Page 48 of The Black Table
“So you ratted me out,” I clarify. “Is what you’re saying.”
“I informed him that you’d had an incident,” Kingston says. Pitch-perfect bureaucratese. Jesus Christ, he really could be one of those psychopath billionaires. Christian Bale could play him. Or that cannibal guy from the Facebook movie. “As in keeping with the code we follow.”
“Oh, well,then,” I say, soaking my words in sarcasm. “What’ll it be this time? The iron maiden, or the rack?”
Kingston doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t even fuckingtwitch.
“Repercussions aren’t up to me,” he says. “If the Consistory feels that the violation was severe enough, then the code says?—”
“The code says, the code says,” I singsong. “You know what we used to say, on themean streetsof Chicago?” I all but snarl. “Snitches get stitches. That was ourcode.Is that what you want,bro?”
Sudden as a lightning strike, Kingston gets to his feet.
“Iwant,Kai,” he bites out, “for you to get your goddamnacttogether. Take this seriously. For once.” He hardens his eyes on me. “Do you even understand howcriticalthis whole thing is? Do you?—”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” I interrupt. “What difference does it make?” I shrug, resisting every urge to haul off and deck him again. Twice in three days isprobablytoo much. “I’m just hired muscle. Work me ’til I’m useless, then cut me loose.” I plant my palms on the table, lean over so we’re eye to eye. “And if you don’t know how to do that, just ask your fucking father.”
THIRTEEN
GWENNA
The day doesn’t get betterfrom there. I hustle back to our room and take a scalding hot shower, but Morgan’s already gone for her three-hour seminar, so I brave the dining hall alone. Not that I’m even that hungry.
Someone “accidentally” spills an entire glass of water across my tray, leaving my waffle and bacon soggy. When I’m rushing off to calculus, someone holds the door, only to let it slam in my face and almost stub the toe of my boot.
And as I’m walking through the building after class, I hear two girls whispering to each other, a few feet away.
I am, fully and entirely,persona non grata.
I don’t give them the satisfaction of a reaction and just hide my face, walking briskly to the only place that I think will be safe, the alcove at the very back of the library on the B2 level. It’s where I spent my first day and where I’m starting to suspect I’ll spend a lot of days, crammed where there’s no sunlight and very few people, surrounded by compact, movable shelves that don’t even work with a touch button, but instead a series of hand cranks. Inside them are all kinds of dull, thick, undigitized records. Thesort of minutiae that you’d have to be dedicated or a PhD student to get into. And further beyond that, the archives.
Point being, nobody comes here. Not when there’s a beautiful collegiate gothic aesthetic main study room, not to mention countless corridors with armchairs and study rooms.
But maybe that’s for the best.
I crunch on the apple I swiped on my way out of breakfast and sit with my heels on the seat of the chair, compact and folded over.
They want to bully me? Play pranks? Fine. Sticks and stones. Name calling doesn’t bother me. What is this, preschool?
I chew the apple, tasting like dust in my mouth, as a single tear trickles down my cheek.
Be normal,I think. Be happy. You belong here as much as anyone else. You belong here more than anywhere else.
When I get up at last with just ten minutes to get to Latin, my scarf hooks on the edge of the chair, pulls itself from my throat as I stand up. It looks comfortable there, the deep red against the polished wood of the arms.
Impulsively, I decide to leave it there. A test, maybe, to see, who, if anyone, comes down here. If I return and it’s gone or moved, I’ll know.
If not, I’ve got a place to hide. And that, more than anything, is valuable.
Latin 302 isat the very top of the Classics building, and I fail to account for just how long it takes to scale the stairs. There’s no listed textbook, so I’m coming with just a notebook and pens and the half-digested apple in my stomach and a fierce curiosity for what this Dr. Emrys is all about.This truly is the heart of whatCaliburn University means, I think, thudding up step after step in the echoing stairwell.
This is what we’re meant to be learning and studying: the oldest, the most obscure, the trickiest, the least useful, in a lot of senses.
This is, and this must be?—
“Gwenna.”
My boots skid to a squeaking stop as I get to the threshold. The room is smaller than I had expected, with just two windows and a cramped series of two-person tables pushed in front of a battered teacher’s desk at the front. A handful of stares fall on me. Five people. That’s all there is in this class. And one of them is, yes, the professor.
