“So, you’ve really never channeled before? Do you know any runes?” Fek asked. He kept prattling on, following Minnelil and me like an excitable dog looking for a treat.
“No,” I said, pushing myself up another pair of stairs. Why were all the rooms spread around so much if the doors—
“Me neither,” he said, happily.
I stopped to glance at him. “What? Even with all that, that?” I waved a hand, mimicking the way he had painted the band of mana into the air. “Haven’t you been here for the whole semester?”
“Fek’s problem is that he’s a doofus,” Minnelil said. “If he could concentrate for a while, he could shake the foundations of this world.”
“Ignore her. She just likes to be dramatic,” Fek said, hands in his pockets. “It’s not my fault that all the teaching here is so boring. And I haven’t been here that long. Just a month or so.”
I huffed, shrugging. “So, your dorm gets all the weirdos?” I asked Minnelil. “Guess it makes sense with the name.”
“They are all named like that: Tombrot, Bonemeal, Candle-snuff,” she said, “but yes, we do seem to have a rather eclectic cast in our dorm. You should be happy about that, you know. I hear Lombarte’s dorm is the other one that has a bed available. After the fourth student who lived there disappeared at the beginning of the semester without a trace.”
Oof. Ending up with a stuck-up bully-ponce like Lombarte would have been awful. Not to mention dangerous. “Do the two goons live with him? They would have really put me in with three guys?” In the orphanage, the girls and boys always lived in separate dorms. I caught myself in time before saying the last part out loud.
“Well, with the Principal and the Bursar being like they are, they might not really care or understand the difference between guys and ladies,” Minnelil said.
“Even when she wants to be called she?”
Minnelil shrugged, pinching the robe between two slender fingers and tugging on it. “It is what it is. The wardrobe makes it matter less, perhaps?”
“She doesn’t even wear a robe.”
Minnelil laughed, flashing me a smile.
I almost grinned back, but thought better of it. I needed to know the angles better, understand the power dynamic of this place before getting involved. Hormens was the nicest person anyone had ever met, until he slipped a knife between someone’s shoulderblades or arranged an accident to happen to them. Thinking an elf in a black robe was a friend would be dangerous and reckless.
Minnelil started walking up the stairs again. She glanced at me in a way that made me perk up. A tightness around her eyes, a slight pause before she started to speak. “Uhm, there are some traditions in this school, among the students,” she said. “Organized by the student council for new arrivals.”
“Let me guess.”
“Yes. Lombarte will be part of it. Especially as you stood up to him before Falar’s lecture.”
“It won’t be too bad,” I said. I knew guys like Lombarte. I had gotten under his skin, but he couldn’t show it to others by coming all out at me. It wasn’t a great situation, but not the worst either. I had worked angles like that before. I’d let them have their fun, but show that if they really tried to push me, I’d push back. Harder than they were ready for.
“Lina?” Fek said. “You looked a bit scary there. What’re you thinking?”
Good. I unclenched my fists and sniffed. “Nah, don’t worry about it. Let’s go eat.”
They did come for me, three of them, at the end of the dinner. One of Lombarte’s goons, but not he himself. The two other students were rich: great hair, self-satisfied, and robes that were even finer than the ones that most wore, tailored to fit better.
A tailored robe. Rich people got on my nerves.
“Welcome to the Academy!” their spokesman said. He had white teeth and blond hair, cut and shaped into a wave on top of his head. I wondered how long he spent on it every morning. “It’s rare to have a new student this late into the semester. I’m Frederik Rodn, the student representative. We want to invite you to take part in the welcoming tradition.”
“Well, go ahead,” I said. His face annoyed me. Chin like an outhouse, nose like a wedge.
He hesitated for just a moment, before grinning at me. “Heh! We’ll start right after the dinner. The platform overlooking the grounds. I shouldn’t really tell you this, but maybe bring something that lets you stay comfortable, perhaps a book.”
I let a skeleton pick up my empty plate. The dinner had been stew that rivaled what they had brought me in the Wily Wizard. “I already spent the first night there, if that’s what you’re building up to. It was fun.”
