Chapter 16 #2
“Hot breakfast is offered daily between five fifteen and six. Dinner is served precisely at seven. Lunches are cold and should be taken at your leisure. Breakfast is optional, though I suggest you don’t skip it, as training shall prove quite rigorous.
Dinner, however, is mandatory for all initiates during the initial semester.
After that, you may take dinner elsewhere on the grounds—though, of course, food is not permitted in the library or the classrooms.”
Under different circumstances, this would be exactly what Audra had always dreamed of. A new place, no one to worry about but herself, and the chance to attend a university. Yet, this was not her dream—this was a twisted nightmare, and the price of failing was being sent to a violent death.
They reentered the grand hall, where a few more initiates milled about, their shocked faces probably reflecting Audra’s as they trailed behind their own opinantes.
Next, Twyla showed her the library, allowing Audra only a fleeting glimpse of vaulted ceilings, sweeping shelves, cabinets full of curiosities, and row upon row of books.
The sight ignited something within her, a faint pulse of raw energy, the first sensation beyond the cold, the terror, the suffocating numbness since she had disembarked the ship.
A strange, almost perverse giddiness bloomed within her chest as she saw the endless rows of books and scrolls, all meticulously ordered, all waiting to reveal their secrets.
Audra wished to stop the tour right then—let her scour the library; she would drink in the knowledge like nectar, licking every last drop until every question she’d ever had was answered, and finally, finally her mind could quiet—it could still, unburdened by queries and endless “what ifs.”
But Twyla let the door slam shut, her butter yellow acolyte gown fluttering as she flitted away.
Onward with the tour.
On this same floor were private study rooms, washrooms—where Twyla proudly demonstrated: the press of a button, a turn of a knob, and the water flowed hot, as though piped straight from a hot spring.
And then the Archmagistra’s office, whose closed door was adorned with a golden nameplate shimmering in the lamplight.
Upstairs on the second floor were classrooms, a small theater, a dance hall, a museum, and a room filled with freshly polished instruments. Audra barely had time to inhale the heady scent of wood polish before Twyla was off once more.
Twyla paused at the bottom of a wide staircase.
“Dormitories and the observatory are on the third floor … someone should be arriving soon with … Oh, there they are.” Another acolyte, this one younger than Twyla with the rosy cheeks and sparse-toothed grin of a child, ran up to Twyla and handed her a folded note.
Twyla thanked her and waited until the girl raced away to find the next opinante before she opened it.
She barely had to take a breath to read it before she smiled. “The results are in: Arcane Guild.”
Arcane Guild? She was in the Arcane Guild? What did that mean for her? What were the other guilds? If Twyla were smiling, did this mean Arcane was a good designation?
Twyla’s grin widened at Audra’s weary expression.
“This way.”
She turned away from the ornate staircase and hurried, her slippered feet pattering farther down the hall until they came upon a round window beside a narrow iron staircase. Audra craned her neck backward before following Twyla up the spiral staircase.
“Arcane Guild resides up here,” remarked Twyla with a singsong voice.
The heavy oak door creaked as she pushed it open, its hinges groaning in protest against the intrusion.
Audra hesitated on the threshold, the scent of parchment and woodsmoke thick in the air.
Dust motes danced in the shafts of fading sunlight that slanted through the arched windows, illuminating a cavernous residence hall.
Two stories high, the room was lined with towering bookshelves that disappeared into the gloom of the vaulted ceiling.
Leather-bound volumes, their spines cracked and faded with age, filled every shelf, their titles promising a wealth of lore and arcane knowledge.
A massive stone fireplace dominated one wall, its mantle carved with grotesque gargoyles and busts of veiled priestesses of old.
Embers blazed within, the softly crackling fire casting wavering light that played across the worn rugs and threadbare velvet armchairs scattered about the room.
A chill clung to the stone walls despite the warmth emanating from the fireplace.
Audra shivered, pulling her coat tighter around herself.
A long oak table, scarred with the marks of countless ink spills and dripping candle wax, stretched down the center of the room.
Audra imagined that if this were a normal academy, the mismatched chairs would have been crowded with students hunched over open books.
Above the rustling of turning pages, they might converse in hushed tones, debating philosophical points or deciphering ancient texts.
A grand staircase, its banister polished smooth by generations of hands, swept upward, leading to the dormitories.
Twyla and Audra ascended, their footsteps echoing on the stairs.
The dormitories were made up of a long, dimly lit hall lined with open doors, each leading to a room with twin wooden beds.
Small desks holding empty scrolls, unopened inkpots, and quills were pressed to the walls.
At the end of each bed sat a pair of squat matching trunks.
Were they truly going to attend this … academy as simple students? This was all so bizarre, Audra felt as if she were walking in a haze, that nothing was truly substantial, real.
“You may pick any room on the right,” Twyla said, her voice hushed.
Audra nodded and chose the room they’d stopped by. “This one seems fine.”
She walked into the room, still feeling as though she were in a trance.
She chose the bed farthest from the door, the one with the only window in the room set in the stone directly above it.
She reached out and clutched the quilt between thumb and finger, rubbing the material, needing to feel something, to prove that this was all real, because she had the strangest sensation that at some point, the cold had gotten to her and she’d succumbed to frostbite.
She dropped the quilt and ran a finger over the brass clasp on the trunk. Cold. Hard. Real.
“What’s in these?”
“Take a look. I helped fill them,” Twyla answered as she lit the candelabra on Audra’s desk with a box of matches procured from a desk drawer.
The trunk whined as she lifted the heavy lid.
“Go ahead, you can look through it. It’s all for you.”