I thought about asking Jorn-o to switch seats with me—the boy in front of him was relatively short. Or at least, shorter than the giant in front of me. But would that be a girly kind of request to make?
As I was hesitating, Jorn-o saw the problem and offered to switch himself.
“Here—you take my chair,” he murmured. “That way you can see the Head Master better.”
“Oh, thank you. But will you be able to see?” I asked doubtfully.
He shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter. I’ve been here all my life—I know what he looks like.”
In that case, I was more than willing to switch.
“All right, thanks,” I said.
Since everyone was getting seated, I jumped up hurriedly to take him up on the offer, before everyone got situated and the opening speech began. But as I did, my knee knocked against the wooden back of the chair in front of me.
It wasn’t a very hard rap—I didn’t weigh enough to do more than just tap the chair. But the tall, lumpy boy sitting in it spun around immediately, glaring at me.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, newbie?” he snarled, his lips peeling back to reveal yellow, horse-like teeth.
“I…I’m sorry,” I managed to get out. I couldn’t understand why he was so angry when I’d barely touched his chair. “Just trying to switch seats because I can’t see over your head.”
His small, colorless eyes narrowed.
“Something wrong with my head, newbie?”
By now most of the boys in both my row and his were watching us, but I barely noticed them.
“Just that I can’t see through it,” I snapped back. “You make a better door than a window.”
This made the boys on either side of us snicker, which made the blobby boy even more angry.
“You better sit back down or I’m gonna fuck you up, newbie,” he snarled at me. “Gonna fuck you up good.”
He really was remarkably ugly, I thought distractedly. He had a broad nose but almost no lips to speak of. His eyes were too small for his large face and set too closely together. Angry patches of acne were scattered across his forehead and cheeks and some of his pimples looked ready to pop at any moment.
The sight turned my stomach, or it would have if my stomach wasn’t already clenched in fear. Why was this boy so angry with me? His face was turning purple, and his big hands were balling into fists as big as boulders—it was as though he hated me just for existing. But why?
“Be careful, Auren,” Jorn-o muttered to me from the corner of his mouth. It was as though the angry boy in front of me was a ticking bomb he feared might go off at the least provocation.
“Hey, what’s going on down there?” The voice came from the end of the row, and I saw it was Ryse Skoren again. He was frowning at both of us, as though I had decided to anger the lumpish boy on purpose.
“This little fucker kicked my chair,” the boy was seething now. “Keep out of it, Skoren! I’m gonna teach him a lesson.”
“No, you won’t! Stand down, Larson.” The Wing Leader’s voice cracked like a whip in the echoing cavern. “It’s not the boy’s fault you’re spoiling for a fight because you have to retake the entrance exam,” he added.
For the first time I noticed that the lumpish boy whose name was apparently Larson was wearing a cadet’s uniform like the Wing Leader was. Could he be one of the older cadets who had flunked his final exams that Jorn-o had been talking about?
“He kicked my chair and said my head looked like a door!” Larson raged. He was nearly frothing now—I had never seen such rage and it frightened me.
Ryse Skoren seemed to see there was no getting through to him without some kind of de-escalation. He looked at me and I saw his strange eyes flash. What was it about them? I wished I could get a closer look to see the differences Jorn-o had mentioned.
“All right you—whatever your name is—make a formal apology to Larson for kicking his chair,” he snapped at me. “Hurry up about it. The Head Master is about to speak.”
“A…a formal apology?” I asked uncertainly.
“Yes.” The Wing Leader sounded thoroughly exasperated. “Simply state your full name and his full name and say that you formally apologize.”
