re not—”
“Cas, go.”
The pair look at each other, back at Alistair, then back to their empty table. Without another word, they go back to where they came from and take their seats.
Claudia doesn’t know why Alistair is choosing her company over theirs, but she’s in no position to question it. She gives them a saccharine smile and waves them away, sipping her tea victoriously. “Now, where were we?”
“Apologies for the interruption.” Alistair carefully places his cup back on the matching saucer. It clinks. “My friends felt it necessary to remind me that you are a murderer.”
A pang of guilt runs through her body, followed by a wave of calm when she realizes they’re talking about Odette’s death, not her father’s. No one knows about the person she killed—they only know about the one she didn’t. She grinds her teeth together. “I didn’t kill Odette.”
“I know,” he says calmly. They sit in silence for a moment.
“What happened to her?”
“She died of natural causes. It could’ve been a number of things. Most likely an aneurysm.”
“That sounds horrific.”
“It’s quick and painless. It can happen to anyone at any time in their sleep.
In fact, it’s most common in young women with high stress levels, and no one knew stress like Odette Dufort.
She was married to it. Even being relaxed would eventually stress her out.
” He looks at his friends across the room, then back at Claudia.
“It’s hard for them to accept the truth,” Alistair continues, “especially Marcherie. Cassius and I lost a dear friend, but Marcherie lost the future the two of them dreamed of.”
“I understand their grief,” Claudia says.
“I really do. I lost my mother when I was young, and I can’t help but think—” She thinks of the stars, of their warning.
She blinks tightly. “I’ll always feel like something about it was deeply wrong.
It’s simply not supposed to go that way, you know?
Young children shouldn’t bury their mothers.
And friends shouldn’t bury one another. It’s all wrong. ”
“That’s the thing about death, though, Claudia.
It’s natural, but orderless. It happens to everyone.
It’s science. See, we Scientia students work with Orteslux, God of Death and Flowers, so we understand death more than the others.
It’s the gift he grants. Some fourth-years have been able to peek past the veil to the afterlife.
We know with unshakable faith that there is something after death.
So, you see, I miss Odette deeply, but that doesn’t mean I need to analyze her death and pretend it was something unnatural.
I accept what happened. I’m grieving in my own way.
But speculating that she was murdered only makes everything worse.
I told them I’d rejoin them when they regained sanity.
” He sips his tea and seems suddenly aware of the tension in his body.
His shoulders relax and he cracks his neck.
“I’m truly sorry for your loss, Alistair.”
“I’m sorry for yours, too.” He takes her hands. He’s warm. He’s kind. He’s better than she hoped for when she stole a seat at his table.
“You’re quite nice, you know,” she says, smiling.
He smiles back. “Claudia, now that we’ve made each other’s acquaintance, there’s something I must tell you.”
“What is it?”
He gives her a sincere look like he’s about to confess a dark secret. Then, he licks his thumb and brings his hand to her face. “People are staring because you have ink on your nose.”
Oh.
Well, that’s embarrassing.
Alistair giggles while Claudia scrubs her face with the back of her hand.
“Did I get it all?”
“Not quite. Here, let me help,” he says, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket. Leaning closer, he cleans off her nose and smiles. “There. All gone.”
She snatches the spoon from her tea and uses it as a makeshift mirror. Her nose is rubbed raw, but it’s ink-free.
“Thanks,” she says. “I promise to do the same for you if you ever have ink on your nose, or food in your teeth, or a stain on your shirt, or anything of the sort.”
“I’d say that makes us great friends indeed. So, tell me more about yourself.”
“Well, I was born in—”
He waves away her words. “Skip all that.”
When Claudia’s visibly taken aback, he says, “I don’t mean to be cold. I just know that there are more interesting things to be discussed.”