Seven of the King’s Guards welcomed us into the Academy. Their leader, a man on a tall, white stallion, looked down at us in our carriage. His eyes fixed to all of our faces, studying each of us for what was there and what was not. Like all the King’s Guards, his uniform was a blue velvet, the emblem of the royal family embroidered into each shoulder. I had seen it many times during state visits: three tall trees all angled towards each other, an optical illusion of one leaning to the other leaning to the other leaning to the first. Manon was enthused by their presence. As we were escorted through the compound, she beamed. “This has been many years in the making, Avari. It has taken many years to repair the relationship between us and the King. An escort by royal guards! Can you believe it?”

What did that mean, ‘us’? Ivra firmly believed that Manon was a ‘them’, part of the other, part of the French new order and not Elven tradition. And what did that mean, ‘the King’? It was the renewed relationship between the Alchemist and Military academies that she had worked on, not ‘us’ and ‘the King’. The King was in his palace. He wasn’t here, in a military academy overrun by the sons of French nobility. He didn’t know me. I didn’t know him. We had no ‘relationship’ to ‘repair’.

So, I asked a question. I asked, “What’s that?”

Misa, who was here, who didn’t want to be here but hadn’t been able to refuse Ivra’s insistence, who had spent the journey writing observations in her notebook, entering silent glaring contests with me, and occasionally chatting with the other Healers or with Manon, clutched the beads she was holding, as if I might reach over and grab them from her. “There’s no Elven word for it.” She pocketed the beads. “It’s a rosaire. Or a chapelet.”

I had spent many moments during the journey wishing she were Manon, because if she were Manon I could ask for that notebook to read through without having to find the words to ask. But she was Misa, an Elven girl who had grown up in French schools, who would often close her eyes, touch those beads, and mutter some sort of French chant that I couldn’t make meaning of. When not in the Alchemist-typical bun, her hair was long, curly, and golden brown, darker at its roots than at its ends. It was the same slight gold of her skin, and her eyes were a lighter gold still. She spoke French like Manon did, that is – completely devoid of an Elven accent, but her Elven was perfect, without a French accent to taint it. The only accent she had was a Northern one, a native Northern Elven accent, a native Northern French accent. When she said ‘rosaire’, the ‘aire’ sounded more like an ‘are’. When she said ‘Elven’, it sounded almost like ‘Elf-an’.

I glared. She glared back.

The guards had guns. Long, slim guns attached to their hip. I thought back briefly to my last visit, to Laclan Stymphalia closing one eye and mimicking holding one of those large guns, shooting it off and making a ‘pow!’ sound to mimic the gunfire, stepping backwards to mimic the recoil. “We can’t train with guns until we’re 16,” he’d sighed sadly, “or until you hit Class A. I’m going to hit Class A by the time you get back, Avari. Next you see me, I’ll have one of those long guns. Pow!”

It was a thought I pushed away.

“Bienvenue!” The Headmaster of the Academy opened his arms to welcome us as we descended the carriage. Manon helped me down, which I resented but somewhat appreciated. The headmaster glanced at me, as did all the men standing behind him, before he smiled generously. He addressed us only in French. “We’re very happy that you accepted the invitation to join us here. And you brought your best and brightest, I see. Avari, I’m happy to see you’ve recovered from that terrible injury. You recovered quickly, I hear.”

He was tall, muscular, stark blond hair and starker blond skin. I didn’t bother retaining his name, but I didn’t miss the title. Baron de la Tourrefeille. A baron and a headmaster, but notably not a general, notably with no military title at all. “Mademoiselle Cotillard,” the headmaster said, still looking at me but holding a hand out to Manon, “if you and Avari would stay behind for some moments, the others will be shown to their chambers in the new wing.”

