The Academy [BOOK ONE COMPLETE]

The Bursar faced me for a moment, shiny gemstone-eyes staring into mine. Then they spun in different directions to look at two piles of paper. “There is still. Work to do. If you need to rest. I will allow it.”

“No, wait! Yours? The Academy owns businesses? My dad used to buy sacks of Pig’s Delight for the animals.”

“Healthy feed for all omnivorous livestock,” the Bursar recited. “More costly, as the flesh rots unless cared for.”

“Um,” I said.

“You are dismissed. There are secrets and there are secrets. You approach the latter. Maybe one day.”

“You can’t really expect for me to leave after—“

The Bursar’s hand appeared before my face. She snapped her scalpel-fingers so close to my eyes I saw only the blur and the flash. I flinched back, yelping as a live spark hit my brow.

“It is. Dinner time,” she said.

“Right, sorry, thanks, sorry,” I said, rubbing my brow and stumbling backward. Damn. I had really enjoyed seeing that happen to Falar back when I came here. Hadn’t realized how damn frightening it was. She waved the hand at me, fully focused on her papers again.

I shut the door behind me, leaning against it. I hadn’t even seen her arm move. The way people talked about her made a bit more sense. My stomach growled again. At least someone didn’t just blurt out every secret immediately.

She really was the only normal thing in this whole place. Working for her was the best idea I had gotten in years.

---

The dinner was mediocre this time. The thick oatmeal had strips of bacon, a large dollop of butter melting on top, and sweet dark red jam, but it wasn’t a feast like most of the meals had been. Maybe the school was rationing supplies before the Bursar got her Bone Express up to speed.

“Too much butter,” Fek said.

“No such thing,” Grit said.

I shrugged. Minnelil smiled quietly, as she usually did.

Fek crashed on his bed, falling on his face on the pillow. “I’ve slaved away all day at the workshop and the rest of you just loiter around all day,” he mumbled. “It’s not fair.”

“I built a whole skeleton in a day!” Grit shouted.

“I built the same one twice,” Minnelil said. She hadn’t been at the dinner, spending the night instead in the library, helping Firgl to organize books.

“Well, okay, but Lina only made a cat.”

Like it had been called, Clickens pushed open the door to the dorm. Minnelil shut the door, and the cat skeleton bonked her on the shin with its head.

“Ouch,” Minnelil said, sitting down on her bed and rubbing the shin with the ankle of her other leg. “I wonder where it has been the whole day.”

I picked it up. The cat felt like a pile of bones, which made a lot of sense, but it still always surprised me when I held it. It looked graceful when it moved, but now its rib got caught on my robe, random bones sticking this way and that. I sat down and untangled the cloth from the rib, lifting Clickens before my face. “Who knows where you’ve been. Been a good undead monstrosity, have you?”

Clickens mewed a metallic screech.

“Ah, I didn’t tell you the news yet,” Grit said, cheeks flushing. “Falar is going to make me his research assistant!”

“Whoa,” Fek said. “That sounds like a terrible idea.”

“Yes,” Minnelil said. “Although it will be a great opportunity as well.”

Grit scoffed. “That’s what I said. And there’s going to be a big ritual in a couple of weeks. They’ll try to figure out what the thing causing all the trouble is. The one that tried to possess Lina and kill us on the mountain. Falar is going to chuck Lina in with Jextor to track the presence.”

“This really is news,” Minnelil said, glancing at me. “Will it be safe?”

I cradled Clickens in my arms and plopped down onto my bed. “It'll be safer than leaving it up to those two idiots and waiting for the thing to come and get me.”

“Could we come too?” Fek asked. “You could ask Falar before the council gets wind of it. They are still sore about the last time.”

“Oh, sod the council,” I groaned, laying down. Clickens twisted out of my grasp and walked over my face to curl up on my pillow. The bony feet were pointy, but it was so light I didn’t bother stopping it.

“There are a lot of gifted older students in the school,” Minnelil said. “The more gifted and powerful, the less one usually sees them. You shouldn’t dismiss all of them just because of people like Lombarte or Smerz.”

“I guess. Why don’t they do anything, then?” I said, sniffing. “The lunch and dinner are always packed, but why is it me who ends up in the middle of the breaking wards or a frozen tigers clawing their way back from the dead?”

Minnelil grinned. “A lot of people get into trouble in this school. Some even get out of it. But you do seem to have a special knack of ending up in the middle of situations.”

