36. Zeno
ZENO
“You what?” Zeno exclaims. Forms, this day cannot be that lucky, can it?
“I know what the third Trial is.” Ophelia doesn’t elaborate, just smiles smugly, daring them all to ask her.
Eudoxia is the first to rise to the bait. “Well? What is it?”
Ophelia breathes deeply, like she’s composing herself. Then her face drops for just an instant and it almost seems like there’s nothing behind her eyes. He would ask if she’s alright, but barely a blink later Ophelia is already moving, her wide smile back.
“Glad you asked, my beautiful Empress.” Ophelia curtseys. “You!” she enthusiastically points at Alexander. “Go get the chalkboard.”
Alexander bows and runs off.
“You!” she points at Kallias. “Go—Oh, what the Forms happened to you?”
“Nothing,” Kallias says with a shrug.
“Okay,” Ophelia says, matching his energy. Then she resumes her role of team captain with the same absurd fervor. “Then go get me the chalk.”
Kallias gives her his two-finger salute, and he’s off as well.
“Zeno—” she pats his head “—and my beautiful Empress—” she taps Eudoxia’s nose “—take notes.”
Zeno turns to Eudoxia instinctively, and she’s looking at him too.
It only takes a second for them to break into laughter.
Her hand goes to rest on his shoulder like she’s stabilizing herself, and he can feel the heat through his shirt.
It’s overwhelming. Even more so when, after the laughter fades, Eudoxia moves it up to the back of his neck and keeps it there.
“Arete,” Ophelia bellows to a giggling Arete, “go into the stacks and find any books you can on the myth of Theseus. Holler if you need assistance.”
Arete bolts into the shelves.
When Alexander and Kallias return, they throw the chalk back and forth, playing catch over Ophelia’s head and forcing her to jump for it.
He can’t even focus on the hilarity of that because Eudoxia’s hand is still on his neck. When she gently fiddles with his hair, he nearly combusts. Forms, he’s so pathetic.
He just has so many questions. For one, does she even know she’s doing it or does she see it as a friendly shoulder pat? Would it be weird for him to sling his arm around her chair? Alexander does it to Kallias all the time and no one says anything.
She might not even notice. He moves his arm in slow motion, but a piece of chalk thrown at his head shocks him back into the moment.
“Earth to Zeno?” Ophelia yells. “I need you on your game, soldier. I’m about to change your life.”
“When did I become a soldier?” He’s swiftly interrupted by another piece of chalk thrown in his direction. Alexander laughs uncontrollably.
Ophelia slaps Alexander on the back of the head, much to his indignation, and then begins to draw. It takes a moment for Zeno to notice that she’s drawing a maze, probably why she mentioned Theseus earlier. It takes him another moment to see that she’s doing it without a reference.
He’s about to ask but Alexander beats him to it. “Are you drawing that from memory?” he asks, sharing a look with Kallias, then turning back to the board.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Don’t worry, though. I’m sure I have it right. I can see the image in my brain.”
“No, I’m not doubting that,” Alexander says. “But perfect recall is really rare and it’s crazy that both of you guys—” he points to Ophelia and Kallias “—can do it.”
“What a coinky-dink,” Ophelia jokes, clearly confused by the aside, but willing to play along enough to give Kallias a high five before getting right back to her drawing.
Once she’s done and Arete has returned, Ophelia makes Alexander stick out his finger like a pointer and starts guiding it across the board, listing different attributes of the labyrinth.
“And finally, right here,” she says, dragging Alexander’s arm to the right side of the board, “is one of the emergency exits. Here,” she drags him to the left, “is the other. Thank you, Alexander. You may sit down.”
“You are most welcome, ma’am.”
“Ooo, I like that,” Ophelia says. “Now, for the escape protocol. It’s basically what Bios described.
In this Trial specifically, you’ll have to find the stone trigger that opens the door, while also communicating to each other and me when you’ve made it so we can all set off the exit’s opening at the same time. ”
“And how do we do that?” Eudoxia crosses her arms.
“That’s going to be our mission for this week, I guess. It’s the only problem left, minus the cameras, right?” Ophelia says, sitting back down in her chair.
Everyone nods—until Arete’s little voice comes up from the floor, where she’s sifting through books. “What about the Minotaur?”
“What about him?” Ophelia asks.
“Well, he’ll be a problem too. He could be a real minotaur, I guess, but it’s probably… what’s the word for it?”
“Metaphorical,” Kallias supplies. “She’s right. That’s a hurdle left unaccounted for. We won’t know for sure until we get in there.”
“Monsters can take many forms, I suppose,” Ophelia says, her eyes distant, probably from stress.
The plan only works if it’s airtight, which means accounting for everything. But it’s impossible to account for everything. So how are they supposed to do this?
“Let’s focus on what we do know,” he says, because even if he isn’t feeling it, he’s meant to be the positive one. He can’t drag everyone else down his hopeless spiral. “What’s our plan for navigating the labyrinth?”
