“We’ve only had a couple sessions together,” Renton said, “because Michael keeps teaching him solo, or having one of the student instructors work with him one-on-one. I think he’s only been with the general class a couple of times. I don’t get it. Why are you asking me? You and Ed are in homeroom with him. Don’t you see him in class?”
Anastasia and Edward shared a look, then Edward gave the smallest possible shake of his head and Anastasia shrugged helplessly.
“It’s no good,” she said despairingly, “he hates the class, and he’s so far behind that no one can really do anything about it. He stares off into space during lectures, on the days where he doesn’t accidentally nod off. In breakout groups, he doesn’t say anything or he asks inane questions, over and over, and then complains that he doesn’t understand the answers. Trying to talk to him in homeroom is pointless.”
Edward nodded, and then returned to attempting to feed scraps from his lunch to one of the tamed Weir that lay around Anastasia’s feet underneath the dining room table. Great black monsters wearing tooled metal collars designed to prevent transformation, she’d tamed them in Norway when she was twelve, back when she’d been more concerned with appearances. Capturing and taming a wild Weir had been something of a tradition a century or so earlier in the Black Sun’s history, and Anastasia had very concerned with tradition and symbolism when she was younger. She didn’t bother with such things anymore, but she’d since become devoted to the two wolves, respectively named Donner and Blitzen by her younger sister, and had insisted on bringing them to the Academy with her.
As the future head of the Black Sun, Anastasia had her own small cottage reserved for her on campus, large enough to house the servants and the security staff that such a position entailed. The Weir were confined by Director’s orders to the cottage, or else Anastasia would have brought them everywhere with her. Edward seemed to love them, whereas Renton appeared to hold them in slightly greater distaste than he did everything else around him.
“I’m not sure what to say,” Renton said, his forehead creased with effort, trying to recall anything of use, “he’s not too terrible, for someone who hasn’t done any of this stuff before. He has long arms, so he’s got decent reach, but he doesn’t hit very hard. Wrestles for crap. Gets tired quickly, takes lots of breaks.”
Anastasia shook her head, motioning for the hovering maid to clear the table of the remains of lunch. Renton and Edward had eaten roast chicken and potatoes with salad, while Anastasia had picked at an appealing looking but ultimately disappointing vegan ratatouille that she vowed to later discuss with the chef. She was certain that it didn’t have to be so boring.
“This isn’t what I’m after, Renton,” she said crossly. “I’m trying to get to know him, not trying to figure out how to beat him up.”
“One day in class he had some trouble with sparring with a girl,” Renton said, after some thought. “There was kind of a scene, till Collette, that Algerian chick, she planted his ass a couple of times. He seemed to warm up to the idea after that.”
“So he’s a boy who doesn’t like to hit girls,” Anastasia said softly, “what a revelation, Renton. That helps a great deal.”
“I’m sorry, Ana, I said that I don’t know,” Renton objected, his face reddening, “what do you want me to say? It’s a combat class, for Christ’s sake! It’s not like we sit around chatting about our childhoods or something. Look, Ana, you want somebody to figure the kind out”
For a moment, Anastasia and Renton glared at each other, like two children holding a staring contest. They were still that way when Edward unexpectedly broke in.
“You should try Vivik or Emily,” he offered in his quiet, high-pitched voice that Anastasia still hadn’t gotten used to, since he’d spoken so rarely in the two years he’d worked for her, “they talk with him the most.”
As Anastasia paused to consider. The Weir who wasn’t refusing to eat from Edward’s hand shoved its snout into her lap, whining, and she petted it absently while she thought out the various ramifications of the situation.
“Okay,” she said slowly, as the wheels in her head turned, “I think I’ve got an idea. Edward, could you find Margot and bring her back here? She and Vivik have a class together this session, I’m fairly certain. Vivik might not be inclined to share with me, but I doubt he’ll be so reticent with Margot.”
Edward nodded, dropped the scraps on the floor, gave Anastasia a quick bow and then was on his way.
“What about Emily?” Renton asked, looking at her expectantly. “If you want, I could see…”
Anastasia shook her head, staring into the eyes of the black wolf whose head lay in her lap.
“No need. I have other errands for you to take care of. I’ll handle Emily myself.”
“Is it really so complicated?” Margot shook her head. “Okay, one more time — the Academy controls the source of the nanomachines, so if the cartels want to activate new Operators, then they have to abide by the Academy’s rules, hence, the Agreement. For any activation that doesn’t result in death, one student at the Academy.”
“What is the source, anyway?”
“Shit, Alex,” Margot said through gritted teeth, “do you really think they go around telling everyone their most closely held secret?”
“Okay, I guess,” Alex allowed, “but then why all the infighting? Couldn’t the Academy just, you know, tell everybody to stop?”
“It’s a two-way agreement. In return for almost total control of the students while they attend the Academy, the cartels have free reign over their own internal affairs. There’s only so much to go around, in terms of space, money and people. It’s usually easier to fight another cartel than the Witches, and often more rewarding. Plus,” Margot said, shrugging, “people sometimes disagree. Violently.”
