Chapter 136 Wanting Nothing

The grass ended in a line as straight as a ruler, with the Orchard rising beyond it.

Black-barked trees stood in rows no taller than a man, each trunk holding a shape frozen mid-reach. Lantern-fruit hung from every branch in soft clusters, the whole grove humming as if it were listening.

"Cross the grass line, reach the first clearing, return alive," Proctor Brannock barked, "that is the entire exam."

"What happens if I accidentally want—" Tobin began, raising a trembling hand like a schoolboy.

Brannock folded his arms over his chest and let the silence stretch across the grass line like a wire. Somewhere deep in the rows a pair of shears clicked once, making every cadet in the first rank flinch.

"Then the Orchard keeps the want, so intend nothing at all," Brannock said.

The trunk nearest Riven held a woman’s arm outstretched toward a branch, the bark swallowing her to the wrist. Her fingers curled around a lantern, its light pulsing gently, as though she were still reaching for it now.

"Even odds the first Pruner takes someone’s eyebrows," Cael announced, rattling a coin cup, "I’m backing Class One, loudly."

"Put that cup away before a Pruner wishes to relieve you of it," Brannock snapped.

Hooded figures drifted between the rows on silent feet, each with long shears where its hands should be. Their blades clicked slowly open and shut, tasting the air for anyone foolish enough to want something here.

"Listen to the shears, they click before they cut," Riven said, crouching behind a trunk.

He stepped out alone and calmly walked ten paces, thinking of nothing but the next stone under his left foot. A Pruner turned toward him, shears clicking, then snipped at nothing a half-second before he even thought of turning back.

’Click first, cut second... the Orchard prunes the wish before the act.’

Riven held still at the edge of a row, letting the shears click around him for a full minute. Each time his mind drifted toward a lantern, the nearest blade tilted toward his throat before he caught himself.

"The cut lands where my intention was heading," he called back, "I just don’t head anywhere."

"We move without wanting to move," Mara said, ears flat, "that is impossible."

"Walk like furniture on an errand... somebody carried you here, you don’t mind where."

Class Zero bunched at the grass line, studying the shears the way weary travelers study a very rickety bridge. Cassen stood stiffly beside Isolde, Giltknife freshly oiled and quiet, trying very hard not to look proud of it.

"Giltknife has not been this quiet since I was twelve... I distrust it."

Yukine slid into the Zero clump in her traveling coat, her face as blank as an unwritten page. She walked with such serene stillness that a nearby Pruner paused, deciding she must be an expensive statue.

"I am a sideboard in a very good house," Yukine murmured, "I want for nothing."

"I am a bookcase," Isolde whispered, "I have been trained for this since birth."

"Hat stand, at attention, awaiting hats... I have never felt so useful."

Nix drifted between the rows, hands behind her back, whistling nothing, the picture of a girl without desires. Two Pruners turned to follow her, found nothing worth cutting, then drifted off again, muttering in plain disappointment.

"I need to sneeze, I really need to sneeze," Tobin whispered, eyes watering.

A Pruner drifted closer, shears clicking, drawn by the faint tremble in his nostrils and the desperate wish behind it. Greta gently pinched his nose between two fingers and hummed a soft lullaby until the wish slid quietly away unspent.

"Think of cheese," Greta whispered, "think of every cheese you have ever loved."

Bram lifted a bucket from nowhere, "I want one thing only, this bucket."

A Pruner clipped the handle clean off, then a second took the rim, then a third took the base. By the fourth cut the bucket was a battered ring that Bram carried proudly forward with quiet solemn pride.

"Pruners four, bucket zero, I’d like that recorded in the betting book."

"The bucket survived four cuts, it’s our mascot now," Greta whispered.

Pryce strutted along the Council’s flank in a fresh velvet coat, a bandage still crossing his bruised nose. Beside him Ysabel walked with her fan shut, watching the rows the way a judge watches a defendant.

"Furniture walking is pathetic, I will show you what nonsense it is," Pryce announced.

"Lord Pryce, I advise you not to," Ysabel said, "the trees appear to disagree with you."

He reached for the nearest lantern with a flourish, his fingers a hair from the glowing fruit. A shear flashed twice before he finished wanting it, cropping half his hair and one velvet sleeve.

Pryce stood frozen, half bald and half sleeved, while the Pruner drifted off without so much as a bow.

"Hereditary baldness arrives faster when one is rude to trees," Isolde observed.

"I will describe this to the Council in great detail," Ysabel said, lifting her fan to hide a smile.

"Laugh while you can, villain," Pryce hissed, "my ancestral hall will have a portrait of this humiliation, you will pay for the frame."

"It’ll be a short portrait," he said, "you only have half a head for it."

Cassen coughed into his fist to cover a laugh, which fooled absolutely nobody in the first rank.

’Half a head of hair for one wish... that’s a cheap price for the lesson.’

Class One crossed along the far lane in a tight white wedge, Dorian at its tip, notebook open. Each time a Pruner turned, the whole squad blurred, rewound and stepped around the blade as if scripted.

"One," Riven murmured, watching Class One flicker as the blade passed them by.

"Two," Veska said, marking her palm with a finger, "verified."

"Three, that’s his entire day of rewinds gone before the second row."

Dorian’s smile cracked as the third rewind burned out, his notebook trembling hard in his tight grip. Behind him a Pruner turned, shears raised, leaving all of Class One to walk like everybody else.

"Walk normally," Dorian whispered to his squad, "and want absolutely nothing."

"My lord, the notebook says we cross at noon," Ormond whispered back, "it does not say how."

Class One shuffled the rest of the lane in single file, every face tight with the effort of wanting nothing. One cadet tried to scratch his ear, froze midway, then let the itch pass like a condemned prisoner awaiting sentence.

"Squad One has spent its whole day, so much for the notebook."

’Three rewinds gone before the first clearing. The notebook has no Chapter on walking.’

A cold breeze slid through the rows without moving a single leaf, as if the grove did not permit it.

The rows opened into a clearing carpeted with soft pale moss, lanterns drifting through it like slow fireflies. At its center a girl sat cross-legged, round black ears twitching, an iron collar fixed around her throat.

’Round ears, an iron collar, that auction-block stare... I know that look from Mara’s old nightmares.’

"You came back," the girl said, looking only at Mara.

Her tail went rigid behind her, her voice dying in her throat before she could answer.