His eyes met mine steadily, his expression laden. My gaze slid away, and I swallowed, unwilling to consider the meaning of the look that filled his eyes.
“So you knew one of the victims?” I asked instead, trying to work out how that could have happened.
But he shook his head. “Not directly.” When I frowned, he hurried on. “One of the victims was the son of a cousin of someone I know.”
I tried to follow his words, skeptical of what sounded like a very tenuous connection.
His fist clenched and then unclenched, his expression growing pained. “We’ve talked about our families, so you know my parents are academics. That’s why they’re so determined for me to follow their footsteps into the University. They love me well enough, and of course I love them, but…”
He looked up with a ghost of his usual smile. “They weren’t always very present. If they weren’t physically at either the University or palace library, they were often lost to abstraction. So I was raised more by the servants than I was by them. Our housekeeper’s daughter took on the role of my nanny, and she’s always been a second mother to me. It’s her cousin who lost his son to the Shrouded Killer. She’s not needed as a nanny anymore, but of course she still works for our family. Normally she lives at our family’s home here in Corrin, but she took two whole months off to stay with her cousin and his wife after it happened.”
“And law enforcement hasn’t been doing enough to find the killer,” I said slowly, a number of things making more sense—including why Zak was so comfortable among commonborns. “So you thought you’d chase him down yourself.”
“Not quite that,” Zak said with a wince. “Nanny made me promise that I wouldn’t.” He grinned. “She knows me too well.”
I raised a brow.
“I swore I wouldn’t do anything to search for him,” Zak said quickly in response. “And I haven’t. But if he were to happen to find me…”
“That seems like a hair-fine distinction,” I said dryly, relieved that he’d been constrained from doing anything more active.
“And now you’re going to make me promise to stop even that,” he said dejectedly. “I just wish there was something I could do to help properly.”
“Apparently you’re the only one who feels that way among the mages,” I said sourly.
“I know there are others who care,” he said with feeling, his whole bearing becoming more animated. “But it’s criminal the way so many mages ignore the plight of the commonborn. Times are changing now that we have sealing ceremonies, but theycould be changing faster. At the very least, we should be running things more efficiently.”
I hid a smile. He always got swept up in enthusiasm whenever his talk turned to systems that could be more efficient.
“Take your situation.” A martial light came into his eyes. “Your teacher should never have had the power to overlook you in favor of someone more valuable to him personally. If it happened to you—twice!—it’s probably happening in schools all over the kingdom.”
He didn’t slow down, properly worked up now. “And taking the top student from each school doesn’t make sense. Of course we need to spread out the places and make sure some are chosen from all regions of Ardann, but what if one school has two brilliant students and another has none? We need a more centralized system, and one with better oversight.”
My lips twitched, but I nodded. “I agree. How do you think it should be run, then?”
He frowned thoughtfully. “I would need to think about it more, to make sure I covered every possible angle, but I think the advanced schools shouldn’t cover a full eight years. At some earlier age—sixteen maybe? Or fourteen might be better?—local schooling should finish and teachers should refer all their best students to further training in a centralized location.”
“Here in Corrin?” I asked, fascinated by the idea.
“That would make most sense,” he agreed. “And students should have a choice, too, about which stream they want to enter. There’s already a teaching college, so students could choose whether they go there or to the University.”
“Or to one of the merchant companies,” I interjected, and he nodded.
“There may even be other options. The nominated students in each stream could be trained together, and during that time, their trainers could weed out anyone who didn’t prove suitableafter all. Then those who made it all the way through the extra training would be sealed and progress to their chosen career.”
I considered his suggestion. “That would be a good system,” I agreed. “Much better than the current one anyway. I know you were only a trainee until a couple of months ago, but have you suggested it to your parents? Maybe they could put the idea forward on your behalf?”
He snorted. “I’ve talked to them about it, but they just took it as an opportunity to push my joining the University. They say that if I make it through a university course, I can become a royal official and make all these changes I’m so enthusiastic about.”
“At the risk of agreeing with your parents on anything,” I said with fake meekness, “that’s actually a good suggestion.”
“But I would have to study at the University for years!” Zak cried. “Can you imagine it?”
“Actually I can. When you’re interested in the topic, you do quite well with your study.”
“It’s a fairly significant caveat,” he muttered, but I shook my head.
“You would be a much better official than most of the current ones. I’m sure of it.” My voice turned stern. “But not if you get murdered before you even make it to the University.”
