Thalos frowned at the dull ringing in his ears as he shuffled into the fifth row of the concert hall between Percy and Nym. The hum was just loud enough to be irritating, but, all things considered, the explosion at Cliff’s workshop could have ended much worse. Despite the small crowd that had gathered to watch the performance, the room was largely quiet, which made the sound seem much louder than it had on the walk over. He suppressed an urge to press his fingers into his ears and focus on the noise – it would fade after a few hours, he knew.

After the disastrous research presentation, they’d barely had a chance to talk to Cliff before he was dragged off towards the clinic by a stern-faced magepriest with blue hair, one of the two accompanying the woman Thalos recognized as the Hierophant. He’d avoided eye contact with her out of paranoia, but he doubted her holiness remembered him after all this time even if he did somehow managed to catch her attention. Not that he really had to worry that anyone was looking his way after all the commotion.

When Jenna saw the state of Cliff’s hand – a sticky layer of blood over-top blistery skin – she’d just about panicked, moving to tear up her shirt to wrap the wound before Cliff managed to calm her with one of his mischievous smiles and a handful of hushed words. He’d offered a quick apology, assuring her that he was fine and telling the rest of them they’d meet up later, after he was all patched up. The smile was pretty convincing, and it was only by the clench of Cliff’s jaw and the flush in his face that Thalos could see he was pretty shaken up – though Thalos wasn’t sure if it was from the pain of his injuries or the fact that his magetool had gone ballistic – literally.

In fact, after the panicked rush faded, they’d all been pretty numb. With Cliff and his research advisor rushed off and other academy staff shooing them away from the workshop, there’d been nothing left for them to do but move on to the next event on the schedule – the Academy Orchestra performance. Deb and Penny were both members of the orchestra, and, though Thalos had never actually heard either of them play, they’d both been pretty excited for the concert. He didn’t exactly have an ear for music, but he’d never begrudge a good song. Plus, it would be good to support Penny and Deb, so he was more than happy to attend. As an added bonus, it was also pretty unlikely that anything would explode.

“Deb said they were playing some pretty famous stuff, but-” Percy muttered from beside him, “I’ve never heard of any of these songs.”

Thalos glanced down at the little program they’d been given on the way in. It was a simple thing, just a rectangle of thick paper with a list of the song names in neat calligraphy – handwritten, he knew. Deb had spent quite a while meticulously writing two hundred copies. “Lament of the Titan,” Nym read aloud, “The Shattered Throneroom. On the Wings of a Sunray. I recognize the names, I think, but-”

“They’re selections from an old symphonic play,” Thalos said softly, “Maybe the most famous one. ‘The Tragedy of the Titan.’”

Percy glanced towards him, frowning. “A symphonic play? Those are the ones with no words, right?” Thalos nodded. It was an old art-from from the Theocratic Union, far in the north – long, scriptless plays where the story was conveyed solely through acting and music.

Nym nodded, pulling her lips to the side. “That explains why I recognize it. My mom dragged me to one of those when a troupe came through Crestfall.” She turned towards him, corners of her mouth quirking upward. “I didn’t realize you were into the fine arts, Thalos.”

Thalos swallowed. “I’m not, really,” he said, his thumb coming up to brush against the ring on his finger. “But this play, it was a favorite of my grandfather’s. He-” Thalos hesitated for a moment, glancing between Percy and Nym, and his voice lowered further. “He used to hum the songs to me, when I couldn’t fall asleep.” His eyes drifted back down to the program, coming to rest on one song’s name in particular – ‘A Dreamless Rest’. He swallowed again as a memory rushed to mind – his head resting on his grandfather’s lap as a storm buffeted their leaky trail-side shelter.

“I – see,” Percy stammered awkwardly, sharing a look with Nym.

Thalos looked up with a silent chuckle. “Don’t worry, I’m not about to start weeping. It’s good music, though it’s a shame half of it will be drowned out by the ringing in my ears.” Nym made a noise of agreement, prodding a finger at the side of her head and scrunching up her nose.

Percy stared at him for a moment longer before nodding. “Right, yeah. I still can’t believe Cliff managed to make a spectacle out of his research presentation. I nearly fell asleep during Dr. Harkin’s – and Penny actually did.”

