Falar spun around, robe flapping in the wind. A skeleton descended the stairs toward us, but Falar pushed it aside, toppling it off the side of the stairs. It spun slowly, legs still trying to walk in the air. The wind pulled it apart before it hit the ground, throwing the bones somewhere into the swirling snow outside.
“How are the rooms this big? There’s no way they fit inside the walls.” I asked as I stepped into the Lunch Hall after him.
He chuckled, then waved at a table to the side. “Over there.”
The tables stretched far into the distance, students in black robes sitting around each. Skeletons walked around them carrying trays heaped with bowls and pitchers and mugs.
Falar started walking. “I will need to plan how you will catch up to… oh damn.”
“Lecturer!” someone shouted, way too loudly. The voice cut through the chatter in the hall like an explosion. Falar and I groaned at the same time.
Jextor sat at the table we had been walking toward, waving at us. “Fortuitous timing! You brought the girl. I heard you impressed the Bursar!”
“We were just leaving,” Falar said.
Jextor laughed, whole body wobbling. He slammed his hand on the table, making it rock. “Nonsense! Sit down. How have your first days been, student?”
Falar hesitated, but I sat down at the table, mostly to annoy him. “Very educational, chancellor. I slept outside.”
“Hah! I had a feeling you’d take up that dare. Still sane? Good show.”
Falar glared at me, and I smiled innocently at him. I stifled a yawn, and my stomach rumbled again.
He sat and started drumming the table with his fingers. “I explained the girl’s situation to her,” he said. “She has potential, but it’s up to her what she does with it. Do you believe she can actually feel the moment magic reaches resonance with the Null?”
“What do you think they are serving today?” Jextor said, gazing longingly over our heads at the skeletons. “And oh, can’t everyone?”
“No!” Falar shouted, then breathed out. “No, they can’t.”
“Really? Are you sure?” Jextor said, then turned back to me. “Anyway, attended any lectures yet?”
“Just his,” I said, jerking my head at Falar. “I guess it was ok, but I got the credit for it already.”
“Enough!” Falar shouted, slamming his slender arm on the table. His voice was loud, when he actually used it, instead of droning like a bored clerk. People twitched and turned to look, but their eyes flickered away as they realized who had caused the commotion. “She needs tutoring, and I’m through tolerating her venomous tongue.”
“You brought her here, lecturer. You will deal with her,” Jextor said. “It will be a learning experience for you both, I’m sure.” He sounded serious for the first time since I had seen him. Jextor spoke in a low voice, leaning toward Falar over the table.
They held each other’s gaze.
A skeleton creaked over my shoulder, placing a tray on the table. Two other skeletons did the same for Falar and Jextor.
Jextor gave up the staring contest and grabbed a knife and a fork from the tray. He grinned widely at the plate before him. “Steak, my favorite!”
“Everything’s your favorite,” Falar muttered.
I poked at the slab of meat on my plate. “For real?”
Of course it was real, but I just couldn’t believe it. I remembered eating steak back when I lived at home, at my real home. This steak was doused with gravy, a half-melted dollop of butter with pieces of garlic mixed in. The smell made me drool, but I knew better than to expect too much. “Whatever, the breakfast didn’t taste like anything at all.”
“The breakfast was fine,” Falar said, cutting a small piece from his steak. “The coffee was especially good, for once.”
“It was not,” I said.
“Was it taken outside?” Jextor said, mouth full of food and the munching making it difficult to understand him. I frowned at him and he nodded back. “Ah, well, that explains it.”
“It doesn’t explain anything!” I shouted.
“Just eat the meat,” Falar said, placing his fork and knife down on the table. “Listening to all this munching is making me lose my appetite, so I might as well talk.”
The food really did smell good. The potatoes were sliced thin and swam in cream and more garlic. I skewered some with my fork.
“The Academy is built around an extremely powerful artifact that makes the Conspice seem like a toy in comparison. You’ll learn what the artifact does later, if you live that long, but already now, you need to know what its other effects are. The main one being that sleeping is impossible on the Academy grounds.”
I figured as much. This wasn’t the first time that I had skipped a whole night’s sleep, but this time I felt like I had stayed up for a week. I searched for the feeling of pressure from the outside, but it wasn’t there. “Why doesn’t it work here?” I asked.
“Because we’re not on the Academy grounds. We’re somewhere far away. All the doors here are facade doors, the rooms behind them hidden beyond the artifact’s reach. That’s how the rooms are this big.” Falar made his voice squeaky and high for the final words, pressing his hands on his cheeks like a caricature of someone being surprised.