Manon had fussed over me in the carriage, tidying my hair into a discreet bun, straitening my coat, pulling on my sleeves. I might’ve complained more if it had been anyone else, might’ve hit them away with my cane, but Manon was Manon, and even if she was a ‘them’, she still often felt like an ‘us’, like someone who cared despite herself. She put her hand on my shoulders, presenting me like I was her first-born son, and she continued to smile as brightly as she had at the arrival of the King’s Guards. She was “wonderfully happy”, she said. So encouraged by this reinstated line of communication. Full cooperation on both sides, she was sure. The Healers are here to work with the King, not against him. Never against him. “I understand earlier suspicions about the Old Schools, but-”

“How old are you now, Avari?”

He wasn’t a general, but many of the men behind him were. Not just generals, but colonels, admirals, possibly a lieutenant or two. All of them were studying us, carefully.

“He’s 14.”

“He can’t talk?”

Manon laughed awkwardly. “He’s…awkward around strangers. You know how teenagers are.”

I said nothing.

“It took many Healers to help him regain the strength he has now.” Manon said. “It wasn’t an easy process. And the experience was traumatic, I’m sure. It might be a topic to steer clear of.”

The headmaster smiled a little. “An investigation might require more willingness than that.”

“Of course.” Another awkward Manon laugh. “I just mean, that… that the journey has worn him down. He needs rest. Then, we can begin discussing what must be done.”

He continued to study me, watching me in what could have been amusement. There was a glint in his eyes, a knowingness, but he nodded. “Of course. Please, rest first. Perhaps we can instead discuss the presence of the Alchemist you wrote of, the ‘prodigy’.”

Her grip on my shoulders reflexively tightened, but she laughed it off. Another awkward Manon laugh. One of the colonels showed us to the new wing. Manon frequently looked over at me. I stayed trained on the colonel’s back, struggling slightly to keep their pace but unwilling to complain. The addition was white brick, smelling of newness and paint, with huge chambers that could have housed a school of elves, let alone just me and Manon. I took the bed closest to the window, Manon closest to the door. Outside the window, some boys were fencing, their instructor yelling out corrections, their classmates watching attentively. The clay was flinging up golden dust around their feet, gold like Misa’s eyes, gold like the rays of autumn sunlight streaming into the room.

“Rosaires are for the Vierge Marie?” I asked.

She put her hand on my head, stroking my hair as if I were a cat, as if I were her first-born son. “Yes. For the Vierge Marie.”

We both looked at the boys fencing together.

*

“I don’t see why he shouldn’t.”

“I shouldn’t.”

Manon gave me a fond smile, before refocusing her attention on the headmaster and the general. “He’s stubborn. He’ll object but it’ll be good for him to be with boys his age. If he’s here, he should go to their classes. Archery might be useless, but Geography isn’t. He’s 14. He’s never been formally educated. It’s wrong.”

I glared at the other men in the room, at the headmaster and at the man who insisted on being addressed as Général de Gérome: the discussion me and Manon were having should be between us alone, not some rank-less headmaster and some general. Manon had let me spend all of yesterday afternoon and night sleeping off the journey, but when I had woken up this morning to meditate she had followed me, and two majors had followed me, and one of the King’s Guards had stood in eyesight too. Now, just before breakfast, I was being accosted with threats of education.

“The other Healers don’t have to sit in their classrooms.” I said, mumbling so only she could hear me, still eyeing Général de Gérome suspiciously. “I don’t want to.”

Initially, they had both agreed that it might be ‘unsuitable to have me learn with the other boys’, because I was ‘different’ or at least ‘other ways inclined’, but I could see them both being swayed by Manon’s arguments. “Otherwise, he would waste his days watching the other Healers in the medical bay. He is too young to have any real use in his practice. He would be under your supervision, of course. Under your watch.”

I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t naïve. To be ‘under their watch’ was what they wanted, the headmaster especially, who was curious about me for reasons I struggled to understand. “This is what he does at your Academy?” Général de Gérome asked. “He just watches?”

Manon nodded. “He’s only a boy. Of course.”

Of course.

“And the boy who attacked him?” He asked. “If he’s in the class with him?”

The headmaster beckoned for one of the majors to come forward, then asked him to ‘fetch the Roqueforte-Cilliac boy’. Immediately, I turned to Manon again, more insistent. She nudged my shoulder. “You’ll be safe. I swear to you. There will be Guards by the door of any class you’re in. And learning is good. As is socialisation.”

