“You can’t go,” I murmured numbly. Then, louder, to Rhama: “She can’t go. Not yet. I don’t…You can’t send her away.”
I’d been about to say,I don’t know how tobewithout Zennia.But the words got stuck on something in my throat. Something vast and terrible—emotion like I’d never felt.
“Here,” Rhama said to her, picking up the fallen nightshift. “It’stime. Bring your trunk. And you”—he turned to me—“I won’t report this to the other Instructors, provided you turn around and leave. Right now.”
I wanted to defy him, to pull Zennia into a hug and refuse to let go until they peeled me off her, but I knew, deep down, it wouldn’t change what was coming—only ensure I saw the inside of the Confinement Locker for a week.
Instead, I watched with steadily blurring vision as Zennia stuffed the nightshift into her trunk. “Wait,” she murmured, then dashed over to her nightstand, where she snatched something up and pinned it to her shirt: the brooch I’d given her, plain hammered metal, imprinted with the image of a sailing ship. I’d saved up a year’s worth of chore money for it, picked it out on one of our rare trips to town. Ever since I’d known her, Zennia had wanted to see the sea.
“Come,” Rhama ordered. And to me: “Your room—this instant.”
I was shocked at how lenient he’d been already. Caerig would have imploded by now. He must have seen, over the years, how close we’d become. But it didn’t stop the flare of anger I felt toward him.
I walked backward down the gallery, feeling my way along the wall, unable to wrench my gaze from Zennia. Rhama was inscrutable as he hefted her trunk and ushered her toward the stairwell.
I was left to stare after my only friend, the closest thing I had to family, knowing that once she rounded that corner out of sight, I’d be utterly and completely alone in the world.
2
Thenight after my exam found me cross-legged on my bed, having abandoned the first few scribbled lines of an essay. It was due in two days, but I couldn’t concentrate. My head felt foggy, bogged down by uncertainty.
The near disaster of my test that morning—and the question of what, or who, had eventually saved me—had left me reeling all through our remaining lessons. There was a tedious history lecture on some battle or other between the constantly quarrelling Hundred Houses, then a tutorial on emotional control. Finally, we were put through another grueling practical. Caerig, perhaps as punishment for the whispering in the exam, had us run extra laps of the yard while splitting the flow of water from its fountain.
I did poorly, of course, and sensed Caerig watching me; I flattened my features, but my thoughts were fizzing. Awful possibilities flitted through my head, each one more disturbing than the last. Would I end up in one of the Hundred’s private navies, be blown apart by ships’ cannons in another pointless skirmish? Or succumb to the monstroustides that ravaged the coastlines as I helped build harbors or drain marshes in the Quaglands?
Getting into Arbenhaw should have meant a good placement, but failures ended up no better off than the Orha who hadn’t passed the test for entry. As tough as our schooling here was, it wasn’t as though there were many alternatives. Drudgery, danger…or no work at all. The last was the worst: a life lived in laconite.
At some point in my fretting, I must have lain down on the bed, as I woke an hour later to an insistent knocking at my door.
I heaved myself up, bleary-eyed and confused. We were never disturbed or summoned after curfew. It had to be something important—or something bad.
A nervous-looking boy poked his head around the doorframe. One of the younger Floodmouths—they often ran errands. “Instructor Caerig’s sent for you,” he whispered, brandishing a note of permission to walk the halls. He dropped the note into my damp, outstretched palm and hurried off, leaving me to grab a night rushlight. Fingers of fear clawed at my stomach as I left my room and headed down the walkway. I could think of only one explanation for this summons: The Instructors had decided I deserved some punishment for my lackluster performance in the tank that morning. Sixty-eight seconds…slower than nearly all the others.
I had to show my permission slip, which trembled as I clutched it, five times as I made my way across the complex. Arbenhaw was shadowed and silent at this hour, and the Instructors’ Wing was no exception. There, I stopped at a tall, forbidding door, its brass plaque—engraved withInstructor Marin Caerig—glowing a dull orange in the light from my candle.
I paused for a moment to use Zennia’s trick. My nerves were a shivering ball in my mind’s eye, and I mentally cradled it, compressed it. My hold felt precarious, but it would have to do. I knocked.
“Enter.”
As I stepped through the door and nudged it closed behind me, I glanced around fleetingly at Instructor Caerig’s suite. There were neat bookshelves, piles of paper on a desk, a painting on the wall, and a practice aid in the corner, made up of glass tubes and vials of water.
“Corith,” came Caerig’s clipped tone. “Do sit.”
A large round table stood in front of the fire, and I was shocked to see not just Caerig sitting there but Rhama, too. I caught his gaze as I sidled over to a chair, but the Instructor remained as expressionless as ever.
It felt wrong, oddly intimate, to be sitting in this suite. The Instructors were usually so remote, so draconian. To see Caerig’s personal items, her bric-a-brac, was discordant, and I twisted my fingers in my lap.
Neither of them said anything for a few long moments. Rhama’s eyes were fixed on some parchment on the table, but Caerig, leaning back in her chair, studied me thoughtfully. It was unnerving, being the sole object of her attention. I wondered what punishment they’d see fit to hand down.
“You disappointed us in your examination this morning,” she said, watching me closely for a reaction. I fought to keep my features neutral. “But,” she continued, face creasing into a chilly smile, “Instructor Rhama has just been reminding me of the fact that your performance has been, in general, very impressive, for the better part of your time here at Arbenhaw.”
I looked at Rhama, unable to hide my surprise. He’d been watching me, his gaze weighing, almost assessing, but now he glanced back at the parchment beneath his fingertips.
“Your control and concentration has waned, these past weeks,” Caerig continued, “but, as Rhama has pointed out, ithasbeen a period of…some upheaval. I understand you were very close to…” Sheseemed to search for Zennia’s name and, unable to recall it, shot me a tight smile. “Well, in any case, I am willing to concede that this morning may have been an…unfortunate lapse.”
Before I could say anything, Rhama leaned forward and spun the parchment, showing me the wax seal at its base. A letter, inked in a deep, regal violet.
“House Shearwater,” he said. “You’ll remember them from your lessons.”
