Chapter 57. Hector Coughs
“Lina!” Minnelil shouted, waving a hand. In her mouth, my name sounded new. The skeletons pulled the carriage away, with Hector shouting orders at them in his raspy voice over the howling wind.
“Min!” Fek shouted.
“And of course you are here too,” Minnelil said. “I hope you didn’t get into too much trouble while I was away.”
“Not too much! And Lina helped me out of it, so it’s all good.”
I shrugged. He had sprinted ahead of me as we got closer. The carriage was similar, or the same, that had brought Falar, Jextor and me here from Tenorsbridge. Skeletons were lifting things off the carriage and the runners took off their harnesses. Minnelil stood next to the carriage, turning to look the skeletons unloading it. I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I reached her.
“I was expecting she would,” she said, picking up her luggage from a skeleton offering it down from the carriage. “Do you have any idea where Grit is? Isn’t it lunch time now?”
“No idea,” Fek said, then glanced at me before his gaze flicked back to Minnelil. “Want me to go find her?”
“Yes,” I said, eyes locked on Minnelil.
“Good idea!” he shouted and spun around. After running for a few steps, he slowed down to shout over his shoulder. “Welcome back!”
Minnelil smiled and waved a hand at him. “Clever boy, every once in a while.”
I reached the carriage. She stood next to it with the luggage in her left hand. “So,” I said, stopping before her.
“So,” she said.
I watched her as she smiled softly, placing the luggage on the snowy ground. She was wearing clothes from the outside again. A thick jacket this time, dark green with pants that made her legs look thin. She didn’t have a hat and the wind lifted her brown hair into the air, whipping it around. I reached a hand out for her.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Is it going to be a hug or a—“
I grabbed her other wrist and pulled her to me, putting my other hand around her neck. My thumb was on her jaw and my fingers reached all around to her ear on the other side, touching the soft spot behind it. I leaned my forehead on hers and felt her breath on my mouth. “At least a hug,” I said.
“I was hoping as much,” she whispered, brushing my lips with hers.
I pulled her to my mouth. She was a bit taller than me, but I was stronger. She made a small noise that made me want to bite her, so I took her lower lip between mine.
Her arm wrapped around my shoulder blades, fingers pressing into my back.
I held her there, licked my lips, and hers. I dug my fingers into her hair. It was so fine, like threads of silk.
“Someone’s coming this way,” she whispered.
“I don’t hear anything,” I said, nipping at her lip, but she pulled her head away with a panicked smile on her face.
“No wonder. I can hardly hear it from the way your heart beats.”
Hector coughed politely. “Trip went alright?” he asked from somewhere behind Minnelil.
She gave me one more squeeze, dragging her fingers across my back while already turning away. “Very well, sir janitor. Thanks for providing the transportation.”
“Just Hector, lady,” he said, lighting a cigarette cupped in his hands. He was standing next to his cart, almost facing away from us.
“Just Minnelil, Hector,” she said.
“Whatever you say, miss,” he said, then nodded at me. “You’re already hopping about too? Last I saw, you were still pretty grey.”
I nodded at him. My cheeks were red hot, and the lines Minnelil had drawn on my back tingled, but the cold from the corridor still ached in my bones. I had gotten it contained well enough, all things considered, but the pressure lingered, radiating out from my marrow.
“You are a bit grey now, to be honest,” Minnelil said. She brushed my face and I snapped at her fingers with my teeth. She yanked them away with a giggle.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Hector said. “Welcome back.”
“No, wa…” I started but ended the sentence with a chuckle. Whatever.
Whatever.
“You two!” Grit shouted, waving at us from the top of the stairs. “Had a good trip home? How was the welcome?”
“Very warm,” Minnelil said, giving my hand a soft squeeze.
I twitched, but left my hand in hers. Maybe I was giving away one more thing that people could hurt me with, but her hand was smooth and holding on pretty tightly.
Grit gave us an unabashed smirk.
“Stop that,” I muttered.
“I can,” Minnelil said so softly that I don’t think anyone else heard.
I hesitated, biting at my lower lip.
She let go of my hand to wave at Fek who nudged himself next to Grit to peer down at us.
“Found her!” Fek shouted.
“I’m proud of you,” Minnelil said loudly. She smiled and nodded slightly at me.
She had better not have meant me. Even though I was holding myself together better than I had thought. “Let’s go eat,” I said.
“Reanimation class, you say? I saw a lot of skeletons down there,” Minnelil said once we had sat down. The skeletons busied themselves all around us, plates and bones clattering in equal measure.
Fek picked up his knife and fork. “I can’t wait for the class. I wonder if we’ll get to keep what we reanimate.” He started to bang the table with his fists holding the cutlery in time with the rest of the students in the hall.