“I know more than they do.”

“No one knows everything.”

“All elves know everything.”

“Tell me that when you can point out the Low Midlands on a map.” She lowered to my height, like I was a child (though I was), like I needed to be condescended to (at that age, I did). “If we had young Healers, we would sit them down in the classroom with you, or we would have our own classes at our Academy and teach you ourselves. But we don’t. The youngest Alchemist is in her 20s. You’re 14. You’re our exception, but you’re still a boy like everyone else here.”

I didn’t enjoy that fact and I didn’t necessarily believe it either. “They don’t learn,” I tried arguing, “they just fight.”

It was with those words, with that sentiment, that Général de Gérome finally agreed. He had short dark hair, dark like his eyes, dark like his skin, and his uniform was different than the others: he wore a deep, painful red. The others, a rich blue. His station wasn’t at the North District Military Academy, like the other blue generals – he was a member of the King’s court; he oversaw military education, and he was only here to commemorate the new Healer/Alchemist wing that was allegedly in my honour.

“It would be good to keep an eye on him.” He said, looking to the headmaster for agreement. “It would be good for him to know where the Low Midlands are. He will learn. I’ll allow it. As long as, Mademoiselle Cotillard, this does not breach any agreement? This is within the guidelines of his handling?”

“Of course!” Manon nodded earnestly. “I’m his legal guardian. His education is my responsibility. Of course, it’s within guidelines. Of course.”

The headmaster smiled, that irritating smile, and nodded too. “Well, I’ll allow it, too. He’ll have the protection of the boy who saved him. I’m sure he’ll be happy about that.”

Wolfgang Roqueforte-Cilliac de Montaigne. He walked in, saluting the principal and Général de Gérome, then stood to their side and looked over at me. Not much about him had changed. His red and white hair was slicked back in his constant attempt to look older, but his silver eyes were as young as the rest of his face. His uniform, though, was unlike what it had last been. Embroidered into each shoulder was the letter A. Attached to his hip, like the guards, was a long, slim rifle.

“Monsieur de Montaigne, I expect you’ll help us in our investigation.” To me, the headmaster added: “He ascended to Class A following his demonstration of heroism in saving you. I’m sure, in some way, he must be grateful to you, too.”

Neither of us spoke.

“A guard will be dispatched to watch over him.” Général de Gérome agreed. “Montaigne, Avari will shadow you for your classes. After dinner, we’ll relaunch the investigation. Any objections?”

No. None.

“Then you’re both dismissed.”

*

The afternoon gave us an autumn sun that burned our skin. Their drills continued. An equestrian class was causing small storms of dust to blow over our feet as their horses galloped through the grounds. I had never seen horses gallop so fast, and the sound of their hooves heavily connecting with the ground was unsettling, disturbing. Opposite, commanders were leading a march, “Garde à vous!” “En place!”. Opposite again, one of the King’s Guards, the leader that had stared us all down, was talking to Misa. He held his hand out, and she took it, smiling back at him.

This accusation of being like the other boys: it was neither believed by myself, or the other boys in question. I didn’t have their hours spent in this Northern sun; I didn’t have their days spent on training grounds; I didn’t have their years of military diet. They were tall and strong, confident and bronzed. I walked past with my walking stick, with my bone-straight long hair and spindly limbs, with a balance that would rock whenever the pace was one beat too fast. They eyed me, they eyed Wolfgang, and they whispered to each other. I’m sure some might have even laughed.

At a quieter spot, Wolfgang snatched my walking stick and pushed it against my chest, making me stumble back and trip onto the ground. “You shouldn’t have come back, you bête.” He threw the cane down. “If you have realised some master plan, please, do your best to let me know it now.”

He was caught off guard when I kicked harshly at his foot, clearly not having expected any retaliation. He crashed to the ground next to me with an ‘oof’. For some seconds, his silver eyes coloured themselves in a furious bright red, and he looked as if he might pounce on me, but then he calmed down, chuckling. “There’s no honour in low kicks, bastard.”

