Chapter 119: Whatever Indirectly Means

I had slept four hours in two days.

I want to be precise about why, because the reason matters and because I have been lying about it to everyone including myself.

It was not that I could not sleep.

It was that I did not want to.

Fifteen years ago I was a god who had never dreamed and wanted nothing else.

Two nights ago I finally did, and something in it turned its head toward me, unhurried, interested, and looked.

For one and a half seconds.

And then stopped.

I have spent every hour since then being extremely awake, on purpose, in a way I have never once been awake in my entire existence, and if you had told me at any point in my first life that I would one day be afraid to close my eyes I would have laughed at you in whatever passes for laughter among beings made of light.

So.

Four hours.

Bear that in mind.

***

Selene announced it on Friday, during core cultivation.

That was deliberate. I understood it afterward.

You do not deliver news to thirty-six fifteen-year-olds while they are standing up and holding things.

You deliver it while they are sitting cross-legged on mats with their eyes closed, four minutes into a cycle, physically committed to not moving.

"Stop."

Thirty-six discs dimmed at slightly different times.

Selene had a single sheet of paper in her hand.

She did not start reading it immediately.

That was the first thing.

I have watched that woman deliver a lecture on permanent channel damage without changing pitch once.

She does not hesitate before speaking. Hesitation is a thing she does to other people, deliberately, with timing.

She looked at the paper for about two seconds longer than reading it required.

Then she looked up.

And for half a moment, her eyes went across the room and landed on me, and did not do anything at all, and moved on.

"This is being read in all five classrooms at this moment," she said. "Word for word. I have been instructed not to add anything, which I intend to comply with in the letter and not otherwise."

Then she read.

---

ZENITH ACADEMY

FIRST-YEAR INTER-CLASS COMPETITION

A competition between the five first-year classes will be held next week.

Class leaders may participate only indirectly.

Full conditions will be given on Monday.

---

She lowered the paper.

"That is the entire notice."

Nobody moved.

"Next week?" Cedric said.

"Next week."

"That’s..."

"Three days, if you are counting the way I assume you are counting."

"There’s nothing about what it is."

"No."

"Or what indirectly means."

"No."

"Or how we..."

"Vale." Selene folded the paper once. "I have read you every word I was given. If there were more, I would be reading more, and I would be enjoying it considerably less than you are about to enjoy the next three days."

***

Here are the three seconds I am not proud of.

My first thought, arriving before anything resembling judgement:

Excellent.

Indirect participation is the least amount of participation available.

Whatever it means, it means somebody else is doing the difficult part.

Three seconds.

Then the second thought arrived, the way cold water arrives, all at once and from underneath.

Indirectly.

Not a prohibition.

A shape.

And the shape had a hole in the middle of it exactly the size of a person standing in front of other people.

Because whatever indirect participation turns out to mean, there is one thing it cannot possibly mean.

It cannot mean being there. It cannot mean close enough to reach. If they had wanted us close enough to reach they would not have needed a word for it.

Which meant that in three days, thirty-six people whose names I had spent eleven days quietly collecting would walk into something the academy had built for them.

And I would be somewhere else.

***

I know what that is.

I want to be clear that I know exactly what that is, because I have been there, and because my body knew before my head did.

There was a forest.

There was a boy with green mana already gathering in his hands, and a woman with golden eyes and a dagger still wet, and her fingers closing hard around his shoulder.

No.

He’s hurt.

Stay here.

And then Caelum going down, and Vessa going limp, and Nyra’s blood on my hands while I did the only thing I have ever been genuinely good at and it did not work.

I have never once been held back from helping someone and had it end well.

Not once.

My hands had gone cold on the mat.

I noticed that from somewhere slightly outside myself, the way you notice weather.

’System.’

[Yes.]

’Tell me this is a coincidence.’

A pause.

[I am not able to.]

***

Around me, Class Five was becoming loud.

"Three days. We have three days."

"We’re first place. We have to defend it."

"We don’t have to defend anything, it’s a new competition."

"That’s exactly what defending it means."

"What does indirectly mean? Does that mean he can watch? Talk? Plan?"

"It means whatever they decide on Monday, which is the point."

"Are leaders being restricted? Is this because of..."

That one stopped halfway.

Thirty-five people did not look at me, which is a very specific way of looking at someone.

"It is not a punishment," Selene said, without raising her voice. "It is not a response to any recent event. I will say that once, plainly, because rumours in this academy travel faster than light and considerably faster than truth."

Roland leaned over.

