There was no one in the courtyard.
That surprised me because I didn’t feel like Gesai had been outside long enough to have left.
“There’s no one here.” Oz looked up at the single tree in the courtyard. It was still summer, so the tree was bright green and casting a shadow against the rising sun to our East. “Now what?”
I thought about going back inside for a moment. But before I could answer a voice from behind me answered.
“They’re in the cafe.”
Oz and I both turned around. I would have expected Rix to sneak up on me, but instead, there was a brown-haired, blue-eyed woman standing in the door.
Justia Publian pointed at the gate that led out of the courtyard. "We can probably still catch up.”
“Why do you think that?” It wasn’t that I doubted her. She was one of the five people who knew the secret of what I really was. She was smart, if sometimes too cautious. I was simply curious what she’d seen or heard that I hadn’t.
“Mister Vowler told Gesia to meet him there last night after our meeting.” She started walking towards the exit.
I followed after her with Oz right beside me. The venue felt very strange. We couldn’t exactly have a private conversation there very well. But I guessed that maybe he wanted to eat while he talked.
We took the necessary turns to bring us to the cafe. When we had first gotten here, Trent had led us to believe that we would have to eat the hard, bland, ration bars for the entirety of our six year stay. While I had spent the last four years of my life eating them for most of my meals, I had been grateful when I’d discovered that it had just been a training exercise, to get us prepared for times when we might have to spend prolonged periods of time in the dungeon.
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The cafe welcomed us with the smell of warm food and the sounds of people enjoying it. There were five other years of classes here, plus all the workers, and the few Adventurer Nobility that lived at the Cathedral. I saw the table where Trent and Gesai were sitting. My white haired teacher let a small grin flash across his face when I saw him and nodded towards the line.
“Let’s grab something to eat first.” I touched Oz and Justia on the shoulders to guide them towards the hot food.
The cousins walked in front of me and grabbed plates. They were really second cousins, and there were almost no features that they shared, but it didn’t take long when you were around them to start seeing some of the same mannerism in the two. Their parents both lived above the Clinic that Justia’s parents ran, so the two of them had basically been raised like sisters.
I watched them fill their plates with almost the same exact food and shook my head. I was glad that we were getting secondary classes, so Oz could be close to her cousin.
“Atlas!”
I turned to my right and saw Wrye Tribble waving at me. The black-haired, brown-eyed second year was eating with the rest of his class. There was a large part of me that was still weirded out by how friendly the second year was towards me. Trent had originally been their teacher, and on the third day here, all six of them had decided to haze us as revenge for taking their teacher. Rix had snapped and almost killed two of them and they might have actually died if Trent hadn’t been watching the whole thing and decided to turn it into a training exercise for both teams. After five days of chasing Rix around on the third floor, the group had decided that our team was more in need of Trent’s training than they were.
I waved back and he turned back to his meal. I realized that my teammates had progressed nearly to the end of the line and hurried up to meet them. I had just reached them when another student tripped and their half full tray of food got launched at both women.
“I’m so sorry!”