Page 111 of Storm of Shadows
“Professor Tudor, I thought he was going to blow the classroom to smithereens when he discovered you weren’t in class today.” He shivers and holds his hand to his chest. “I actually feared for my life. That man is terrifying.”
“Was it you who told him where I was?” I say, glaring at him.
“No,” he says, “cross my heart. And I’m telling you, I was shaking in my boots when he grilled me.”
“How did he know then?”
He shrugs. “Sixth sense.”
“He is a shadow weaver,” Clare points out.
“Yeah,” I say, bending down to tie my lace. “I had no idea he was.”
“What do you mean?” Clare asks me. “All professors are.”
“Oh,” I say, jumping back up, “he came from Slate Quarter. You’d think one of our own turning out to have powers and making it as an academy professor would be big news back in our Quarter – the thing of legends. But I never heard anything about it.”
“He came from Slate Quarter?” Fly says, staring at me in astonishment.
“You don’t need to sound so surprised,” I say, “we’re not all feeble dunces. The occasional one of us makes it out of the shithole.”
“But a shadow weaver. That’s … that’s …”
“Weren’t you listening in his class? Some students from other Quarters do end up having powers.”
“Yeah,” Clare says, fiddling with her sweater, “but no one actually believes it. No one’s ever heard of anyone who it’s actually happened to.”
“Well, it happened to him.”
“Nah,” Fly says, shaking his head adamantly. “You must be mistaking him for someone else. Someone who’s like him.”
“I very much doubt there are two men, both in their early thirties called Fox Tudor.”
“Then, he must have had shadow weaver blood – his mom or dad must have been a shadow weaver.”
“I don’t think so,” I say, thinking of Fox’s parents – two of the most ordinary people you could meet.
“It doesn’t happen otherwise,” Clare insists.
“Maybe his dad isn’t who they say he is,” Fly says, waggling his eyebrows.
“Right,” I say, “because shadow weavers are always passing through our Quarter and having illicit affairs with very ordinary, very dull women who live there.”
“Are they?” Clare says, surprised.
“No,” I tell her. “I’d never seen a shadow weaver in the flesh until I came to the academy.”
“Oh,” Clare says.
“It has to be something like that,” Fly insists. “People like us don’t develop shadow weaving powers. It doesn’t just arrive out of the blue.”
“Then why tell us otherwise? Why put us through those lessons?” I point out.
Clare shrugs. “To give us hope or something.”
“Hmmm,” I say, not convinced, because I know Fox Tudor doesn’t have a drop of shadow weaving blood in him – I’m sure of that – and yet he has the power.
Just like …
