The Academy [BOOK ONE COMPLETE]

“Sorry,” Minnelil whispered at me, mouthing the word from the other side of the room. She crouched to open her chest, carefully pulling out the book she had placed there earlier.

Right. She had said she didn’t need as much sleep as the rest of us. There was no way she could read when it was this dark, though.

She tried anyway. After taking an eternity to get between her covers quietly, she pressed the book almost up to her nose, frowning and squinting. The softly shining eyes made the expression easier to see across the room.

“You can’t be serious,” I whispered.

She glanced over and smiled or grimaced, shrugging at me.

I turned onto my back, watching the ceiling. I shut my eyes for a moment, but opened them up again, frowning. A page was flipped on the other side of the room, the sound a low hiss. I sighed.

“Am I bothering you?” Minnelil asked in a low whisper.

“No, nah,” I murmured. “I just woke up. It’s not your fault.”

She stayed quiet. I kept my gaze on the ceiling. I could barely make out the planks. I wondered where the room actually was. What was outside of it. Black stone? Nothing? Probably some student council idiots had tried to find out. I could ask Frederik.

I heard covers rustle, soft steps approach. I rubbed the tips of my fingers against each other. Um, ehm. What was going on?

Minnelil stopped next to my bed, maybe four steps away. “If you can’t sleep, want to take a walk? It might help.”

I licked my lips. Well, I was awake. Grit was sound asleep and wouldn’t be weird about it either. I threw off the cover and sat up, stretching an arm over my head, with my other arm behind it. “Sure.”

Minnelil’s gaze wandered around the walls. “Wear a robe. Your shirt is too thin for the outside.”

Of course I would wear a robe? I hadn’t been anywhere without wearing a robe for weeks. I had been sleeping in a silk shirt I had gotten from Ang earlier. It had been stupidly expensive, but the silk was soft and smooth on my skin. I didn’t need money to live here, so I had decided to spend the bonus on luxury. I smoothed the chest of the shirt with my hand and shivered as the cloth hissed from my touch. Nice.

Minnelil was already at the door, holding on to the door handle and rubbing her face with her other hand.

“How much sleep do you actually need?” I asked when we were outside.

Minnelil walked briskly, so that I had to almost jog to keep up. “About half of what you do. I try to go to sleep about the time when everyone does, but I wake up later. I read a lot or write a letter home or go on walks.”

“That sounds sort of lonely,” I said. I knew lonely, but I wasn’t sure if I knew it in the same way as she maybe did. I had been alone. I had no one I cared about, and I made sure to keep it that way. She at least had us. What a dumb thought.

She shrugged, smiling quietly.

“You write a lot of letters?” I asked, to ask something.

“I try to write one at least every couple of days,” she said. “My family lives deep in our forests. They miss me.”

“Every couple of…? Whoa. They ever write back?”

“Yes,” she said. “But it takes a while.”

I scoffed. Figures. Saying missing someone is easy, but even writing a letter takes more effort. Made sense that she’d be the most dutiful one. “Doesn’t sound fair.”

She glanced at me, frowning. “Ah, wait,” she said. “You know how time runs twice as fast here?”

“Yeah, so?”

“It’s nothing compared to where I come from. I can never write enough letters for them not to miss me.”

Oh. How should I have known about elves and their forests? I quieted the irritation, as it made no sense. She wasn’t out to get me, even though I was watching her for it. The moldy air made me feel jumpy, like an animal baring its teeth, ready to bite. I remembered Falar’s words about being a mistreated dog and clenched my jaw to stop from growling out loud.

Minnelil looked up toward the clouds above the Academy somewhere, lost in her own thoughts.

“But what about you?” I asked after a moment.

“I miss them too,” she said. “That’s why I write. And to explain.” She stopped and sat down, patting the wooden platform next to her.

We had sat like this once earlier. I leaned my chin on my right knee, letting my other leg hang down. My lungs were trying to push up against my heart and my fingers were numb. Why was she talking to me like this? “Explain?” I muttered, not being able to help myself.

“What I hope to achieve here. How much longer it’s going to take. What I feel about my younger brother being four decades older than I am,” she said, chuckling. “Everyone who leaves deals with it one way or another. I write.”

“Huh,” I said. “I’m… sorry? I guess. Four decades sounds like a lot?” I winced as I said it. That hadn’t been the relevant part.

She chuckled. “It’s actually not. We don’t age in quite the same way as you do.”

We sat in silence. A group of skeletons dragged a cart in the middle of the yard below us. The cart was loaded with more skeletons, piled and piled on top of each other. How could there be so many skeletons in here? Where did they get all the corpses? It was funny with all the undead shuffling and clattering around, this place was still much quieter than Tenorsbridge at night.

Maybe behind closed doors the student council made inane plans on how to scare new students or Falar trained skeletons to put on harnesses more efficiently, or whatever it was he researched, but out here, nothing moved except the snow, always swirling.

“I should let you get to bed,” Minnelil said.

“I’m not tired,” I said.

She looked at me, brown hair pushed behind her pointy ears. They looked fun.

I lifted my hand to touch her other ear, to feel it, but stopped when I realized what I was doing.

“I think you are,” she said, smiling with all of her upper teeth showing. “The artifact, remember?” She stood up, offering her right hand down at me.

“Oh, right.” I clasped it. I felt it now, the carded wool around my brain. Maybe it really was time to get inside and try to get some sleep.

She helped me rise, pulling on my hand. I grabbed her shoulder with my other hand, and while I was there, wrapped it around her back.

“Ahm,” she said to my face. Her eyes were beautiful, with the golden flecks and the verdant green.

I leaned closer. “Kiss me a bit.”

“Ee,” she said, very quietly.

I took her bottom lip between mine, planting a soft kiss on it.

She pushed her palm on my forehead, pressing my head gently back. “I’m 128 years old,” she mumbled.

“What’s that in human years?” I said.

“It doesn’t work like that!”

Her hand was on my lower back, our stomachs pressed against each other. This really was a bad idea? Out of all the bad ideas I’d had recently, this was probably the dumbest, wasn’t it? As she didn’t pull away, I kissed her again, just a bit.

She kissed me back, but then pulled away. I snapped my teeth at her and exhaled through my nose.

“Down, girl,” she said. “Please, Lina. We should get to bed. No, wait!”

I chuckled, but let her go. She looked more frightened than Fek when he had gone up against Lombarte. The laugh bubbled out of me and I rubbed at my face.

Minnelil smiled at me, the smile tinted with panic. “Look. It’s the artifact, the lack of sleep.”

No one had touched me for years. Not without me breaking their fingers if they tried. Staying alive, holding together, had been too much already. Enough to make even the idea of a touch feel like raw flesh being scrubbed. Her lips had been soft. She kept speaking, face red and hands swinging around as she explained something. Her lips had been so soft, and the way the tip of her nose wiggled as she spoke was cute.

She stopped swinging her hands. “Um, Lina?”

“Hmm-m?” I asked. “Right, yeah, I’m just tired. There’s no one around, you know.”

Minnelil glanced around, then scoffed. “Let’s get you to the dorm,” she said, wrapping her fingers around mine and pulling me behind her as she started walking briskly.

As she was looking away, I grinned. I think she did as well. Oh damn. What the hell was I going to do about this? Below the tingling feeling lingering on my lips, something simmered. Ice water trickled down my spine as I thought about the danger I was plunging into.

Minnelil rushed before me, pulling me after her. I focused on not slipping on the ice, grateful for the distraction.