“I’m going to start calling it that,” Fek said. “Ferne always says I cause trouble. Ending up in the middle of situations sounds much better.”

“No, it’s different with you,” Grit said, then stopped. “I… guess? Or? Hmm.”

“Well, if we’re being completely honest…” Minnelil said.

I scoffed. “The difference is that I don’t cause trouble wherever I go.”

“You did steal the Conspice,” Grit said.

“And ran out into the storm when the wards were breaking,” Minnelil said.

Fek nodded, face serious. “And got us locked in a corridor full of skeletons.”

“That was you!” I shouted at him. “But getting haunted wasn’t my fault, except perhaps a bit because… anyway! It’s stupid. They should work harder to keep me out of trouble.”

“How much harder could they work, realistically?” Grit said.

I grumbled and crossed my arms over my chest. Clickens stretched on my pillow, and got one of its claws stuck in my duvet. What a stupid little undead. “It’s not your fault your skull is so small,” I said, turning its bony paw to help the claw out without ripping my bedding.

“You realize you two are exactly the same?” Fek asked.

“Shut up,” I said.

---

A knock came from the door. I had been napping and didn’t move, as the skeletons tended to march in anyway. Neither did anyone else. After a moment, the knock came again.

“Oh, you think it’s someone real?” Fek asked.

“The door’s open!” Grit shouted.

A woman I hadn’t seen before opened the door. She was old. Older than anyone I had seen. Deep and dark wrinkles etched her face and crow’s feet ran from her eyes. “Students,” she said. Her voice didn’t sound as old as she looked. It was the complete opposite of Falar’s: like she was laughing at a joke only she had heard. “You must be Lina, as you’re not an Elf or a Jonungaard or a boy.”

“Yup,” I said, craning my head back on the pillow to look at her.

“Senior teacher Shalameth,” Minnelil said, standing up and bowing. “How can we help you?”

“I have business with Lina,” Shalameth said. “Can we have a moment?”

“It’s fine. They can stay,” I said, sitting up on the bed. “Can’t be that private. I haven’t even done anything.”

“You haven’t?” the old woman asked, smiling. Her eyes crinkled, deepening the grooves on her face even more. Her skin was like parchment, the bones of her skull shining through it. She wore a black cap on her head, with silver hair curling out from below it.

“Well, nothing that they wouldn’t know already,” I said, frowning. On second thought, I wasn’t sure if that was true. I squinted as I tried to remember anything that might land me in trouble, but there was so much and so little at the same time that I couldn’t put my finger on anything specific.

“Maybe you haven’t done anything, but the matter is still serious. Do you mind if I sit?”

Minnelil rushed forward and pulled up a chair for her, backing away. Was this lady some kind of queen or what?

“Thank you, dear,” Shalameth said, winking at Minnelil. Her face became serious again, and she sighed, leaning back in the chair. “There’s a situation developing about your enrollment into the school, poppet. I heard you did not want to come here originally. Have you changed your mind?”

I nodded at her. Sleeping in a bed and getting to eat would have been enough, now that I had gotten used to the idea. That wasn’t the only reason I had changed my mind. Studying magic was interesting. Maybe even the people were.

Doubt gnawed at the back of my mind. Perhaps it would be a relief to have everything taken away just as I’d always expected. She waited, tilting her head slightly. “What’s the situation?” I asked.

“There have been claims about where you were born. For obvious reasons, people are still sensitive about that at the moment.”

“Huh? I don’t think the village had a name, but it’s gone now.” Saying already that much felt like I was pulling the rug out from under my own feet. I had been seventeen when I arrived at the orphanage, and had spent almost a year there. The first winter after I ran away had almost killed me, but it hadn’t. I tried not to think of anything that had happened before that. Wait, what were the people actually sensitive about? “What the hell are you saying?”

She rubbed her hands together, looking at her long and wrinkled fingers. “Before what happened, the border to Kerthar was porous. Not particularly close attention was paid to which side some communities were.”

“You… for real?”

Fek, Grit, and Minnelil were all quiet. The wind blew outside, barely audible through the facade door.

“The Lombarte family has raised a question with the Girnham family. Out of civic duty, you see. Having a Kertharian attending the school would cause an uproar, or that is what they claim.”

A Kertharian… Clickens hissed from behind me. The snikt of his claws popping out sounded like steel on steel.

“I’m going to kill those bastards,” I whispered.