The Black Table (Knights of Caliburn University #1)

Chapter 1

ONE

GWENNA

It’s raining the day I arrive at Caliburn University.

No, not raining. Misting.

Slivers of moon-white fog hover above the ground and cling to the edges of the horizon like they’re trying to airbrush out reality. Just fragments of the stone halls and brick dormitories, the steeple of the chapel arising out of sheer blankness.

I love it. I’m rapturously in love with it, and especially like this: swathed in silver, glimmering at the edges, surreal.

Almost perfectly hidden.

Almost.

“Gwenna?”

The registrar’s voice snaps me back to attention. I straighten in my seat, my prime directive blazing in my mind’s eye: BE NORMAL. I even give her a little smile, rallying muscles I haven’t used in years.

Whether I’ve fooled her or not is hard to tell.

Our conversation thus far has been cordial at best, and the environment’s not exactly warm and fuzzy: her office is dark, wood paneled, and packed with more books than feel necessary for the task of enrolling a few hundred students in classes every semester.

But I’m doing my best, and have been doing my best, since the cab dropped me off and I toted my one suitcase up the steps of Fisher Hall.

Now, her gaze darts from my creaky fake grin to my cardigan, to the long, long sleeves that wrap my arms almost all the way to my fingertips.

My smile falters.

Because even though it’s raining—misting—it’s early fall. Warm. Too warm for sweaters, especially black ones.

BE NORMAL, GWENNA.

I’m trying , I tell myself. I’m trying so hard.

“Well,” the registrar says, with a rhetorical throat-clear. “We’ll do our best to get you up to speed. Although, judging from your coursework…”

She’s looking at a physical folder, a real manila one full of real printed papers.

I’d have to imagine Caliburn is one of the last universities in America, if not on planet Earth, that still uses a paper filing system, but that stubbornness—or insanity—is part of the charm.

I’d argue, anyway. Never mind that you’re one rogue spark away from everyone’s transcripts going the way of the Library of Alexandria and?—

No. Danger. That way lies madness. I will not think about that.

“…three weeks late shouldn’t be too difficult for you to catch up on.

” Back in reality, she finishes her sentence, sucking her teeth.

“You’ll need to take the placement exams regardless, I’m afraid.

Since our subject requirements are so…singular, we can’t rely on standardization from school districts?—”

“That’s fine,” I interrupt, hopefully not too hastily. “I brought plenty of number-two pencils.”

A joke, madam? No, her stony expression says. Rather not. Fine , I think. Whatever.

“We’ll administer the academics this afternoon, assuming we can confirm a proctor.” She gives a faint hmm that suggests this is an imposition, but I choose to ignore it. “Since the other incoming first-years have already taken theirs, there’s not much risk for…” She coughs. “Anyway.”

She hands me a typewritten schedule, which I accept with a nod—academic integrity has never been my issue—and scan it quickly. Latin, French, Calculus, a corresponding room number and building name.

Then, alone: physical fitness. Scheduled for next Monday.

My heart thuds.

“Um,” I say, not sure how to phrase my question. “Is that…what is that?”

Awkwardly, I gesture at the last item on the list as the registrar squints.

Part of the allure—for me, anyway—of Caliburn is its, shall we say, limited focus on collegiate athletics.

The only team sports even offered here are riding, swimming, and fencing.

The idea that this school, of all schools, would require gym class is as absurd as it offering to host an NCAA Game Day broadcast.

“Physical fitness,” she reads, and casts me a look as though she’s second-guessing my place at a school with a twelve-percent acceptance rate. “For physical education? Gym,” she adds, translating. How generous.

I wince. “No, I know. I just…I didn’t know that was a requirement here.”

Because gym means moving, and moving means sweating, and sweating means a change of clothes.

And my clothes don’t change.

BENORMALBENORMALBENORMAL—

“It is,” she says simply. Eyes me up and down, like she’s doing a body scan. “The swimming portion is what’s most vital. I’m sure you’ll pass.”

Au contraire , I think. I’ve never been a good swimmer. I sink like my bones are made of iron. But I really, really don’t want this to get worse, so I nod .

“Your dormitory assignment,” she says, handing me another paper, “along with our residential code of conduct, and here’s the social schedule?—”

Knock, knock. The student worker from reception, a slight blonde girl with giant brown eyes, pokes her head in.

“ID card?”

The registrar waves her in, and the girl tiptoes to my side and hands me a plastic rectangle, still warm from the printer and emblazoned with the Caliburn red and black.