“Great impression,” Jextor said.
I cut a large chunk out of the steak and stuffed it into my mouth, glaring at them both. Whatever.
“It also robs the food of its taste, but you hopefully put that together already. Now, about your studies. You will need to catch up and catch up fast.”
Jextor wiped his mouth with a white napkin, having finished his steak already in a couple of mouthfuls. “Do you have any skill in channeling? Any rudimentary knowledge of the runes?” he asked, looking hopefully toward the skeletons bustling around the hall.
I shook my head. The potatoes melted in my mouth. I didn’t have time to speak, with how hungry I was and with how good the garlic cream tasted.
“The girl’s an ignoramus. Wholly uneducated. And she already pledged herself to work for the Bursar. Precious time wasted burying herself in irrelevant trifles.”
“Her work is important. We have to be able to afford your salary somehow, lecturer.”
“Not to mention your food, chancellor.”
“Hah!”
I bit into the steak. The piece was too large, but I didn’t care. I wanted to sink my teeth into something, as I could hardly bite either of them. I’d show them rabid.
“Nevertheless,” Falar said, turning back to me. “You will need to learn channeling. The elf girl can teach you. She’ll jump at the chance for some extra income. Let the Bursar know that the elf will need to be compen—“
“No,” I said, around the piece of steak.
“Hmph, you caught that quickly enough. I hope it also applies to your lessons. Fine, I’ll tell her.”
Jextor grabbed a passing skeleton by the arm and wrenched it over to our table. “You know you’re going to end up paying for the tutoring yourself?” he said, pulling the tray from the skeleton’s fingers. It clacked its teeth together, the grin somehow looking like a frown.
“One day, I’ll show that machine,” Falar muttered.
“I’ll put you together once you try. Now, girl! What do you think of our institution so far? You can’t complain about the food, can you?”
“The food is good,” I said. There was no way around it. They had seen me eat. I wanted to lick the plate. “Someone got in my face. Don’t complain to me if they get hurt.”
“Ha! This one has teeth!” Jextor shouted, then pulled his face into a more serious expression. “But remember that important people attend our school. Please don’t hurt anyone too rich.”
“I don’t care who you hurt, as long as you keep up with your studies,” Falar said.
“I’ll start with you,” I said.
“You can try. I wouldn’t advise it, though.”
Jextor burst into a booming laughter, slamming the table with his hand. Falar’s steak bounced into the air. “You two are incorrigible! The rest of the semester will be much more interesting, I wager.”
“Contain yourself, Chancellor,” Falar said. He turned the knife in his hand, watching the blade. “Even though I fear you will be right. The research is not proceeding according to my calculations, almost like something is affecting it. Well, a consideration for another time. Let’s discuss your schedule, girl.”
Falar used the rest of the lunch to put together a plan about what lectures I should attend.
“Reanimating a Skeleton, a practical workshop?” I asked, tapping my finger on the paper he had scribbled full in a painfully tight cursive. “What am I supposed to be doing there, huh?”
“There’s almost two weeks before that one,” he said. “Plenty of time to catch up.”
Jextor had already gone, bowing at us both with a flourish as he left. The murmuring of the students became easier to hear once he wasn’t shouting constantly on the other side of the table. Their whispering got on my nerves. Way too many people with my back toward all of them. Falar’s insane study plan was filled to the brim with lectures, and the rest of the time he expected me to read through the books that had been in the crate.
Yesterday, I would have scoffed at his plan, told him to wipe himself on it. But now I felt the collar around my neck, more clearly than while I had been outside. It was like the food had made my neck swell, push against the invisible ring around it. I rubbed my throat with my hand, tried to press my fingers between the constricting feeling and my skin, but there was nothing.
“I hope the Bursar doesn’t take up too much of your time. Learning to channel is paramount. Everything flows from there,” Falar said, talking to himself as I wasn’t really listening. He kept tapping his slender fingers together, resting his elbows on the table. He stopped tapping and pressed his palms to the table. “Alas, I will need to tend to my research. Can’t let the darkness dissipate. You will report to me after the first exam. The date and time is marked on the plan,” he said, tapping a finger on the paper before me on the table.
I rubbed at my neck, but my hand stopped as a thought hit me. “How do I know what this noose actually is?” I asked, my hand still on my neck. “This is just some of your creepy tricks, isn’t it?”
“How?” Falar frowned, glancing down at me. He considered it for a moment, then grinned. The sight was disturbing, no joy in the grin, just skin pulled tight away from his teeth. “Learn, and find out for yourself.”
He stood up and turned away.
Fine, you bastard.
I would.