Chapter 31 Orteslux
ORTESLUX
Orteslux grants the gift of faith. Guardian of the veil between life and death, he hears the prayers of scholars asking for assurance when confronting the unknown.
In the evening, Claudia descends to the underbelly of the school beneath the Scientia wing.
The detention room is called the white room because it’s made out of bones.
Only animal bones, according to Alistair, who gave Claudia a special tonic for surviving her time down here.
Apparently, the place is rich with the magic of Orteslux, Scientia’s god of death and flowers.
It’s meant to evoke the sense of dying—not in a physical sense but an existential one.
It reminds students of their own mortality, how close they always are to the end.
The dread begins the moment they enter and ceases the second they leave.
“I think we’re at the level where I can tell you this story now,” Alistair said back when Claudia told him about detention.
“That damn room is the reason they call me Bones. Triche threw me in for three hours after he caught me smoking inside the greenhouse. A fire hazard, he said. Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly sober upon entry, and I was starving.
That made the whole effect worse. I lost my mind a little bit. ”
Claudia leaned in. “What did you do?”
Looking down, he said, “Remember how I said the room is made of bones? Well… it’s possible I may have eaten some fish bones that were part of the floor.”
“You ate floor bones?!”
“Claud, I was high and my body convinced me I was dying. I went into survival mode.”
“Still.” She shivered, then smiled. “You ate dirty old fish bones.”
He groaned. “Yes. I ate dirty old fish bones. I was picking them out of my teeth for days.” He shuddered at the memory, running his tongue over his teeth. “They’re very tiny, you know.”
Claudia then rolled the vial of black tonic in her hand. “So this is to ensure I don’t eat dirty—”
“—old fish bones, yes.”
“All right. Well, thank you very much, Bones.”
He rolled his eyes. “You’re welcome, Star Girl.”
Now, sitting centered in the white room like a beating heart in a rib cage, Claudia chugs Alis’s tonic and waits for the existential dread to ebb. There’s nothing in here to distract from it, save for the quiet ticking clock on the wall behind her.
Her vision is glassy and blurred as she surveys the room. Sitting closely together, there are two chairs with flimsy desks attached, but the rest of the room is vast and empty. It makes her feel like a dead body waiting to be examined by a coroner.
Mostly, though, she’s not thinking about her own death. She’s thinking about Cassius’s.
One month. Technically less than a month now that it’s been a week since the stars gave her that fatal message. At this point, she has no idea how she’s going to save Cassius, or if it’s even a possibility.
How will it happen? A fall? A slit throat? Will he, like Odette, simply not wake up?
She looks up at the clock—definitely not a Roe timepiece, for the arms are made from chicken feet—and wonders where Cassius is. He was supposed to arrive five minutes ago.
Maybe Triche forgave him and rescinded his punishment. Maybe all is forgiven and the High Sage will help Cassius break his curse, and that will be enough to save his life.
Just as the tonic takes effect and hope sparks in her chest, Cassius walks in. His face falls the moment he steps through the bone-lined door.
“Fuck,” he says with a sigh, looking around the large, bare room. “It’s worse than I thought it would be.” He drops his bag beside the desk across from Claudia.
“You’ve never been in here before?”
“Of course not. I’ve never been on anyone’s bad side until you came along.” He grabs his desk and pulls it far away from Claudia. Once satisfied with the distance, he sinks into his seat, relaxing against the chair’s tall back.
Claudia exhales sharply through her nose. “You cannot hold me solely responsible for being here.”
“Triche seems to think otherwise. That’s why I’m late. He was telling me to remember that every wave of sickening dread I’d experience in this room was because of you.”
“Well, he’s wrong.” She scoffs, pointing her finger at him. “You tricked me into becoming Iphigenia. You begged me to speak to Dolericym for you, and you agreed to go to the observatory with me. We’re equally to blame.”
“And yet this,” he says, gesturing to the room, “is your sole punishment, while mine is the loss of an entire future.”
If only he knew the truth. If only she could tell him. All she can say is “You have no idea what you’re talking about. That night cost me a lot, too.”
“Like what?”
She wrestles with what she should or shouldn’t say. “Let’s just say you’re not the only one who angered their mentor by breaking the rules.”
“Olivier?”
She nods even though she’s talking about Lamour.
She has to let Cassius make assumptions.
