To Live Or Die At Lorelight Academy, page 27
“Well, what are you waiting for? I’m good here.”
Then she darts back to the journal, eyebrows knitting together, circling her feet mildly. They aren’t quite in sync, but they’re moving. I don’t even think she’s aware she’s moving her new one, too.
Just business as usual.
“Apparently,” I mutter, and leave Farah to read the journals while I check the perimeter for the night.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
“Will…Will—wake up.”
I startle awake.
I’m slumped in a deep leather chair I vaguely remember dragging through the ice tunnel at three in the morning.
I’m disoriented for a moment, and I can’t reckon what exactly the time is. The lamps are still lit, but the candles are low—did I ever put them out? Did Farah?
Farah looks tired, and on her lap is a small mountain of journals.
Her new steel toe is curling small circles in the air. She looks up from reading and speaks.
“Will, I think we might have a problem,” she says, and goes back to reading.
Well, can’t be much of a problem if she’s still reading.
“Urgmm,” I mumble. “What time is it?”
“No idea,” she says. Then she pauses. “Maybe sometime in the morning? Maybe six? Probably six. You wake up every morning at six.”
I blink.
“I…I do?”
Farah nods.
She seems tired, but in a manic, over-caffeinated sense.
“Yep, no matter the watch shifts, no matter what you…yeah, you wake up at six. And you just started to wake up now. I got…impatient.”
“Huh.”
“Listen, Will—” she says again. “We’re gonna have a problem.”
She organizes the haphazard pile of books according to some inner motivation that I guess I don’t understand right now. She puts the leather-back books in columns on her thighs and sits up, back against the wall.
Her makeshift bed on the black stone doesn’t exactly have a headboard.
“It’s Sampson,” Farah says. “In the months…weeks before…before…everything, he went to almost every single medical office on campus, asking for a few specific supplies. He varied it up—going to different parts of campus at different times, trying his best to be irregular about it. And he would come in with very specific symptoms, hoping she’d give him very specific medications. But she caught him! She’s smart. So smart. And she noticed, and she figured him out.”
“She? She? She? Who is she?” I ask, but the moment I do, I realize who Farah is talking about.
Life Scholar Lulana Yin-Gata.
It’s her name on the back cover of all the journals.
It’s her hastily written but concise hand scrawling notes and diagrams and instructions on every page.
“Yin-Gata,” Farah confirms. “She’s a genius.”
“She is,” I agree. “She’s the reason I could even…even try.”
“You did it, Will, it’s fine,” Farah tells me flatly. “It’s not the same. I can feel the differences. But my new foot and I are getting along just fine. She noticed, Will.”
“What did she say?”
So Farah tells me.
Farah tells me—or, in a sense, Archscholar Lulana Yin-Gata tells us:
Sampson has been visiting these various medical wings in what he hopes will be an unpredictable pattern. He comes in with specific symptoms, different every time, but the same consistent bunch across each medical office. Each of these symptoms are magical in nature, and Sampson comes in with these magical ailments, expecting magical means of treatment in one form or another. If given a treatment he wasn’t expecting, he has countered with the Life Scholar on duty, saying things like, “Isn’t the traditional treatment X,” or, “Hmmm, interesting, I was expecting you’d select Y to treat this, based on this symptom.”
When the physicians countered back, he apparently became grumpy and despondent. On more than one occasion, this caused the physicians to relent to his requested form of treatment.
Always a pleasure, this guy.
Sampson does this for a little over a year, though when frequency increases, Yin-Gata starts to notice, and starts to keep track of the sort of symptoms he comes in with. Then she has a revelation, and starts not looking at the symptoms, but takes on a more cynical view. She starts examining the magical means and medications of treatment Sampson has been asking for, and for the most part, getting.
The areas of magic these treatments fall under are starting to become familiar to me: Life magic. Death magic. Light magic. Shadow magic. Earth magic.
The same sort of magics that might weave together to form a colorful crystal growth that brings death and then a dark sort of life again.
“Did she…what did she think he was…”
Farah shakes her head.
“She doesn’t know. She mentions disease, but then says there are a few specific elements of Shadow magic Sampson requested that don’t make sense. So no, she didn’t figure it out, exactly. But she’s concerned, and Sampson comes in the evening before the Infection. This pushes Lulana over the edge, right. It’s one visit too much.”
She holds a journal up to me, then frowns, and swaps it with a different one.
They aren’t exactly color coded.
“Her personal journal,” Farah says.
“Uh,” I start to say.
Farah shakes her head. “No, like not medical. Like…like her diary.”
I frown and lean in.
“It’s too much, and she decides she needs to confront him.”
I blink.
“This is the night before the Infection?”
Farah is nodding in deep, sweeping nods. “She decides to confront him the night before,” she says. “She decides she’ll…” Farah swallows. “Go confront him in the morning.”
I feel my enthusiasm falter.
Farah’s, too.
Not just falter, actually.
And not just enthusiasm.
Like a sprinter, my hope runs into a brick wall.
My shoulders sag, and Farah nods.
“Yeah,” she says, grimacing.
“That’s the last entry, huh.”
“Infuriatingly so.”