Nym let out a snort. “Cut the girl some slack – she was up most of the night going over her music for this performance.” She paused, frowning. “But better a spectacle than a disaster, right? Without Cliff’s warning, who knows what might have happened.” Thalos nodded as she continued. “Still, though, I can’t help but feel like it’s somehow Cliff’s fault.”

“He’s trained us to think that when something blows up, hasn’t he?” Thalos said, earning a quick round of laughter from the others that was cut off by the dimming of the lights. He looked up at the stage, where there was a short commotion as the orchestra’s forty-odd members filed out to fill the rough, semi-circular rows of chairs. Penny had her flute clutched in her hand, and a moment later Deb came out lugging a string instrument nearly as large as she was. They took up their spots in the formation as the group went through a quick round of tuning. After another moment, the orchestra’s director, a magepriest Thalos didn’t recognize in green-trimmed robes, came onto the stage, smiling brightly.

“Good evening, everyone,” she called out into the hall, her airy voice carrying impressively in the room’s acoustics, “before we begin, I’d like to thank you all for taking the time to attend our humble orchestra’s performance tonight. Guests, welcome to the academy’s harvest festival, and students – thank you for coming to cheer for your friends.” There were a few sparse claps from around the room, plus a shrill voice calling out a friend’s name. The director paused with an amused smile before continuing. “You’ve all come to hear music, so I won’t speak for long, but I’d like to introduce what we will be performing tonight. It’s tradition in our orchestra to select our performance pieces with a vote, and this year, the students chose a series of songs from the classic symphonic play, ‘The Tragedy of the Titan.’ For those of you unfamiliar, it is a tragic interpretation of the life of the Titan of Erendal, a very powerful man who lived in the Black Depths around five hundred years ago. The play chronicles his meteoric rise to power, the struggles he faced along the way, and his ultimate death, crushed by the weight of his responsibilities in a truly tragic series of events – or, so the playwright would have us believe.” The director smiled lightly, and again, Thalos’s finger drifted to his ring. “Like many of the Theocratic Union’s symphonic plays, the original is a multi-hour epic – so for today, we’ve chosen five pieces to play for you, the names of which are listed in your program. Now, without further ado, our interpretation of ‘The Tragedy of the Titan.’” There was a round of applause, and the director spun towards the orchestra. The group played a single tuning note, and, with a raise of her baton, a plucked bass note, and the rumble of a drum, the performance began.

***

“You guys were great,” Nym said, surging forward to wrap her roommate in a hug. After the performance had concluded, Thalos and the rest found themselves outside the hall, waiting with a small crowd until, one-by-one, the members of the orchestra made their way outside. Deb and Penny were two of the last ones out, stopping to exchange a few words with their parents before coming over to talk with their friends.

Penny returned the hug, letting out a tired sigh. “Really? I made all kinds of mistakes – I knew I should have practiced more.” She leaned her cheek into Nym’s shoulder and the taller girl gave her a few stiff, reassuring pats on the back.

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“No, you were great,” Nym assured her, turning to the rest, “Right, guys?”

Percy shrugged. “If you made any mistakes, I didn’t hear them – not that I have much of an ear for stuff like that.”

“It was a solid performance,” Jenna added, “honestly, better than I expected – and I always expect the best from my team.” She stepped forward to link arms with her team’s commander – it seemed like they were on good terms again, and whatever awkwardness remained from their fight before the second Hands-on was completely behind them.

Deb smiled, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “It wasn’t as good as our best rehearsals, but concerts never are.” She sighed, scanning the faces of the group. “Thank you all for coming – Cliff couldn’t make it?” Jenna gave a little gasp at the question, and Deb turned towards her with a frown

“There was an – ah – incident at this research demonstration,” Loria explained with a frown of her own. When Deb’s eyes widened, she rushed to clarify, “He’s fine, of course, but he had to deal with the aftermath – he wanted one of us to apologize.”

“Tell them I’m begging a thousand pardons,’ I think were his exact words,” Nym said in an impressive impression of Cliff’s twangy way of speaking.

“An incident?” Penny said, pulling out of the hug with Nym to give them a confused look, “what happened?” Thalos raised his hands in front of him, flaring his fingers and making a noise to imitate an explosion. Her eyes widened. “It blew up?”

