“Are you wearing perfume?”
Micah smiled in relief. He lay outside the school and watched the passing clouds. Almost eight in the morning, the sun had risen two hours ago and dried the grass enough that he dared.
Anne sat down next to him.
“You’re one to talk,” he said and had to stretch to glance up at her, hands folded beneath his head. Phantom flowers spiraled off of her frame. “Are all of your hygiene products alchemical?”
“Most of them, yeah.” She brushed back her hair. “I like them and don’t have to fear the consequences as much. And yours?”
He smiled. “Made it myself. Springtime; plenty of flowers to go around.” And he might welcome the consequences if it meant he would get rewarded by his Class with a counter-effect.
“Oh, so you went flower picking? In Cairn?”
“No, here. Just yesterday.”
She hesitated. “On your own?”
Was that accusation in her voice or worry? “Yep. I had some free time so I went back to where I used to pick them. There were tons. I think I might try making actual perfume with the rest.”
“But … wouldn’t it take hours to walk outside the city and back?” She looked away as if imagining the route.
He shrugged. “It was nice to do something familiar, you know?” Especially when so much in his life wasn’t familiar anymore, after just one year. And he could really experiment with ingredients this time, especially since he hadn't made proper perfume yet.
“I mean, if you had fun— Oh, did you have fun in Cairn?” she asked it like she had only just remembered, leaning forward a little as she did. “How was it there? Did you ride the tram?”
She sounded excited, and it was a shame that he couldn’t match her in tone. He enjoyed her smile nevertheless. Maybe he should give her some of the flowers instead.
Micah yanked a hand out from under his head to scratch his nose. His hand tingled. “Uhm, we did ride the tram. Twice. The first time, only for a few moments because we didn’t have a ticket and had to run. The second time was awesome. But I only sort of had fun,” he admitted.
“Why only sort of?”
Because Ryan looked like a kicked dog the entire time and I don’t know how to cheer him up anymore. Because no matter how much I tried, I think I only made things worse.
“You know, because Mr. and Mrs. Payne will be gone?” he said. “And Hannah. They took me in back then.”
Truth mixed with omission. She would notice, but if she was polite she wouldn’t pry. Micah couldn’t share that with her; it was private. Besides, he doubted she would want him to talk about Ryan.
“But you’ll get to see them again during summer break, right?”
He smiled. “Right.”
“And how was Lisa? Did she behave?”
“Lisa was awesome. She helped with a lot of heavy lifting, and with the stove, and she was nice. I think they really like her.”
“Like, really like her?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Payne? Uhm, probably.” Now that he thought about it. “But only them. And I think she really likes Hannah.” He leaned on his elbow to look at her as he spoke.
“Oh, yeah,” Anne nodded gravely. “She thinks human babies are the cutest, ugliest things she has ever seen.”
He laughed, because it was true, and then remembered, “Oh, that reminds me. I was thinking of buying Lisa hand paint and canvas for her birthday. Do you think that would be a good present?”
She gave him a long look. “That would be … the perfect present, actually. I think. How did you know?”
“She told me herself,” he said, “that she liked it.”
“Ohh …”
“I never knew she could.”
She nodded. “It’s something her parents do. Family tradition. It might cheer her up, to be reminded of them.”
Wait, cheer her up?
“Lisa’s cheery,” he accused her.
“Really? She seems down to me,” she said, but in a tone that made it clear she was sure and just being polite. “Especially with Garen and Allison gone, you know? She doesn’t have that many people here anymore, except Mave and me.”
He could have smacked himself. Great. So he had no idea how to help one of his two best friends and didn’t even notice when something was wrong with the other. What kind of an asshole was he?
“And us,” Micah said, out of desperation.
“And you,” Anne told him.
He hung his head with a mixed sigh. Anne wouldn’t lie to him. Hopefully, Lisa really would like the present then.
But … he looked up and focused on other things. “And how was your Spring Cleaning?” He would love to hear about her.
“Mm …” She held a finger to her chin in contemplation, but shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”
He frowned. “What?”
“So you went flower picking yesterday,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“And you made perfume.”
