Chapter 17
“For your midterm projects,” says Dr. Infix the following week, handing a stack of papers to the head TA, “you will be dividing into groups of two or three to research a linguistic subject of your choice.”
I try not to watch as Daerios’s long arms flex while passing me the stack.
“Your results should not be delivered in the form of an essay. Movies, songs, or comic books are preferable.”
Comic books?
I sigh, taking a paper from the top and passing the stack to Berendir. Of course Infix wants a fucking cartoon. Remind me again why I chose this major?
Infix fancies himself to be not-your-typical professor.
As a “fun” way to end lecture each week, he does live translations to the phonetic alphabet on the board.
Anyone is welcome to call out a suggestion.
Daerios and Berendir are his top participants.
Past suggestions include: blow me (bl?? mi?), please butter my muffin (pli?z ?b?t? ma? ?m?f?n), and the prince is a pompous dickhole (e? pr?ns ?z ? ?p?mp?s d?kh??l).
If Infix recognizes that we aren’t taking the translations seriously, he doesn’t show it.
With only a few minutes left in the lecture, the professor starts the exercise as the assignment papers make their way through the crowd. Someone in the back row calls out a suggestion, and Dr. Infix turns to the blackboard to write.
While everyone else distracted, I tear a scrap of paper from my notebook and scrawl “partners?” in messy graphite. Then, before I can second-guess myself, I ball it up and toss it at Daerios.
It bounces off his cloak and lands on his lap. He glances up and, finding the professor translating huge knockers on the blackboard with painful precision (answer: hju?? ?n?k?z), quietly unwraps the note. With one quick look at the question, he glances at me and grins.
“Yes,” he mouths.
I slide down in my chair. I tell myself I asked him because he’s my best chance to get more answers about the elves’ weakness. I try to believe it.
That night, I invite Daerios over to brainstorm project ideas and write up the proposal together.
We could easily meet in Lamont Library, which stays open twenty-four hours a day, but I tell him I don’t want to fight with others for the private rooms, as we’ll need to discuss in a regular tone of voice. His response:
UNKNOWN: Your voice DOES tend to run on the louder side of obnoxious.
I roll my eyes. I still haven’t saved his number.
I’m about to put my phone down when it buzzes again.
UNKNOWN: I’m bringing donuts.
And again.
UNKNOWN:
He’s due over at 8 p.m. so I spend the hour before flitting about the common room, straightening things, then re-straightening them when I forget I’ve already done it once.
Cara watches the entire thing while leaning against her doorframe, arms crossed, eyes sparkling beneath her bleached pixie cut.
She’s wearing a light blue robe and fuzzy slippers.
“Someone’s nervous,” she says after I rearrange the leaves of our plant for the third time.
“I am not,” I snap, tugging the stems as if they might somehow shift in the soil.
“Tell me something.” She moves from her left shoulder to her right. “If you’re Daerios’s partner, then who the hell agreed to work with Berendir?”
I pause, grinning over at her and mimicking her tone. “Someone’s jealous.”
She shrugs. “It’s not like that. Me and Ber—we just get each other. I told you: we’re friends.”
“For now.” I wink and dart through the doorframe into my bedroom, frantically picking articles of clothing off the ground. “He’s working with another Ikarith Punch.”
“And tonight? Are you and Daerios planning to spend the time working in your bedroom?”
“No,” I say with too much emphasis. “I can’t risk him seeing my underthings.”
“That’s not all you should be worried about him seeing.” I don’t need to look to hear her grin.
“God, you’re even starting to sound like Berendir.”
I’m spared any more of her comments when a knock sounds on our door. I startle. Nearly shriek. Cara has to physically cover her mouth to keep in her cackle.
“Not a word,” I say, fixing her with a glare as I rush to the door. She smiles innocently. Then I smooth out the nonexistent wrinkles in my shirt, tug at my purposefully messy bun, and open the door.
For a second, I almost don’t recognize the boy standing in our hallway.
He’s dressed from head-to-toe in athleticwear: black Nikes, grey sweatpants, black t-shirt.
Both articles of clothing are loose-fitting, but somehow cling to his body even better than the tuxedo did.
They reveal his broad shoulders, narrow waist, and—God above—a pair of muscular arms I’ve never seen before.
Not bulging, but ringed with visible veins.
I have to tear my eyes away from them before it becomes staring. In his hand, a pink donut box.
I look up. Daerios is beaming.
He looks… God, he looks delicious.
“Hi,” he says.
“What, exactly,” I ask, “are you wearing?”
“Study clothes, of course.” He holds up the donuts. “May I come in?”