Frederik was leading the chant trying to make the skeletons hurry it up. The skeletons didn’t even have ears. I blocked mine with my fingers. “No way. The Bursar will want all the skeletons she can get.”
Grit shivered, shaking herself and grimacing. “I still can’t believe you work for her. The whole rest of the school is terrified of the thing.”
“She’s fine,” I shouted over the din. “People are just worried she’ll kill them.”
“Yes, exactly!”
“Well… I guess that makes sense.”
“Anyway!” Grit shouted. “What are you two…!” She stopped shouting as the noise cut off and her voice was the only one audible for a moment. The skeletons shoved plates of food between the students and the banging was replaced by cheers.
One skeleton was fighting with Frederik, trying to pull his knife and fork away from him. “I need them to eat!” he shouted.
Grit rolled her eyes, always an impressive sight when a Jonungaard did it.
I took the initiative. Offense was the best defense, as they always said. “Have you talked with Falar since the trip?”
Her white cheeks flushed pink and she coughed. “I thought I’d get to debrief with him about the trip, but the Chancellor bungled it up. He crashed in thirty seconds after me and sat in Falar’s armchair. They fought for five minutes about it, and it sort of went downhill from there, but the silver lining is the Chancellor awarded me four credits for the whole thing.”
“Nice,” Fek said.
“How much did Falar think it would have been worth?” I asked.
“Two credits and a kiss.”
“What!” Minnelil shouted, leaning over the table. “No? He didn’t? Did he?”
I groaned. “Of course he didn’t.”
“Well, he could have, but Jextor interrupted us.”
Minnelil rubbed at her brow, closing her eyes and sighing. “I’m too old for this.”
“You’re younger than any of us,” Fek said cheerily. “Seven elven years are a one human year.”
“That’s dogs! And it doesn’t work like that!”
A shadow fell over the table and a smell of an old cellar wafted over me. A cold shiver crawled up the back of my neck. Fek and Grit leaned back in their chairs on the other side of the table. Grit’s eyes were as wide as the saucers the skeletons had placed before us.
“There has been a change of plans,” Falar said, glaring down at me.
I bounced away with my chair. “Damn!”
Even Minnelil startled. The creep had really crept up on us. The Lunch Hall was suddenly very quiet, a hundred breaths being held simultaneously.
“Listen, everyone!” Falar said. His voice boomed across the hall and blew out the candle on our table. When he started talking again, his voice was quiet, but carried over the silent room. “The curriculum has been redrawn. The whole student body will focus on reanimation for the upcoming weeks. For those who have already passed the relevant courses, you will form teams and work independently.”
“Group assignments are the worst!” someone shouted from the direction where Frederik had been sitting with the council members.
“I agree,” Falar said, cutting his hand to the side. The gesture caused a gust that made plates clatter and skeletons stumble. “Planned workshops will proceed as planned. For the rest of you, the new workshops will start immediately. By the Bursar’s request, I should mention. So you can take your complaints directly to her.”
The murmuring that had started cut out. Someone made a small “eep” sound behind me
“You’re dismissed,” Falar said, putting his hands into his pockets.
Frederik cleared his throat after a moment of silence. “But we’re still eating?”
Falar wrinkled his nose. “Eating. The students I get nowadays.” He took in a breath and I slapped hands on my ears. “Out!”
The shout tipped over skeletons and students alike, and Fek fell over to his back. Maybe it taught him not to keep tilting while sitting at the table. Chairs banged as people shot up, pushing meatballs into their mouths and fighting with skeletons who started to pry the plates off their hands.
Minnelil’s eyes were wide. Probably would take her a moment to recover from the volume.
Falar took his hands out from his pockets and rubbed them together. His eyes landed on me. “That goes for you lot too.”
“Nah, we’re going to finish eating, thanks. Our workshop doesn’t start until tomorrow,” I said.
“Backbone, as expected. Just don’t stick a femur on it, like one of your friends tried to do.”
“Well, sorry. Didn’t think you’d remember anymore,” Fek said, picking up his chair. “There were a lot of weird names on that exam.”
“I rarely forget a mistake. The weird names are what separate us from madmen robbing graves,” Falar said.
“That’s the only difference?” I asked.
Falar scrunched up his brow, moving his mouth from side to side. “Sometimes. I’m needed elsewhere to run one of the workshops. Finish your meal, students.”
He twirled around, robe flapping in the air.
Grit lunged over the table and grabbed on to the hem. Falar took a step and pulled Grit half over the table, tipping over a mug and making cutlery drop to the ground. He stopped to look over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows. “You weren’t the one I expected coming at me.”
“Um,” Grit said, lying on the table, hand holding on to his robe.
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