Chapter 12 Rivals
RIVALS
It is the rival, not the lover, that elicits our strongest passions.
Professor Erasmus Wright, Cygnus Discipline of Mathematica
Over the course of the following week, Claudia attempts to change Lamour’s mind with a thesis.
It’s a collection of everything she already knows about the stars.
Every constellation she’s memorized during trips to the Wanderer’s Wonders.
Everything her mother ever told her about the cosmos, and even more, everything she ever overheard her mother whispering.
Showing Professor Lamour that she already has a foundation might encourage him to teach her.
This thesis is a cleaner, longer, and more academic version of her application essay—much less emotional fluff, much more substantial theories.
She still speaks of her mother’s death, but only to describe the event that formed her hypothesis that the stars control everyone’s fate.
She works on this piece day and night. It consumes her every waking thought.
On days she manages over four thousand words, she grants herself a whole four hours of sleep.
Otherwise, she gets two hours, and when she wakes up, she’s reliant on the unlimited coffee in the Treaty.
She’s sworn to herself that she will not attempt to return to the Realm of Nightmares until she’s convinced Lamour to teach her celestial magic. Otherwise, she’ll have no good news to report to Dorian, and she’ll be no closer to setting him free.
She’s been secretly watching Cassius for days: following him to the library, peering over his shoulder in class, and prodding Alistair for any information that might help her best him. It feels a bit like she’s losing her mind, like what Plato describes in the Phaedrus. But it’s worth it.
If ignorance is bliss, intelligence is madness.
Claudia will choose the latter every time.
The following week, on the way out of class, Claudia drops her completed work onto Lamour’s desk, face down: “On Celestial Studies: How the Cosmos Can Illuminate the Path to Purpose and Desire.” Cassius comes up behind her as she walks out of the room.
“What was that, Star Girl?”
“What was what?” she asks without slowing down, without looking at his face.
“That dissertation you just gave to Lamour. An apologia for your misdeeds? Perhaps a murder confession?”
Her hands curl into fists at her sides. “No. I had nothing to do with Odette.” She speeds up. “It’s none of your concern. Stop following me.”
He catches her wrist and stops her, pulling her around to face him. His stormy blue eyes narrow. “You’re the one who has been following me.”
“I have not,” she lies.
“You think I haven’t seen you? It’s like every time I turn a book back in at the Caedleian, you’re right behind me to take it out.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.
” She’s never right behind him in the Caedleian—that’s a total exaggeration.
In fact, she has sweet-talked the librarian, Mr. Flowers, and now they have a whole system in place—whenever Cassius returns a book, Mr. Flowers doesn’t put it back on the shelves; he saves it for Claudia so she can ensure she’s reading exactly what her rival is reading.
She stops by twice a week to claim her haul.
Now, the Lexora is a different story. She hasn’t had the same luck with that librarian—Mrs. Winters.
The woman wants nothing but silence. That’s Claudia’s Achilles’ heel: people who genuinely don’t like to talk.
Their conversations have been one-sided and fruitless, so Claudia has had to watch Cassius closely in order to stick to his reading regimen.
She really thought he hadn’t noticed her. As far as she knew, he had been making every effort to pretend she didn’t exist.
“If you wanted a reading list, you could’ve tried asking,” he says.
She rolls her eyes. “Please. You wouldn’t help me if I crawled on my knees and begged.”
A wave of students rushes past them. He smirks. “Try it and find out.”
She shoulders past him with a grunt. “I’ll save my breath.”
The next day, she arrives at Professor Olivier’s class before Cassius, and there’s a paper face down on his side of their desk. She glances over her shoulder and around the room before sneaking a peek at what he’s working on.
Claudia, Claudia, ever naughtier. I knew you couldn’t resist the temptation to read this. Your obsession knows no bounds.
She groans. His attentiveness is ruining her plan.
When she first decided to model her studies after him, she never expected him to take any notice.
He refuses to look at her in class. He doesn’t speak to her in the Treaty.
He shoulders her in the hallways as if he truly can’t see her when she’s standing right in front of him.
Why is she snagging his eye now? And how can she use that to her advantage?
