I took another step, the knife in my hand. What if I was wrong? He’d turn around and scowl at me with the blade sticking out of his throat.
And even if he died, would the shackle around my neck break? I didn’t want to be tethered to a corpse, unable to escape.
I pressed the knife tighter in my hand, took one more step.
I hated being in debt to anyone. Cutting someone’s throat after he had rescued me didn’t feel right. Damn it, but it didn’t. And if I was honest, it wouldn’t have felt right anyway. I had never killed anyone.
I hissed a breath. It wasn’t true.
I had thrown Jordan off from the roof, caved in his head like an overripe fruit. The memory seemed like it had happened to someone else, like I had been in a fever. It hadn’t been anyone else. The way his face had looked made me gag.
I screamed with frustration and disgust, and threw the knife from my hand. It bounced with a clang, chipping a sliver of a cobblestone.
Falar twitched, and the line he was drawing got squiggly. “I said this was finicky,” he said, groaning. He swiped his hands over the lines, wiping them away. “Are you doing this deliberately? Climb into the carriage and stop being a nuisance before I make you run with the skeletons.”
Jextor stepped out from the tavern, shouting a goodbye and waving at someone inside. “Excellent!” he said, slapping his hands together. “Still not done? Should I help?”
“No,” Falar said through clenched teeth. “Take the girl and get in. So help me, I won’t be held responsible if I have to tolerate any more antics from either of you.”
“Business as usual, then?” Jextor said. “Well, you heard her, girl!” He wrenched open the carriage door and patted the bottom step that led up inside.
“I have a name,” I said, but started moving toward the steps.
“Hup!” he said, grabbing me from the waist.
I tried to dodge, but he was surprisingly quick for a big guy like that. I yelped in surprise when he lifted me up and placed me on the final step up to the carriage. I kicked at him, but only hit his shoulder. It felt like what kicking a bull would probably feel like: a futile but extremely stupid idea if the bull decided to care about the kick after all.
“Ouch,” he said, grabbing on to a handle next to the carriage’s door, readying to pull himself up the steps. “Good kick. Now go on, let’s give our lecturer some space. He’s not a morning person.”
“It’s already afternoon!” Falar roared from behind him.
I craned my neck to avoid bumping my head on the doorframe. He would need to fold himself in half both ways to fit through. Inside, the carriage looked surprisingly normal. Brown cushions, light gray wood paneling. The windows were dark glass. Enough space for at least six people. I sat, pressing against the far wall, gazing out into the city from the dark window.
The carriage rocked as Jextor climbed in, puffing as he squeezed in through the door. “Make yourself at home. We’ll be traveling for the whole day. Knowing Falar, I don’t think we’ll be stopping to eat.”
I kept my mouth shut, my eyes fixed on the street. He crashed down beside me, making the carriage rock again. The first fleck of snow fell, sticking to the glass and melting away before my eyes. I shivered, remembering how cold it had been for the last nights. Another snowflake landed on the glass.
“Early for snow,” Jextor said next to me. “Naturally, where we’re going, we’ve had snow for seven months already. You’ll love it. The air is always clear and crisp!”
“Seven months?” I asked. I had decided to sulk, but that made no sense. Winter was just starting. “How can you have had snow for seven months? When don’t you have snow?”
“In the summer,” Falar said, pulling himself up into the carriage. He grabbed the door and slapped it closed. The sounds of the city cut out, the air turned stale immediately. He sat down opposite Jextor and me, and banged on the wall of the cabin. The carriage lurched ahead, pressing me to the backrest.
“But summer was just two months ago,” I said, grimacing as I realized what a painfully obvious thing it was to say.
“Not around the Academy,” he said.
I had asked enough stupid questions. I crossed my arms and leaned back, watching the streets rush past instead. We were moving all too fast for what seemed safe inside the city, but I knew it didn’t matter. Anything too dangerous, and the Janitors would stop it from happening.
I flinched as we passed the place where Jordan had fallen. Despite myself, I tried to look. There was no sign that anyone had fallen on the street, no splatters, no stains.
“It’s nice we get to go back sooner than anticipated. I hate being away,” Jextor said. “Things get away from you so quickly. Twice as quickly.”
“Have to give it to the rat, she did expedite the trip,” Falar said, droning in his low, bored voice. It mixed into the rumbling of the carriage.
“Oh, right!” Jextor said. “She said she had a name. Let’s hear it.” He prodded me on the shoulder.