"Do you believe her?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Selene doesn’t lie. She declines to answer, which is different, and she’s very good at making the two look identical."

"So it’s bad timing."

"It’s the worst possible timing."

Roland studied me for a second too long.

"You look like you’ve been hit by something."

"I have. A few days ago. Three ribs."

"Not that."

I did not answer.

***

I stayed behind after the others left.

Not for a reason I could have explained. Something about those two seconds of hesitation had been sitting in my chest for the whole session, refusing to dissolve.

Selene was collecting the discs.

"Professor."

"No."

"I haven’t asked anything."

"You were going to ask when it was designed, and the answer is that the competition was approved before term began, which is why it is not a response to anything you are currently imagining."

She stacked two discs.

"So that’s settled."

"That’s settled."

I turned to go.

"Vortex."

I stopped.

Selene did not look up from the discs.

"I was instructed not to add anything to the notice," she said. "I have not added anything to the notice. The notice has been read and the class has been dismissed and I am currently tidying a room."

She set another disc down.

"The competition was approved before term. The second line was written four days ago."

The room was very quiet.

Four days ago.

Somebody had taken a competition that already existed, and four days ago, had sat down and added one sentence to it.

The sentence about five specific people.

Written the morning after a training hall floor turned gold under two of them.

"Professor..."

"I am tidying a room," Selene said. "Go to class."

***

( Elizabeth Aurelius’s POV )

Class One received it in silence and processed it in silence, which Adrian had learned was not the same as calm.

Elizabeth did not move for eleven seconds after the notice was read.

He counted.

"Read the second line again," she said.

The instructor obliged.

"Class leaders may participate only indirectly."

"And the third."

"Full conditions will be given on Monday."

She nodded slowly.

Adrian waited.

He had watched her receive bad news before.

The exam results.

Third place.

The news that a boy with a pillow had taken first with a class full of wounded people and no weapons.

She had processed every one of those out loud.

"You’re not saying anything," he said.

"No."

"Should I be worried?"

Elizabeth was looking at the front of the room without seeing it, and her hands, which are never anywhere by accident, were flat on the desk.

"They have given us three days of nothing and then one morning of rules," she said. "Which means nobody can prepare. Which means preparation is not what is being tested."

"That’s the part you’re worried about?"

"No."

She said it quietly.

"They have taken away the only thing I am certain I am good at. Four days after I was told that the only thing I am certain I am good at is what lost me the last one."

"That isn’t what the Hermit said."

"It is what he meant."

She stood.

Gathered her notes.

Squared them against the desk until the edges were exact, and then squared them again, which Adrian had never seen her do.

"Find out who designed it."

"Elizabeth..."

"Not to influence it. I am not asking you to do anything vulgar." Her voice was completely level. "I want to know what question they are asking. If I know the question, I can prepare thirty-seven people for it."

"You have a weekend."

"I am aware of how long a weekend is."

She picked up the notes.

"I have never taught anyone to be good at something without me standing behind them. Not once. Not in my entire life."

A pause.

"Apparently I have until Monday to learn."

***

( James Vellaroux’s POV )

Class Two made noise, which was expected, because Class Two makes noise about everything and a competition was the most Class Two piece of news ever read aloud in that room.

Tristan Rhael did not watch the class.

He watched James.

James listened to the whole notice without moving.

He was sitting slightly wrong, favouring nothing visibly, the way a man sits when he has been forbidden the only thing he knows how to do and has decided that sitting badly is a form of protest.

One month, no spatial work.

Four days served.

A competition next week.

Tristan did the arithmetic twice, because the first result seemed unfair enough to be a mistake, and it was not.

Whatever indirectly meant, James was going to be doing it without the attribute that had made him the second name anyone said when they listed the five.

When the reading finished, James laughed.

Once.

Short.

Not a good sound.

The room went quiet, because James Vellaroux does not laugh in classrooms.

"Something funny?" someone asked.

"No."

He stood.

"Vanguard trains tomorrow. All day. Everyone who isn’t bleeding."

"It’s the weekend."

"I’m aware what day it is."

"You’re not allowed to..."

"I’m not allowed to train."

He picked up his blade, which he was also not allowed to use, and which he carried anyway because putting it down was apparently a bridge too far.

"Nobody said I’m not allowed to watch."

He walked out.

Tristan stayed where he was for a moment, looking at the empty doorway, and thought about the fact that James had gone six hours a night in that training hall for six days while nobody noticed, and that the only person who had noticed was a boy from another class who had walked in near midnight.

Then he went after him.

Because that is the job.