Just for that, I kicked at him again, sending some coughs of clay his way. The gesture he made with his fingers wasn’t one I had seen before, but I could understand that it was meant to offend me, and so I made the same back to him.

“I saved your life.”

“And I bettered yours.”

He pointed at me, eyes going wide and mouth opening in a victorious laugh. “Ha! You can speak French!”

I had no master plan. I also didn’t particularly care about the investigation’s outcome. If they found Laclan, then they were correct and the guilty boy would be punished. If they found someone else, if they found no one else – it made no difference to me. I would be gone in a week and a half, back at the Academy I belonged to, having satisfied whatever symbolism Manon needed me here to fulfil, and Wolfgang could continue his saviour parade without the threat of my presence. He stood up, dusting himself off. “Plan or not,” he said, “I saved you once. If someone else comes and slits your throat on this visit, it means nothing to me. My first class tomorrow is Natural Science. If you’re there or not, I don’t care. If someone presses a pillow over your face at night, I don’t care. This investigation is more so to find out who disobeyed order and ventured into the forest when told not to. Obedience matters here. An orphan boy with a walking stick for a third leg does not.”

A whistle of wind pushed itself against his face, making him squint his eyes shut.

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“If you ruin anything during this visit, I will care.” He said to me, taking his leave. Then he stopped: “You are an orphan, no? Not a bastard?” He thought to himself, humming. “Is it possible to be both?”

It was a struggle to return to my feet. I only attempted to do so when he was a good distance away, having joined a group of older boys by the equestrian grounds, all with that A on their shoulders. I brushed the dust off my clothes, then took many moments leaning against the tree to gain enough energy to begin the journey back to my wing. I ignored the stares. I ignored the whispers. It was only one week, and it was for Manon – I would endure it, and then I would be gone.

*

I remembered nothing. I could only remember asking Wolfgang for the stream, and walking back to the medical bay. When asked why I had ventured into the forest, Manon could answer that for me easily: “He always ventures into nature.” When asked why Wolfgang had ventured into the forest, his answer seemed to be the same rehearsed one he had given them a million times before. He saw me wander in. He knew it was dangerous. Even if there were rules in place, he had a ‘responsibility to help others’.

“And you found him soon after the attack?”

Wolfgang nodded. “Yes.”

“How soon?”

“I assume very soon. There’s no way he could have kept himself alive for too long. The blood around him was warm. It was very soon.”

He was lying. He knew he was lying.

*

The classrooms were small despite the huge building, placing only 14 students in one subject at a time. For Natural Science that following morning, Manon walked with me to find the room, thrilled about my new ‘learning adventure’, how I already had ‘friends’ to help me ‘fit in’. Wolfgang was seated near the back of the classroom, laughing with the classmates around him when I walked in. They all turned to stare. Wolfgang just smiled at me, as if daring me to pick a seat close to him. I sat somewhere near the front. The class filled without anyone taking the seat next to me, not until a boy came in some minutes late, looked perturbed at being left with the one unwanted seat next to the strange outsider, and made a big show of pulling the chair as far away from me as he could.

Chalk to the chalkboard, the professor wrote out ‘des arbres et leurs usages’. Despite myself, I listened with attention so rapt, I might have completely forgotten where I was.

The class ended before I was ready for it to, and on his way out Wolfgang interrupted his conversation with his friends to throw back at me, “Politics!”. Of course, his pace was one I couldn’t follow, and to find it on my own made me late. There were two free seats. One near the front, and one close to the back. The front seat was made unusable by the boy next to it, a boy who waited until I was close before kicking his feet onto the seat and making some vague complaint about ‘leg pains’ and ‘not wanting to be infected with whatever it was that made me so small’. I took the seat at the back, some seats across Wolfgang, who was snickering with the other boys. “Bah, c’est l’avorton que t’as sauvé?” That’s the runt you saved? Wolfgang shrugged modestly – “I’ve saved many. Who can be sure?”