“Uhm, I might?” It wasn’t really perfume. It was closer to alchemical essential oil.
“And now you’re cloud gazing before school.”
“Yep.”
“You seem tense.”
He groaned and his smile slipped away with the rest of the facade, or the expression he was trying to force himself to feel, as he turned back to the clouds. He’d tried seeing shapes in them—their essence made it easy—but he wasn’t in the mood.
“Was it that obvious or did your blood tell you?”
She nudged him. “Both. It’s always both with us, don’t let any Heswaren tell you otherwise.”
“Not that they would lie.”
Anne didn’t reply to that. She wouldn’t lie. At least, not to him. “So, why are you so tense?”
Micah hesitated. The sky was dotted in migrating clouds and the days were getting warmer, colors bleaching around the edges like dried paper. Some more than others. Today was shaping up to be one.
“You know he probably doesn’t even care, right?”
Yesterday had been nice as well. It seemed ridiculous to him when there was such a spring storm brewing inside him, like the one they had fled from back then, or the one he had forced on Mave.
“Mm, I’m going to need some context for that.”
“The city is celebrating,” he spat.
He could feel Anne smile just as he could have felt a light be turned on or a fire being lit. “Yeah, we found the Gardens—”
“—and the guy they’re celebrating is a demented asshole.”
“Oh.”
Yeah, ‘oh’. He wished the entire city could have that reaction, that they would have the context to understand that reaction. How many of them even knew Enon looked like a rat, like some kind of freaking Northerner? Was he even human?
He threw his arms up. “I know, they told us he wasn’t really trying to kill us, that he could have easily done it if he wanted to, but he wasn’t exactly interested in our survival, you know? He wouldn’t have cared if one of us had kicked the bucket; there’s no freaking way he cares about this.”
He hated that he had to bring the mood down on a sunny day like this, just after the holidays, but she had asked.
A group of older kids walked by on their way to assembly—of course, almost everyone here was older than him—and stared at him ranting on the lawn, one with something close to condescension on his face and a smug smile.
“‘The fuck you looking at?” Micah shouted at him, injecting a bit of hoarse wind essence into his voice to make it louder.
The guy almost jumped.
“That’s what I thought.” He felt squeamish as he said it, but he pushed the feeling aside and kept up his glare.
His buddies chuckled at the guy and headed inside, and he lingered for a moment longer and gave Micah a withering look.
Micah kept his glare up until after he was gone.
Anne hadn’t answered in a while and he was afraid to look at her in case he saw the same expression on her face, that he had made things awkward. He'd wanted to do achieve the exact opposite, though.
When she did say something, it was, “You sound like you need a punching bag.”
“I so need a punching bag,” he groaned. The idea was almost a relief on its own. He couldn’t wait for combat training tomorrow.
“I think there’s one in the campus gym. Have you used it before?”
“Not really? Do you just hang it up and punch as much as you can?”
She chuckled. “No, there’s a form you have to take. It’s training.”
“Ugh.”
“Don’t worry. You seem pretty good at subsuming techniques, from what I’ve seen and heard. Just watch what the others do or ask a teacher.”
“Maybe you could teach me …?” he tried.
“Maybe. What would you normally do, when you’re angry?”
Distract myself with other things, bottle it up, and let it seep into everything I do until I embarrass myself or blow up on someone I actually care about.
“Oh, you know. I probably would have headed into the Tower yesterday, if it had been allowed.”
“Mm, true enough,” she said, and he didn’t know if she was agreeing with him or making a judgment. “A lot of people do, but I never really knew if it was healthy. It’s dangerous, you know?”
“But productive? It’s good exercise, you can earn some money, and maybe even find some loot.”
Actually, he missed going into the Tower whenever he pleased a lot. He couldn’t wait until summer break when the school year was over, or until the city relaxed its freaking restrictions so he could go every day.
They sat there for a moment longer while he tried to calm down, but only ended up stewing because he didn't know when that would happen and nothing had really changed. No matter how sunny the day was or how much he liked seeing Anne, things were still shit.
“He left, though?" she said. "You know that, right?”
“What?”
