Chapter 107: No Lesson Today

Chapter 107: No Lesson Today

Silas tested it on the way to breakfast.

He didn’t make a production of it. He walked down the dormitory stairs and out across the courtyard the way he always did, and somewhere around the refectory steps, he let a thread out, thin and level, and listened.

Outside, it was hard work. The room had always given him a quiet second layer to listen through. Out here there was only the ordinary morning, full of footsteps and voices and the clatter of kitchen doors, and his own attention, which wanted badly to be distracted by all of it. He had to slow down to hear anything. When a group of Silver Class students went past arguing about a duel, he lost the thread entirely and had to start again.

But there, by the steps, was a stone planter of ivy that nobody ever watered, and in it, under the leaves, something small.

It wasn’t the visitor. It felt different: rounder somehow, drowsier, tucked into the damp soil under the ivy like a cat in a laundry basket. Silas stood at the bottom of the steps, pretending to check his communicator, and felt it there.

A first-year came down the steps and kicked the edge of the planter on the way past. The small thing stirred and shifted deeper under the leaves. That was all. It didn’t speak, or glow, or point him toward anything. It just wanted to be left alone in its ivy.

Fair enough, Silas thought, and went in to breakfast feeling ridiculously pleased with himself.

He ate porridge at the end of a long table and thought about the empty slot. Battle Evolution was still the obvious next thing, and the timing would have to be right around the expedition.

He could arrange that later. He had a free afternoon, and he’d been looking forward to seeing Elyra since waking with Nim planted on his chest. There was no lesson he needed to ask her for today. He wondered whether she’d still be free if he waited until lunch to message.

He put his spoon down and took out his communicator before he could think about that too hard.

Are you free this afternoon? he wrote. No lessons, no questions about anything. I’d like to go for a walk and eat something that isn’t flatbread. With you. That’s the whole plan.

He winced at That’s the whole plan and sent it anyway.

Her answer came before he’d finished the porridge.

Two o’clock. The lake gate. I know somewhere.

***

She was already at the lake gate when he arrived, wearing a dark green coat, her hair loose for once. She tilted her head as he came up the path.

"You look very pleased with yourself," Elyra said.

"Do I?" Silas asked.

"You’ve looked pleased with yourself since the bottom of the hill. I watched you coming." She fell into step beside him. "What happened?"

"Practice finally went well," Silas said. "The exercises from your book. Something clicked."

That was true. It just wasn’t the whole of it, and he left the rest where it was.

"Good," she said, and seemed to mean it simply. "You’ve been working at them for weeks. It’s about time they paid you back."

The place she knew was a tea house on the far side of the lake, with low tables, a sloping glass roof, and a board of cakes by the counter. It was full of students very obviously trying to look like they came there all the time.

"Everyone in Star Class says the smoked honey bun is the best thing on campus," Elyra announced, with total confidence. "We’re having that."

They ordered two. Silas let her.

The buns came. They were large and golden and glistening, and they smelled powerfully of something. Elyra took a confident bite.

Then she stopped chewing.

Silas took his own bite. The honey was almost lost beneath a taste of chimney soot.

Neither of them said anything. Elyra swallowed with visible effort and set the bun down very carefully on its plate.

"It’s," she said.

"Yes," Silas said.

"Everyone in Star Class said—" Elyra looked at the bun again.

"I think everyone in Star Class was lying to you," Silas said. "Or they’ve been smoked too long themselves."

Elyra put her hand over her mouth and laughed so hard her shoulders shook.

"Nim would refuse to sit at the same table as it," Silas said. "He’d say it smells like the boiler room."

"It does," Elyra agreed, wiping her eyes. "It really does. I’m sorry. I was so sure."

"You were magnificent," Silas said. "You ordered it like a general."

They ordered plain tea and two very ordinary almond biscuits instead, which were much better. Elyra pushed her bun to the far edge of the table.

"I’ve got something to look forward to, you know," she said, after a while. "Next term. We’re allowed to choose an independent study. A whole season on one question, any question, if a supervisor agrees."

"What’s yours?" Silas asked.

"Where wind spirits decide to settle." She turned her cup in her hands, and her face changed when she talked about it, went brighter and more serious at once. "Lilt has places it goes back to. Not the same every season, but not random either. Corners where two winds meet. Gaps under certain roofs. I want to follow it for three months and write down every place and every day and find out why." She glanced up. "It’s a very boring project to everyone but me."

"It isn’t boring," Silas said. "You’d be finding out where it wants to live."

Elyra stopped turning her cup and looked up at him.

"Yes," she said. "That’s it exactly."

He filed it away: corners where two winds meet. Next term. He’d ask her about it again.

***

They walked back around the lake the long way. The path was busier near the boathouse, where a cart was being unloaded with sacks of something, and they had to step around it single file. Elyra put her hand on his arm to steady herself as she went past the wheel.

When they were clear of the cart, she didn’t take it away.

Her hand rested in the crook of his elbow as they walked. Silas shortened his stride to match hers. He wanted to turn and look at her, but was afraid that would make her notice and take her hand away. He watched the path instead, enjoying himself rather more than a walk ought to explain.

Somewhere far back in his head, a burning capital flickered, and a girl standing in its streets as if she’d lost interest. He remembered enough to be afraid of what she could become. Her hand was warm through his sleeve, though, and he didn’t want to pull away. He kept walking beside her.

"Your mother," Elyra said abruptly, as they passed the boathouse. "When she comes. What does she like to eat?"

Silas laughed before he could help it. She’d asked it so seriously, as if it were an exam question.

Then he saw her face, and stopped laughing.

Her fingers had tightened slightly on his sleeve. He’d laughed when she’d asked a perfectly reasonable question.

"Plain things," he said, more gently. "Bread and soup. She drinks her tea strong enough to stand a spoon in. She always says she isn’t hungry and then eats half of whatever’s on your plate." He thought about it. "She hates fuss. And she’ll notice if you’re tired before you do."

"So I shouldn’t bring anything," Elyra said.

"Bring yourself." He paused. "And don’t let her see you leave the middle of the bread. She’ll think it’s wasteful."

Elyra looked genuinely alarmed. "I’ll eat the middle."

"You hate the middle," Silas said.

"I’ll eat the middle," she said firmly, and he laughed again, and this time she laughed with him.

***

At his door, she took her hand back from his arm, and he missed it immediately.

"You leave the day after tomorrow," Elyra said.

"Early," Silas said.

"Be careful at Harrowglass. Old buildings are full of things nobody’s looked at for years," Elyra said.

"That’s rather the point," Silas said.

"I know." She didn’t smile. "Be careful anyway."

"I’ll tell you how it goes," Silas said. "When I get back. All of it."

Elyra was quiet for a moment.

"All of it," she repeated. "When you get back." She said the words carefully, as though she were putting them somewhere safe. "I’ll remember you said that."

Then she smiled and went down the corridor, and he stood in his doorway with the room’s warmth at his back until he couldn’t hear her steps.