The classes were in French, and I could understand the general premise but every so often a word or phrase would be thrown in that I was unfamiliar with. When asked a question on the ‘Raison d’État’, I was unable to answer. I could scan my brain for all I’d taken from encyclopaedias, but none of my encyclopaedias were even aware of French politics. The professor sighed, but he continued to pester me. I was evidence of the inferiority of non-Military education, he said. He might as well have said, I was evidence of inferiority itself.

“C’est vrai que t’es un orphelin? Que t’as pas un nom de famille?" One boy asked me during Geography. Is it true that you’re an orphan? That you don’t have a last name? “Que t’as pas une famille du tout?” That you don’t have a family at all?

He didn’t like that I was ignoring him. He was white-haired, olive-eyed, and his family crest was two standing eagles. Ulyses d’Aigleu-Blondeau. He was tall for his age, strong for his age, the earliness of his puberty leading to the smooth ascension of his steps in the Academy’s social ladder. “It’s allowed for an orphan boy to sit with us?” He asked. “Bah, it’s Wolfe’s orphan, but is it not disrespectful?” He had long enough legs that he could lean over and sharply kick my chair. He waited for my reaction, but I didn’t give one, and so he kicked it again. “He acts like we’re invisible? Is that allowed?”

“Maybe he can’t hear you.” Wolfgang suggested. “It was a bad attack. Maybe he’s a little slow.”

And they laughed.

The professor, who was still here at the end of his lesson, occasionally glancing at us but mostly focusing on his book, gave no protest when Ulyses came to tower over my desk, snatching my walking stick and tipping over my chair to force me out of it. I could stand. That seemed to surprise him, that I could stand on my own, but when he used the walking stick to push my shoulder, I immediately stumbled.

“They’ve been talking about you all day,” he said to me, “about the new Healer orphan who we now have to learn with. The one Wolfe had to save last year. Why are you so small?” He shoved me again. “Why don’t you talk?”

I steadied myself but gave no response. I also made no move to try and retrieve my cane either, not even when he feigned as if he was returning it. “What’s wrong with him?” He asked his friends, increasingly frustrated. “Is it the French I’m speaking? Can he not understand it?” To me, he asked, “Do you only speak la langue grave?”

This was the first time I had heard Elven referred to as ‘la langue grave’. I was unsure how to translate ‘grave’, if it should be ‘serious’ or ‘deep’ or ‘low’. He pushed the cane against my chest with enough force that it knocked me to the ground, winding me immediately. “Do you speak at all?”

Of course, my walking stick couldn’t be broken. He tried for some awkward minutes, his friends cheering conspiratorially once they realised his goal, then scratching their heads awkwardly when he couldn’t break it over his knee, or smash it against the ground, or snap it in half with his bare hands. Wolfgang did neither, tongue pushing against his teeth, watching this all unfold without much personal participation. Embarrassed, winded, Ulyses changed his plan and repositioned the stick in his hand.

Then he paused.

He looked at his friends, who were looking back at him, both of them waiting for the other to react first. He looked at Wolfgang, who was patiently waiting too, eyebrows raised as if taunting, “well?”. It was all the challenge he needed: Ulyses took a deep breath, then bludgeoned my face with the blunt end. At the second hit, blood began streaming down my nose. At the fourth, I had to spit out blood. He stopped at the fifth, dropping the stick and inspecting my face, almost warily, before looking at his friends and making himself laugh. Wolfgang stood up, interrupting their laughter. “I’m hungry. Let’s eat before afternoon drills.”

He stayed behind when they all walked out, still laughing with each other, clearly high off a bullying thrill they’d never experienced before. He looked down at me, hands in his pockets, those As on each shoulder, his own family crest boldly showing on his chest. “You’re proving yourself to be pathetic.” He said to me, voice completely devoid of all emotion. “Are you waiting for me to save you again? Respect isn’t automatic, orphan boy. You work for it.” He lowered his voice into a hiss: “Or, you cash in a favour.”

