Chapter 31 – — Aldric Family Record, Sealed Archive #2
It makes me a little uncomfortable that he’s taken such an interest in me, but something about Nestor has always seemed kind. I don’t get the same feeling from him I get from the headmaster.
“That’s disappointing. Maybe you’d recognize my mother’s name. Someone at the local tavern thought I was her, and I found out she studied corrupted polar bears here before I was born. I don’t know if she went to Ashwell, but anything’s possible. Her name is Helena Raven.”
He clears his throat and pushes his spectacles further up on his nose.
“Helena Raven.”
“Yes, sir. Have you heard the name?”
He narrows his eyes slightly. “It doesn’t ring a bell, but I’ll look into it for you.” He presses his hands to his knees and stands. “Now let’s get started before the others get restless next door.”
I force a smile and nod, noting how quickly he wanted to be off the subject of my mother.
“This room is shielded,” he says. “The walls are warded against current bleed. What happens here won’t be felt outside it. Use as much of yourself as you need. I won’t assess you on restraint.”
I scrunch my eyebrows. “But I don’t know how to use current.”
“That doesn’t mean Poppy can’t.”
He has me there. I’m constantly learning new things about her and this bond.
“Six objects have been placed in this room. Some are visible. Some aren’t. Some emit smells, and some have texture you’d only notice if you ran your fingers along them. Some are emitting a sound. The exercise is to identify all six through your eidolon’s senses only.”
I open my mouth to ask half a dozen follow-up questions.
He hushes me before any of them get out.
“You’ll be in here.” He opens the closet door beside the gurneys. There’s a single chair inside with a pen and a stack of parchment on the seat. “Poppy stays out with me. Begin when you’re ready. Write down whatever you can. Knock on the door when you’re done.”
I look at Poppy.
She is sitting on her haunches next to the bench, her round dark eyes tracking the closet door with what looks suspiciously like amusement.
“Be good,” I tell her.
She chitters at me, and I step inside.
The door closes behind me, and I’m swallowed by the dark except for a thin sliver of light under the door, just enough to see the parchment and the pen on the chair.
The closet smells like old wood and dust and the faint medicinal tang of whatever Nestor stores in here when it isn’t being used as a sensory chamber.
I sit down. I’m not sure where to begin, so I close my eyes.
I reach for her.
I have been reaching for Poppy since the Mirror Ceremony. The bond opens. It isn’t a door anymore. It hasn’t been a door for weeks. It’s a wide room with no walls, and Poppy is at the center of it, and the moment I step inside, she lifts her face to me and offers everything.
Her senses flood mine.
I feel the exam room through her. The faint dried-herb scent of Nestor’s coat.
The residue of cleaning solution on the stone floor.
A thin sweet trace in the air that doesn’t belong in a windowless room.
The metallic tang of the door hinge. The slow steady rhythm of Nestor’s breathing beside her.
A muffled hum from the lecture hall on the other side of the wall.
A small scratching sound from inside the cabinet to her right.
She turns her head, and the room turns with her.
I can see what she sees. The cabinets, the counter, the gurneys folded against the wall. Sharper at the edges than my own vision. It’s too much, and my head begins to throb.
Poppy is calm, waiting for me. I try to focus again and picture her.
I pick up the pen and write what I smell, what I hear, what I taste through her, what her hands feel as she pads across the floor of the exam room. I write quickly. It feels less like solving a test and more like taking dictation from a friend.
When I finish, I have six items on the parchment.
I open my eyes.
I knock on the door.
The door opens.
Nestor is standing exactly where I left him. Poppy is on the bench. He looks at me.
“How many.”
“Six.”
He extends his hand.
I give him the parchment.
He reads it. Without speaking, he crosses to the cabinet on the right side of the room. He opens it, lifts out a tin from the top shelf, and shakes it. A small scuffling sound rises from inside. He sets it back on the shelf.
He bends, runs his hand under the bench Poppy is sitting on, and pulls out a small wooden block fastened with two iron nails and sets it on the counter.
He turns to a high shelf above the gurneys and lifts down a small dish.
The water in it catches the light. He pulls a piece of red velvet from behind the leg of his chair.
He opens the top-right drawer of the cabinet on the other side of the room and lifts out a glass vial, half full of a dark liquid.
He sets each object on the counter as he goes.
When he is done, he looks up.
His eyes track to the ceiling above the cabinet behind his chair.
The spider is exactly where Poppy showed me it was.
He lowers his eyes to her.
“Miss Rose.”
“Yes, Professor.”
“I have administered this exercise for twenty-one years.”
“Yes,” I say nervously.
“In twenty-one years, three students have identified all six objects. None of them did it in under three minutes.”
I don’t know what to say. He didn’t give me any context before, and I didn’t think it was that hard. Maybe I should have taken longer. I peek over at Poppy, but she’s calm while I am a mess of nerves.
He sets the parchment down on the counter beside the objects. He removes his spectacles and folds them and looks at me without them. His eyes are sharper than I have ever seen them.
“Miss Rose, what are you?”
I chew on the inside of my cheek having no idea how to answer that.
“I don’t know, sir.”
He looks at me for a long beat.
“I believe you,” he says quietly. “That doesn’t change the fact that you are something.”
“Please don’t tell anyone.”
He looks at me for a long moment. The neutrality of his face hasn’t shifted, but something behind his eyes has gone thoughtful.
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Take your eidolon and go back to the lecture hall. Elizabeth can send the next student in.”
I lift Poppy up. She comes to me without resistance and I tuck her into the crook of my elbow and turn for the door.
“Miss Rose.”
I pause.
“Helena Raven.”
He is watching me. The careful neutrality is back. Whatever flickered at the back of his eyes a few minutes ago has been put away.
“I’ll be looking into it. If anything comes back to me, I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
I release a pent-up breath and find my seat next to Lux again.
Draven turns to look back at me, his eyebrows furrowed.
I quickly look away.
“So how was it?” Lux asks.
“It was good. Primm will do great. You’ll be great.”
She smiles and pulls her pink hair to one side.
“So I was thinking, what if you wore a silvery-light-blue dress for the ball. I think it would really make your eyes pop, and it would look good with your hair.”
I sigh. “Sure, I think that sounds nice.”
Malric enters the room, he and Elizabeth whisper to each other for a moment. Then they both look over at me.
“Maelis, gather your things, please. You’re needed in the patient wards. It’s Cael.”