“Lina,” I said.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lina!” Jextor shouted. “I’m Bronte Jextor, the chancellor of the Academy, of your future school, the pre-eminent necroman—“
“Enough, enough,” Falar said, waving a hand. “You can call me lecturer Falar. I will call you you, or girl, or student, if you prove to be worth it.”
“You really expect me to just do what you say? After kidnapping me like this?”
“Many people would kill to get this opportunity,” Falar said. “Have killed, as often is the case.”
“Well, let them have it, then,” I said, turning my face away. We were passing through the North Gate. I hadn’t been out of the city in two years.
“I won’t,” Falar said, crossing his arms before his chest. “I need no more ambitious idiots to wrangle. Do you even understand what kind of potential you have? What you did?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, avoiding looking into the forests that started almost immediately outside of the gates. The trees reached up, shaded dark by the tinted glass, but still familiar. Reminding me of home.
“Do you?” Falar said, pronouncing every syllable.
“Obviously I don’t,” I snapped.
His voice lost its bored quality. Not quite excited, but somewhat alive. “We theorized the Conspice was used to push against the membrane between the worlds, bridge the gap between our world and the Null.”
He sounded like the matrons at the orphanage. Just by the tone, I knew he would speak for an hour. I didn’t want to listen for a second longer. “Shut up,” I muttered. “It was disgusting.”
“There’s nothing disgusting about death. That’s the whole point,” Falar said. “Your intuition says otherwise, but the Null is by definition beyond disgusting.”
His tone surprised me. He wasn’t angry, but sounded like he was actually answering me, wanted me to believe it.
“What?” I asked, before I could stop myself.
“Pushing a thing past its end removes it from the realm of cause and effect. Wants and opinions cease to be a—“
Jextor leaned across the carriage and slapped Falar on the thigh, making both of us startle. “Metaphysics of death are second year material!” he said. “You’ll only confuse her.”
“She’ll have to catch up to the first year students anyway,” Falar said, rubbing his slapped thigh with a grimace. “You will need to gather at least thirty credits by the end of this semester.”
“Thirty!” Jextor shrieked.
Why did he have to shout so much? I pushed a finger into my left ear. Maybe I should keep it there, just in case.
Falar kept staring at me, “You are months behind everyone. An ambitious goal will push you, lay out a path for you to survive and excel.”
I groaned and rolled my eyes, turning back toward the window. The forests continued, trees and trees and trees rolling past.
“Sulk all you want, as long as you listen. We’ll have no better opportunity than this.”
I kept my eyes on the window. A skull shot past in the darkness. I flinched, a hint of mold on my tongue. Had I imagined it?
“There are only two places left to learn magic, properly learn magic, on the continent: Tenorsbridge and The Academy. The loss of the Kertharian schools is truly a tragedy.”
I flinched at the mention of that place, hissing and clenching my teeth together.
Falar raised an eyebrow at me. “Yes, a truly devastating loss for the science of magic, but you don’t need to worry. Even they couldn’t have taught you what we can. The fundamentals of magic, animating the dead, piercing the boundary of life and death. Have you ever lost anyone important?”
My eyes shot wide. I turned to face his stare, mouth open.
He squinted back at me. “Hmh, good. Then you understand the importance of what we’re teaching.”
I wanted to ask him what he meant, if I could bring them back, but I knew it was futile. No magic could.
“I see from your scowl what you’re thinking. What is lost, has been lost. Use the memory as an incentive to not let it happen again,” Falar said, moving to find a more comfortable position on his seat and crossing his arms over his chest. “Take your studies seriously, and nothing in this world will be able to threaten you or yours anymore. Lose no one ever again.”
Like that would be possible. I didn’t believe him for a second, even if what he said almost made me cry. It was everything I had ever wanted, and what I knew to be impossible. I pressed my lips together, kept the tears from my eyes.
Jextor smacked his lips next to me. “Well, that might be promising too much, really. We can’t guarantee—“
“Do you want to try to harm someone under my protection, chancellor?” Falar said, looking at Jextor from under his brows, voice low and quiet.
The big guy flinched back, but then leaned back in again, challenge in his eyes. “How about you, lecturer?”
“Obviously not. I’m not an idiot,” Falar said. “And there you see what I mean.”
“Hah! Fair enough!”
Jextor’s shout made the carriage rattle. Falar twisted to the side and lifted his legs up on the seat to avoid another slap on the thigh.