“Enon. He left the Tower to come back here, and he took a bunch of scouts, guides, and escorts to the Gardens so that they could lead more people to them in the future. How else would we have known? It’s not like we would be celebrating a rumor of a single person finding them.”
She still had a smile in her voice. Micah scowled and looked away. He knew that. He just didn’t get why he would do it. “Maybe … maybe the new Gardens are ridiculously dangerous,” he guessed. “And maybe he gets off on people dying up there. ‘Seems like the type of thing he would like.”
“Mm. Maybe. I just thought you would want to know, in case you hadn't.” She nudged him again. “So, who are you copying?”
He took a moment to catch on to what she meant, because he didn’t want to badger her with questions, and when he did, he pushed his brows further down and felt the need to turn away like a kid sulking in bed.
He resisted the urge and lay there, one hand still casually behind his head despite how exposed he felt. “I want to say, ‘Nobody’.”
She snorted. “Yeah, sure.”
Micah hesitated and gave in. “Ryan’s roommates.”
“Ah?”
“Specifically, Kyle and Brent.”
“And they vent and shout at people passing by?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes. People don’t give them trouble since they do it. Well, they do give Kyle trouble, but he sort of asks for it.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
They were the only two he knew who really vented about their frustrations, in different ways. And Brent, for one, didn’t screw up when he did. He didn’t go off on friends. Well, usually.
Sometimes, he did this thing where he would be fake polite to get people off his back or to get them to keep talking, and if he didn’t like what he heard, he would, but Micah didn’t want to copy that or their behavior in general. He just needed a different way to deal than what he usually did, because he hated how he would feel worse and worse until he finally got over it.
Anne had allowed it, so he was venting. He was trying it out, no matter how uncomfortable or fake it made him feel, though it also felt kind of nice.
She furrowed her brows. “Oh, is he the one with the, uh— The glove?” she asked it with a bit of hesitation in her voice and gestured at her own hand.
Micah froze and carefully considered her words; the way she had said them. Then he spun on her so quick he almost sat up and said, “You know why he wears that glove.”
“What?”
“You do.”
“I’m not going to answer that.” She looked away, almost flustered.
“It wasn’t a question.” He sat up and pulled his feet closer until he sat crossed-legged. “It was an accusation.”
She shucked off the embarrassment for a moment and met his eye. “I won’t tell you, Micah. It’s personal.”
“Hrn,” he grumbled. “Fine. But if you can figure out, so can I, right?”
“Why? Because you think you can catch up to our truth sight?”
“Yeah,” he beamed. “I’m going to get all the lenses.”
“You do that.”
“And on the topic of progression …” he went on and leaned a little closer, still holding his ankles. “The next exam is coming up soon.”
Anne looked away. “Mhm.”
“And I was wondering if maybe you wanted to be on a team with us …?” he asked it slowly, in a hopeful tone. “But this time, with lots of team meetings and proper communication?”
“Mmm …” she went and stretched it out as she looked at the passing students in their school uniforms and everything else in the courtyard. Finally, she looked down at the grass and brushed her hair back. “And who else would be on this team with us?”
“Well, you”—he gestured at her—”and hopefully me”—he gestured back—”and Lisa, and Ryan, and uhm … we would still have two spots open, then.”
“Mhm.”
"What?"
"Nothing."
Micah sighed and dropped his hand. “It’s Ryan, isn’t it?”
“What—”
“Why don’t you like him?” He just went out and asked it. He figured she would appreciate the honesty.
She seemed to hesitate for a moment before she gave in. “It’s not that I don’t like him,” she said and trailed off with a deep frown. “I do—not like him, I mean. It’s more that he doesn’t like me.” Her frown lifted a fraction after that. Struggling with her own truth?
“Yeah, but—” Micah broke off and needed to find the right words, because it seemed so nonsensical to him that they wouldn’t get along. They were actually really similar, he found, once he'd thought about it. “Ryan just needs to warm up to people, you know?”
“It’s more than that,” Anne scoffed. “And even if it weren’t, it’s been almost a year and he hasn’t warmed up to me, or do you disagree?”
