She gestures to the entire room. “He likes it here.”
“You don’t even have him in a cage? You just let a vicious snake roam around? What if he gets out? What if he attacks one of us in the night?”
Cassius looks up at the clock. “Can we have this conversation another time? We have to go.”
Claudia ignores him completely, keeping her eyes on Marcherie. “He won’t hurt anyone. I promise. He’s only hissing now because you’re threatening him.”
“He’s a reptile. He doesn’t understand what I’m saying.”
Bishop hisses again. Claudia shushes him harshly and cuts her eyes to Marcherie. “He’s reading your body language, which is needlessly hostile.”
“It’s purposefully hostile.” She tosses her heavy hair over her shoulder. “I’m going to tell the High Sage immediately.” Marcherie walks toward the door, but Claudia charges ahead of her, blocking the exit.
“How can I change your mind?” Claudia asks, eyes wide, brows raised.
Marcherie grits her teeth. “Get out of my way.”
“There must be something I can do.”
“No.”
She can feel Bishop getting ready to strike. Quickly, she tosses a warning glare down at him. He slinks back in her hand obediently. “I’m not moving until we come to an agreement.”
Marcherie scoffs. “You can’t stand there forever.”
Claudia straightens her spine. “You can’t make me move.”
They glare at each other in heated silence until Cassius groans,stepping between them and pointing at the clock. “We do not have time for this.” He glowers at Claudia. “Star Girl, get your snake an enclosure immediately and we’ll think about keeping him a secret.” Turning his head, he says, “Marcherie, if she doesn’t get this sorted, we’ll tell the High Sage together. Good? Good.” He pushes open the door, his jaw clenched and his brows tightly pinched in frustration. “Now, come on. We’re already late.”
It’s a short walk to Professor Olivier’s class on rhetorical mastery, and Cassius is a liar—they aren’t late by Claudia’s standards. Sure, they’re the last to arrive, but they’re here before the professor, and that’s good enough for her. Tomorrow, afforded with the privilege of walking to class without an escort, Claudia plans to sleep in a little longer.
There are about twenty other students in the room scribbling ferociously. Once Claudia takes her seat—the only seat left—she sees a prompt written across the blackboard:DEFINE GOOD.
That’s it? It seems too easy. But maybe it only feels easy for her because she is good. For others, like Cassius sitting next to her, goodness is probably an indefinable, arcane concept. Claudia picks up the quill and dips it in their shared inkwell.
Good is the absence of evil.
After a pause, she crosses that out. If that were true, then she couldn’t be good, for she has done the ultimate evil—she killed someone. Her own father. She drove a blade through his chest and licked his blood from her teeth like an animal.
But she is still good. She simply needs a less rigid definition.
To be good is to put others before the self.
But that’s wrong, too, because she’s still good even though she put herself above everyone she knows in order to come here, and she would do it again. What others want is not always good. Goodness must be able to exist in its own right. It can’t be defined by the absence of something.
Goodness is
She stares at the words for too long. Looking out of the corner of her eye, she realizes Cassius is already done with his response. In fact, he’s been done—the ink is dry and his paper is face down. Her heart pounds. She can’t let him see her struggle with something so simple. Why can’t she do it? One definition. Just one sentence. It shouldn’t be hard.
Goodness is when everything is right, and
FUCK.That’s the start of the dumbest sentence ever written. Again, she crosses it out. She needs a string of impressive words to cover the fact that she has no idea how to definegoodin a way that includes herself. Good girls don’t lie, and they certainly don’t kill. Good girls aren’t curious or mouthy or masochistic or weak. And good girls aren’t this dumb. Good girls know how to write good words.
Claudia can’t even do that.
I don’t know. I am not good. I am stained.
This tiny admission of guilt makes her feel a little better. It’s a tease of a confession, a taste of relief. With an exasperated sigh, she crumples up her paper and shoves it in her bag before grabbing a clean sheet. She needs to sound smart. Convincing. Good.