“Ahem,” he said, sitting back down. “At the Academy you will first learn about working with mana and runes. You can still catch the repeat lectures organized for the dullards. You will spend the rest of the time reading the most important works pertaining to necromancy, teaching yourself what you have missed.”
“Well, why didn’t you kidnap me seven months earlier?” I asked, wrinkling my nose at him.
Jextor chuckled next to me.
Falar groaned, but continued speaking like I hadn’t said anything. “You gain credits by finishing lectures and proving your skills and knowledge by passing exams. More credits mean access to more important, difficult, and dangerous knowledge. Collect thirty credits to prove yourself to me, and I’ll make sure you can stay.”
“Why would I—”
“Because of a warm bed and three warm meals a day,” he snapped. “I have no patience for people pretending they are stupid. I have even less for people who are. I know you’re cunning, but I hope you’re actually intelligent. Now, any questions?”
I scoffed, turning away and pressing my forehead into the glass. When I focused, I could feel the grip hang loosely around my throat, like a noose waiting to be pulled tight. I had escaped the orphanage, avoided the gangs, depended only on myself. The gangs at least hadn’t pretended they weren’t going to sell me out to the first bidder, use me for a bait or a scapegoat or a distraction.
All of them spoke of safety, camaraderie, family. While honing their blades to sink into my back, to let me down when I would have needed them most. I had promised never to need anyone’s help ever again. I would help no one, either. That would be even worse, having someone around depending on me, just waiting to get killed or maimed or broken by the world.
“Your hard-headedness robs you of another opportunity. So be it,” Falar said after a moment, turning to Jextor. “Have you finished planning the rota for the rest of the semester? I need more time for my research.”
“You’re hardly lecturing at all as it is,” Jextor said.
“I’ll have my hands full playing tutor to a sulking ignoramus who looks rabid enough to bite me.”
“You’ll hold your lectures and enjoy it, lecturer Falar.”
I tuned them out. I had promised never needing help, and now I had been leashed like a dog. A lump forced its way up my throat. Hell take them.
The road rolled under us as more snow drifted down. The carriage kept moving at the same speed, never slowing down or accelerating at all. It creaked and jostled in a steady rhythm. I closed my eyes, biting my teeth together, letting my forehead bump against the glass.
I woke to voices speaking, drool on my chin. I remembered being furious before falling asleep and a coldness that kept chasing me in my dreams. My head rested against something warm and soft that smelled dusty.
“Few can instinctively attune to nothingness,” Falar’s droning voice said. “Something must have happened to her.”
“Poor thing,” Jextor’s voice said, right above me. “Dangerous stunt, though.”
“Extremely. I would have hesitated pulling on that much power. That she survived as long as she did is almost impressive.”
“High praise, from you.”
“Hmh. By the way, she’s drooling on your sleeve.”
A big hand tilted my head to the side, but I slapped it away, opening my eyes. I wiped my mouth, glaring at the both of them.
“Awake? Good timing, we’ll be arriving soon,” Jextor said. “You slept right through the rest of the trip. Seemed like you were having nightmares.”
“What were you talking about?” I asked.
“Nothing concerning you,” Falar said.
“I heard you. It was about the rectangle. What it did to me.”
“What it did to you,” Falar repeated in a mocking voice. “It did nothing. It’s a… looking glass, and somehow you reached your hand through it to grasp at power far beyond your comprehension. But when you grasp power, it also grasps you.” He pointed a thin finger at me.
I wanted to grip the finger and snap it in the wrong direction. I chuckled grimly at the thought. I’d show him rabid.
“Enough shop-talk, you two,” Jextor said. “Look outside, see your new home! You can see the Academy on the right as we take the last turn.”
“Why don’t you get that it’s not my...” I stopped talking as I turned toward the window. The sky was black, the stars twinkling dimly somewhere far away, like they were about to go out. Even the moon looked pale and gray, like a shadow of how it should have looked. The ground was covered with snow, mountains and mountains of it. It was dark blue, billowing in great clouds as the carriage thundered through it.
Jextor’s hand hovered in front of my face, pointing insistently at something in the darkness. I pursed my lips, squinting through the haze.
“Welcome to perpetual darkness, where the winter lasts for a year and a half. Where the moon creeps across the sky like a wounded animal, the sun hangs pale and shamed,” Falar said, reciting the words like they meant something. “Where the dead keep the roads and nothing sleeps.”
“To the Academy,” Jextor said, pointing at the building that rushed out from billowing snow, looming over our carriage.