“There.” I dust off my hands. “All better.”
Orok chokes again. “You said you were going to leave an animated corpse in the Conjuration Lab.”
I waggle my hands in a rather pathetic display of razzle-dazzle. “Corpse.”
“No,skeleton. He’s gonna shatter the moment we’re not there to lay preservation spells on him.”
The corpse turns sharply on his heels and the bones of his feetclick-clacka few steps across the tiled floor before I stop him by grabbing his decaying arm.
It’s squishy. A bit chalky.
I compartmentalize that and say, “Woah now, Sten,” in the soothing voice of someone talking to a child. “We took a field trip, remember? Stay.”
“Bqllr,” the corpse mumbles, and a tooth falls out of his mouth.
I don’t bother with a translation spell; the Necromancy Lab two buildings over said he mostly mutters Nordic cuss words when he’s not under the effect of a full-blown repossession.
Orok rubs his thumb against the skin between his eyes. “What’d you call him? Stan?”
“Sten. The Nec Lab said he was a Viking. He was one of the corpses that freshmen practice talking to, but he was due to be disintegrated since he’s, well…” I wave at his condition. “Plus, apparently the only stories he tells are brutal recountings of raids on Danish villages that get a little racist. No one wants to work with him.”
Orok eyes Sten. Then me.
He pushes off the wall. “I’m climbing the building.”
“Wait!” I grab for spell components with one hand, the other still holding Sten in place. “I can—”
But Orok flips me off over his shoulder, then he’s gone, jogging toward the stairs.
I look down at Nick’s floating top hat. “I get no respect around here.”
Nick twitters.
And Sten seems determined to meander up the hall, his bones tapping as he basically walks in place against my grip.
Probably should’ve waited to dump him out until we wereinthe lab, now that I think of it.
Impulsive? Me? How dare you.
The stillness lets the absurdity of this situation sink in. I feel Orok’s words creep back on me. How maybe I should give all this up.
My eyes snag on the plaque next to the Conjuration Lab’s door.
REFURBISHED THANKS TO A GENEROUS DONATION FROM THE TOURAEL FAMILY
A molten burn gathers in my stomach.
Yeah, fuck taking the high road. I’m going to put an animated corpse in the Conjuration Lab like any perfectly sane twenty-four-year-old almost-grad-school alumnus.
A minute or two later, the magic over the door shimmers, vanishes, and the door pops open to reveal Orok.
He gives a smile that’s brought more than a handful of Lesiara U’s single population to their knees and shows me the timer he has running on his phone. “Forty-two seconds.”
“You didn’t let me—”
“Thank you, Orok.” He pitches his voice up several octaves. I don’t sound like that. “You’re the most amazing wizard in our graduating class, Orok. I bow to your prowess, Orok.”
I sigh. “Thank you, Orok.”
