7. Chapter 7 Study Hall #3
They talked about Renvaya's lecture that morning. Corvath gave his assessment of the Tessaro-Aldessi dispute.
"Tessaro was correct about the categorical framework's elegance," he said. "He was wrong about everything else. Aldessi was unpleasant and right. History tends to prefer unpleasant and right over pleasant and wrong, which is why most faculty meetings are depressing."
"You've attended faculty meetings?" Tesslyn said.
"I've attended rooms where decisions were made by committees. The species involved varied. The experience did not."
Tesslyn had been sketching while they talked. She angled the notebook when Corvath asked. The current sketch was the window at the east wall, the afternoon light rendered in cross-hatching, the sill and frame drawn with an architect's sense of proportion.
"The window," she said. "I draw whatever's in front of me."
"You draw well."
"It's busy work. Not anything serious."
Corvath studied the drawing for longer than the dismissal deserved.
"It's not busy work," he said. "It's good, and you know it's good, and saying otherwise doesn't change what it is. I have decided that you are one of my favorite people at this academy."
Tesslyn went still. The quill stopped.
"People rarely call me out," she said.
"People are polite. I'm a cat. My species isn’t known for hiding feelings."
She rubbed Corvath’s head. “Be that as it may, you are one of my favorite creatures here as well.”
Corvath purred. “Oh, that is so nice.”
The afternoon moved. Tesslyn asked about the Gallen reading, and Corvath interjected with a commentary on ward architecture, and Tesslyn fired back with a question about junction mechanics that made Corvath's ears rotate forward.
They went back and forth, and Lucien sat between them as the exchange developed its own rhythm.
"Your secondary anchor approach," Corvath said to Tesslyn, "is the most original piece of ward design I've seen from a student at this institution."
"You've been here for only part of a semester."
"I've been observing ward design for longer than you'd believe."
"How long?"
"Longer than you'd believe," he said again. "The split-function framework addresses a problem that most ward specialists treat as unsolvable. You didn't accept the conventional wisdom. You built around it."
Tesslyn's color rose.
"Lucien helped. I can’t take all the credit," she said.
"Lucien pointed you at the problem. You solved it. Don’t give him too much credit, my dear."
Her eyes went to Lucien. He gave her nothing, which was the right thing to give her. Corvath was right. The framework was hers.
"That's fair," she said, and the words came quiet and aimed at herself rather than at either of them.
The light through the east windows had gone the color of honey.
It lay across the tables in long diagonals that would be gone in twenty minutes, and dust moved through the bars in slow turns.
The room was almost empty now. Two students remained at a far table, heads together, whispering over a shared text.
Everyone else had gone to dinner or training or wherever students went when the day's obligations were met.
Corvath's eyes were half-closed. He sat in his loaf between two open notebooks, tail hanging over the edge, ears still pointed at Tesslyn even as the rest of him settled toward sleep.
The sun had found the exact angle that put a bar of gold across his spot, and the light lay across his black fur and turned the edges copper.
Tesslyn closed her notebook. She didn't put it away. She rested both hands on the cover and sat with them there, fingers splayed across the surface, the quill back in her hair and already listing.
"Same time next time?" asked Tesslyn as she looked at Lucien.
"Yes, same time. I had fun today."
“Me too. You’re a good guy, Lucien. Liora is a lucky girl.”
She gathered her things without hurrying. The notebook went into her bag. The loose pages followed, the reference text stacked on top. She stood, pushed her chair in, and paused with one hand on the strap.
Her gaze dropped to Corvath.
"I'm glad you're all right," she said.
Corvath opened one gold eye.
"I appreciate the concern," he said. "And the drawing. Though I'm told my left ear sits slightly higher than you rendered it. An artistic liberty I'm prepared to forgive."
She smiled. The unguarded version, present and quick. She slung her bag over her shoulder and walked toward the door.
The door closed behind her.
Corvath opened the other eye.
"She'll be important to you." He spoke through the bond this time, and the words landed private and certain. "I’m very smitten by her. She is beautiful and kind."
Lucien didn't answer but he agreed with the black cat. He sat in a room that smelled like ink and old paper and warm stone, and light moved on the floor, and dust turned slowly in the bars of sun that came through the east-facing windows.
The quill that Tesslyn had forgotten sat between his notebooks. She'd left it when she put the last one back. A slim wooden quill with ink dried along the nib.
Lucien looked forward to giving it back to her.