Chapter 13 #2
“Excellent headway,” Emrys says. “I'm confident that the brainpower in here will get us through cataloging and into analysis in no time.”
Personally, I feel less confident about that, but I don't say anything. Kingston, for his part, nods, tidies his stacks against the desk, and leaves them there.
“I assume it's all right if I…”
“Yes, please,” Emrys finishes for him, gesturing at the desk. “I've no other classes this semester. You may quarter yourself in here however you like.” He looks to me.
“Fuel on that fire,” he says. “If you'll forgive the choice of metaphor, don't exhaust yourself, Ms. Vale.”
I hold the strap of my bag protectively. “I'm not.” Again, I look at Kingston. “I have to…”
He's coming with me, I guess, assuming his shift is still on. But he's just looking at Emrys.
“I won’t be in class for Candlemas week,” he informs us. No—informs Emrys. “I’ll need to leave early at least one day.”
“Oh.” Emrys’s eyes widen. “Yes, yes. Very well. We’ll…catch you up, somehow. But the advance notice is appreciated.”
Kingston nods. Then he looks to me. “Gwenna.”
I straighten my shoulders, almost subconsciously. Present, I want to retort. But don’t.
“Lanz should be here,” Kingston goes on. “Outside. He'll see you through until evening.”
“Oh,” I say. Not disappointed. Not…anything, I guess.
Not even a little surprised. That’s for sure.
Nodding, I bundle up, step out of the classroom, and my first day back at Caliburn as a student is over.
The important parts, anyway.
The rest of the week passes in much the same way.
I wake up to Callahan. I walk to my first classes.
I see Lanz or Kai or Kingston, depending on where they have to be and what they have to learn—or teach, I guess, in Kai's case, though I have no idea if he’s TA-ing this semester—and I float between the library and my suite with Morgan.
I catch up on classwork pretty quickly, mostly because studying, keeping my head down and in a book, is the easiest way to pretend that things are normal, that I don't have a little shadow that goes in and out with me everywhere I step on campus.
When I study, I'm just another second-semester first year student, turning pages, taking notes, preparing for essays.
My ear for Middle French catches on quickly enough once I get used to the spelling—sort of like switching to the complete works of Chaucer when you've only read basic modern English of The Michelangelo Matrix—and I find I actually enjoy the intricacies of Celtic metalwork, not that I've ever given much thought to blacksmithing.
And when I'm not in class, or reading or writing, I'm still with them.
I start to notice their different habits.
Callahan speaks very rarely, but is polite when he does and keeps that exact distance, like he's measured it.
Lanz is all over the place, but gradually settles, doesn't jump to my side all the time, even if his head is on a permanent swivel. Kai glowers, avoids make eye contact, shows up late, leaves early. Doesn't ask how I am, ask what I’m doing or where I’m going, or even look at me except to track my movements.
That hurts. It still hurts. But I make myself get used to it. I make myself accept it for what it is.
And Kingston?
Kingston is dutiful. That's what he always is.
That's all he ever is, I guess. He stands up when I enter rooms. He acknowledges my presence, asks normal-person polite questions to break the ice, speaks up if there’s something he needs to share in class.
He doesn't ignore me and he doesn’t hover over me.
But he doesn't really engage with me either.
Admittedly there's not much opportunity for it in Emrys’s class, not while we're still doing all of this reading, this consuming and cataloging, but still, it's remarkable how long three hours can feel with someone when neither of you speaks.
And yet agonizingly long as those class periods can feel, I find a sharp sense of disappointment when we're done.
For the work, I think. The reading, the texts.
It's hard to leave them behind. Hard to stop when I’d probably keep going until my body gave out once I’m really immersed.
That first week alone, we work our way through the foundational Christian texts: Latin, almost exclusively, with just a dash or two of interposed Greek; Church fathers, commentators, saints, Aquinas and Augustine and Ambrose and Abelard.
Translate, annotate, catalog, next. Translate, annotate, catalog, next.
Read and write and read and write and read.
Outside of class, living with Morgan is exactly like it used to be, but…
more. She still keeps her strange hours, still dresses extravagantly, and leaves things everywhere and in every condition.
She hogs the bathroom, I now know, since we're sharing an individual one, and has more hairstyling equipment than I've ever seen outside of a salon.
But even that little bit of normalcy is nice.
She lets me shuffle through her tarot decks, swing her pendulums around, and even offered to let me borrow some jewelry, which I politely declined, since I'm really not in the mood to be flashy in any sense of the word.
The only thing that feels truly weird is mealtimes.
I skip breakfast because I've never really been a morning person and coffee is all I need.
Lunch I usually make do with some rations I can keep in my bag.
Dinner…at first, I submitted to going to the dining hall.
But it was so awkward, wandering around with a tray and some sharp-eyed massive boy behind me who isn't eating because he's going back to his own private chef at Camlann House, that by the time I found a place to sit I didn’t have an appetite for anything.
So I stop trying. Protein bars in my room. Scrounge up things with Morgan. Coffee, always coffee.
And so the week goes. I am watched, constantly, consistently.
I feel their eyes tracking me across quads, through doorways, up staircases: Callahan's careful distance, Lanz's nervous hovering, Kai's willful deliberate avoidance that somehow still keeps me in his peripheral vision, Kingston's dutiful… presence.
Four of them to keep me safe.
Whether I like it or not.