Zeno leaves Eudoxia’s room very late at night—so late, in fact, that it might be considered morning. But Zeno wasn’t going to stop playing unless Ophelia, Eudoxia, or Arete asked him to because as much as they like to hear the concerts, Zeno loves to give them.
He doesn’t have to be the ‘happy one’ or the ‘confident one’ or the ‘nice one’ when he’s behind his violin.
He just needs to get lost in the music. It’s not very difficult for him—all he has to do is close his eyes and suddenly some sort of magic settles over him and steals him away.
Even when he’s just picked up a new song and he can’t get the notes quite right, he’s still lost. Sometimes he’d prefer not to be found. But that’s beside the point.
These days he will take any excuse to play, mostly because there have been fewer and fewer of those as the weeks have gone by.
So tonight he went on for hours, song after song until he nearly fell asleep with the violin under his chin and Eudoxia forced him out of her room ‘for his own sake.’
“Goodnight, Zeno,” he hears very faintly as he closes the door behind him.
“Goodnight,” he responds, even though he knows they can’t hear him. And then, “Ah, Forms,” because he forgot his violin case in there.
Whatever, he can get it tomorrow. He doesn’t want to disrupt the girls’ nighttime routine, and it’s almost three in the morning anyways; no one’s around to see him with the violin.
“Zeno?”
Oh, wow, he spoke too soon there, didn’t he? It’s actually really hilarious for two sleep-deprived seconds.
And then he thinks about it. He’s holding his violin in his hand—actual contraband. And someone just said his name, and if they said his name then they see him, and if they see him then they see his violin.
He’s not sure what to call the panic he’s feeling. Just that it’s eating him from his stomach to his bones and this is so, so bad.
He’s never this lax, he never carries it out without hiding it, he’s just so tired from the late nights and Eudoxia and everything. The one time he does…
“Zeno, turn around.”
He turns.
“Hi, Kleia.”
Theokleia doesn’t smile at him. She shakes her head and scoffs instead.
“Are you stupid?” she asks. “Or are you just really, really arrogant?”
The escalation is so abrupt that Zeno takes a step backwards in surprise—she skipped shock, skipped questions, and went straight for the throat. “What do you mean?”
She gestures to his violin. “I mean, you’re just walking around with that thing? If it was anyone but me here right now, you would be expelled. Branded too, probably.”
“Kleia, I—”
“No, listen, Zeno,” she starts, and he can tell this is no sudden outburst; it has been brewing for a long time.
“You and your friends are reckless. You think you hide your secrets so well, but the only reason you haven’t been found out yet is because no one is looking close enough. A second glance would show them.”
“I know I shouldn’t have it with me. I usually hide it, I was—”
“The violin is not the only thing I’m talking about.”
What?
“I’m talking about whatever it is you guys do when you’re all whispering to each other; it’s not hard to see that you’re planning something, and if I cared enough to find out what it was I could have done it by now.”
He stiffens and the panic only goes deeper, out from his bones and into his heart. Have they really been this obvious?
“I’m talking about that Priestess that you and your friends hang around with like she’s allowed to be here all of the time. If she gets caught, she will be punished, but you don’t even think about that, do you?”
He hadn’t considered it.
“I’m talking about Eudoxia.”
Zeno’s entire body tenses like he’s touched a live wire. “What did you just call Eudoxos?”
“I called her Eudoxia.”
“How do you know that?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You are not as subtle as you think. And you’re lucky that no one else here is as observant as I am.”
He wants to ask more about that but he’s stuck on Eudoxia. “But you flirt with her all the time.”
“You think I’d flirt with a man?”
Well, fair point.
“I’m not going to go to the Guardians, okay?
I don’t care what you get up to. But I can’t stand stupidity.
And you guys are the textbook definition.
You are endangering yourselves so much because you’re being so stupid.
I mean, honestly, is that violin really worth what would happen to you, your friends, your father if you get caught? ”
Yes, he almost responds. It’s so selfish—it’s terrible and awful and completely unlike him. But this is his one thing. He doesn’t take, he only gives—except for this one thing.
“That’s physical evidence. You do know that, right? It’s a liability. It’s the stupidest part of all of this. Because you don’t need that thing, Zeno. At least your friends need to hide what they’re hiding, but you could throw it out today and be done with it and nothing bad would happen.”
Zeno can’t respond. He doesn’t know what he would say if he tried. Because he has no excuses for this.
“Goodnight,” Theokleia finally says. “I do hope you get your priorities straight because I’d hate to see your crew branded and kicked to the curb.”
She enters her room and shuts the door with a finality he can feel in his chest.
Zeno doesn’t move.
He shouldn’t need to think about this. He should break the violin over his knee and throw it out the window. But he can’t. He can’t do it. He hates himself for this, he hates and hates because he’s so selfish it’s— and he’s—
But it’s okay. It’s okay! His friends don’t need to know this conversation ever happened. He will protect them; that’s what he does. He’ll make sure they’re subtle and silent and nothing bad will happen, right?
And maybe then keeping the violin won’t be so selfish because there is no one who will ever know it exists except for his friends, himself, and Kleia and he’ll protect them and everything will be okay, right?
Right?