39. Meter, from the Greek for ‘Measure’ #3
‘This feeling is just so . . . lovely. And I can’t even find the . . . I feel like I’ve got a thousand fingers, it’s like my mind’s been pushed past my . . . What’s the word? Like a limit, begins with P. Limit with a P. Oh. I thought that already. Did I say it already?’
‘Just say limits,’ Tate replies, as Westby staggers into the room.
‘Wait, I mean - parameters! Meter, from the Greek for measure, and para, which is just fun to say.’
Briar touches Bastian’s wrist, and he flinches. ‘Do you think that’s something it’s possible to . . . heal?’
‘Well. I can try.’
It works, thank God. Westby sits down at the last open seat in the kitchen and sighs, sobered. ‘Guess we’re pretty much fucked, then. Perhaps we should make a run for it. Hello, Wolfe. How long have you been here?’
Bastian’s jaw works, and then he says, ‘They won’t let you leave. Even if you try to run.’
‘Alistair’s probably in the infirmary,’ says Tate. ‘But that won’t stop him for long.’
‘No,’ agrees Bastian. ‘And he’s . . . far beyond reason, now. He’s got too much at stake. He needs to finish the Trials, make it to graduation, and he’ll cut through anyone that gets in his way.’
‘The bloody Trials,’ says Tate. ‘Why can’t he just give it up? They’re almost out of time.’
Bastian looks slightly surprised. ‘He can’t.
That’s the one thing the board has always made very clear.
Every suitable scholar has to make it to the pledge.
He’s talked about nothing else for the past week; if we should truncate the Trials, get them there faster, without bastardising the sanctity of the rituals. ’
Briar doesn’t understand. ‘Why not just do it now? Do they have to memorise it or something? It’s not like it’s complicated.’
Westby looks sideways at Briar, and then says, ‘How do you know that, Jones?’
‘Oh,’ says Briar. ‘I read it. The other day.’
‘And you remember it?’
‘Um,’ says Briar. ‘Not really. Isn’t it something to do with entering into an agreement?’
‘That’s right,’ Westby says. ‘Interesting.’ He picks up one of the cups of tea and drains it in one gulp. ‘Does anyone . . . can anyone remember the whole bastard thing?’
‘I can,’ says Bastian.
‘Oh,’ says Westby. ‘Good. Very good. I’ll just go and fetch a pen and paper, and if you wouldn’t mind . . . writing it down.’
They’re all edging around Bastian like he’s a grenade with the pin half-pulled, which Briar supposes is fair.
Westby returns with Eugenia’s expensive notepaper, and they watch Bastian write out the school pledge in his neat cursive, hovering a safe distance away like he might snap at any second and stab someone through the neck with Eugenia’s pen.
Briar doesn’t understand what’s happening, but Westby’s got that spark in his eyes, the one that means he’s ferreting away at an academic problem he’s determined to solve.
When it’s done, Westby asks for Briar’s text, then slides it across the table to Orpheus, who’s looking vacantly out of the window.
‘Pip,’ he says. ‘Hello? Have a look at this, will you? Just the first page will do.’
Orpheus blinks back at them, pale, face muddied by tear tracks.
‘Hey,’ Briar says, more gently. ‘Orph. Can you read that for us?’
Orpheus opens the book and stares down at the introduction. ‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s like . . . sorry, it’s like the words are all moving around or something.’
‘Fine,’ says Westby. ‘As expected. Now, can you read this? In your head, and then out loud?’
Orpheus’s eyes scan Bastian’s handwriting. He reads it once, then again, whispering the words hesitantly the second time. ‘Okay. I did it.’
Westby doesn’t have the sort of bedside manner meant to deal with shell-shocked children. He’s almost impatient when he says, ‘Now try the book again.’
Orpheus looks at it without much recognition, then sits up slightly straighter. ‘Yes. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense, but I can see the words now.’ He looks up at them all, entirely unaware of what’s just happened, waiting for further instruction. ‘Is that all?’
Westby’s smile is so wide it’s a bit scary. ‘Congratulations. You are now a thaumaturge.’
Everybody else sitting around the table looks utterly thunderstruck.
‘It’s the pledge?’ Bastian says.
‘It’s the pledge,’ Westby says. ‘You didn’t know?’
‘No. I thought . . . I knew they cared about it, deeply, but it seemed strictly ceremonial.’
‘It’s a Working all of its own,’ Westby says triumphantly. ‘Presumably it’s the Working, from which all others stem.’
‘Then I wonder if it’s been translated,’ Bastian says. ‘Surely originally it would have been in—’
‘Latin,’ they both say in unison.
It occurs to Briar for the first time that Bastian and Westby might actually get on rather well. It seems very important for everyone that this friendship cannot be allowed to happen.
‘Okay,’ Tate says, ‘okay, so - that’s one person who got in and one person who didn’t, and I know it’s unlikely, but - we have to account for clerical error. Maybe it’s still genetic, just dormant, until you read the pledge, and Briar was meant to be here all along.’
‘That’s the thing about me, Adams,’ Westby says happily. ‘I fucking love accounting for clerical error.’