“Alright, but why don’t the cartels attack the Academy and take whatever it is they need? I mean, aren’t there a lot more Operators in the cartels than employed by the Academy?”
“Sure, but look around you. How many cartels do you think would cooperate long enough to complete such an undertaking? And what do you think would happen after? They can’t trust each other, and as long as they are divided, the Academy holds the majority of the power.”
“For now,” Anastasia added brightly. “Besides, the Black Sun would never condone an attack on the Academy.”
“I don’t get it,” Alex said lazily, staring up into the sky.
Sitting cross-legged in a pool of afternoon sunlight, Margot looked over at Emily despairingly.
“I will never understand. What do you see in him, Emily?”
“Hey!” Alex objected, lying on his back in the grass. “I can hear you, you know.”
“She sees the same thing everybody else does,” Anastasia said absently from where she sat in the shade of the nearby tree, reading. “A great deal of power attached to not so much brain.”
“Hey!” Alex said again, weakly. He had been lying in the sun for a while now, and it had lulled him into a state of complacence. He wasn’t about to rise to the bait and mess up his potential afternoon nap, no matter what the girls said.
“Power,” Emily agreed, smiling, but not looking up from the notes she was bent over. “That’s part of it. But Alex does have some good qualities, once you get to know him. Besides,” Emily said cheerfully, “he’s just so pathetic, who wouldn't feel moved to help him?”
Anastasia laughed but didn’t say anything. Alex reddened, and wondered how the conversation had gone in this unfortunate direction. As if homeroom hadn’t been enough of a nightmare today, with the lecture going right over his head, then Emily’s suggestion that they go sit out on the grass in the quad and relax had turned into this. Alex wasn’t even sure how Anastasia and her cohorts had gotten invited to join them. Anastasia and Emily, despite their frequent tiffs, seemed to get along awfully well for two people destined for opposite sides in a conflict, to Alex’s eyes.
“She has a point,” Anastasia acknowledged, removing a Tupperware container from her bag, and carefully selecting a carrot stick from it. “He does have this lost puppy feel to him.”
Alex opened his eyes and turned his head, so he could glare at Anastasia. This meant she’d won their little game, as usual. But this really was unprecedented, Alex had to admit — when had Anastasia taken Emily’s side in anything?
“Why always carrots?” he demanded, a bit more testily than he intended to. “Are you a vegetarian or something?”
Anastasia looked back at him with cold eyes, taking a bite from her carrot and then chewing it slowly, deliberately, before answering him.
“My lunch did not work out. Neither did my last cook, for that matter. Or, maybe I just like carrots,” she said finally, her expression blank and ominous. “What is it to you, exactly?”
Vivik looked up at the two of them, and smiled tiredly, and then looked back down at his book.
“She’s a vegan, Alex,” Vivik said. “A vegan who is going to have serious trouble on the test this week if she keeps skipping study session to focus on her evil plots and schemes.”
“My plots aren’t evil,” Anastasia corrected, “Mostly. They are mostly not evil plots. And I’ve got that test under control, thank you very much, Vivik. It’s not like you’re working on it either,” she added accusatorially. “That’s Alex’s textbook you’re annotating, right?”
Vivik sighed and put down the highlighter.
“It’s not really the time I’d pick to do this,” Vivik allowed. “But whenever I come by his dorm room he’s asleep, or so he says. He won’t answer his door, anyway.”
“Very suspicious,” Emily said gleefully. “What is that you get up to in the evenings, anyway?”
Alex wasn’t entirely sure how to answer her question. He had been falling asleep early most nights, ever since he’d come to the Academy, often waking in the morning without have changed out of his clothes, without any memory of going to bed in the first place. Alex had always been a light sleeper, and he found this change worrisome, more so since the strange conversation with Eerie that he couldn’t fully remember.
“I wish it was something cool,” Alex said, sitting up reluctantly. “But there’s nothing to it. I keep crashing out early, that’s all. It’s not like a deliberate thing, it just kind of happens.”
Emily look at him pityingly, her golden hair curled into tight, perfect ringlets. She wore a plain grey sweater with a maroon skirt, her legs folded beneath her, effortlessly beautiful. Alex remembered their ‘arrangement’, and then tried to find something else to pay attention to.
“That’s sad, Alex,” Emily teased. “You should find better things to do with your evenings.”
Anastasia’s expression was poisonous.
“I think I’m going to pass on commenting on that,” she said, gathering her books and shoving them into her backpack. “I have class soon, and I have some things I need to take care of before that.”
Renton and Edward began gathering their things, Renton grumbling all the while, Edward silent and efficient. Alex wondered how Edward could look so neat in his uniform after sitting in the grass for an hour, and how it was that the exact same uniform could look so bad on Renton. Vivik sighed and handed Alex the text he’d been highlighting.
“That means I’ve got to get going too,” Vivik said, standing and stretching, “which is too bad. Since I stayed up and studied last night,” and here he shot Alex a significant glance, “I could really use a nap out here in the sun.”
“That’s what you get for being smart,” Alex said sleepily.
Margot stood up with Vivik, startling him with her proximity.
“Actually, I came here to talk with you, Vivik,” she said, collecting her bag. “Do you mind if I walk with you to the Science building?”