I swallow and nod. “Too bad. She was brilliant, you can tell with a single page. It’s hard to explain something like a kid would understand, and do a good job of it.”
“She was legendary,” Farah says. “I encountered her, once or twice. Though my run-ins with Life magic—frankly, my presence on the Northwest Petal in general—was just when my…my Death magic classes had intersections with them.”
“She could have been so helpful,” I say, shaking my head. “She could have been the…the academic puzzle piece we’re missing. The type of brain we don’t have between the two of us. The knowledge stores. The intelligence to apply them.”
I think of that small, tiny shred of hope—the one I can’t let grow lest my guilt take hold of me—the hope that this not only can be stopped, but can be reversed.
“She still might be.”
I frown.
I look to the journals, thinking that, maybe, Yin-Gata has skipped enough stones along the pond of her mind that the echoes on those pages will be enough. But Farah gives me a look—a secret one, an inside look. Like she has a secret just for me.
I feel my lips go dry.
It’s quite the look.
Then the rest of my throat goes dry with an admittedly more impactful feeling—that I understand what she means.
“She knew,” Farah says, after looking around the room conspiratorially. It’s kind of a funny motion, actually, considering anyone in earshot won’t be curious teenagers and would instead come charging at us on all fours.
“She knew?” I ask.
“She knew something was up,” Farah says. “And she had a bad feeling. And she didn’t trust Sampson. And…and I think she underestimated him, just a little, like everyone. But—she didn’t underestimate him all the way.”
Farah cracks open Lulana Yin-Gata’s journal and clears her throat, and begins to read:
“I don’t have a good feeling about him. Never have. It occurs to me that I maybe don’t know how dangerous he is. And I don’t like this magic. I think I’m going to steal the Anastrophe. Ha! Can’t believe I’m writing this. I’m going to steal the Anastrophe. Such simple words. What a thing to steal. But I’ve made up my mind. I’m going in the morning to the Yoostie Vault, and I’m going to take it. I don’t have time to arrange all the permissions.
“I’m close to figuring out what he’s got planned. No matter what, it involves many, many people. And he’s going to act soon, I know it. Other artifacts might be more useful, depending on what Sampson has planned. I could wait and figure out what he’s doing, then confront him myself with the perfect thing to counter him. I should have trusted my instincts on him. Feel foolish I didn’t.
“Anastrophe is extreme. I still can’t write it without my hand trembling. Especially because I have a feeling I might have already! The mind is not meant to work in such tangles. Nothing else can cover all options. Tomorrow morning I’ll take it. Or tonight, if I can’t sleep. Will update. If this is the last thing written, then…ha! What a morbid thing that would be. Sort of funny, actually, to be self-aware about it. Hopefully this is just a bit of rambling between filled pages. Will update soon.”
I swallow a lump in my chest and a bitter laugh.
“It really ends like that, huh?”
Farah smiles sadly.
“Yep. The last thing Yin-Gata really said was, ‘Hopefully nothing horrible happens and this isn’t the last word you read.’”
“Too smart for her own good.”
“We can give her the journal back,” Farah says in a determined whisper. “We can let her write another entry.”
“You think she’s still alive.”
“I know it.”
“Because of the…aet…”
“Anastrophe,” Farah says, aiding me. “I’ve been reading it over and over again all night. I’ve seen the word a lot.”
“What is it?”
“No idea.”
I feel my eyebrows climb.
“No idea?” I ask.
“No idea,” Farah repeats. Then she jabs the center journal a few times with her index finger. “But…fucking smart, she was.”
“Fucking smart,” I agree. “Was. Is, if she’s still alive. Where would she be?”
“That’s the next question,” Farah says. “As far as I can tell, there are a few logical options. First—her quarters. Maybe she took a long shower. Slept in. Never made it out, and a feral, Infected Lulana Yin-Gata is prowling her bedroom, raking crystal claws against the wall.”
“Or she was in the office,” I supply. “I didn’t see any signs of her, though. Still, maybe she was somewhere in Yoostie and is in the building with us. Infected, alive, dead, not sure.”
“Right,” Farah says.
“Or,” I begin.
“Or,” Farah echoes, inclining her head. “She started making her way toward Sampson. Toward Albright Tower, just like us.”
It’s hard to imagine Lulana Yin-Gata killed or captured by Sampson. His whiny monologues do not make much of an impression. But still, he was an Archscholar. Yin-Gata decided not to underestimate him, so I suppose I shouldn’t either.
“I can’t imagine her getting there and not stopping him,” I say, shaking my head.
“Neither can I. But I can imagine all of this going down while she was on her way.”
“So can I.”
We’ve arrived at a new objective, then:
Find Archscholar Lulana Yin-Gata.
“I think I should be ready to go look with you this afternoon,” Farah says, way too nonchalantly.
“Yeah, for sure!” I nod vigorously. “That’s what Yin-Gata’s instructions say: Amputation patients don’t need to be on bedrest if they’re like, really bored. Just let them do whatever.”
Farah wrinkles her face at me.
“Joke,” I say, shaking my head violently. “Obvious joke. Farah—I understand that the Semicorpus is working great. But you need at least a few more days. It’s just how the body works.”