Staring back at me is…me. Or the me of twenty minutes ago who had her picture unceremoniously snapped by what might be the only digital camera on campus, anyway: dark eyes, dark circles, dark hair thick and newly cropped to just below my chin.

Hardly a flattering portrait. But not extraordinarily so.

Normal. Almost.

“Thanks,” I say.

“Sure.” She disappears.

“Keys,” the registrar says suddenly, and rummages around in a low drawer before producing two of them, bound together on a red cord. “Usually you’d get these on registration day, but?—”

“Thank you,” I mumble, taking them from her and vaguely listening as she points out which is for the main dorm door and which is for my individual room.

The mist outside has turned to a drizzle, and with the sense that we’re close to done, a sudden desperation to be done, to check the box and get started and move in and move on, has me in a near chokehold.

I grip the teeth of the keys into the flesh of my fingers and try to listen to what she’s saying about social events.

“…complete listing of events, but I’m sure you’ll hear soon enough which ones are de rigeur from your friends.” She smiles, a real, innocent smile, like she sees me as someone who can and will make friends here, and soon.

How I wish .

Or, no. Not.

What I wish is to study. To read, to write.

To start classes, pass classes, pass semesters, draft papers, flip through dictionaries, absorb every single detail I can about twelfth-century French poetry and medieval Latin orthography and live in the library until it’s time to graduate.

To brew endless cups of tea behind a stack of books taller than I am and three times as old, to be left alone with my thoughts and my pages and my research until the late hours of the night in a cramped cubby by a snow-drifted windowpane, to spend the rest of my life reading , not because it is productive or capitalistically useful but because it is luxurious, it is good, it is what I am designed for.

And then, at last, to pass the remaining decades of my life contributing to some small niche of scholarship.

Something esoteric and mine, something that nearly no one else would choose but that someone must preserve.

To spend my mortal existence putting my own small filigrees on truths written over thousands of years by thousands of hands.

God, listen to me.

BE NORMAL, GWENNA.

Except…maybe this is the Gwenna version of normal.

Maybe?

I suppose we’ll find out.

With thanks given and a polite goodbye said, I stand out in the reception hallway, balancing my many new papers, and set down my suitcase to pull out my phone.

My first placement exam isn’t until 1 p.m., and it’s just now 10:20. Not a ton of time, but enough—maybe the perfect amount, in fact, to get the necessary chores done without dragging anything out.

With a deep breath, I tap open a new message.

To: Mom

Registration complete. I have my dorm assignment too. I’ve got placement exams in the PM but I’m free until then. Where should I meet you?

I hit send and wait, awkwardly shuffling my weight and avoiding the gaze of the student worker girl, who’s bent over an open book, her blonde hair falling like a curtain.

The hallway is narrow but tall, arched and open overhead with wood panels easily fifteen feet high and hung with oil portraits.

The whole effect is so Tudor-era that it’s almost shocking to see an electric bulb humming in one of the wall lamps.

My chest aches with how much I love it.

My phone buzzes, yanking me back.

Good to hear.

I stop the disappointment before it fully sets in. Of course she’ll be brief, not answer my actual question. Of course. Patiently, I try again.

So where should I meet you? Just a quick run to town for stuff, I figure.

This time, her answer’s quick.

Meet you?

The typing dots pop up, then disappear.

God, don’t tell me she forgot. Don’t tell me?—

I grit my teeth. Type a response. Delete it. Hit call instead.

“Gwenna?”

Mom never has time for hellos.

“Who else?”

I never have time for inane questions.

“Where are you? You never told me what time your train?—”

“Gwenna, I’m not sure—I’m afraid you’re confused.” Her voice is almost apologetic—if you can apologize while fully blaming the other person. “We talked about this. I’m not coming with you.”

“You’re…” In spite of myself, my voice cracks. The blonde girl lifts her head, just slightly, and I try to speak more quietly. “You’re not?”

I hate how I sound. Like a sad child abandoned at her ballet recital. Which I have been in the past, of course.

There’s a pause.

“We talked about this,” she repeats. “I told you, several times. I can’t get away from work.”

“Yes, but…” I clench my fist, my jaw, my everything. “You said you couldn’t take the whole day . But the afternoon…you said you could take the train from the city and?—”

“I assure you, I didn’t.” Now the lawyer’s edge is there, the I-dare-you-to-depose-me certainty Laura Vale is known for. “Are you feeling all right, Gwenna?”