No. He didn't. But Ryan didn't seem very warm in general right now, aside from his literal warmth. Not that Micah got to share in it often, since Ryan was hesitant to touch people.
“Did anything happen?” Micah asked, leaning back a little. “Because I’ve been thinking about it, and you two always seemed a little at odds, ever since I've seen you together.” He had worried that they’d been flirting at first— And was still worried, if he was being honest with himself. He didn't even know if it was an irrational fear, either.
“No— Yes. I don’t know,” Anne said. She shifted as if to stand and seemed uncomfortable just talking about this. “I know you’re great friends and you like him, so I don’t want to say anything bad, you know? It’s just … lots of little things and, uhm …”
She trailed off.
He scratched his cheek. “Right, uhm … I heard you two had a fight …? At the start of the school year? I heard it from others. In a hallway?”
She pushed her shoulders up and scrunched her face almost as if she were cinging, but then chuckled, and Micah thought she might have even been blushing. “Oh, yeah. That. That was stupid of me. He just infuriated me so much at the beginning and I didn’t really know him yet, so …” She shook her head. “But before that.”
“When?”
“When we first met? Well, we met,” she said, gesturing back and forth between them, “but he was there, too?”
“Uhm …” He tried to think back.
“At Garen's place. I think I was telling you a story about him or something?”
“Oh! Oh, right. Yeah. About dragons.” He still marveled just mentioning them. Great and sapient magical beings from the North. He wondered if either of his siblings had ever met one. He wished he could, someday.
“Well, Ryan was there, too, standing at the window and watching us. And when I glanced up at him, he was looking at me with such a look of pure contempt that made me stumble.”
“What?”
“Or hatred? I’m not sure.”
“Why? I mean, why would he do that?”
“I don’t know!” She threw her own arms up. “He didn’t even know me, so I thought I might have done something wrong at first, or met him before and forgotten. Maybe he was some kind of lesser noble and we briefly met at a party, you know?”
Micah thought about it for a split second and nodded. He could easily imagine Ryan as a noble. He looked awesome in the fancy school uniform, the rare few times he actually wore it properly. Or even if not, Ryan was good-looking in general and it was easy to see since he prefered tanktops.
“But then I still couldn’t remember him, so I thought it might have been because of my family name, or because I’m a noble at all and he isn’t, or maybe even because of my skin color. I don’t know. Some people are weird like that.”
“Okay?”
“But the point is, I’m sure I had never met him before. And he looked at me, someone he had never met and didn’t even know, with pure hatred. And I have no idea why. So he started it, and I wasn't exactly keen on liking him, either.”
Micah picked at his shoes, noticed what he was doing, and tugged at the grass instead as he tried to wrap his head around that. “Well, like I said he needs to warm up to people first …” he mumbled, but even he knew it was feeble.
Anne shook her head. “It was more than that.”
He looked up. “And you’re sure it was hatred? Maybe— Maybe the shadow from the blinds just made him look evil?” He perked up. Ryan had a mean scowl.
Anne gave him a level look. “It wasn’t the way he looked that made me think pure hatred, Micah.”
“So then …?”
She pushed her eyebrows up.
“Oh …”
Emotions. Of course, they could see those, too. Or hints of them, at least, if she was unsure. They really did have the perfected version of his sight, didn’t they? How hadn’t they gone mad like the archmage he'd read about?
But that didn’t matter right now, and he didn’t really want to think about the implications, so he tugged out another tuft of grass and admitted, “I think I might know why.”
“You do?" Anne asked. "Because if you do, I would really like to know why he didn’t like me from the start.”
“But, uhm … It might be private?” he said. “I don’t know. It might not.”
She mulled it over for a second and sighed. “I promise I won’t tell anyone if it’s a secret. Just so you know, we don't make promises lightly.”
That made him wonder what her definition of a secret was, but Micah trusted her and if she did share it … well, then she would have betrayed that trust. Her loss. “He … kind of really likes stories?”
“Uhm … so?”
Micah glanced down and around. “Yeah, but, uhm … he also kind of really likes Garen from those stories. The [Dragonslayer].” He looked at her. “Your mentor?”
