Chapter 14 Time
TIME
Every minute matters.
Ivan Roe on the creation of the first Roe timepiece and its concentric minute hand
As the weeks pass, things get better and things get worse. The school is deeply exhausting; is relentlessly fun; is terrible and wonderful. Everyone is miserable; is exultant; is drowning.
Claudia has tried three times to enter the Realm of Nightmares on her own.
The first time, the Doorway wouldn’t appear no matter how hard she imagined it.
She tried again days later, and when the Doorway finally appeared, it wouldn’t let her through.
It burned her when she got too close. Once more she tried and got the farthest she ever had, but when she stepped through, she heard her father’s voice.
She smelled his blood, felt the heat of it sliding down her skin.
She couldn’t bring herself to face that nightmare again, and she woke up screaming.
She hasn’t tried again since. She won’t until she’s truly desperate.
Alistair has been very gracious by not only introducing her to cannabis from Scientia’s greenhouse but also splitting his stash with her so she can manage her stress levels.
This explains why all the Scientia students are so at peace all the time.
Claudia envies them, but at least they’re willing to share.
Since their first tea, Alistair and Claudia have followed suit every day, always avoiding small talk and jumping straight into what really matters: biggest dreams, deepest fears, and playing marry-fuck-kill with different people at the school.
Alistair’s dream is to develop a cure for every ailment: viruses, plague, even blindness.
In terms of deepest fears, he’s terrified of anything with too many holes in it (even tea strainers give him the creeps).
He would marry High Sage Triche (for the money), fuck Professor Raoul of Musices mastery (because the man has a beautiful voice and Alistair yearns to hear him sing his name), and kill Jeremiah Smith (his lab partner for Scientia mastery who hardly does any work and smells like cheese).
Alistair is still working on wooing Angel, but he won’t stop fiddling with his flowers.
The first blooms were too bright; the second, too soft.
Claudia has begged him to stop being such a perfectionist, for Angel would surely appreciate the gesture alone, but he won’t listen. Hopefully, the third time’s the charm.
She spends as much time as possible reading; in baths, under stars, during meals, and between classes, her face stays buried in a book.
Bishop hasn’t found any more pieces of Odette’s diary, and neither has Claudia.
She’s checked under floorboards, behind wallpaper, beneath furniture—nothing.
Nothing at all. Bishop doesn’t seem upset by the fruitless searches, though; he’s just happy to be hunting rats.
Outside of reading, smoking, and searching for secrets, her activities at Cygnus include indulgent bubble baths, stargazing, and regularly reassuring herself that killing her father was an act of defense, not murder.
The guilt following her father’s death ebbs and flows, but Claudia distracts herself with more and more books.
Anytime the bad thoughts creep in—the image of his burning body, the wet slap of his blood on her face, the metallic aftertaste of death that she can’t get out of her mouth no matter how much sugar she puts in her tea—she reads until they go away.
Her confidence in her academic skills has grown, but mostly, she only grows more and more aware of just how much work she needs to do to earn her place.
And on top of that, she has an entire galaxy to learn if she’s going to fulfill her bargain.
She knows she’ll get to where she needs to be; she just hopes she gets there sooner rather than later.
She had once believed that her dedication had peaked the moment she set her sights on conquering Cassius and earning the valedictorian’s blessing.
Then she received the grade on her paper from the first day of class.
Olivier kept her after the lecture and slid the paper face down across her desk. “This is not good.”
“What?” Claudia laughed, half expecting her professor to follow with something like “It’s better than good; it’s great!
” But that didn’t happen, and Claudia’s smile fell when she picked up the paper and turned it over.
The thing was covered in red gashes. It looked like a wounded soldier.
No, not wounded—fucking slaughtered. Blown up to red-penned bits and bloody pieces.
“What? No, it’s—no, no, it is good, isn’t it? It’s so lyrical and nuanced and—”
“It’s indulgent and unpracticed.”
A tiny piece of Claudia’s heart withered and rotted in a matter of seconds. She could feel herself dying inside while she tried her best to keep a straight face.
Professor Olivier took off her spectacles, and her eyes softened. “Claudia, do you know why Isocrates is not called the father of rhetoric despite the fact that he preceded Aristotle? He even taught rhetoric at the Lyceum, and yet we rarely study his work. Why do you think that is?”
She was too hurt to speak. She couldn’t even think. All she could do was stare at Olivier’s notes: PURPLE; MELODRAMATIC; ???; TOO FLOWERY; MISSING THE MARK; THIS IS A MALAPHOR; WRONG; ????????????????
Her vision blurred. Cold sweat dripped down her back. “I—I don’t know. I don’t—I didn’t—”
“Because he wrote like this,” Olivier said, pointing to Claudia’s paper. “He sacrificed clarity for complexity. He valued eccentric rhythm and ambitious structure over the integrity of the work.”
