Page 33 of Architecti
I wink at him.
There’s a beat of realisation, for both of us.Him realising he just lost, and me recognising that I must be completely unhinged because honestly, the wink is way more than a step over the line.
But not one fuck will be given.I practically skip to the cloisters.
By the time I slide between their slender sandstone pillars, reality has hit, and my stomach is churning.Whether it’s anxiety or excitement, I’m not really sure.Probably a little of both if I’m honest with myself.
My fingers caress the weather-worn columns as I wonder how many centuries of knowledge they cradle.
The columns form an arched corridor around the perimeter of the cloisters.In the middle are several ponds housing plump black and silver koi—none of the white, oranges and reds you’d usually see.One lurches left and shoots away, and I realise why it’s drained of colour.
“What the fuck?”
“Dead,” Lex answers, appearing at my side.“Well, reanimated, so half dead?Hey, is everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah, fine.Don’t worry about Ignatius.”
“The dean, you mean?”
Right.To Lex he must be an important part of the Academy.To me, he’s the cunt that is going to steal my soul.
“I’ll explain later,” I say and stare at the dead little fish, swimming as if the sun beams and they’ve not a care in the world.
Reanimated fish, whispers the wind, and I have to wonder whether the rumours about this place being haunted are true.
The scent of morning rain, petrichor, and decaying parchment drift through the cloisters on the cool morning breeze.It’s a light, watery, off scent.
My spine tickles, as though I’m being watched.I scan the cloisters, but see nothing other than students, and gargoyles hanging off doors and stone pillars.
“You need to chill, it’s going to be fine,” Lex says and pulls my arm over hers.
The further we progress through the cloisters, the more students join us, each one wearing the same unsettled expression.
A sensation wraps around my insides, coiling like snakes.I keep checking my feet, as if I’m one step from something taking my ankles out.Lex is right, I can’t spend the next year on edge.
I glance back at the fish.“Bizarre that they’re dead and yet moving.”
Lex nods.“They’re reanimated by the Restarts.It’s part of their first term assessments.They have to reanimate small creatures.It’s easier to learn with smaller living things before they try human reanimation.Disastrous otherwise.Can you imagine?”
“What’s a Restart again?”
She sighs.“Resurrection students.Try and keep up.You’ll have to study extra time just to get the base knowledge.Most students come having learned the basics.”
“Most students get their invitations earlier than last night.”
She frowns.“Yeah, that is odd.”
After the first eight rejections, I didn’t think it would happen, so what was the point in studying?I swear I had that ninth rejection, though the invitation it morphed into sits in my back pocket.
A cold prickle nestles between my ribs.Everyone else has probably studied for years and so will be leagues ahead of me.
I’m not giving up.I haven’t come this far just to pussy out because I’m not starting term as the top student.I’ll do whatever it takes for that Demonic Favour.It’s the last resort, the one way I can break my contract and save my soul.
Lex looks me up and down, and hums.“Something tells me you’re going to fall in love with being a Detour.”
I stare at her blankly.
She sighs again, in a super dramatic way, and I fall totally in friend-love with her.