When he left, the professor, who had remained silent during my attack, walked over to help me stand up as I clearly couldn’t do that on my own. “La Raison d’État,” he said to me, “est un principe qui désigne-”

Behind the school building, I sat down on a slab of concrete and let my nose and mouth bleed out freely. I closed my eyes. The sun was warm on my cheeks, and the air was unmoving and stuffy. Sweat quickly mixed with my blood, but I continued to sit there and bake in the heat, and I continued to close my eyes, and I continued to make vague, rambling appeals to the Nature I was surrounded by. I asked for stubbornness. I asked for obstinacy. I asked to be like the other monks. I asked for Nature to grant me a hard heart and ears that did not burn, eyes that did not cry.

Immediately, stirred from my request, tears flooded down my cheeks.

I rubbed my eyes with my hand, rubbed my nose and my cheeks and my chin. “You don’t hear me,” I assumed, “there is no breeze to carry my words. I can hear you. I can always hear you. I understand today if you don’t-”

A huge gust of wind blew into me. I had to squint my eyes and shield my face with my hands, feeling my tunic cling to my chest as my hair blew up in dark ribbons behind me. The wind stopped, and even when I frowned, I felt so many tears push out my eyes, ruining the face of apathy I was trying for, and then yet another gust of wind blew. And another. And another. Until I conceded.

“The monks don’t cry.” I pointed out. “They could return to a scene of attack without needless personal emotion. They’re strong. Their hearts are hard and-”

And I was now sobbing, an action I had never known myself even capable of doing, wrecked by a sadness that I was only vaguely aware I was capable of experiencing. I was unsure why I was being fought. Tears fell out of me and onto the clay earth by my feet, and they fell in further, deeper, surpassing the hard layer until they reached soft soil. I watched small sprouts of green push themselves out of the orange earth. One, then two, then several all at once. They stayed small, but they were persistent. If I touched a bloodied finger to one of their tiny leaves, it shuddered in a twisting movement, then out of itself pushed a smaller, more circular red bud.

“I want to learn from You,” I said softly, provoking more red buds from green sprouts. “That’s what Delphia said: that we all learn from You. Why am I learning from them?”

No response, but a gentle swirl of wind pushed from the opposite direction, curling itself around my fingers and mirroring my ruffles in the sprouts. Nature spoke in analogies, but Delphia had always been able to decode the messages. I, on the other hand, struggled. “Okay,” I sighed, “I don’t understand, but you keep making me cry, so I guess I have to wish for a ‘hard heart’ later.”

Again, no response. The gentle breeze continued to follow my fingers. When I raised my hand to push my hair out of my face, it blew it all back for me.

I returned to the Healer wing, continuing this shaded path behind the school building, unsaved by Wolfgang, unwatched by any officer, completely vulnerable to anyone who wanted to hurt me. Manon was dismayed. She walked with me to the wash chambre so that I could clean my face and heal my wounds, but as she did, she began chastising me. Why not heal myself before appearing in front of her as a bloodied mess? Why intentionally seek her out as soon as I return and glare at her as I had, as if this were her fault?

Why let myself be hurt like this, and not fight back?

“I can’t fight back.” I told her, like it was obvious. “Is that what you’re saying? That I should be violent?”

She sighed. She sighed and sighed and sighed. “The lengths you go to prove a point, Avari. Okay. You win. No more lessons.”

*

C’est à toi, si tu veux. J’en ai un autre.

It was a note left for me by Misa, with her rosaire holding it down as a paperweight. It’s yours, if you want, it read, I have another.

*

We approached the landing at the same time.

He looked no different. He was a mop of blond hair, a furrow of dark brows, a wide-eyed boy with brown eyes that typically, in the memories I had of him, betrayed a childhood excitement, a boyish glee. I’d known my return to the North District would be marked by an appearance of either him or Wolfgang, most likely both, and yet I had undertaken the journey anyway. Whether for Manon, for Ivra’s instruction, or for my own proof of strength, I had undertaken it anyway.

I could hear myself breathing. To kill someone yet not have killed them; to be killed and yet not die. I could hear my heart pounding.

I was unsure what it was: anger, apprehension; a call to violence, a call of fear? I slowly moved away from him, being careful to register all his movements the same way he seemed to be registering mine, slowly, our feet crunching the soft clay ground underneath. “Avari,” he whispered, but not out of some form of secrecy, but almost like I was a deer that might take off, a rabbit who could smell a predator just some seconds away. What could he say? After what had been done, what could either of us ever say?