“Yeah,” Loria confirmed, “It was – sudden, really, and he hurt himself stopping the worst from happening.” She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say more, but shook her head, cutting off.

“I was actually thinking of heading over to the clinic to check on him, if anyone else wants to join me,” Jenna said.

“Oh?” Deb said with a smirk, “is that a real offer, or would you rather be alone.”

With a snort, Jenna shook her head. “Honestly, I mostly want to remind him that he promised to come watch the dueling club’s tournament tomorrow.” She shrugged. “I figure there’s a pretty good chance that he forgot just about everything I told him while he was preparing for his demonstration.” Thalos nodded – Cliff’s focus hadn’t really drifted from the depressurizer over the last several days.

“That’s tomorrow?” Penny said, looking between the three members of the dueling club among them – Loria, Jenna, and Percy. “I thought it was the day before the dance?”

“Preliminaries are tomorrow, bracket the next day,” Percy explained. He raised his fists in front of him, throwing a couple of vicious looking punches into the air. “I’m pretty excited for it.”

Jenna crossed her arms in front of her. “I’m just hoping I don’t run into you in the prelims – my mom would be pretty disappointed if I didn’t even make it to the bracket stage.”

Percy’s lips peeled back to reveal a rare, vicious expression. “If you’re trying to make me go easy on you, it’s not going to work.”

“Who’s the favorite, then?” Deb said, her eyes darting between the pair, “I need to know who to cheer for when you two meet in the final. I’m a fan of underdogs, you know.”

“I guess you’ll be cheering for me, then,” Loria said with a self-deprecating chuckle, “considering I didn’t even make it in your mental accounting.” Deb winced, giving her an apologetic shrug. “No, you’re probably right. It’s-” She cut off with a huff of breath. “It’s fine.”

“It’s just the dueling club’s tournament, right?” Penny said, brushing past the sudden awkwardness in the air, “then the dance at the end of the week?”

“Cliff has his engineering club showcase the day after tomorrow, too,” Thalos said, “though he’s hardly mentioned it, so I can’t imagine it will be that exciting.” Then again, Thalos might have said the same about his roommate’s research demonstration, and look how that turned out.

“Are any of you going to the dinner before the dance?” Deb asked, “My father is, but he said I could skip out if I wanted.”

“I am,” Nym said, “my dad bullied me into joining, but – I think it’ll be pretty stuffy, I probably wouldn’t otherwise.”

Jenny nodded. “Same here – the military cocktail social was miserable until I’d slung a few drinks back. Hoping this is just a bit better, but I’m not optimistic.”

Thalos frowned. His auntie had floated the idea of his attendance the last time they had lunch together, but he’d quickly shot it down – the last think Thalos wanted to do was share a meal with the movers and shakers of Marifond. For one thing, he didn’t want their attention, but even besides that, it sounded all kinds of dull.

“Obviously, I’m not going. Also,” Percy said, raising his hands to rub at his arms, “it’s getting cold – what’s say we head towards the clinic to make sure Cliff’s still breathing?”

“Before that,” a new voice called out, “I need to talk to you.” They all turned to see Roose coming towards them. Their teacher looked exhausted, but still had his signature smile stretching across his face. “Well, some of you-” His eyes flicked across the group. “Deb, Penny – sorry I couldn’t make it to your concert. I wanted to, but – well, I lost track of the time, and I’m busy, and just about every other excuse you’d expect me to make at a time like this, hm?” He ran a hand through messy hair, sighing and shaking his head. “I figured I’d find at least someone from Team B here, though – good friends as you all are.” He paused, and his expression turned suddenly serious. “It’s about the disciplinary hearing.”

***

“The morning of the day of the dance, huh?” Cliff said past a yawn, “what time?” When they got to the Clinic, Thalos and the others had realized that they’d actually missed Cliff. They found him, half-asleep, working through a meal in the dorm’s dining hall. They’d coaxed a little conversation out of him, but it was clear after a few moments that he was exhausted, and Jenna had sent him off to bed after giving him her reminder of his promise to watch her in the tournament. At the moment, he was focused, through half-lidded eyes, on the packet of paper on his desk – his copy of the survey of their preferences for their work in the third Hands-on.

“Same time as Professor Jericho’s class,” Thalos said from where he was seated on his bed.

Cliff flicked a glance towards him. “What about class, then?”

