Queen of faces, p.12
Queen of Faces, page 12
Hesitant and slow, I ate a forkful. It tasted like sawdust.
‘Incredible, right?’
I nodded, staring at the floor, silent about my defective taste buds. I ate more, softening the ache in my stomach.
‘Anyone want to join me?’ He gestured behind him to an empty table.
Warmth rushed through me, and I felt myself nodding, my paranoia subsiding. He took my hand and led me back to his table, petting the cat.
‘I love the opening feast,’ he said, leaning back in his chair. ‘I love just about any party they’ll let me into. Back home, I was the most popular kid in town.’
I raised an eyebrow, sitting beside him. We were the only two souls at this entire table.
‘It’s a different story here,’ he admitted. ‘My grades aren’t as good as they could be, except for my psych courses. In the sticks, I’m a genius, but here, I’m no one. It’s a funny feeling, sitting at the bottom of the top.’
‘Tell me about it,’ I said.
He pointed at his freckled face. ‘My body doesn’t help, either.’
‘Don’t Paragon students all get a free chassis?’
‘They do.’ The boy bit his lip. ‘And I sold mine to pay for my grandparents’ medical debt. Helped with their mortgage too.’ He gestured round the hall. ‘If you see an ordinary face on these islands, it’s either a Grey Coat or some poor fellow like me.’
Or both, in my case, I thought.
The boy shrugged. ‘When I sat down here, the swing club stood up and left. They were whispering about my Codex, but I try not to dwell on the negatives.’
‘You have a weak Codex?’
‘No Codex. If the rest of my magic were better, it’d be acceptable, but it’s not.’ He bit his lip. ‘The entrance exam said I have a purple soul. I’m a Praxis Specialist.’ He tapped the purple patch sewn on to his blazer, beneath the symbol of the White Sphinx. ‘Makes sense, since I know my own mind fairly well. And Prophets know I’m rubbish at chem. Psychology is the one course I do well in. But who knows if I’ll ever develop my own ability?’
I blinked, nodding.
As he talked, the boy piled food on to my plate, insisting I try it all. I obliged, pretending I could taste it. ‘I’m Kaplen,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’
‘David Chapman,’ I lied, the words sour in my throat.
A large translucent cage sat on the chair beside Kaplen. I leaned closer to look, and an orange scorpion skittered across the glass. No, not just one scorpion. Hundreds of them. A swarm of tiny creatures, pressing against the cage.
I jerked back. ‘You have a cat and a bunch of scorpions?’
‘Oh no,’ said Kaplen. ‘Those are my tutor’s.’
‘Your tutor keeps scorpions as pets?’
Kaplen shrugged. ‘She’s in the Praxis track with me, and we’re all a bit wild here. When you’re that good at altering your own thoughts, you can fall into some pretty odd rabbit holes. The school assigned her to me yesterday. Extracurricular. Best students helping out the worst.’
He pointed. I followed his gaze and choked.
A blonde girl approached us, smiling. Purple glitter sparkled on her heart-shaped face, and sharp black liner winged off the edges of her silver-flecked eyes. Her flawless skin shone in the moonlight, and my skin tingled, a knot forming in my chest. Not her, I prayed. Please, anyone but her.
‘Hi,’ said Nell.
nell’s blonde hair swept over her shoulders. A pair of books floated before her at eye level, the pages turning in front of her, and a violet patch had been sewn on to her uniform, like Kaplen’s. A Praxis Specialist.
She doesn’t know your Edgar face. No one did, except Carriwitch. She couldn’t connect me to the body heist. I just had to keep my cool, and never use my Codex on campus.
‘Hi!’ said Kaplen. ‘This is David. We’re good friends.’
‘How long have you known him?’
‘Oh, about two minutes.’
She raised a sceptical eyebrow at him and anger seared in my chest. ‘I’m Ori, Kaplen’s maths and physics tutor.’ She opened the cage and grabbed a scorpion by its tail, squinting at it. ‘Officially, it’s Nell Ebbridge, but the name’s not really mine. I got here by Ousting someone just a week ago, and it felt wrong to take her name.’
