Chapter 17 #2
Hmm, Julita says. Wendos is in the ‘bug club’—the entomology society. That was one of the various clubs we’ve noted that would also give the participant an excuse to go off campus and potentially conduct illicit rituals.
Well, that could be a useful connection—if Julita is right that Wendos has continued his scourgish ways.
I smile at Esmae. “Are you a member of any of those?”
She chuckles. “Oh, no, I just like to be aware of all the opportunities in my division.”
Julita makes a derisive sound. And she talked as if I’m a bootlicker.
“Does Torstem work on legal cases outside of the college?” I ask, pondering how a professor from the royal college would end up running into any street urchins to begin with.
“Not that I’ve heard about. But it’s possible.” Esmae knits her brow. “He seems fairly approachable. I’m sure if you told him about your uncle, he’d be happy to talk with you even though you’re not a student of his.”
That would be convenient if I actually had an uncle. But I’ve always been able to find out plenty of information without talking directly to my target before.
“I’ll have to do that,” I say as I poke my fork into another morsel of meat—
—and a slender arm slams into my shoulder.
An ample splash of red wine smacks the bodice of my gown, soaking through to my skin in an instant. I jerk around to find Anya dangling the errant glass from her fingers and holding her other hand to her lips in mock concern.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I can be so clumsy at the worst times.” Her gaze drops to my dress. “At least I’ve given you an excuse to find something better to wear to the ball.”
As her friends titter around her, she sashays off. I pull at the wet fabric and groan. The stain has already seeped through the pale gray silk all the way past my belt into the skirt.
Maybe I should be glad I don’t have to spend any more time wondering what my payback will be. And that it was the gray dress, not my favorite.
“She is such a beast sometimes,” Esmae mutters, dabbing at my side with her napkin and making a face. “Come on, there’s the washing room just over there. If we get some water on it quickly, the stain might not fully take.”
I let her hustle me over to the room off to the side of the dining hall that holds several latrine stalls and a few large sinks. It becomes obvious within less than a minute that no amount of water is going to stop my dress from looking like a piebald horse.
“It’s fine,” I say with a crooked smile. “There are few things I care about less than her ruining this gown. I’d rather not let her totally ruin my dinner.”
Esmae purses her lips, but she must be able to tell there’s no saving the dress anyway.
We’ll find a way to make Anya regret this some other time, Julita says, with a calculating note in her voice that makes me glad I’m the one in charge here.
As we hustle back to our table, I glance across the room. I don’t see Anya anywhere nearby, and Alek is either lost in the crowd now or gone back to his room with his food. I’ve lost track of Casimir too, but maybe that’s for the best.
Benedikt has arrived at a table a few over from ours. When our eyes momentarily lock, he twitches his eyebrow upward in either confusion or amusement.
I suppose I can fill him in on tonight’s adventures at the meeting tomorrow, if he’s concerned.
My delicious food is thankfully still warm. As I gulp down another mouthful, my mind turns over Anya’s very specific insult. “There’s a ball coming up?”
Esmae looks at me as if I’ve broken out in purple polka dots. “In two days. Haven’t you heard people talking about it? I’d have thought Stavros would have mentioned it. We have one every month, with everyone at the college invited—well, students and teaching staff, anyway.”
I decide not to tell her that barely anyone other than her talks to me at all, and when Stavros does, it’s mostly to inform me of my inadequacies. Maybe he doesn’t think I should go?
I can’t say a quiet night alone in his quarters sounds like a bad thing by comparison. He has a lot of books I haven’t read yet.
“I assume you’re going,” I say to Esmae, feeling the need to return her friendliness.
She nods, a dreamy smile crossing her face. “They’re really the most enjoyable part of being at the college. And sometimes staff from the palace attend too! It’s an excellent chance to mingle with them if you’re hoping they’ll look favorably on you at graduation.”
I swallow some more of the mystery meat that I’m increasingly certain must be goat. “Is that what you’re planning on—working at the palace?”
“I hope so.” Esmae ducks her head sheepishly. “That’s what I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember. I definitely have no interest in returning to my family’s county as the last of four heirs. And what could be grander than a position serving the royal family themselves?”
That would be pretty grand, if grand is your thing. My attention settles on her silk eye patch. It feels like she’s opened up enough that it’s safe to ask, “The dedication gift you asked for—is that something meant to serve members of the court?”
Esmae’s hand flutters to the patch’s strap. “Yes. I’m dedicated to Jurnus—I can send messages quickly across long distances. I thought that could be useful with military negotiations and trade and all sorts of things.”
“I’d imagine so,” I say honestly. It’s a good gift, and an appropriate one from the godlen who oversees both communication and travel, but it’s not of much use to her if she doesn’t land the job. She must be incredibly committed to have made so large a sacrifice.
She peers at me with her remaining eye. “What’s your gift, Ivy? You’re obviously interested in the military arts—did you dedicate to Sabrelle?”
I open my mouth, sorting through my options of just how extensively I want to lie, and a strange sensation washes over me.
It’s not the intense dizziness I felt before when Julita tried to take over—more a lightheadedness, as if my skull is detaching from the rest of my body. Kind of like the first time I discovered pub cider and downed three glasses far too close together.
A giggle spills from my lips. I’m not sure what’s funny, but the whole world is going topsy turvy. That’s pretty hilarious.
Esmae’s forehead has furrowed. “Are you all right?”
A cold streak of fear cuts through my unbalanced state. My body sways, and I can’t seem to hold my spine rigid.