“We’re supposed to skip it, I guess,” Thalos said with a shrug. Roose hadn’t told them that explicitly, but there’d been a gravity to the way he informed them of the disciplinary hearing that had stopped even Loria from asking any kind of question.

His roommate turned back to the survey with an amused hum. “Finally, a plus side to all this – though it’s a shame we couldn’t skip out on Sister Aster’s class.”

“Cliff,” Thalos said, “I think we might be taking this a bit too lightly.”

With a frown, Cliff shifted on his chair, spinning to prop his elbow on its back and rest his chin in his palm. “How do you figure?”

“It’s just-” Thalos started, spinning the circumstance in his brain, “maybe it’s not as cut-and-dry as we’re thinking.” Among team B, Loria was the only one who really seemed to take the threat of the discipline inquiry seriously. Nym and especially Cliff were almost flippant the way they talked about it, and even Thalos thought that their commander was just being pessimistic.

Cliff studied him for a moment. “Worried?”

“Maybe,” Thalos said. He breathed a sigh. “Auntie Esmer’s been stubbornly tight-lipped about everything. I thought she was just thinking of propriety, but – you should have seen Roose. He was, well – humorless.”

“That’s out of character,” Cliff said with a thoughtful hum.

Thalos nodded. “And, I don’t know, something about the interview we went through, it’s left me – scared is the wrong word.” He leaned back to stare into the light fixture on their room’s ceiling – it had started to flicker over the last week. “Uneasy, maybe.”

“I’d say that’s out of character, too,” Cliff said. Thalos raised an eyebrow and gave him an unamused look, but his roommate just shrugged. “Truth be told, I’m a hair too exhausted to worry about it at the moment, but – you can’t very well worry about the eggs when the chicken’s being roasted, can you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that what’s done is done,” Cliff said, “and there’s nothing for us to do but face whatever they decide to do with us, chin up and chest out.”

There was a pause as the two looked at each other before Thalos finally nodded. Cliff was right, of course, but Thalos couldn’t help feeling a little worried after seeing Roose’s stony demeanor. And even if his roommate had a point, he didn’t think he could face expulsion with a straight face. Thalos had come to realize, since the second Hands-on, that he’d grown comfortable at the academy. It was novel, really, the acceptance his friends had offered him here. If the panel ruled against them and they were ousted from the academy, he wasn’t sure what he would do. He frowned at the thought, shifting uncomfortably on his bed.

Noticing Thalos’s discomfort, Cliff smirked. “Chin up, buddy – if they give us the boot, my momma and poppa could always use another set of hands on the farm.” He raised an eyebrow. “Might be a bit less glitzy than the Courier life, though.”

Thalos snorted. “I’ll keep that in mind.” A silence descended, and Cliff turned back to his quiestionnaire, scooping up his pen to continue. Thalos watched him work for a moment before switching topics. “What did they talk to you about at the clinic after they dragged you away?”

Cliff made an ambiguous noise. “I’d reckon I’m not supposed to talk about it, but-” He glanced towards Thalos. “They just wanted to make sure we weren’t being intentionally reckless, what – with the guests, and all that.”

Thalos eyed his roommate. “The Hierophant was there, right?”

Cliff’s pen paused in it’s movement, but after a moment he clicked his tongue and kept writing. “I’d reckon I’m not supposed to talk about that, either.”

“Lucky your not locked up, then, I suppose,” Thalos muttered.

“You’d be surprised what a simple explanation and a heroic effort can get you out of,” Cliff said with in an amused tone, “Brother Paolo played up the risk I’d taken in dealing with the prime stone, and her holiness ate it up.”

Thalos snorted. “Even though you weren’t thinking of that at all.”

“You know me so well, Thalos,” Cliff said dryly. He dropped his pen, throwing his arms back to stretch. “Honestly, I was leaking blood and still pretty shocked about the whole failure, so I didn’t even recognize that they were trying to figure out if this was some elaborate assassination plan until it was all over. I’m still not sure whether to be offended or flattered.”

“You’re accumulating quite the list of crimes,” Thalos said with a nod, “first you almost kill our team at the Hands-on, and now you nearly blow up the Hierophant. Who’s next?”

Cliff turned towards him, scratching at his chin. He raised his eyebrows with a grin. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll take down the whole school.”