Ousting. A week ago. So, the girl I’d fought was gone. The girl who’d caught me during my failed heist, who’d threatened to cut my limbs off. Someone had kicked her out and replaced her, just days before the school term started. I sagged against my chair, exhaling softly. As I did, a scorpion crawled out of the cage, turning its beady eyes on me. It skittered towards me, and I flinched.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Ori. ‘A sting isn’t lethal.’ She picked it up and tossed it back. ‘It takes at least three to induce kidney failure.’
‘Um,’ I said, ‘why did you bring a box of scorpions to the welcome feast?’
‘These are blood scorpions,’ she said. ‘They stowed away to the Noble Islands ten years ago, and they’ve been breeding like crazy, eating all the local animals.’
Kaplen hugged his cat, whom he’d introduced as Cardamom, to his chest. ‘Local animals?’
‘There’s this butterfly species,’ said Ori. ‘The Queen Sulphur. Blue-and-red wings, beautiful. At full maturity, they can grow up to six feet wide. And now they’re almost extinct.’ She leaned forward. ‘The islands are overrun with scorpions, and the governor’s desperate to get rid of them. So, these are twenty times cheaper than lab rats. They sell them by the pound. Perfect, right?’
‘You’re doing experiments?’
‘Whisper magic,’ said Ori. ‘Plucking around their souls and documenting the results. I’m looking for the cure to a brain disease.’
‘And you need, what,’ I said, ‘a pound of scorpions?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Ori laughed. ‘I need at least a hundred.’ She smiled at Kaplen, shutting the cage. ‘Thanks for holding on to these. I need to watch them for their health, and the girls at my table think they’re creepy.’ She looked at me. ‘I thought Grey Coats weren’t allowed to eat at the banquet hall. Keep you all hungry and ambitious.’
I scowled at her.
Ori made an apologetic face. ‘Hey, there’s always next year, right? Or not, if your new boss doesn’t like you. Too bad you didn’t do better on the entrance exam.’
My stomach clenched. ‘And how many questions did you get wrong?’
‘Ori here got a perfect score,’ said Kaplen. ‘The only one since Adam Weaver three years ago. The proctors let her leave five hours earlier than anyone else. She wasn’t even tired.’
‘Everyone told me it’d be hard.’ Ori looked down at me. ‘I guess it is, for most people.’
I scowled. She clearly thought she was better than everyone. Worse, she was probably right. Her eyes were constantly flitting between us and the floating books in front of her. Is she reading both at once? Apparently, the two of us weren’t enough to hold her interest.
I peered at her face. The glitter on her cheeks was moving, rotating like a wheel.
‘Is there something wrong with your make-up?’ I said.
Her eyes lit up brighter. ‘It’s the cosmos.’
‘Cosmos?’
‘Like the night sky,’ she said.
‘The night sky is empty.’
‘Like our estimate of the night sky, thousands of years ago in the time of the Star Prophets. So, it rotates, just like the sun and moon.’ She tapped her cheek. ‘A good reminder, for people like me.’
‘People like you?’ I said.
‘Scientists. Those who dream of forging stars.’
She smiled at me, and I could see why half the boys in the banquet hall were staring at her. Some of the girls too. Maybe that was Kaplen’s motivation. She probably didn’t care about him. Odds were, she was just tutoring him to spruce up her record.
‘Well, I should probably get back. My fiancé is waiting.’ She glanced at the table with Samuel. ‘Tutoring at three o’clock tomorrow!’ she said to Kaplen. ‘I hope you’re ready.’
She swept off without another word. Some people were just like that. Perfect looks, perfect boyfriend, perfect test scores, all without even trying. It was insufferable. Adam Weaver, at least, appeared to be an ordinary human.
‘If you want,’ said Kaplen, ‘I can give you the full tour later.’
I nodded.
‘Or you can bake a rhubarb pie with me tomorrow, an hour before my academic probation interview!’
‘Probation interview?’
‘So I can convince Paragon I’ll boost my grades this term,’ he said. ‘Not get expelled, thrown on to the streets like a sack of rubbish. You know the deal.’
I blinked. ‘You’re on the verge of expulsion, and an hour before your interview, you’re making dessert?’
‘I stress-bake,’ said Kaplen. ‘You should try it someday. I help the kitchens out twice a week with their magic. I want to join them full-time when I graduate.’
A magic chef. It seemed appropriate for this boy’s oddities.