“Tu lui fais peur.”

The voice came from behind me, and I immediately turned to see Wolfgang approaching. You’re scaring him. To Laclan, he asked, “Why are you here?”

“I’m…” Laclan visibly swallowed, face darkening from a pink to a deep red. “He…He got hurt last time. By that anonymous attacker, right? Uh…He…I heard he got hurt again today and…”

They both frowned.

“Did you get hurt?” Laclan asked, peering at me closely. Him moving forward made me take several movements back, but he followed me. “You’re…your face is fine.” He turned to Wolfgang, who was also confused as he studied my face. “Bah, tu pense qu’Ulyses ment?” Do you think Ulyses is lying?

Wolfgang held my gaze. “He’s not. I was there.”

“He’s unscratched.”

“He’s a Healer.”

Laclan rolled his eyes. “Healers can’t fix themselves, idiot. Checks and balances, remember. Natural Science 101.”

This was the first time I had ever heard this.

Because I knew that the potions of an Alchemist didn’t work when consumed by that same maker, but I had assumed that this was a rule set by Nature only to restrict the powers of Alchemy. I hadn’t assumed this to be universal: a swordsman could easily stab himself, but I could understand that hurting yourself was a different allowance than empowering yourself. I was sure an Alchemist’s poison would kill the Alchemist when they consumed it, but a strength potion, a health potion, an invisibility puddle…

I had never noticed. I had never paid enough attention. I had healed myself many times before, and Ivra and Manon knew I was capable of this, but I had thought that all Healers were capable. I hadn’t thought to check, to verify, to make sure that what I assumed was standard healing practice was truly standard.

“Then he got another Healer to fix him.” Wolfgang said. He nodded at me. “Right?”

I didn’t respond.

“Doesn’t it take more than a day to-?”

“The scars were probably shallow. The Healers at his Academy are the best in the world, no? They can work in double time.” Wolfgang continued to watch me for some seconds longer, then he turned to Laclan. “Pourquoi es-tu ici?”

“Pour le trouver.” To find him.

"Pourquoi?"

"To…Euh, I… Why are you here?”

“For the same reason.”

They both looked at me again. They both asked: “And why are you here?”

I had skipped lunch today because I had been too tired from Ulyses d’Aigle-Blondeau’s attack, too tired from the negotiation with Nature, and too tired because my body didn’t work like theirs, because I was always tired. Manon had let me rest for the remaining hours of the day, and I’d only woken because of my innate alarm clock that rang when the sun set so I could meditate. In the quiet of the night, where the only sound was either them speaking or our feet shuffling, my stomach gave out a low, long grumble.

“Oh.” Laclan laughed, pointing at my stomach. “He’s hungry! Ah, you were going to the Mezzanine? Let’s go. There must be some leftover food. Let’s go.”

What I did know:

Elves were in constant cycle with Nature. We took care of it. It took care of us. We could eat its animals and its plants because they would both eat us, because when we died we would be buried deep in the soil until we broke apart into their nutrients and their dust. I had been so moved by Nature as a child in the Monastery, so humbled by its size and its purpose, that for many days I had forced myself into a holy sort of hunger strike, refusing to eat because the very act of eating felt sacrilegious. It wasn’t until Delphia explained to me that I was a part in the cycle, that I would give back all I had taken, did I allow myself to partake.

Laclan took a huge bite of the roasted chicken leg, talking with his mouth full: “The Stymphalian are all shredded and flayed!” He told us. “Then we are roasted and fed to the Cerfs Sacrés.” The Holy Deer. “It’s an honour. I would say ‘I can’t wait,’ but…I can wait a little while longer.”

Opposite, I was funnelling potatoes and roasted lamb into my mouth. It had been easy to steal the food – Laclan had clearly done so many times before – but we were risking a lot in remaining here, eating on one of the Mezzanine tables like it was a scheduled meal. I wouldn’t face the trouble they would, and yet, they stayed.