What’s happened to me?
“I think—possibly not,” I manage to say, clamping my hand against the table for balance. My plate rattles.
My plate, nearly cleared of food. Food that I left unmonitored for a few minutes after Anya drenched me with wine.
A fucking beast indeed. Did she sprinkle some kind of powdered drug over it?
It might not even have been her. Romild could have seen me leave and made use of the opportunity too.
I definitely have too many enemies here for someone who’s only been at the school for a matter of days.
Whatever drug I’ve ingested, its effects are still escalating. My vision blurs and doubles and then simply wobbles around like a pond someone’s dropped a stone into. I’m somehow losing my grip on the table even though neither it nor I are going anywhere.
Esmae mutters a not particularly ladylike curse and scrambles to her feet. “That terror. If we could prove she poisoned you—this is an attack.”
I laugh. Bubbles are tickling up from my gut all the way to my throat. “Not poison. Doesn’t hurt. I just feel… like everything’s floating in circles.”
Whoever did this, were they hoping I’d make a fool of myself in front of the dining hall? Say or do something that would call into question my position as Stavros’s assistant?
I sway backward and nearly upend my chair. As the legs rap back onto the floor, Esmae tugs me onto my feet.
I stumble, trying to get my bearings, knowing the floor is flat but feeling as if it’s bobbing like a badly constructed dock.
There’s a flash of gold at the corner of my vision. Two Benedikts—no, it’s just one—no, wait, now there’s three of them overlapping as they all lean against the neighboring table.
“She looks like she hit the wine a little too hard. Or did they put something extra special in that curry?”
He keeps his tone droll, but he must be concerned, or he wouldn’t have risked coming over at all. The bubbles turn warm with gratitude, and suddenly I’m grinning.
“I think Anya put something in her food,” Esmae says in a low voice. “I’m going to bring her back to her room.”
“Aww, and deprive us of the possible entertainment?” Benedikt teases, but his tone goes just slightly serious when he adds, “I’ve heard she’s staying in Stavros’s quarters.”
The bastard’s bastard is playing the same joker as always but conveying the important information at the same time. Julita picked pretty well with him too.
I try to say so, but all I manage to do is giggle uncontrollably. I wobble along with Esmae out into the hall and over to the stairwell.
“Never had food that fancy,” I remark, and burst into more laughter.
Esmae shakes her head. “You’ll have to be careful. Who knows what she’ll try next time.”
She pauses, gripping my elbow as I maneuver my unsteady feet up the stairs. “Julita’s been gone an awfully long time now. Anya obviously had it in for her too. You haven’t heard from her at all?”
Does she think Anya offed her? For some reason, that idea makes me laugh too.
Anya in a dirty Slaughterwell alley knifing someone. I could more easily picture her flying to the moon.
“Don’t know,” I mumble. “She’s been quiet.”
She’s being very quiet right now. Maybe she can’t speak through the haze in my head?
“I hope no one here hurt her. Even a drug like this at the wrong time… Did she say anything at all about what trouble she might have gotten into or what she was up to?”
I’m not supposed to talk about that, but it’s hard to remember what’s true and what’s acceptable conversation. I stick to simplicity. “No. No. No idea.”
Esmae drags in a breath and helps me around the landing. The railing feels slick under my sweating palm, but I think my balance is getting a little better?
It’s a good thing I was talking to my friend here while I was eating, or I’d have ingested even more of the drug before I realized something was wrong.
A giddy smile curves my lips. I’m about to tell Esmae how wonderful she is when a shriek rings out from above us.
Esmae’s eyes widen. She freezes, looking torn between fleeing and seeing what’s going on, so I make the decision for her.
If there’s trouble here at the college, that’s exactly what I’m looking for.
I propel myself forward, clambering with an occasional hand braced against the steps up to the next floor. Esmae catches up with me just as I shove into the hallway.
I stop in my tracks, shocked into something close to sobriety.
Several students are flattened against the walls or their doors, staring at the wreckage on the floor. And it is a wreckage—several marble busts of prominent former professors that were set on display pillars along the hall have been hurled to the floor and smashed to smithereens.
A couple of the students are bleeding, one guy clutching a scratch on his cheek and another a cut on his forearm.
“Gods above,” Esmae says. “What happened?”
“It must have been a daimon,” the guy gripping his arm says. “Something just blasted down the hall, flinging the statues around.”
A woman swings her head, peering through the hall. “Is it gone? Is it finished?”
Another student shudders where she’s crouched by her door. “They just keep getting worse. Why aren’t the staff doing something to stop them?”
Because they don’t know why it’s happening. Because there’s terrible magic.
Some of it’s in me.
If the gods do look down, if the gods see—
We have to fix this.
My power heaves through my chest, determined to whisk all the statues back into their proper forms and places so no divine figures can get angry. I only manage to suppress it by throwing myself down as if I’ve lost my balance.
I smack into the floor, and the external pain sharpens my mind. I hug myself, holding in my magic.
And the backlash wrenches through me like I’m swallowing several shards of broken marble.
At my gasp, Esmae ducks down beside me. “Ivy! Great God help me. I should get a medic.”
“I’ll be okay,” I rasp out. “Just… just want to get back to my room.”
Possibly I should be thanking Anya, or Romild, for giving me an excuse for this sudden fit. Esmae thinks it’s just part of the drug’s effect.
But as she helps me back to my feet through the spiraling ache, one thought peals through my scattered mind.
I can’t go on like this.