Anne stared at him for a second and her jaw literally dropped when she caught on to his insinuation. She tried once, twice, frowned, and then finally asked, “Are you telling me he was jealous?”
“Might have been,” Micah corrected her, “and envious, yes. Maybe? Could it have been that, in your sight? Instead of hatred?”
If so, then … that would have been kind of childish of him, Micah thought. Maybe. But he was beginning to realize that Ryan might not have been as mature—or might not want to be as mature as he always thought he was.
Not that it was a bad thing, necessarily. But it made him wonder about other things he might have missed or not know about him, too. He knew he was kind of self-conscious by now, unrightfully so. Because really, if Micah or someone else managed to cheer him up, somehow, and if he somehow got over that self-consciousness, then Ryan would be … well, undeniably perfect, wouldn’t he?
It almost made him dislike him a little. But only almost, and only a little. Much, much more than that he felt proud and something close to envy, but in a good way. It was hard to describe.
Anne frowned and nodded, mostly to herself. Then, for some reason, she broke into a smile. “Ryan Payne. Envious of me?” She chuckled. "Seriously?"
Micah was already beginning to regret that he had told her. He felt like he’d betrayed Ryan somehow, telling her about one of his few personal shortcomings. But he said, “Yeah. So like … maybe if you gave him another chance or something? It feels like there were misunderstandings here or you got off on the wrong foot.”
Her smile slipped, but not entirely. “I’m not sure. About the exam, I mean. Because we still don’t really get along—”
“You might!” he blurted out, desperate to convince her. “By then, you know? If we have lots of team meetings, and training, and we hang out more, you know? And we’d still have two more spots, so Shala and Navid could come with us, too.”
She frowned when he mentioned them again and shook her head. “No, I’m not sure if I want to be on a team with them again, either. That was mostly because of an agreement, and others have asked, like Myra—”
“We could invite Myra, too.”
“If she accepts,” she said, “and if she doesn’t have more than one other person she would want to invite, or doesn't have a team. I’m not saying no; I’m just not sure.”
It sure sounded like she was saying no to him, but she must have thought she wasn’t lying because she seemed honest about it. He didn’t have to worry about that with her.
Micah hung his head, but accepted it with a tired nod.
Maybe … maybe there was another reason why she didn’t want to be on a team with him during the exam, if she had been able to see Ryan’s envy so clearly back then. Or maybe not. Maybe it wasn't clear enough. He wished he could see what she could see.
“But,” Anne said, “if you have time during the summer break and it’s not something we’ll be graded on, I would love to go climbing with you guys?”
Micah looked up and hesitated. “Just because it wouldn’t be an exam, then?”
“No! Not because I don’t want to be on the same team as you during an exam,” she rushed to say. “You did great during the last one, right?”
He pushed his lips to the side. “I got an eighty-four percent, but still somehow managed to get the grade one percent above. I think Ameryth took pity on me.”
“Or, maybe you were awesome,” she said and nudged him, “because that is awesome, and the others didn’t do as well so they adjusted the grading scheme. Teachers rarely stick to the standards, you know?”
If it had come from anyone else, Micah wasn’t sure if he would have believed them. Lots of people lied to cheer others up.
“But if we did it during the break,” she went on, “we wouldn’t have to sleep on the ground, it would be more casual, we could do day trips, we could invite as many people as we like, and go wherever we like. That would be more fun, I think.”
He frowned. “Like Navid, Myra, and Shala?” Because he was curious about climbing with them. Oh, or Stephanie! So many classmates he would love to fight with rather against, but couldn’t because of the stupid restrictions.
“I’m not sure about Navid and Sion,” Anne said. “I think they’re summering in Wok, but Myra might be here.”
“Wok? Like ... the bowl?”
“No, in Lin. The City of Chefs, capital city of Teln?” she asked.
“Uhh … Sorry, I’m still catching up on Geography and—”
“Oh, no, no,” she chuckled. “I don’t think we’ve learned about them in Geography yet … or will ever. I just thought you knew about it.”
