Chapter 126 — "Preliminary Research"

Wednesday. Three days after her birthday.

The market was quieter midweek. Fewer performers, more actual commerce. Seraphina liked it better this way — nobody trying to sell her destiny in exchange for coin.

She was eating something from a paper bag she had not purchased.

"Where did this come from."

"A stall." Eren didn’t look up from whatever he was turning over in his hands.

"Which stall."

"The one you walked past."

"I didn’t walk past any stall."

"You walked past four. I stopped at the one worth stopping at."

She looked at the pastry. It was still warm.

"That’s stalking."

"That’s grocery shopping."

Mira arrived with fabric folded over one arm and the expression of someone who had already assessed the situation from a distance and found it exactly as predicted.

"He bought you food again."

"He acquired me food."

"He bought it. I watched him buy it. He counted the coins twice because he was nervous."

"I was calculating."

"You dropped one."

"That was a calculation error."

Seraphina bit into the pastry. It was very good. She resented that.

They walked. This was the arrangement now — Wednesday afternoons, no destination, three people moving through a city none of them were from.

"So," Eren said. "Question."

"No."

"You haven’t heard it."

"I’ve heard the shape of it."

"It’s a serious question."

"It’s never a serious question."

"Would you say I’m handsome, or devastatingly handsome."

"Neither."

"Those were the only options."

"Then the survey is flawed."

"The survey is peer-reviewed."

"By who."

"Me. Twice."

Mira, not looking up from the fabric she was still inspecting: "He asked me last week. I said neither too."

"You said ask Seraphina."

"Which was a kindness."

"It was cowardice."

"It was delegation."

Seraphina finished the pastry. "Do you do this to everyone."

"Do what."

"This." She gestured at the entirety of him.

"No," Eren said, perfectly evenly. "Only the ones I like."

She kept walking. Her ears got warm. She chose to blame the pastry.

The trouble started at the fabric stall.

Not their trouble. Someone else’s — which meant, historically, that it would become theirs within four minutes.

A boy from their year was arguing with the stall owner. Loudly. Badly. He was gesturing at a roll of dark cloth like it had personally insulted his family.

"That’s Torin," Mira said.

"Who’s Torin."

"He sits behind you in strategy. He breathes through his mouth during exams."

"That’s every third person at Kestral."

"He does it rhythmically."

Torin’s argument was not going well. The stall owner had folded her arms. A small crowd had formed, which is what crowds do when someone is losing an argument in public.

"He paid for six meters," Eren said, having listened for approximately eleven seconds. "She cut five. She thinks he asked for five. He thinks he asked for six. They’re both wrong."

"How are they both wrong."

"He asked for six but said it in Northern dialect. In Northern dialect, that word is five."

Seraphina looked at him. "You speak Northern dialect."

"I speak enough Northern dialect to have this exact problem once."

"When."

"Not important."

"It sounds extremely important."

"It was a hat," Eren said. "I ordered one hat. I received five. It was a formative experience."

Mira had already walked over to the stall. She said eleven words, quietly, and both parties stopped talking. Money changed hands. Cloth changed hands. The crowd, disappointed, dispersed.

"What did you say," Seraphina asked when she came back.

"I told them what he said and what she heard and let them decide who was paying for the difference."

"Who paid."

"They split it."

"That’s very reasonable."

"Reasonable people are just people who’ve been told the actual facts," Mira said, and went back to her fabric.

Torin found them a minute later, still red-faced, clutching six meters of cloth.

"You’re Seraphina."

"I am."

"You’re on advanced track."

"I am."

"Everyone says you moved up in month ten and the instructor didn’t say anything."

"That’s true."

"What does that mean."

"It means she didn’t say anything."

Torin looked at her with an expression she was becoming familiar with — somewhere between admiration and mild fear, and entirely unearned in her opinion.

"Right," he said. "Right. Thanks. For the — the cloth thing."

"That was Mira."

"Right. Thanks, Mira."

Mira did not look up. "You breathe rhythmically during exams."

Torin left.

They ended up on the low wall at the eastern edge of the market, where the ground dropped away and you could see the whole cold flat stretch of Varen going grey toward the horizon.

Three years left. She thought about that sometimes without meaning to.