Alex gave Vivik a questioning glance, but if Vivik had any idea what was going on, he didn’t show it. He agreed readily enough, but the confusion was obvious enough on his face. Anastasia nodded at Alex, opened her black parasol, and walked purposefully off in the direction of the Science building, flanked by Renton and Edward, Vivik and Margot lagging behind.
“Empath-girl. Make yourself useful. Explain what just happened for me,” Alex commanded, looking at Emily expectantly.
“You are so bossy,” Emily complained, still engrossed in her notes. “Remember, they’re all pretty decent at hiding stuff like that because they’ve already been through the training. You’re getting better at it yourself, by the way.”
“Rebecca’s been teaching me.”
Alex was secretly pleased with the praise. He had been practicing shielding his thoughts and emotions, but so far no one had commented on it, except for Rebecca gently making fun of his efforts, during the lessons.
“Anyway, if you want my guess, I think Vivik has no idea what Margot wants to talk to him about.”
“Okay,” Alex said, drawing his knees to his chest and looking at Emily curiously. “So, what about Margot? What was that all about?”
Emily put her pen down and frowned.
“That was pretty weird, wasn’t it?”
She twisted a lock of hair absently between her fingers, her nails painted mother-of-pearl. Her hair caught the afternoon light, golden and red.
“Margot’s emotions are muted, so I never get much from her. I do know she wanted to talk about you, though.”
Alex started.
“What? Why? I barely even know Margot…”
“I’m not sure why,” Emily said, shrugging. “Common sense, really. Vivik seems to know you best of anyone, so if she had something about you she wanted to know and she didn’t want to ask you directly, then Vivik’s probably the one to ask, right?” Emily returned to her paperwork. “Besides, Vivik’s easy for girls to push around. Even Margot has to have noticed that. And this is creepy, by the way.”
Alex shook his head.
“Wait, what? What’s creepy?”
Emily smiled but didn’t look up.
“Getting me to spy on people like this. It isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I suggested our arrangement.” Emily tapped the eraser on her pencil absently against the textbook while she read. “It’s not like I’m helping you out, or something. It’s more like I’m spying on your friends.”
“I’m not sure that I’d call them my friends,” Alex said crossly. She was probably right, he supposed, but at the same time, he’d felt constantly at a loss since he’d arrived here. Emily had laid it all out very simply, that night in her living room — if he would spend time with her, she would help him out, dealing with people at the Academy. Just hanging around Emily was enough to show her superiors that she was doing her job somewhat successfully, or that’s what she thought. Alex wasn’t sure himself how long the cartel would be content with that, but he acceded to Emily’s request. He couldn’t figure out a way not to.
And, of course, he was hoping for things between them to go further. At least a little further.
At the time, he’d been fairly sure that she was going to ask him to spend the night, but instead she’d taken the bus back to the Academy with him, saying she wasn’t in the mood to be there when Therese came home. There’d been a moment after the ride home, at the Academy gates, before they headed back to their respective dorms, when Alex was certain that he could have kissed her. Should have kissed her. But he’d chickened out, and he’d been feeling dumb since then.
“Does your arm hurt?”
Alex looked up in surprise, shaken from his ruminations by Emily’s voice. The concern in her eyes was obvious.
“Ah, well,” Alex muttered, realizing that he had been cradling his left elbow and jerking his hand away, “it might have gotten tweaked in class yesterday.”
Emily scooted over until she was sitting next to Alex, and then grabbed his elbow and inspected it, causing Alex to yelp and try and pull away.
“It looks a bit swollen,” she said sympathetically. “I thought Michael was your instructor? He did this to you?”
Alex shook his head. He had class with Michael three times a week, not counting the morning workouts. Alex couldn’t imagine him injuring someone. Not accidentally, anyway.
Michael had decades of discipline, training, and combat experience. Beyond that, he was a patient and genuinely gifted teacher. But he had twelve students in his Wednesday afternoon class, and though Alex suspected he got more than his fair share of personal instruction, he still spent half of every Wednesday in the less-capable hands of various student instructors.
He was certain that Margot hadn’t intended to hyperextend his elbow — in fact, he probably should have tapped the moment he felt her lock in an arm bar. But he hadn’t figured on her being so strong, and for a moment, he’d thought he might still be able to tear his arm back out of her grip. That hadn’t happened, and for the first time since he’d met her, Margot had looked pleased, tending delicately to his injured arm, until one of the instructors came over with ice.
“No, it was some student instructor,” Alex said, bending the sore elbow experimentally. “I got it checked out; they said it would get better on its own. It’s never really been totally right, since that thing with the Weir, actually.”
Emily frowned at him, and then poked at his elbow experimentally.
“Have you been icing it?”
“Sure,” Alex lied. “Just last night.”
“Really?” Emily looked at him skeptically. “How long are you going to keep lying to me, Alex? I’m an empath, after all.”
Alex sighed, and Emily smiled good-naturedly.
“You’re no good at keeping secrets,” she observed, continuing to poke at him.
“That makes me pretty unique around here,” Alex said darkly, looking up at the blue sky and the clouds passing overhead, and wishing that any of it made him feel even slightly more at ease.