Chapter 47
Talisa
I drew the folded notes out of my pocket and slid them across her desk. Elio echoed my action. Julissa spared them a single dismissive glance before continuing.
“I’m going to investigate those with opportunity, Miss Bernswick.
Starting with that scholarship student who cleans the halls and bathrooms. What’s her name, again?
Alara? She’s penniless, and she had both the means and the opportunity to help herself to your belongings while you were in class.
” Her tone suggested she was explaining something very simple to someone very slow. “Unless you have a better suspect?”
I knew who’d done it. The expensive notepaper. Lukhan’s smirk and needling remarks. And how the thief had targeted only our Aurelian Champions prizes while leaving our other belongings untouched.
“Assistant Chatelaine,” I said carefully, “last night at the victory banquet, there were comments from aristocratic students about how Elio and I didn’t deserve to win.
How the Ascendant Platform supposedly malfunctioned.
How our victory was a fluke.” I paused. “These notes were slipped under my door this morning, expressing the same sentiments. Which means that someone who could afford this kind of notepaper came to my rooms in the Western Tower.”
She looked down at the notepaper squares on her desk in the same way one might look at something unpleasant that had been dropped on a clean floor.
“Many of our students were disappointed by the outcome of the Trials, Miss Bernswick. Disappointment sometimes expresses itself… intemperately despite good breeding.” She pushed the notes gently to the side of her desk, as if distancing herself from their contents.
“These may be unkind. But they are not evidence of theft.”
“But given the context—the public resentment, the timing—wouldn’t it make sense to widen the scope of the investigation?” Elio demanded. “To include those students who were so vocal about our victory being undeserved?”
Julissa stiffened, and I saw a flash of outrage before she controlled her expression.
“Mr. Ferraro.” She enunciated each word as if she were speaking to a child, or a foreigner.
“What you are suggesting—that I question members of noble houses, without a shred of evidence linking them to this theft, based solely on their expressed opinions about the outcome of the Trials—is a grave insult to the honor of your betters. Not only that, but it would likely make everyone feel they could no longer freely express controversial or disagreeable opinions. Which runs counter to everything this academy stands for.”
She paused for a long moment, then smiled thinly.
“I understand you are both upset about the loss of your awards.” She reached into a drawer and withdrew a small ledger bound in red leather. “This isn’t the first time that awards have regrettably been misplaced. We can commission replacements if you wish.”
I felt a flicker of hope mixed with wariness. “That would be very much appreciated, Assistant Chatelaine.”
“Of course.” Her smile widened, raising alarm bells inside me as she flipped through the ledger.
“The replacement fee for your Stole of Aurelian Merit is fifteen aurei. A new Champion’s Badge costs twelve.
And for the Finalist pin, eight aurei. That brings the total replacement cost for your lost items to, ah, thirty-five aurei. Each.”
I drew an outraged breath. Thirty-five aurei! That was more than a half-year’s earnings for a fisher or farm worker back home.
Elio said something in fluid Espolan that earned him a severe frown from Julissa. “We don’t tolerate that kind of language here, Mr. Ferraro.”
He scowled and switched back to Capitolan. “That’s ridiculous!”
I chose my words carefully. “That amount seems excessive, Assistant Chatelaine.”
“Not for quality items like these,” she said, her tone smug. “The sum reflects the cost of the materials and the craftsmanship.” Her smile vanished. “So, I take that both of you decline to replace your missing items?”
I nodded. Elio snorted.
“Well, that’s a shame, but I’m sure people like you have to keep a sharp eye on every denarius and copper,” she said, her tone openly dismissive now. “Will there be anything else, Miss Bernswick? Mr. Ferraro?”
We walked out of her office smarting from the renewed reminder that the academy would never protect us from aristocrats like Lukhan FitzMurad.
“Get ready for a performance,” Elio muttered as we left the building.
“Mark my words, Julissa will use this as an opportunity to intimidate the members of our circle before making a solemn pronouncement about the challenges of allowing commoners to attend this hellhole. We’re never going to see our awards again. ”
I hoped he was wrong, but I feared he wasn’t.