"You’re doing the thing," Eren said.

"What thing."

"Where you look at the horizon and go somewhere else."

"I’m looking at a view."

"You’re looking through a view."

She didn’t answer.

Mira, without ceremony: "She sent a letter on her birthday."

"MIRA."

"I’m not saying to who."

"You’re saying there was one."

"There was one," Mira agreed. "That’s all I said."

Eren was quiet for a moment. Not the performing kind of quiet — the other kind, the one Seraphina had learned to recognise in him and had never entirely known what to do with.

"Good," he said.

"Good?"

"You’ve been carrying that letter around unwritten for two years. It was taking up space."

"You don’t know what it was about."

"I know it was heavy."

She looked at him. He was looking at the horizon, not at her, which was somehow worse.

"Eren."

"Hm."

"Stop being perceptive. It’s unsettling."

"Would you prefer I go back to flirting."

"Yes. Immediately."

"Your hair looks incredible in this light."

"Thank you."

He turned to look at her, genuinely surprised. "You said thank you."

"I’m in a good mood."

"Mira. Mira, she said thank you."

"I heard."

"Write it down."

"I’m not writing it down."

"You write everything down."

"I write down things that matter."

"THIS MATTERS."

Mira, after a pause, took out a small notebook and wrote something in it.

Seraphina leaned over. "What did you write."

"Nothing."

"Mira."

"It’s for my records."

"You don’t have records."

"I’ve had records since the first week. You’re extensively documented."

Seraphina stared at her. "Give me the notebook."

"No."

"Mira."

"You’d be insufferable about it."

"I’m ALREADY insufferable."

"You’d be worse."

Eren, delighted: "How many pages am I."

"You’re a section."

"A SECTION—"

"It’s not a compliment. It’s a containment measure."

Later, walking back, the sky had gone the colour Varen skies went before the cold really settled in for the night.

"Seraphina."

"What."

"If I asked you to marry me, seriously, right now—"

"No."

"—what would you say."

"I just said it."

"That was preemptive. It doesn’t count."

"It counts double."

He nodded slowly, as though absorbing valuable data. "So there’s a version where it counts once."

"There’s a version where I push you off a wall."

"There’s always been a version where you push me off a wall. It’s one of the things I like about you."

She almost laughed. She caught it in time, mostly.

He noticed anyway. He always noticed.

"There it is," he said quietly.

"There’s what."

"Nothing." He looked ahead. "Just — nothing."

They walked.

Behind them, Mira wrote something else in the notebook and did not tell either of them what it was.

The complaint arrived Thursday morning, and it arrived formally, which was the alarming part.

A folded note. Kestral’s seal. Her name on the front in the flat institutional hand of someone paid to write names on things.

Valois. Instructor Renna. Third hall. After midday.

"That’s not good," Mira said, reading it over her shoulder without asking.

"It might be good."

"It has a seal."

"Seals are neutral."

"Nothing at Kestral with a seal has ever been neutral."

Eren appeared at the doorway, saw the note, and read the room in about a second and a half.

"Is it about the roof."

Both of them turned.

"What roof," said Seraphina.

"No roof."

"What roof, Eren."

"There’s no roof. I misspoke. I meant — is it about the proof. Of coursework. Which you have. Because you’re diligent."

Mira closed her eyes briefly, the way she did when she was choosing not to pursue something for her own wellbeing.

Instructor Renna took students in the third hall because the third hall had no windows and no chairs, which she considered efficient.

She was maybe forty. She had the specific stillness of someone who had been very fast for a very long time and no longer needed to demonstrate it.

"You’ve been on advanced track eight months."

"Yes."

"You’ve had no correction from me in that time."

"No."

"Do you know why."

Seraphina thought about it honestly. "Because I haven’t done anything wrong."

"You’ve done several things wrong. I didn’t correct them because you corrected them yourself within the week. That’s the only reason. Don’t mistake silence for approval — mistake it for efficiency."

"Understood."

Renna studied her.

"There’s a placement in three weeks. Border rotation. Four students, six days, live conditions. Not a test. Not a simulation. Actual patrol with actual patrol officers who will not adjust their pace for you."

Something went tight in Seraphina’s chest and stayed there.