Claudia was close to passing out. She thought she might be sick.
This confirmed her greatest fear—that she was stupid.
Awful. Talentless. Worthless. Why was she even at Cygnus?
Why did she try to catch up to Cassius when her abilities were beyond help?
She wanted to take Olivier’s red pen and stab herself through the heart.
She wanted to die on the floor in front of her professor in a grand, gory way as punishment for both of them—her for being terrible, and her professor for pointing it out.
“This is what you must understand, Claudia. An argument is a translation of the idea. While every rhetorician’s desire remains the same—suadere, arguere, vincere; persuade, convince, and win—the skill lies in being able to take such vast abstractions and translate them for everyone while still honoring the divinity of the idea itself.
An idea is delicate. It can be killed on the tongue.
It can be speared with a pen.” Her serious face gave way to a smirk.
“Or, if translated perfectly, it can change the world for the better.” Gently, she took back the paper and set it down before grabbing Claudia’s trembling hands.
That was when the first tear fell, and Claudia wanted to rip out her own eyes and squeeze them until they burst into milky-white puddles.
Sniffling, she bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood.
It was all she could do to keep from collapsing.
“I know this doesn’t feel good, but it’s necessary for your growth.
You have to be able to create a lasting persuasion for someone—something both powerful and clear enough to ring true even in their memory, and even more so, when they explain it in less eloquent terms to someone else.
Whatever you write, it must make sense and be worth saying.
It can’t take up space for the sake of itself.
It must mean something. And next year, when we use linguistic magic to create argumentative spells, you must have total command over language or it will have a command over you. ”
The worst of the worst came the next day when she reread the paper and realized, to her horror, that it was, in fact, shit. At its heart, and in our hearts, goodness is something that we feel, and know, we are.
Good fucking gods, it was just… nonsense.
Utter nonsense. A spattering of purple words with no substance and no truth.
While it was promising that she could now see all the flaws of her previous work, she still wasn’t sure if she could fix them.
She was better than she used to be, sure, but was she finally good enough?
No. She knew she wasn’t. She wasn’t sure if she ever would be.
She spent the rest of that day crying in bed and wondering if she could fill her room with enough tears to drown herself.
But then she remembered Olivier had called her melodramatic, and she hated how her reaction was proving her professor right.
So she got up, wiped the tears from her face, and forced herself to get back to work.
And she’s worked nonstop every day since.
Claudia has become the master of her own focus.
It used to be the case that when she tried to sit down to write or study or create, the volume of her inner voice was too loud, and it was shouting things like This isn’t good enough!
You’re not good enough! This isn’t what you should be doing right now! You’re already doing it wrong!
Now she’s discovered the trick to turning that voice off and losing herself in the work completely: pain.
Nothing too intense or grotesque—often it’s something like holding her scarred palm too close to a burning candle while she reads, or laying her earrings on the floor, needle-up, and resting her feet on top of them, pushing down just enough to hurt but not quite enough to draw blood.
Whatever her method, it’s always something just strong enough to make her wince but gentle enough to be forgotten once her work becomes all-consuming.
She knows she’s doing well when she doesn’t feel anything, and she knows her focus is slipping when the pain creeps back in.
That’s when she takes a coffee break.
She wants her professors to treat her the same way they treat Cassius—constantly impressed, and never ever critical.
Why is he everyone’s favorite? He’s not always right.
Even though Claudia’s never seen him be wrong, she’s certain it’s happened.
Sometime. Somewhere. That’s what she tells herself, at least.
Destroying Cassius in class would feel good, but it would feel even better for him to be forced to admit that she is good. As good as him. Better, even. She needs him to have no choice but to validate and praise her, and she’ll do whatever it takes.
Alistair, Cassius, and Marcherie disappear some nights—all three of them, at the same time. More than once, Claudia has hunted for Alistair’s company and stopped by each one of their rooms to find them all empty.
She wonders where they go and why Alistair doesn’t fight to bring her with them, but everyone is entitled to their secrets, like her meetings with Professor Lamour.
So far, they’ve met three times, and Claudia has been memorizing the constellations in alphabetical order.
Andromeda, the princess, the sacrifice. Represents a trap, an unbreakable bond, or a curse.
Aquarius, the water bearer. Represents water, giving, and generosity, but known to be fickle.
According to Lamour, celestial witches have nearly drowned when incorrectly using a spell with Aquarius.
Aquila, the eagle—pride, hunger, flight.
And Aries, the ram—feminine rage, justice, and, for some reason, sleep.
Every night, she cuddles her snake, feeling nothing but warm, contented exhaustion. Every day, Olivier inspires her. Lamour teaches her. Alistair makes her laugh, and Cassius drives her to be better than she’s ever been.
Things are good.
And as long as she doesn’t get killed, they’re only going to get better.