Chapter 8: Unexpected Fluid Release

Rhea grabbed the phone and dropped it into a padded drawer then shut it. Dante stood up too quickly, catching the edge of the bed with his thigh. Even through the drawer they could hear a muffled voice talking.

"That’s my phone."

"It’s staying yours," she said. "Right now, something else is using it."

Miss Vale asked the nurse to lock the treatment room while Rhea called security from hers. Nobody suggested that Dante had imagined the voice, which helped less than he expected.

After a while a technician who arrived wore orange glasses and had four fingers on each hand. He opened the padded drawer and put the phone into a clear sleeve and started checking the phone. He found the visitor connection still running beneath its ordinary settings.

"Can you remove it?" Dante asked.

"I can close the connection. That won’t tell me who’s calling."

Miss Vale made him preserve the record first, then clear the connection. Dante watched his phone return to its usual lock screen, then he asked where he could call his Mom from to tell her he might be late leaving.

Rhea took him down to the medical reception desk and he called his Mom. She asked whether late meant another injury. He assured her that the original injury was still getting all the attention.

By the time he went downstairs to make the call and then returned, Registrar Ryker had appeared and was waiting beside Miss Vale with two cups of coffee. He was a lean man in a neat gray suit, with short fair hair and a university pin fastened perfectly straight. Nothing about him suggested an appreciation for Dante’s coat budget.

"An appalling introduction," Ryker said, handing Miss Vale a cup. "I’ve suspended the outside recruitment entry while we investigate."

Dante kept his bandaged hand in view. "Does suspended mean they stop coming to my house?"

"It means they have no authority from us to contact you."

"That wasn’t quite what I asked."

Miss Vale set the coffee down untouched. "Security is checking the address and the cleaner’s collection record. His mother gets a direct number."

Ryker agreed, then turned his tablet toward Dante. The scholarship offer remained valid. Tuition, meals, and a room appeared on the screen, beneath a photograph taken in treatment that Dante hadn’t agreed to pose for.

"I look concussed."

"We can replace the photograph."

"Good. I’d like the injuries replaced too."

Ryker smiled as though that were ordinary first year banter. He offered a visitors pass and a schedule for Saturday: basic casting, a campus tour, and an observation place in introductory potions.

Dante stopped reading at potions. Whatever had happened today, somebody here was going to teach people to make things in cauldrons, and he wanted to be one of them.

Miss Vale noticed. "You can attend without accepting the Scholarship."

He asked whether the lessons included the words she had used at the desk.

"The old Korean forms," Ryker said. "Pronunciation is part of the first term assessment."

"Of course it is," Dante said. "I finally find magic and it comes with an oral exam."

Ryker left his card with Dante before returning to Admissions. Miss Vale waited until he was beyond the glass doors, then asked Dante to speak with his mother before choosing anything.

Mom came to the campus entrance that afternoon, carrying a clean shirt and the expression she used when somebody had explained a charge badly. Rhea collected her, and Dante stood when she entered medical.

She hugged him carefully, then inspected the bandages herself.

"You said you were returning a box."

"I did return it."

She looked at Miss Vale, who wisely supplied the rest without making him continue.

They discussed the disconnected phone, the locked assessment equipment, and security at home. Mom asked questions until the answers stopped sounding like university language. Dante wanted to interrupt when lessons came up, but she already knew his face.

"You want to stay."

"For the classes. Not the attempted kidnapping."

A short stay became possible after Mom saw the residence entrance, met the duty supervisor, and got the same security number as Dante. She would bring his bag that evening; he would call that night and again in the morning.

"If another piece of furniture threatens you, you leave," she said.

He agreed before she could include attractive women in the restriction, or reconsider the whole arrangement.

Before leaving, Mom made him demonstrate that he could call her without the visitor connection. He stood beside the ordinary front doors while her phone rang, watching people cross the street beyond them. Rhea pointed out the residence exit and showed them how it opened from inside without using a phone. Mom carefully tested it herself. Dante pretended to find this embarrassing, although he checked the route back to those doors before returning to reception for the housing appointment.

Anika arrived to escort him to housing after Mom left. Her copper hair was loose now, falling over a university sweatshirt she had pushed up at the sleeves. Silver rings followed the edge of one pointed ear, and she carried his temporary key between two black painted nails.

"So you’re staying after all."

"I heard there’s a welcome pack."

"There’s a laundry card. Try not to start a religion around it."

They crossed the courtyard while the cafe closed its outdoor shutters. Anika drew a quick loop beside a sticking gate and spoke a Korean phrase without stumbling. The latch rose obediently.

Dante watched her hand. "You made that look easy."

"My family taught me before I could reach the latch." She glanced at his bandages. "Some of us actually practice."

"You sound upset that I nearly died without preparing."

"I heard you skipped the incantation."

He liked that she had heard. He liked it enough to lower his voice before answering.

"Some doors respond better when they know who’s asking."

Anika stopped with her hand on the gate. For a moment she seemed to consider that as an actual explanation, then her mouth curved.

"You should hear yourself."

"I’ve put quite a lot of work into that."

She laughed and held the gate while he passed. He caught her looking at his face instead of his hand, and forgot the next line he had prepared.

At the residence desk, Mrs Han, the duty supervisor, checked the brass key carefully. She was broad and green skinned, with a gold tooth and knitted flowers around her name badge.

"Room 314?" She looked at Anika. "That can’t be right."

Anika leaned over the desk. Dante watched her expression change as the supervisor opened another page.

His housing assignment predated his acceptance of admission.

Below it, a previous resident had withdrawn, supposedly leaving nothing behind. The supervisor read the date twice, then reached beneath the desk for a paper register.

"I saw him yesterday," she said. "He asked me to keep his parcel until he came back."