Chapter 13 #2
Thick. My name on the tab. Inside, three weeks of printed lecture notes—every session I missed underground, readings flagged with paper clips, the essay prompts on top.
"Start with chapter seven," she says, not quietly but not loudly either. "The rest of the unit builds from it. You're not as far behind as you think." She takes off her glasses and polishes them with the hem of her cardigan. "Office hours are Tuesdays, three to five, if you have questions."
"Thank you." I mean it.
She looks at me then. Direct. She has the eyes of someone who has been teaching in this building for a long time and has made certain calculations about what she can and cannot say out loud inside it.
"The essay prompt is flexible. Given the circumstances.
" A pause, brief and deliberate. "I'd be interested in whatever angle you choose to take. "
She puts her glasses back on and turns to the board.
I take the folder and go.
Nellie is waiting at the end of the row and I can’t even put into words how happy I am to see her.
She's at my elbow before I'm off the bottom step, falling into stride, and she waits approximately four seconds before she cracks.
"Okay so." Her voice is low, fast, the one she uses when she has been holding something for a while and is dying to spill.
"First of all. Hi. I missed you. Second of all—" She steers us left into the side corridor without breaking pace, the window seat with the view appearing like she willed it there. "What in the entire hell was that?"
"That was class."
"Cal." She drops onto the seat and pulls her knees up and stares at me. "Leopold put his arm around your chair."
"I noticed."
"And then he grabbed your wrist and was like—"
"I noticed that too."
"—in front of the whole room, like you're his—" She makes a gesture that doesn't resolve into a word. "And you just sat there writing notes."
"I was taking notes. That's what class is,” I say. I’m deflecting and we both know it. But I’m doing my best not to turn bright red again.
"Calypso."
"Nellie."
She looks at me for a long moment. Then she tips her head back against the wall and exhales at the ceiling. "Okay. Okay. From the top. You were underground for two weeks—"
"Stone and a bucket. Aamon every other day. Cold at night." I settle in across from her. "I got used to the cold."
"—and then the tribunal happened, and now you live in the Vassard mansion."
"It's beautiful," I say. "Which is the worst thing about it."
She drags her gaze down from the ceiling and looks at me properly.
"What does he want from you?"
"I don't know yet." That's the honest answer and the worst one. Not the rune on my door, not the months of maneuvering, not the tribunal where he showed up with an offer that was never really an offer—the not knowing is the thing that’s killing me. The sense that I won’t truly know why he wants to torment me until it’s way too late.
"He's patient. And he’s used to getting what he wants. "
Her jaw tightens. Then she does what she always does, which is refuse to be eaten alive by the worst-case scenario. She tips her head. "The school's saying you burned the chapel and he bought the debt. Very romantic or very feudal, depending on who you ask."
"Which one's winning?"
"Feudal. But the romantic contingent is loud and they have serious opinions about his hair."
I laugh. It scrapes up my throat, raw at the edges, and she laughs too—not because it's funny exactly, but because it’s nice to talk to each other normally. It’s nice to feel somewhat back to normal.
Something loosens in my chest. The held breath. The weeks of keeping everything compressed. With Nellie it just comes out.
"I missed you," I say.
"Cal." Her voice goes soft. "I was right here. If they'd let me anywhere near that cellar—"
"I know." I do know. "I'm not—I know."
She bumps her knee against mine and holds it there. I look at the yard—rusted cart, dormant irrigation, late-November dirt somebody is pretending to tend. The most boring view on campus. Perfect.
I don’t want a reminder of how insane my life is.
"How are you actually doing," she says. "Not the polite version."
"I'm behind." I gesture at my own chest, where the magic lives.
"Academically and here. The cellar wasn't nothing.
Two weeks underground and then a house where I don't trust a single surface.
" My hands have been carrying the same weight for so long they've gone numb, is the closest I can get to it.
"Like I'm about to drop something and I don't know what it is yet. "
She nods. Takes it in without trying to fix it, which is exactly right.
"You won't drop it," she says.
"No," I agree.
She's quiet. Then: "I need to tell you something about Shandy."
Something in her voice shifts and I sit up a little straighter.
"She's been off." The words come out careful, like she's been holding them for a while and is still deciding how to say them.
"Before the Revel, even. I thought she was just going quiet—you know how she gets when something's eating at her, she goes internal for a few days and comes back out.
But it's been weeks and she's not coming back out. "
"Off how?"
"Skipping meals. Not sleeping right. She showed up to study group in long sleeves last week." Nellie's mouth presses flat. "This is Shandy. In November. She'd wear a sundress to a blizzard just to make a point."
I think of Shandy starfished across her mattress at the slumber party, taking up exactly as much space as she wanted. "Has she said anything?"
"That's the thing. Every time I try she just—" Nellie makes a small, frustrated gesture.
"Fine. She's fine, she's tired, she's busy.
I can always feel it when she's lying to me, it's like a little snag, but now I'm not getting anything.
There's just a wall." She picks at a loose thread on her sleeve.
"I don't know. Maybe I'm reading into it.
But my gut's been loud about this for two weeks and my gut is usually right. "
"Yeah," I say. "It usually is."
She's quiet for a second. Then: "I have a theory. And I need you to tell me if I'm being paranoid."
"Okay."