Chapter 17
Seventeen
Are you absolutely sure? Julita asks for approximately the millionth time.
I frown at my sallow reflection in the mirror as if I can see her through my light blue eyes.
“Yes. That motion the boy made—it’s a thing the kids on the fringes pick up from each other.
A little appeal for safety and mercy when they’re too wary to show the full three-fingered tap.
I’ve never seen a merchant or anyone from the middle wards use it, let alone a noble. ”
My ghostly passenger stirs restlessly as I pin back a few strands of hair that escaped the formal loops during my trek through the city. I haven’t seen it either. But I would have thought it was just a random nervous gesture.
“Because you haven’t seen it before to recognize it.
No one who’s normally here would have—the college wants even the cleaning and cooking staff to have middle-ward manners.
” I stalk back into the main room of Stavros’s quarters.
“You said the professor he was with is Ster. Torstem. Have you seen him bring that kid around before?”
I can’t remember. Like I told you, it’s hardly unusual.
“What do you know about Torstem?”
He teaches law for the leadership division. I’d have had a class with him next year… Julita trails off and then seems to gather herself. I hadn’t paid much attention to him other than that. He doesn’t draw much attention.
“Hmm.” I pace the room a few times, and my stomach gurgles. Which gives me the perfect inspiration for my next move. “Other people here will know more about him. And it’s just coming on supper time. Let’s see if I can find a good conversational partner in the dining hall.”
Even if it is strange, whatever Ster. Torstem is doing, it isn’t necessarily connected to the scourge sorcerers, Julita points out as I head down the hall. Plenty of other unfortunate things go on here.
“I’ve already seen that,” I mutter. “But it’s not as if we have any other leads to follow up on just yet.”
Stepping through the broad doorway with its carvings of Prospira’s and Ardone’s sigils—recognizing that food is both a bounty and a pleasure—I automatically tense up. The dining hall has become a place of both delight and dread for me.
Delight because of the skillfully simmered and roasted dishes that give off scrumptious scents into the vast space.
Dread because I’m in the same vicinity as more of the rich pricks who attend this place than anywhere else.
I pause off to the side of the door to assess my options. Most of the wide sprawl of stone-tiled floor holds circular tables that can seat as many as eight—ten if the nobles deign to squish.
Nearly two thirds of those are already full. I’ve caught the start of the dinner rush.
High up on the righthand wall, a shimmering magical display lists the evening’s options. Beneath it, students have queued to grab plates of their chosen entrees and accompaniments from various counters open to the kitchen through low openings in the wall.
Well, some of them have queued. I’m just swallowing saliva from my watering mouth and deciding I should start with food before interrogating when Anya and a cluster of her associates sweep straight up to one of the nearest counters, totally ignoring the line.
I have a second to notice Alek among the few students at the head of the queue there, the polished leather of his mask catching the light of the crystal chandeliers overhead. Then Anya flicks her fingers, and a blazing glow explodes in the students’ midst.
I jump about a foot off the ground in shock, my hand yanking straight to the folds of silk skirt that conceal the knife strapped to my left thigh. But the glow fades an instant later with a few pained gasps.
The students who’d been at the counter stumble away. Alek is wincing and swiping at his eyes.
“Make a little room, weirdie,” Anya sneers at him, sauntering into the space the other students cleared.
She narrows her eyes at a woman who was there too and bats at the other student’s long hair to briefly expose a strip of scar where her ear should have been.
“I don’t know why they let the failures in to begin with. ”
That girl gave up both her ears and didn’t even get a gift, Julita informs me with a horrified shudder I can feel. My gut knots.
It’s always a risk making a sacrifice. If the godlen you’re appealing to decides you’re asking for more than you’ve offered or that your intentions are dishonest, they can refuse.
But of course, you can’t reattach whatever you’ve already chopped off or pulled out.
Anya clearly got a gift of her own, whatever that trick with the light is meant to be. She lifts a plate off the counter, swivels around, and catches me glaring at her.
Her lips curve in disdain. She raises her voice to carry across the ten feet between us. “What are you looking at?”
I shouldn’t say anything at all. I should drop my gaze and walk away as if I’m not seething.