I can do nothing but gape as he strolls past. A Prince of the Sun is walking into my common room. With donuts. Wearing fucking Lululemon.
“Hey, Cara,” he says, setting the pink box down on the coffee table.
“Hi, Daer.”
Daer?
I must be staring at my roommate like she has anaimean root growing from her eardrums, because Cara glances at me and shrugs.
“Want a donut?”
“Actually.” Cara pushes herself off the doorframe and shuffles out to the common room. Her fuzzy slippers whisper over our area rug. “I have two separate CS psets to finish tonight. So, yes, I would love a donut.”
I blink at the two of them.
“Gosh, Q.” Cara selects a glazed twist, then straightens up and looks around the room. “It’s oddly clean in here today, isn’t it?”
I pick up a pillow from the armchair and throw it at her head.
She ducks and, laughing, scampers back into her bedroom. “Study well, children!”
The door shuts, leaving Daerios and me alone.
For a long moment, neither of us looks at the other. I study every inch of the common room not occupied by his body.
Then Daerios clears his throat. “Donut?”
I roll my eyes. “Maybe later.” The futon sighs as I sink onto it. “Let’s brainstorm.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He sits mere inches away from me on the futon, despite the fact that there’s an entire open armchair to his right. I hold my breath. Sparks crackle in the space between our thighs.
“So,” he asks. “What interests you in the world of linguistics?”
The way your tongue works.
I want to slap myself. What the fuck? Where did that thought come from?
“Um,” I say.
“Ah, yes.” He grins. “Your favorite word.”
“No. Not that. Although—” I perk up, clapping twice. “Did you know that filler words—ones like um and uh—are not signs of a lazy speaker, the way people think they are?”
“I did not.” Daerios leans forward and props his chin onto his fists. “Tell me more.”
“In truth, they’re carefully placed spacers within a sentence, intended to give the speaker extra time to string together a complex sentence. Or to give the listener extra time in preparing for the more complicated language to come.”
“So, you’re saying something highly complex was going to follow that um.”
“Maybe.” I grin. “Or maybe I just thought your slow-ass mind needed extra time to prepare for whatever brilliance was about to be said.”
“And what brilliance was that?”
That I want to know what your mouth tastes likes.
Shit.
Come on, Quinn. Keep your mind on the task at hand.
“How did you learn English?” I blurt.
One eyebrow raises over one silver eye. That was not what Daerios was expecting. He leans back into the futon and says, “I learned it the way any being learns a language: practice.”
I shake my head. “That’s not what I meant. I meant, well, Elaerion is an entirely different planet. I can’t imagine there are any native English speakers there. Yet the elves showed up on Earth knowing perfect English. How is that possible?”
“Ah.” He nods, spreading his hands on his knees. Hands that, I cannot help but notice, look extra large when splayed out over soft grey fabric. “That.”
“Unless it’s another one of your secrets.”
“No. Well, maybe. I don’t know. I don’t care, really, either way.”
This is news to me. “You don’t?”
“No.” He glances at me sideways. “I would rather not have secrets from you, Quinn.”
He called me Quinn again. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“I did. But the elves—”
“I don’t care about the elves. You’re my…” He hesitates. “Friend. My friend. I don’t want to keep things from you.”
“I wasn’t aware we were friends.”
At this, Daerios looks at me with genuine surprise. “You weren’t?”
I shake my head.
He blinks. For a moment, I think he’s going to be angry.
Then he tips back his head, covers his face with a hand, and starts to laugh.
“What?” I ask, cheeks reddening.
“Gods, Kallister,” he says through split fingers. “I thought I was bad at making friends. You’re so terrible, you don’t even know when you’ve made them.”
I shove his shoulder, which only makes him laugh harder.
“Fine,” I say. “We’re friends.”
And to my great shock, when the word comes out of my mouth, I realize it’s true.
Before I can dwell too long on the implications of that statement, I ask, “So, if we’re friends, does that mean you’ll tell me how you learned English?”
“Of course. It would be nothing short of cruel to deny a language scholar such as yourself that information.” He shifts on the futon, turning to face me full-on. “So. Back on Elaerion—”
“Wait.” I hold up a hand. “Set the scene for me. Where did you live on Elaerion? What was it like?”
The corners of his eyes turn up, as if remembering something warm and light. “Berendir and I grew up in árrion.”
“árrion.” I repeat. “That’s palace in Maevish.”
“Correct. árrion is the royal stronghold that was established at the close of the Elemental Wars. It’s nestled deep within the Sinthalesorea, hidden in the peaks of Henaithwin.”