I could see it now: an implication, carefully worded, that commoners stole from each other.
That our Circle of the Open Hand was a nest of thieves and opportunists.
That the real problem wasn’t the theft, but that people like us could attend the academy and threaten aristocratic notions of superiority.
Despite Chatelaine Lirelle’s gracious behavior at the victory banquet last night, it was becoming clear that the academy’s administration resented our victory. They had wanted Cresta and Bernardo to win. That would have affirmed the myth of aristocratic excellence.
But we had disappointed those expectations. And now, Assistant Chatelaine Julissa would make sure we paid for it.
∞∞∞
That night, students packed the Western Tower’s common room, sitting cross-legged on the threadbare carpet, perching on the wide stone windowsills with their knees drawn up to their chins, crowding the benches at the study tables.
The air was thick with outrage and nervous excitement and the smells of too many bodies in too small a space.
Elio was pacing in front of the fireplace, his academic gown swirling around his legs with each turn, his hands opening and closing at his sides as if he wanted to wrap them around something and squeeze until it broke.
The bruises on his face had swollen and darkened to a violent purple, giving his handsome face a lopsided, battered look that suited his mood perfectly.
“They took everything,” he was telling the assembled crowd as Mira, Juno, and I squeezed in. His voice was rough with anger. “Our Stoles of Aurelian Merit. The finalists’ pins. Our Champion’s Badges. They knew exactly what they were looking for.”
He stopped pacing and faced the room. Every eye was on him. Dante leaned forward on the bench, his broad shoulders tense. Mavia’s dark eyes tracked Elio’s movements with focused intensity. Alara was practically vibrating, her coppery curls bouncing with each indignant shift of her weight.
“Assistant Chatelaine Julissa blamed Talisa and me because we leave our doors unlocked, just like everyone else here. Because we trust each other. That’s what you do when you’re in a place where no one else gives a damn whether we live or die.”
The anger rolling off him was palpable.
“Damned right we trust each other!” someone shouted.
“We all know who did it, right?” Dante called.
More shouts answered him, listing off the names of the worst bullies:
“Lord Lukhan!”
“Lady Beatrix Fairhaven!”
“Lady Helene Morgrave!”
“Lord Ormond and his cousin Lord Henri Montplaisir!”
“Lady Cresta and Lord Bernardo!”
“Ethmond Valens!” That last cry came from Alara, his favorite victim.
“Well, guess what?” Elio asked sarcastically once the shouts had died down.
“Julissa doesn’t intend to question any of those fine blue-bloods.
No, she told us that her investigation is going to focus only on us commoners.
She’s going to be questioning everyone on our floor, starting with Alara here because she works as our cleaner. ”
The room erupted in a fresh wave of outrage. Alara’s face blanched, and I saw tears welling up in her eyes. “But I’m no thief!”
“We know it’s bullshit,” Dante declared flatly. “Absolute bullshit. Julissa just wants to cover for her pets.”
“Of course she does,” Mavia agreed. Her hands were clenched into fists on her knees. “She wanted Cresta to win. Everyone knows she had serious money riding on the outcome.”
Everyone but me, I thought wryly, trading a glance with Elio.
“Did you know?” I mouthed.
He shook his head.
“Everyone on the staff wanted Cresta and Bernardo to win,” Varrix said. “Except Mage-Instructor Mundise, Mage-Healer Arsinoe and maybe Mage-Instructor Ilaria.”
“And the clerks at the Office of the Bursar,” I said. “One of them told me he and his fellow clerks were rooting for us.”
“Not that it does us any good with their bosses dead set on protecting the aristocrats here,” Elio said.
Varrix pushed his spectacles up his nose and said, “In truth, the chances that the thief or thieves were commoner students approach zero. None of us has a motive. The pins, badges, and stoles might be expensive, but they’re technically academy property.
Any commoner who tries to pawn them in the city would be arrested on the spot.
The only real value they have is symbolic.