“Ah,” he said. “Um, right. Really?”
“She did,” Minnelil said, rolling her eyes. “You should have seen her afterward.”
The two guys behind him shuffled, unsure how to participate. Lombarte’s goon was frowning like he was constipated, holding in whatever he was holding in. Probably had been told to stay quiet.
The other rich kid looked at me down along his nose. He was thin and had a similar dark ponytail as Falar’s. I disliked him already. “I bet she’s lying.”
“I’m used to sleeping outside,” I said. “Go ask Falar.”
He flinched, just like I had anticipated. If Falar was so determined for me to be here, I would use his name as compensation. If that annoyed him, even better.
The guy caught himself, wrinkling his nose even further. “Used to sleeping outside. What are you, a farmer?”
“At least I’m not such a coddled dumbass that I’d think farmers sleep outside. I’m only saying that I don’t need to get tucked in every night by a maid paid by dear papa.”
The guy moved to take a step forward, but Frederik raised his arm between us. “Haha, good to get into the spirit of friendly barbs early, I always say!” His eyes flicked to me and the other guy. “Then you’d only need to earn your first credit and we can—“
“Already did that too.”
“Ah, right, right,” he said, running a hand carefully through his hair so as not to mess it up. “So, I guess we can skip straight to the welcoming ceremony?”
Compared to Lombarte or Falar, this guy was a puppy. He was a soft rich kid, could even be a nice person. I didn’t need to be tough with him, even if the goon and the thin kid behind him were scowling at me, keeping me on the edge. “I’ll be there,” I said. “Thanks for the invite.”
Frederik smiled at me with his whole face. “Grand!” He slapped Lombarte’s goon on the shoulder. “Smerz and Fahn, change of plans! Let’s go set up the chalices and the other stuff. Who has the black candles?”
I watched them walk toward the door, Frederik’s arms around the shoulders of the two other guys. “Student representative? For real?”
“Well, yes,” Minnelil said. “The Rodns are a rather influential family. They try to keep one heir in the Tenorsbridge College and one here every generation. Frederik is a decent person. Not terribly gifted with magic, so he focuses on the other aspects of being a son of an influential family.”
“She tutors him too,” Fek said, nodding at Minnelil. “Someone has to drag the blond lunk through the curriculum.”
“He’s not quite as ungifted as that, but yes. The family pays well.” She sighed. “Besides, you should try to finish even a single lecture successfully yourself before talking like that of people!”
“I’ll get around to it!”
I cleared my throat. “Anyway. What’s this welcoming ceremony supposed to be like?”
Minnelil pushed on the table to stand up. “Well, let’s go and see, shall we?”
The platform was full of black candles. Full of them. Large and small, the biggest almost as tall as I was. “Where do they get all the tallow?” I asked. “No, wait, don’t answer that.”
“Good instincts,” Minnelil said.
“We won’t,” Fek said.
Damn it. Oh, well. “How did you get all these up here this fast?” I asked Frederik, as he walked toward me with arms spread wide to the side.
“Welco… ah, I get to use school skeletons occasionally for stuff,” he said, letting his arms fall. “Anyway, welcome!”
I glanced over his shoulder to where the rest of the students were standing near the wall. All had their cowls pulled up. They formed a dark mass of robes against the black wall. “Thanks. So, what next?” I was putting on a tough face, but if I had to be honest, I was anxious about the whole thing. All the gangs in Tenorsbridge had their own hazing rituals, some dangerous, most unpleasant. I didn’t like the idea of all the attention, but I knew these things were necessary to ever be part of anything and a chance to show people I wasn’t an easy target. Maybe it would mean taking a beating, but I’d give as well as I got, make them think twice about coming after me.
“Don’t worry, you’ve done all the nasty parts already,” Frederik said, smiling at me and speaking in a low voice. “This ceremony is to welcome you to the student body.”
He winked at me after the last word. Was that supposed to be some kind of necromancy pun? I pressed my mouth into a thin line and breathed out through my nose. “Right. Let’s go, then.”
Thanks for another week of The Academy! Story continues on Monday, or there’s always Patreon, if you want to read ahead. -kzzh