***

( Sophie Trohan’s POV )

Brightvale’s classroom erupted.

"Next week!"

"Is it combat?"

"Three days. We have less than three days."

"Emergency Dessert Night, but competitive."

"That is not what any of this says."

Sophie laughed, because she always laughs, and because it is genuinely the funniest room in the academy and she stopped apologizing for enjoying it some time ago.

Then someone said, "Wait. Indirectly?"

The noise dropped about a third.

"So you won’t be with us?"

"I don’t know yet," Sophie said.

"Will you be able to talk to us? During?"

"I don’t know."

"Sophie."

"I genuinely don’t know. Nobody does until Monday."

She kept smiling.

The alternative was letting thirty-six people watch her stop.

Class Three had been the information class.

Maps.

Routes.

Scouting.

But that was not what she had actually done during the examination, and she knew it, and so did everyone who had stood on that bridge with her.

What she had done was walk up and down a line of exhausted, frightened classmates for eight hours, saying names.

Saying small things.

Being where people could see her.

That was hers.

That was the thing she was for, and she had only worked out that it was a thing three weeks ago, and now there was a word in a notice that might mean she was not allowed to do it.

"Sophie?"

"Hm?"

"You okay?"

"Great," Sophie said brightly.

She did not sit down for the rest of the lesson.

Sitting down would have made it worse.

***

( Daphne Spinster’s POV )

Class Four heard the notice.

Class Four looked at Daphne.

Daphne said, "Fine."

That was her entire response, and the class accepted it and moved on, because eleven days had taught them that a single word from Daphne Spinster is a complete paragraph and that pressing for a second one produces less.

Nadia waited until the room emptied.

"Fine."

"Yes."

"You’re not fine."

"I said a word. I didn’t make a claim."

Nadia sat on the desk in front of her, which Daphne hates, and which is the entire reason Nadia does it.

"Indirectly," Nadia said. "Three days. And we find out what it means on Monday, which gives you exactly one day to do anything about it."

"I’m aware."

"Daphne."

"I said I’m aware."

Grey stone. Cold light through the high windows. The same as every other room in the building.

Daphne looked at her hands.

"A wall doesn’t move," she said. "That’s the point of a wall. It doesn’t have to be clever. It doesn’t have to be fast. It has to be standing in the same place when something arrives."

"I know. You made a whole speech about it."

"I made two sentences."

"It was a speech."

Daphne closed her eyes.

"They are going to send thirty-six people somewhere next week," she said, "and there is a word in that notice that means I will not be standing in front of them when they get there."

She opened them.

"I don’t know how to do that."

Nadia opened her mouth to say something reassuring.

"Nadia."

"What?"

Daphne was looking at the window now, at nothing, the way she had been looking at nothing at four in the morning two nights ago with her back against a wall.

"Have you been sleeping properly?"

Nadia blinked.

"...Yes?"

"Good," Daphne said.

And did not explain.

***

I found Cedric on the stairs outside the training hall that evening.

Elbows on knees.

Staring at nothing.

The posture of someone who has been sitting long enough to stop noticing he is.

"You heard."

"Yeah."

"And?"

He did not look up.

"I’m the highest potential in Class Five who’s definitely competing."

"Yes."

"S rank. Fire and Force. Three days."

"Yes."

"Four days ago I put you in an infirmary."

There it was.

I sat down next to him.

Slowly, because ribs, and because sitting down beside someone does more than most sentences.

"Cedric."

"Don’t tell me it wasn’t my fault. Professor Vale already tried and he’s a professor and it didn’t work."

"I’m not going to tell you that."

"Then what."

"I’m going to tell you that next week thirty-five people are going to walk into something, and whatever indirectly turns out to mean, it does not mean I will be standing where I can reach them."

He looked up.

"And?"

"And I have spent eleven days watching this class. With full knowledge of exactly what you did four days ago and exactly what it cost."

I made myself finish it.

"If I could choose one person to be standing in front of them when it happens, it would still be you."

Cedric stared at me.

Then he put his face in his hands, and did not say anything for a while, and I sat on a cold stair beside him and let him have it.

***

I went to bed that night at a reasonable hour, for the first time in three days, like a person with sense.

I lay in the dark with Dream Haven under my head.

Three days from now, somebody will stand in a room and explain what one word means.

Four days ago, somebody sat down and wrote that word into a document that did not previously contain it.

Two nights ago, something noticed me for one and a half seconds and then chose to stop.

Three days.

I closed my eyes.

Then, after a while, I opened them again, and watched the ceiling until it got light.