‘I’m in Canis Hall. Come visit if your boss isn’t running you dry.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Who are you assigned to, by the way?’
‘No idea,’ I said. ‘Some top-ranked genius, I’d guess, or a professor. They haven’t told us yet.’
Maybe my new boss would be sweet, like Kaplen. Or maybe they would be snide and patronising, like Ori. Maybe they would figure me out. Realise I was faking everything, that I didn’t belong here in this perfect, incredible place. In front of me, the candle on the table went out. I stared at it, watching a thin trail of smoke rise from the wick.
A hand stretched in front of me and snapped its fingers. An orange flame appeared on its index finger, and it touched the candle, lighting it. I glanced behind me at the source, following a slender arm up to a boyish face, a pair of glasses and messy brown hair. It was him. The prodigy, the hero. The boy who had saved my life.
Adam Weaver.
‘Hello, mate,’ he said. ‘David Chapman, right?’ He smiled. ‘I think you’re my new assistant.’
adam weaver was my assigned student. I was Adam Weaver’s Grey Coat.
In Clementine’s basement, I’d dreamed of meeting him, befriending him, fighting by his side. But I’d never expected it to actually happen. And certainly not on my first day. A thrill rushed through my body, and I found myself staring at my former saviour, dumbfounded.
Adam extended his hand. I shook it, my head spinning. Kaplen shrank away, intimidated. And all over the banquet hall, students watched him, glancing at him with admiration or resentment. Some of them whispered, smiling or trying to make eye contact.
‘You’re Adam Weaver.’ I swallowed.
‘Yes, I suppose I am. Could I borrow you?’ He glanced out towards the floating islands of Paragon. ‘I know the feast’s not quite over, but I wanted to introduce myself. Show you round the castle.’
I nodded, my mouth slack, ready to slap myself out of the dream.
I stuttered a goodbye to Kaplen, and Adam took my hand. He led me out of the banquet hall, to the edge of the floating island and up a wooden staircase. We passed a cloud, and Adam broke off a wisp with his hand. He twirled his fingers, and it spun itself into a tiny diamond made of ice. He summoned a spurt of white fire in his palm, and the gem vanished.
A sudden urge came over me. ‘I, um. I wanted to say, um, thank you,’ I mumbled, my cheeks burning. ‘I was in Stemford during the dam bombing. The Agricultural Islands. You, um—’
Adam’s eyes widened, and he squeezed my shoulder. ‘It was nothing. Truly. Back then, I didn’t even know what I’d done. When that water hit me, it just – happened.’
It just happened. The understatement of the century. Saving my life and becoming my greatest idol, all before his twelfth birthday.
‘On that day,’ said Adam, ‘I had just two shillings and a pencil.’ He gestured around us. ‘Nearly a decade later, I’m here. They even accepted me into the Sphinx Club.’ One of the student societies at Paragon, the most elite of them all. ‘You can rise too, if you’re smart. If you work until your hands are bloody.’
I nodded. Only one in fifty Grey Coats became proper students. For promotion, you needed top marks in the non-magical classes you took, and a glowing endorsement from your assigned student or professor.
Adam took me to one floating island after another, past blue lanterns hanging from trees and flocks of birds nesting on battlements. ‘That’s Corvus Hall, where I live,’ he said, pointing to a tall limestone building ringed with battlements.
‘Corvus?’ I said.
‘The constellation,’ he said, in answer to my blank look. ‘It’s what the Star Prophets called groupings of stars, back when there still were prophets.’
And stars, I thought.
He pointed. ‘That one’s Lyra Hall. And that one’s Andromeda. They assign you a hall based on your academic ranking at the end of each year, or the entrance exam for first-years. Corvus at the top, then Lyra, Orion, Vela, Hydra, Andromeda, with Canis at the bottom.’ He gestured at a nearby field. ‘And that’s where students do practice battles. The Praxis students meditate there too, in the mornings.’
I glanced at the green patch sewn on to his blazer. ‘You’re in the Physical track, right?’
‘Yes,’ said Adam. ‘Plus Praxis and Whisper. And Sinew, though Paragon’s not the best with that one.’
I stared at him. ‘All four at once? But Palefire is a Physical Codex. You’re a Physical Specialist.’
