Page 28 of Sonnets and Serpents
With purpose, Silas set off across campus, and Eliza kept pacebehind him in a spot he couldn’t reach without turning. She determined not to speak, not to provoke him or offer him any reason to become savage when he’d been civil thus far.
Yet a moment later, she asked, “Where are we going?”
Clamping her jaw shut, she tried and failed to glare at herself without a mirror.
“I’m hungry,” was all he said.
Truthfully, so was she. The hunger pangs had only grown worse since her trip to the market, but Eliza had spent all her money. She couldn’t depend on Silas for a meal; he would say something about entitled royalty. She’d taken to paying for dinner every other day at the inn and stashing bread in her pockets for the days between. There were two rolls waiting back in her room, but if she couldn’t go more than twenty feet from Silas, what hope did she have of returning to the inn or gathering her things?
Her cheeks heated with a sudden realization. If she couldn’t go more than twenty feet from Silas, she would have to stay near him all night. Did shapeshifters grow more dangerous at night? Was that what had happened with the eagle?
While she worried, Silas led her to the university’s dining hall, and upon entering the arched room filled with long tables, Eliza felt a sharp sting of loss. For a moment, she could pretend she was back home, and her father was throwing a feast for the members of court. By instinct, her eyes moved to the front of the room where the royal table would have been, and she could almost picture her parents and Aria already seated, waiting for her.
But no one was waiting for her.
She’d lagged behind Silas, and, suddenly, her arm yanked forward, pulling the rest of her along with it. He halted, glancing back at her with a scowl, causing her ears to burn.
When they reached the food table, it wasn’t as Eliza expected.In the formal feasts back home, everyone sat in their place to be served their meal. In less formal settings, one edge of the room held anywhere from one to three refreshment tables, laden with food, and guests were free to select whatever offerings they desired.
At the university, the food table was guarded by a set of workers in aprons, who divided food onto plates in identical manner and handed them out. Silas accepted his without pause, but when a worker handed one to Eliza, she tried to hand it back.
“Oh, I’m not—” She swallowed, lost in Loegrian. “I’m not a student.”
Silas caught the back of her shirt collar, tugging her away from the confused worker. She heard him offer Pravish thanks on her behalf, which only increased the heat in her face. She could have offered her own gratitude, at least.
“I was trying to be honest,” she whispered, following him toward one of the tables.
“A noble thought,” he said, and she couldn’t tell if he was mocking or not, “but I belong to the university, and as long as we’re linked, so do you. I suppose you’re my research assistant now.” Before Eliza could sort out how she felt about that, he added, “A useless, resource-draining assistant.”
She scowled, then almost tripped on an uneven stone in the floor, so she refocused on following Silas to a group of empty seats at the table closest to the west windows. She didn’t think it a coincidence that he sat somewhere with a view of the ocean, as if reminding her she should be sailing back home across it.
Her stomach growled loudly at the rising aromas before her. The majority of her plate held some kind of pastry, oblong like a boat and filled with a dark mixture of mashed beans and vegetables. Besides that, she had a collection of olives and a pile of what seemed to be wheat. Not milled, but simply dumped on her plate. When she poked the yellowish-brown substance withher spoon, she found it too soft and fluffy to be raw wheat, though it was still a collection of grains.
“Rice,” said Silas. She glanced up to find him halfway through his own grain. “Loegria and Patriamere share an island without any rice fields. On this continent, rice is the most common agricultural resource.”
Eliza’s lips curved into a faint smile. “Agriculture. Economics. Magic. Is there anything you didn’t study?”
“Sailing. Otherwise, I’d sail you back to Loegria myself.”
She regretted her smile. It was wasted on him.
“You’re the most disagreeable person I’ve ever met,” she said, “and that’s a fact.”
She jammed a spoonful of rice into her mouth, then instantly forgot about her dining companion. The rice was the strangest thing she’d ever eaten, a bizarre texture on her tongue as the individual grains came apart. It was lightly flavored. A bit sticky. People lived off this?
Silas stared at her, a shadow in his dark eyes. She braced herself for a lecture about not appreciating rice, but what he said was, “I can’t be the most disagreeable person you’ve ever met. You don’t even consider me a person.”
Goose bumps pebbled Eliza’s skin, a chill from within. In the staring contest with a shapeshifter, she looked away first.
They finished their meal in silence.
Dusk fell as they exited the dining hall, and Eliza followed Silas toward the dormitories. He passed all the largest buildings until he reached one at the edge of campus. Eliza wasn’t surprised that he chose to live as far as possible from everyone else.
The building had a squat, sturdy look to it, with thick foundations and pillars, as if constructed to withstand storms. Unlike the other buildings, it was only a single story, and inside, the dim hallway divided into four doors. Either the other roomswere unoccupied, or the occupants were all engaged in silent meditation.
Silas turned a key in the first door on the right, then pushed it open to reveal the room he was staying in. It would have been meager accommodations for a single person. For two ...
Well, for starters, there was only one bed.