“Nope. But …" He knew it would probably be getting off-topic, but he couldn't help himself. Now, she had him curious. "They won’t even have any levels there, won’t they? Are the chefs any good?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “His family wouldn’t be going there if they weren’t, trust me—”
“Oh.”
“—and you don’t need levels for everything. The vast majority of the people in the world don’t have levels.”
And they suck for it.
“Do they have another form of magic, then?”
She hesitated. “Yes, but it’s not one form and it’s not related to their cooking … mostly. It’s more like a patchwork of half a dozen different small magics they use, like the loot stalls in the Bazaar?”
“Ohh …?”
“It’s weird,” she waved him off. “I’ll tell you about them some other time. We have to get to assembly soon or we’re going to be late.”
He jerked around to look at the clock over the central entrance and saw they didn’t even have ten minutes left before it started.
Anne got up, dusted herself off, and held an arm out to him. Micah clasped it and pulled himself up into a hop in one smooth motion. He stumbled on unsteady legs, but frowned at her.
“Wow, you’re strong.”
“Thanks. I recently got [Lesser Strength].”
He threw his head up and groaned.
She chuckled. “What?”
“Nothing. I’m just envious. Can’t you see it?” She already had [Lesser Might]. And so much more. That was unfair.
“It has to be pronounced to be visible,” she told him. “Not that you’re supposed to be allowed to complain; you’re already above level ten at your age.”
He made a face. So? What did that have to do with anything?
Anne rolled her eyes like he was an idiot and nudged her head to the side. “C’mon, we need to— Oh my God, your back.”
“What?” He almost jumped around to try and see it himself.
“You have grass all over it—”
He tried to stretch back to see, but only saw a few strands here and there. Where had those all even come from? There was no way he could get it all off. “Can you get that for me, please?” He didn't mention how he could technically just take off his uniform jacket to get it hismelf.
“Sure—”
“Gently,” he reminded her, smiling. “Ms. Dual Strength.”
She chuckled again, repeated herself, and brushed him off—a little less gently than he would have liked, but she got the job done and he only stumbled forward a few times, laughing. They had to hurry then, and Micah limped up the stairs on unsteady legs.
“There’s still some grass stains,” Anne warned him as she held the door open and he walked past her.
He pushed aside the fear and said, “I can think of three ways to work on detergents that could get them out, and that’s just with two Guidance Skills. I bet the cleaners have something for that.”
“Yeah, but not now. We’re going to have to stand in the back then. The teachers sure won’t be happy to see those.”
Wait, ‘we’?
Micah forced a shrug. “It’s just one day. Or I can go change after assembly, thanks to the short week. I'm sure it'll be fine.”
Many schools and businesses used the shortened two or three days week after Spring Cleaning for organizational stuff, he knew. Skills helped a lot with preparing everything for the week after, or with making sure you knew what needed to get done.
Their school was holding an assembly, though he wasn’t sure why. It was probably just another one about scheduling or an update on the school rules again. Maybe someone had finally sicced a familiar on someone else and they were getting banned. He didn’t really know and hadn’t heard any rumors, either.
Not that he really cared right now. Anne was speed-walking beside him.
The gymnasium was already packed with uniforms when they got there, and most of the conversations had died down. There was no room in the back, so Anne led them further down the rows to the front searching for a place where two seats were still free.
Some people stared at his back and he got self-conscious then.
At one row, she paused and stood aside to wave him in. He slipped one seat in past a pair of legs when he spotted Ryan in the distance, in the fancy school uniform. He hurried up, had a sudden worry, and glanced back, but Anne was still following him.
She must have seen the surprise on his face, because she smiled and said, “A chance, if it really was a misunderstanding. Garen’s pretty great, so it's not like I can blame him.”
Micah smiled right back at her and greeted his friend with a shoulder tackle as he sat down.
Ryan smiled, but only briefly, and only at the edges of his lips. It didn't meet his eyes, especially when he glared at Anne for a split second as he greeted her, but she still sounded cheery as she said hello back and kept up her smile, then tried to start a conversation across Micah with him.
The hesitant confusion on Ryan’s face was the highlight of his morning, because it could go either way and was definitely better than a constant scowl.
Micah kept his mouth shut.