‘True. Normally, you go where your Codex is, but remember, you can learn spells from any type of magic. If you’re willing to keep up, there’s nothing stopping you from taking a few extra seminars.’
‘A few?’ He was taking on quadruple the standard course load, in a school known for brutally taxing classes.
‘And no matter what Carriwitch said, if we don’t do our homework, we will get expelled.’
I blinked at him. ‘I’ll keep up. I-I won’t let you down,’ I stuttered. ‘I promise.’
‘Work hard, keep the faith, and they’ll make you a real student. Get you out of that Edgar chassis. They’ll teach you how to fly.’ He smiled. ‘Trust me. One taste, and you’ll never want to touch dirt again.’
My stomach fluttered, and I felt weightless. By the time he finished his tour, the feast was over, but I didn’t care. He dropped me off at the cable-car station and strolled back towards Corvus Hall. Grey Coats weren’t permitted to sleep in the castle.
I rode down to the mountain, and practically skipped through the tunnel out to the city. A quick tram ride down the slope, and I was back in Lowtown. Unable to resist, I ducked into a twenty-four-hour corner store and picked up an old issue of a magazine, spending one of the two remaining coins in my pocket. The cover piece: Adam Weaver: The Young Saviour. I flipped through it on my way back to the capsule hotel. I’d read it a hundred times already, but sometimes, the best story was the one you already knew by heart.
Tomorrow was the fourth of September. On the fifth, I would run out of money, and I still wasn’t close to cracking Westyn’s spellbook. Still couldn’t defend myself from Nudging. But somehow, everything seemed bright, vivid, full of possibility.
I read Westyn’s spellbook again. And tonight, even my icy sleeping pod felt a little warm.
The next morning, I showed up twenty minutes early for my first class with Adam, a maths course that would help students with their Physical magic. It still felt surreal to walk through that secret tunnel, to ascend through the clouds in that glass cable car. I hiked through the fog, trekking across a bridge to an island with a lecture hall shaped like a towering ancient cathedral.
Adam arrived two minutes before the bell, arm in arm with a first-year girl. Her fingers brushed his skin, and he whispered in her ear. After a few seconds, the girl walked off. ‘Nine p.m.!’ he called after her.
She nodded, smiling, and heat rushed to my cheeks.
Adam waved me over. ‘Morning, David.’ He led me through a tall oak door into the castle, guiding me through a large stone atrium and into the classroom just beyond. The room was shaped like an amphitheatre, dark wooden seats laid out round a podium, packed with students. Ori sat at the far end of the room, guiding Kaplen over a textbook. My jaw clenched.
You’re here illegally, I reminded myself. I was a thief. An aspiring mercenary, here by the grace of a stolen slot. I couldn’t draw attention.
Adam and I took our seats. A few seconds after the bell, the doors creaked open and a figure strode through them, his blue robes flapping around him. Inside a coat pocket, I glimpsed a pitch-black scroll, sealed with a Voidsteel lock. Something tensed in my belly. Papers exploded from under the podium, floating on to our desks.
The maths teacher gazed over us, his cheeks narrow, his hair a shining silver. Professor Havstein. ‘I won’t waste time introducing myself. You all know who I am. “Professor” or “sir” will do.’ A piece of chalk floated into the air and began scrawling on the blackboard. ‘There are readings. Skip them if you want. You’re free to skip lectures too. I won’t take attendance. But if you miss class, you will fall behind. And this course has a higher fail rate than the rest of your studies combined.’
I scribbled notes as he talked, one of my duties as Adam’s Grey Coat.
‘You Paragon students love to whine about your coursework, but the truth is, you’ve had it easy until now. So, I’ll break it down for you. Twice a week, you will turn in a two-page problem set.’ His voice hardened. ‘And every class, there will be a ten-minute quiz at a random point in the lecture. You’ll have one minute for each question.’ He checked his watch. ‘Your time starts now.’
The students blinked at him, confused. Adam grabbed his pencil and scribbled on the sheet in front of him.
I glanced at the papers on our desks. Not syllabi. Quizzes.
‘Nine minutes and fifty-one seconds,’ said Havstein.
My stomach wrenched, and I grabbed my pencil.
The page confronted me with dozens of number grids. Write the matrix below in its reduced row echelon form.