Manon had spoken earlier of ‘stunted growth’. Alongside all her worries of my compromised socialisation, her fears would often veer into enquiries of the more emotional parts of my being, of the words I didn’t tell her, of the sentiments I didn’t convey. Both Laclan and I were staring at my cane leaning against the table. I refused eye contact when he then tried to make it. Wolfgang was watching us both, looking at me impassively when I looked at him. I couldn’t understand what I was meant to feel, if it was possible to understand what they both made me feel simultaneously. Per instruction, I should feel nothing, and I should hold nothing to my heart, but to just sit here and be stared at by them both – I felt everything.

“Was it Ulyses that attacked you that night?”

“What?” Laclan whipped his head round to look at Wolfgang. “Ulyses?”

“Was it?” Wolfgang asked me, as if asking about the food, as if asking about the weather. “He attacked you in the forest and is taking advantage of your lack of memory now. He’s taunting you. He attacked you again this afternoon. He’s undisciplined. He doesn’t deserve his Class A rank. He’s following poor runts into forests, stabbing them, then fleeing the scene like a coward.”

Laclan couldn’t speak. His mouth was open but he couldn’t speak.

“The Aigle-Blondeau’s are strange.” Wolfgang mused. “It’s not surprising. Is it? Is it surprising? How else do we explain the stupidity in attacking a visitor who you know was attacked here before, who you must know is the subject of an investigation as to the details of the original assault? We should believe that a boy can be so stupid for the sake of it? We should allow this stupidity to go to waste? Well, either way, Laclan and I have just heard you admit to us that it was Ulyses. We’ll tell the Baron. The investigation will close and Ulyses will probably be expelled. The bad guy always gets his reward, right?”

My head was beginning to throb. My nose was beginning to sting. “Laclan,” I heard myself say, “it was Wolfgang.”

Both of them, completely surprised: “What?”

“That makes the most sense. He sees I’m a possible target, he follows me into the forest, stabs me and then names himself my saviour. It explains it all. How else did he know I was there? How else could he get to me so quickly? How else did he not see my attacker? It must have been Wolfgang. I’m sure. Yes, I’m sure.”

His eyes were as deep a shade of red as Fox’s fur. “You con. You think they’ll expel a Roqueforte-Cilliac?”

“I think they’ll de-rank one.”

“Avari,” Laclan pushed a napkin towards me, “your nose.”

I pressed the cloth under my nose to catch its blood-flow. My headache was worsening with every passing second. If the anger was stable enough, I could hold onto it, but it was slippery, undefined, inexplicable. I saw the red in Wolfgang’s eyes and I thought of days I would never again have, days running through the forest with Fox by my heels. I saw the guilt in Laclan’s eyes and I thought of being attacked by my own cane, a cane I would forever need.

“Will you act less pathetic?” Wolfgang seethed. “Maybe your parents died to save themselves from having to pity you.”

My eyesight flashed out for some seconds. Laclan was by my side when I regained it, holding me steady. Wolfgang was on the floor by the table, clutching his jaw, his teeth stained with blood, blood that was also now stained on the knuckles of Laclan’s right hand. If Wolfgang hadn’t already known, then Laclan would have given himself away a million times over and not even realised. I blinked, not understanding where all my energy was fading too. My chest was burning, my eyes were beginning to sting. A hard heart.

“Putain,” Laclan pointed to the window, to outside the Mezzanine. “It’s…incredible.”

The wind was hollowing, pressing itself against the windows with enough force that it sounded like fists being banged against the walls. Rain had completely blackened the sky, pouring down with enough force to flood the clay grounds. Trees were bending under the weight. The moon had disappeared. Somewhere, there was a boy who had been stabbed and abandoned in an academy that wasn’t his own, in a forest that was foreign. Somewhere, there was a boy who was beyond his own understanding, surrounded by the two people who were hurting him the most.

“I’m sorry,” I said, to the wind and the rain and the trees and the air and the clay and the sky, “and I thank you.”

It all stopped. So suddenly that it dazed all three of us, the storm completely stopped.

As did my breathing.