Dipping her quill into their inkwell, she writes below:
It’s not an obsession, MacLeod. It’s a rivalry.
He laughs when he sits down and reads it, but they don’t speak.
The next day, another note is waiting on her desk.
You will never win in a rivalry with me, but I’ll enjoy watching you try.
She writes back:
Doubt me all you want. I perform best when I have something to prove.
In the middle of Olivier’s lecture, he writes back:
Well, lucky you; you have yet to prove anything.
Seething while he snickers next to her, she responds:
I’ve proven that I can distract you. Right now, you’re not paying attention to the lecture. You’re not thinking about anything but me.
Olivier confiscates Cassius’s response, so Claudia has no idea what he said. She gives herself permission to pretend she got the last word. This is the first of hopefully many victories.
The more Claudia studies, the more confident she becomes in class. She’s raising her hand, answering questions, and loudly questioning answers from others—especially anything Cassius says.
It doesn’t always work out well. For instance, earlier today, Cassius said that Plato’s theory of the souls was “worth deliberation.”
“Plato says deliberation is guesswork,” Claudia fired back.
“He certainly does not.”
A jolt of excitement ran through her body. She was right and she knew it, and there’s nothing more exciting than starting an argument you know you’ll win. “Yes, he does.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Yes,” she hissed. “He does.” She pulled out her book of Plato’s dialogues and flipped to the Sisyphus, which she’d annotated. “Right here, Plato writes—”
Cassius didn’t even look. “No, he does not.”
She was about to throw the book at his head. “It’s literally right here in my hand! I’ve underlined it and everything!”
“I’m not negating the object in your hand.
I’m negating your assertion of Plato’s authorship.
Yes, the dialogue exists. Yes, in the dialogue, Socrates and Sisyphus, king of Corinth, discuss what little control humans have over fate, and how our deliberations cannot change what must come to pass.
But—” He takes the book from her hand and flips to the useless pages in the beginning.
(An Introduction in nonfiction is just an opportunity for an author to posture, and Claudia always skips it, along with any prologues in fiction.
Just get to the damn point, right?) Cassius continues with, “It’s since been proven that Plato did not actually write the dialogue, and you would know that if you took the time to read the foreword and new introduction, but clearly, you thought yourself bright enough to skip crucial content of the work. ”
Claudia snatched the book from his hands and read the line he pointed to.
While we elected to include the Sisyphus in this collection, it is widely known that it was, in fact, authored by one of Plato’s pupils, and it was not—
Claudia looked up at him, stammering. He was so smug. She wanted to claw that expression off his face.
He tsked. “Never skip the foreword, Jolicoeur. Unless, of course, you enjoy making a fool of yourself. You’re quite good at it.”
The students behind them whispered to one another:
“They’ll never stop fighting.”
“We should put them in an arena.”
“I don’t care who wins, I just want them to SHUT UP.”
This is their routine in every class—even though Lamour’s class is mostly hours sanctioned for quiet writing, they still manage to argue there.
Cassius turns his papers too loud, Claudia drums her nails on the desk too hard, and neither of them is paying attention to the actual work; they’re too focused on disrupting each other’s concentration at the cost of their own.
Olivier has shot warning glances at them when they get too rowdy, and they both pretend that their ruckus is solely the other person’s fault.
Claudia’s plan is working, though. She’s getting better, and she’s making Cassius worse. If she keeps this up, it’s only a matter of time before she comes out on top.
The valedictorian’s blessing will be hers. She can almost taste it.
Days later, Lamour asks Claudia to stay after class, and her heart is nearly bursting with hope. He must’ve read her paper. He must’ve changed his mind.
When the room clears, she beams at him. “So? Will you help me?”
He sighs. “You’ve impressed me, but I’m afraid—”
She cuts him off with, “If you turn me away, I will just come back harder. I can’t let this go. If the first paper wasn’t enough, I’ll write a hundred more. If writing isn’t enough, I’ll do something else. Just tell me what it will take and I’ll do it, but I’m not taking no for an answer.”
Lamour stares at her for a long time. “My answer is still no.”
Rage rises in her body. “No?” she says through gritted teeth.