She can’t tell him the whole truth. “And, of course, now I have the High Sage looming over me, waiting to expel me if I make one wrong move.” She buries her face in her hands and releases a frustrated groan.
Looking up at Cassius, she asks, “Triche truly isn’t going to help you break your curse anymore? ”
His jaw clenches, his gaze fixed forward. “He said he would, under one condition.” Without moving his head, his eyes slide to Claudia.
“What’s the condition?”
“That I don’t speak to you anymore after today.”
Her heart slows. They stare at each other for a long time.
Claudia nervously fidgets with her fingernails. Her voice is quiet when she asks, “What are you going to do?”
He sighs, head rolling back. “I don’t know yet.” Rubbing his temples, Cassius says, “This room isn’t helping me figure it out. I feel like I’m dying.”
You are, she thinks, but she swallows down those words.
For half an hour, they don’t speak, and the tonic is already beginning to wane.
She can feel seconds of her life falling away, gathering at the bottom of some cosmic hourglass.
When she first met Alistair, he said that people have a limited number of breaths in this life, and they should not waste them.
He must’ve come up with that in here, sometime between entering and licking bones from the floor.
Claudia understands him now. When one is forced to acknowledge the fleeting and fragile nature of human existence, it inspires this bone-deep emotional urgency.
Time is running out. Every action is important because everything is impermanent; they will die—Cassius first—and anything left undone or unsaid will be their own fault.
Claudia yearns to unburden herself from all the secrets she’s been holding back.
She wants Cassius to see her, to know all of her, and she wants the same from him before it’s too late.
But confessing everything to him would be its own surrender—an acceptance that she cannot save him. And despite this dread-stained room, there’s a deep-rooted, stubborn, relentless part of her that refuses to give up.
She looks over at Cassius to find that he’s already looking at her.
His lips part as their eyes meet. “How are you feeling?”
She clears her throat. “Like a complete and total fool who’s ruined everything good in life.”
Nodding knowingly, he says, “Well, we only have half an hour left. That’ll go away once we leave.”
She shakes her head, looking around at the walls of bones. “I felt that way before I came in here.” Looking at him sincerely, she says, “While I do feel that we’re both to blame, I am truly sorry for bringing you to the observatory and getting you in such big trouble with Triche. I feel awful.”
His gaze softens. “You’re right,” he says.
“I know we’re both responsible. I’m sorry, too.
It’s one thing for me to be watched closely by Triche—I’m used to it.
But you shouldn’t have to deal with this scrutiny.
You’ve more than proven yourself a worthy scholar, and I don’t like how he’s punishing you as a means to punish me. ”
“It’s fine. I deserve to be punished.” It feels like all of this—everything bad—is her fault.
“Not like this. Not by him,” Cassius says, scowling.
A strained laugh escapes her. “No, not by him.” Her face turns serious. “But maybe by someone else.”
Their eyes meet.
Silence blooms between them, tense and tempting. Cassius licks his lips while Claudia bites hers. She sits up straight. Does Cassius want to play? Here? Now? Claudia certainly does. A bit of pain and a bite of pleasure would be a welcome distraction from all this existential dread.
She needs him to leave a mark on her, if only to make his existence meaningful in a lasting, tangible way.
Neither of them can look away from the other.
“You know what I want, don’t you?”
“Say it,” Cassius says quietly, his body still as stone, as if he fears one wrong move could destroy the moment.
Her breath catches. “I want to be punished.” She slips out from her chair and stands beside her desk. He mirrors her movements, now standing across from her, still out of reach. Tension heats the air.
Slowly, she turns her back to him and grips the edge of her desk on either side.
This is exactly what she planned to ask for after their date, but they never made it back to his room.
This desire has been burning under her skin since the first time she got on her knees for him.
Over her shoulder, she says, “I want you to give me what you promised.”
He strides toward her and slides his hand around her waist, pulling her body into his. “Say it clearly.” His sharp jaw scrapes her ear. “Tell me exactly what you need.”
She arches her back. “I want you to spank me, Cassius.”
He stiffens against her. For a moment, Claudia worries she’s said the wrong thing and made everything worse than it already is. Her breathing becomes heavy. Cassius runs his hand up her body and gently drags his fingers across her jaw, turning her face to meet his.
“Place your elbows on the desk.”