And the only people who care about commoners wearing those symbols are the same ones who want us all gone from this academy. ”
The room fell silent as people looked at each other and nodded. Varrix had a way of cutting straight to the bone of a thing.
Elio stopped pacing. He planted his feet shoulder-width apart and swept the room with a fierce gaze.
“We need to stop being surprised that Assistant Chatelaine Julissa won’t help us,” he said.
“That’s the first thing. Chatelaine Lirelle will never override her, no matter how unfairly Julissa treats us.
She and the others care only about protecting the aristocrats.
So if we want protection, we have to do it ourselves. ”
I’d never seen him like this, speaking to a room full of people who hung on every word.
“The Circle of the Open Hand started as a study group.” He gestured at the packed room, the intent faces.
“But that’s not enough anymore. Not if all we do is meet twice a week and complain about how unfair everything is.
We need structure. We need resources. We need ways to protect each other that don’t depend on people who’ve been clear that they’d prefer us to leave and transfer to one of the provincial imperial academies. ”
He was right.
“I have a proposal,” I said.
Every head turned toward me.
“First, we create a sibling system.” The words came out steadier than I felt.
“We pair older students with younger ones. Not just for studying, like we’re doing now, but for everything.
Second- and third-year students adopt the first-years like siblings.
Make sure they’re eating. And that they have warm clothes for winter.
Make sure none of them are being isolated or targeted without someone noticing and reporting it. ”
I was thinking like a village healer, the way Mama had taught me. It was easier to prevent illness by ensuring that everyone was warm, safe, and fed than it was to treat an outbreak of sweating sickness or plague ravaging the weak and starving.
Looking around the crowded room, I saw most were smiling and nodding in agreement.
I continued: “Second, we share our resources. Let’s create a ledger—” I glanced at Elio, who nodded.
“—listing the things we have to spare. Books. Notes. Boots. Winter cloaks. Things like that. If someone in the Circle is missing something they need, they come to Elio or me, and we’ll know who to ask for help.
From this day forward, no one in the Circle of the Open Hand goes without what they need because they don’t have the funds or they’re too scared to admit they need help. ”
I stopped because everyone was clapping now. When the applause died away, I resumed speaking.
“Third—and this is the hardest part. We need to document what’s happening to us.
Every theft, every threat, every time someone’s deliberately tripped in a corridor or their notes are destroyed before an exam.
We write it down. We keep records. We make our complaints in writing every time something happens.
Because right now, the bad things are happening in the shadows where the chatelaine and her assistant chatelaines can pretend not to notice. ”
The room was silent as people traded skeptical looks. I could hear the fire crackling in the hearth, the soft creaks of the old building settling around us, and the distant sound of wind sweeping through the campus.
Then Varrix said, “I’ll keep the records for the third-years. I know most of them already.”
“I can pair up the ‘siblings,’” Alara said immediately. “I know everyone in this building. And I hear all the gossip. I know who’ll get along and who dislikes whom.”
“I can be an ‘auntie’ to the first-years,” Mavia said. “If they need a listening ear. And I can offer advice about the best way to do things at the academy, and who to talk to.”
One by one, the older members of the Circle of the Open Hand volunteered for various roles.
We spent the rest of the evening assigning tasks and responsibilities and discussing the structure of our new organization.
The energy in the room shifted from outrage to the determination of people who had made a collective choice to resist injustice and oppression.
The meeting was breaking up when Mavia stood. “Wait! There’s one more thing.”
She crossed to where Elio and I stood and, without ceremony, pinned a circle of braided gold ribbon with a dried laurel leaf to the collar of my academic gown. Then she did the same for Elio.
“It doesn’t matter what they took,” she declared, her voice carrying to every corner of the common room. “You’re still the Aurelian Trials champions. Our champions, and they can’t steal that away from you!”
As the common room erupted in cheers and applause, tears rose in my eyes and everything went blurry. I touched the ribbon—lighter than the badge had been, but somehow infinitely more solid.
Elio’s hand found mine. His fingers were warm and steady, and when I looked at him, his eyes shone with something other than rage.
“They believe in us,” I murmured. “We can’t let them down.”