She grits her teeth.
“I need to re-up the tunnel anyway, probably,” she says.
“Maybe I can do it.”
“If you could use the amulet, you’d know by now,” Farah says with a sigh. “The first time I made the tunnel you would have felt some ancillary effect, as well as every time I’ve renewed the tunnel since. Did you?”
Considering I have no idea what Farah’s talking about, I shake my head.
“Normally, doing magic with methods that aren’t a good fit for you is harmless,” Farah says. “You’re a genius at Resonance. Positive and negative. Poles and antipoles. Locks and keys. You might have other channeling methods you’re good at, but amulets are a specific thing, and you could break the amulet if you tried and did something wrong.”
Well, shit.
“That better not be an excuse to get out of recovery.”
“Oh, it is an excuse,” Farah says, shifting and straightening. “But it’s also true.”
“We’ll clear the second floor of Yoostie first, then,” I say, relenting.
Truth is, the surgery journal didn’t mention the Semicorpus, and the journal on the Semicorpus lauded it as a fairly powerful tool. And I need her help.
“We need to get you to the armory,” Farah says. “Get you a better weapon so you don’t need to use that fire poker. I’m taking it. It’s lucky.”
“Oh,” I say. “I have a new weapon. I have a dueling sword.”
Farah blinks.
“Where did you get a dueling sword?”
Oh.
Right.
I think back to the bizarre hallucinations and the spirit of light that gifted me the sword, despite the casual disapproval from her fellow spirit.
“Found it on the ground,” I say.
It sounds like a lie, even to me.
Farah gives me a long look.
“Gotcha,” she says slowly. “You find a spellshield on the ground too, then?”
“A what?”
“Armory, then,” Farah says, nodding to herself. “Armory it is.”
“We’ll need more Concentrate,” I tell her. “We’re down to one shard and one spike.”
“That’s it?” Farah balks.
“Yesterday was a spending spree,” I admit.
“You know what?” Farah says, easing herself up to a tenuous stand. She shifts a little bit, and against my silent protest, takes a few steps. “Good. I want to get back in the fight.”
“I’ll tell you what. Once you’re well enough to run a lap around the first floor, we can—”
Farah walks past me before I’m done with the sentence, picking up speed to a light jog by the time she reaches the door to the classroom.
“…go,” I finish with a sigh, watching as Farah and her steel foot slap-clink-clonk, slap-clink-clonk down the long hallways of the Eustace Grievance Madrigal Building for Introductory Magical Theory and Controlled Practicals.
“I’ll just update the inventory, I guess,” I say to myself, taking out a quill and marking what we’ve gained and what we’ve lost in our list.
About ten minutes later, a shadow flickers across my vision.
It isn’t Farah—she’s run her lap, and is running more. I think she’s getting that manic energy out. I can hear the steel foot echoing down the hall.
I look up from the inventory list.
Another shadow crosses my vision.
It’s slight, coming through the murky windows.
Coming from outside.
The clanks of Farah’s foot grow louder, and she reaches the door.
I’m already up on my feet.
We look at each other, and move to the window to see what exactly is happening on the other side of the glass.
Outside of Yoostie is the lonely grassy fields of the Northwest Petal in morning.
There’s not a soul around. Not even any Infected ferals. A few, perhaps, in the periphery. But otherwise…peaceful. Tranquil, almost.
Whatever the passing shadow was, it’s—
We spin simultaneously one hundred and eighty degrees, just in time to see the light shift, shift, shift, down the corridors of windows behind us.
Like dogs chasing flies, we rush to the opposite side of the hallway. Bravery, stupidity, curiosity—I’m not sure which it is, but we find ourselves pressing our cheeks against the glass and peering all around.
Finally, and again at the same time, Farah and I both look up.
Something is circling in the air high above.
Farah can see it well enough on her own, but I have to nearly go to my knees and crane my neck to see at the awkward angle.
Is it a bird?
But it’s too big to be a bird.
Is it a…horse?
“It has hooves,” I marvel, at the same time Farah says, “It has a beak!”
Then, simultaneously—“There’s a person on it.”
Airborne knights. That’s what it has to be.
It turns in a circle in the sky above once again, and it’s now easy to make out the yellow-and-black checkered banner of the King Regent. One of the champion regiments, famed by our people and feared by our enemies—or so the King Regent says. Few and far between are our enemies now, though…or so the King Regent says. Regardless, I don’t have to apply my usual distrust to this.
The knight is too far away to make out details—just the more visible things. The saddle, complete with stirrup, harness, and other mechanisms. The hippogriff itself—the head, breast, and wings of a falcon with the body of a horse, but half again as large. I can’t make out the armor, but I can make out the sheen. A dawn star, even in the thin light rays of morning.
We’re rescued.
I turn to Farah, expecting to find her looking at me. We’ve been mirroring each other all morning, and I guessed that would continue.
It doesn’t.
She doesn’t turn to look at me.
She doesn’t share the look of relief and—guilty as I am, considering it’s one of the regiments—I’m basking in the glory that our rescue comes on falcons’ wings from out of the sky.