"You’re offering it."

"I’m informing you it exists. You may decline. Several will."

"I’m not declining."

"I know," Renna said. "That’s why I’m informing you instead of offering. Offering implies a decision. This is scheduling."

Seraphina laughed before she could stop herself.

Renna did not react to the laugh, which somehow made it worse.

"Three others are going. You won’t know who until the morning of. That’s deliberate."

"Why."

"Because in six days you’ll have opinions about them, and I want those opinions formed by what they do rather than what you already think." Renna turned toward the door. "Cold weather gear. Nothing decorative. Nothing you’d be upset to lose."

She paused.

"Valois."

"Yes."

"The border isn’t a lesson. Don’t treat it as one."

She told them at the wall that evening, because that was where things got told now.

Mira went quiet for a full four seconds, which for Mira was equivalent to shouting.

"Border rotation."

"Yes."

"Live."

"Yes."

"Six days."

"Yes."

Mira set her cup down on the stone. "Second-years don’t get border rotation."

"Apparently some do."

"Four do. Out of a hundred and eleven." She looked at Seraphina properly. "Do you understand what that means."

"That I should pack warm things."

"Seraphina."

"I understand what it means," she said, quieter. "I’m choosing to think about the warm things instead."

Eren hadn’t said anything.

She noticed that. He’d been holding the same cup at the same angle since she’d started talking.

"You’re not saying anything."

"I’m saying several things. Internally. It’s very loud in here."

"Say one out loud."

He looked at the horizon for a moment.

"Congratulations," he said. "Genuinely. You’ve earned it and you knew you’d earned it, which is the annoying part, because now I can’t even be impressive about it."

"That’s it?"

"No."

"What’s the rest."

"The rest is unhelpful, so I’m keeping it."

"Eren."

"It’s unhelpful, Seraphina."

She let it go. Which surprised both of them.

They walked back through the lower market, which was shutting down for the night — awnings coming in, crates stacking, the stall woman who sold the hot drinks arguing cheerfully with someone about the price of coal.

Torin ambushed them near the fountain.

"Is it true you’re going to the border."

"How do you know that."

"Everyone knows that."

"I found out ninety minutes ago."

"There’s a list," Torin said. "It’s not posted. But there’s a list. There’s always a list."

"Who else is on it."

"Nobody knows. That’s the whole thing about the list."

"Then what use is the list."

Torin blinked. "Knowing there’s a list is the use."

He said it with such complete sincerity that Seraphina found she had no response at all.

Mira, gently: "He’s not wrong."

"That’s the disturbing part."

Eren caught up with her at the dormitory stair, which meant he’d deliberately hung back and then deliberately not.

"Seraphina."

"If this is the unhelpful part—"

"It’s the unhelpful part."

She stopped on the second step. It put her almost at his height, which was novel enough to be distracting.

"Go on then."

"Six days," he said. "Live conditions. No instructors adjusting anything. That’s the first thing that could actually go wrong for you since you got here."

"I’m aware."

"I know you’re aware. That’s not the unhelpful bit." He shifted the strap of his bag on his shoulder — a small movement, but she’d never seen him fidget before, not once, not in two years. "The unhelpful bit is that I’d like to come, and I can’t, and I’ve been standing here for ten minutes trying to find a way to say that which isn’t embarrassing."

"Did you find one."

"No. That’s why I said it badly."

She looked at him.

Cold stairwell. Bad light. His breath fogging slightly. Two years of him saying outrageous things with a straight face and this — this — was the one that had cost him something to get out.

"Eren."

"Hm."

"That was the least funny thing you’ve ever said to me."

"I’m aware."

"Do it again sometime."

His mouth did something complicated. "That’s a terrible thing to encourage."

"I know." She went up two more steps. Turned back. "Three weeks. You’ve got three weeks to be insufferable at me and then I’m gone for six days."

"Six days isn’t very long."

"No," she agreed. "It isn’t."

Neither of them mentioned that three years wasn’t very long either, in the wrong direction.

She went up. He stayed at the bottom of the stairs slightly longer than he needed to.

Somewhere behind both of them, in a room with better heating, Mira added a line to a notebook and filed it under both sections.