I’ve already got enough potential enemies in this place.
But my instincts react to the direct question before I can rein them in. My mouth pops open, my answer just as loud. “Nothing much, obviously.”
Several gazes jerk our way. Alek stares at me, probably cursing me out in his head for making a scene, as if she didn’t deserve it for shoving him around.
While Anya bristles, I raise my chin and convince my feet to get moving as if I’ve got better things to do than listen to her response.
Which I do. My stomach is gnawing on itself now, and who knows when I’ll ever get to dig into food this fine after I’ve left the college for good?
My heart thuds a little faster as I weave through the crowd, but Anya’s dignity saves me from having her chase me down hurling insults. I’m sure I’ll pay for the jab some other way in the future, but future-me can deal with that.
Supposedly the gift she asked for was simply to light things up, Julita says.
I’ve heard she gave up several toes and wears special shoes to compensate.
She wants to marry some prominent provint or baron, and maybe she figured a wife who could give him a divine glow would be an excellent selling point.
But somewhere in the past several years, she figured out that she could make the light intense enough to be painful.
And she uses it to skip the dinner line. Why am I not surprised? That’s probably the biggest concern Anya faces in her entire day.
One of the counters near the back of the room has barely any line at all. I grab a plate off that one, figuring whatever’s unpopular with nobles still has to beat fringe scroungings by a mile.
When I scan the tables, the first person my gaze catches on is one I can’t go chat with. Casimir isn’t likely to know much about the professors from the other divisions anyway, I’d imagine.
Unless Ster. Torstem has a taste for courtesans.
I realize abruptly that the man who stirred up so many feelings in me this afternoon has two plates in front of him.
It looks like he’s dutifully cutting the slab of meat on one into bite-sized pieces…
while the nobleman next to him strokes his shoulder, eyeing him like he’s a delectable slab of meat.
Julita chuckles. His patrons do ask to be spoiled in the most childish ways sometimes. I think the men are even worse for it than the women.
My stomach flips over. What else is Casimir going to do for his current patron after dinner?
I yank my eyes away. It’s not as if he hasn’t mentioned that he’s already taking on work in his chosen field.
It’s not as if I’m idiot enough to think I could pursue even a proper friendship with him, let alone more.
So the idea of how much he’d offer to people who aren’t me definitely doesn’t leave a lingering wobble in my gut. That can’t be anything but my hunger catching up with me.
Where else can I sit?
I notice Romild, the woman who wanted the job as Stavros’s assistant, glowering at me like her eyes could fling daggers at me. I’ll give that table a wide berth.
Oh, there’s Esmae, wandering between the seats with her own plate deciding on a spot. She glances over at the same moment and waves for me to join her.
She’s in the leadership division too—and she’s the only person here outside of Julita’s men who’s been at all welcoming. She might know a thing or two about Torstem.
We settle into seats at one end of a table while the three women already eating at the other side continue chatting away as if we’re not there.
“What did you do to Anya?” Esmae asks. “People are talking as if she’s about to declare war.”
I snort and wield my fork. “I said a grand total of three words. After she’d already done a damned sight worse to a few people simply for being where she wanted to be.”
Esmae grimaces. “She doesn’t usually push things very far. People find it easier not to raise a fuss.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I grumble, and pop a bite of the uncertain meat and creamy sauce into my mouth.
Then it takes me several seconds to remember what I actually wanted to talk to Esmae about, because everyone in this room is a nitwit for lining up elsewhere—this dish is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.
When I drag myself out of the daze of my unrefined tastes, I glance over at Esmae, who’s picking at her own meal much more daintily than I am. I adjust my grip on my fork to the politest possible angle. “Have you had any classes with Ster. Torstem?”
Esmae cocks her head thoughtfully as she chews. “Not so far. He mainly teaches the senior students. Why?”
I shrug as if it’s not all that important to me. “I recognized the name—I think one of my uncles back home went to school with him. Figured I’d let him know what his old schoolmate is up to these days. Does he do much around the school other than teach?”
“He runs a few different student organizations,” Esmae says immediately, so clearly I came to the right person. “The mock trials confederate, the Silanian-Icarian brotherhood, and the bug club.” She wrinkles her nose.