persenche

content warning: discussion of childhood trauma

“Oh shit, you’re actually out of the room. Did somebody threaten you? Or did you decide to burn those robes and get new ones?” Himari looked him up and down, and Riley was abruptly aware of how disheveled he was, how unkempt his robe was. He’d fallen out of the habit of putting his clothes into the laundry chute to be taken away by the constructs, and was sleeping in the robes, which was both uncomfortable and also felt like armor.

Armor against his own body, of course, but he didn’t want to think about that too closely.

“I can just go back upstairs, I guess, if you’re going to be like that.”

Himari got to her feet in a rush. “No, no, listen, I’m just surprised, is all.” She gestured around. “I mean have you even been to the Ranger level before? I know you haven’t been to the gym.”

Himari had been sitting on a bench whose purpose was unclear to Riley but was definitely of the black-padded-exercise-equipment variety. The Rangers gym was a broad open space with a variety of other benches and racks. The ceiling was more than twenty feet overhead, with ropes hanging from catwalks, and the floor was covered in thick mats.

Riley wondered for a moment at why there were no big complicated exercise machines, and then immediately remembered the problem of Primary decay. Machines would stop working unless they were made locally.

Plenty of free weights and bars and beams and things, though. And the whole back half of the room was some sort of parkour course, with walls to run up and posts to jump between and all the other sorts of things he’d seen in YouTube videos that seemed always to be set in France. Two Rangers were working through that course now, grim-faced and speaking only in low intense voices, and only very occasionally.

“Uh, no. I just…” He trailed off. What had his plan been, anyway? Was he hoping to find someone here to explain things to him, or was he hoping to find the place empty and to figure out some piece of equipment on his own?

Himari’s presence had both thrown him off whatever empty instinctual track he’d been following, and also given him an opportunity to resolve his dilemma. “I hurt, and I was wondering if there are some kind of basic stretches I could be doing.”

She looked at him, appraising. “Probably, yeah. What kind of hurt are we talking about?”

“Lower back. Hips. Legs.”

She nodded. “You sit in those fucking chairs all day long, so that makes sense. I tried to tell you, you need to move around more. You’re gonna be hunched over and like four feet tall when you’re old.”

He smirked. “Bold of you to assume I’m going to get a chance to be old.”

That had been the wrong thing to say, and he didn’t know why. A darkness passed across Himari’s face, something like grief and anger and the barest self control.

“Yeah.” He could feel the flatness in her voice. “So you’re going to need to change.” She waved her hand up and down at him. She was wearing skintight shorts and a loose-fitting tunic shirt that hung down past her waist and had big open arms. Underneath she had on a tight halter top, like a sports bra; Himari was skinny and mostly had no curves to speak of, but what she did have, she carefully strapped down.

“Into what?”

She sighed. “We’ll have to go talk to Bella upstairs and get some sports gear for you. Is that gonna be okay? It’s all going to be—”

He interrupted her. “It’s fine. It doesn’t bother me.”

The plan to get him custom clothing had mostly turned out to be a lot of promise and no real follow-through. The problem was that most of the clothes provided to novices were already unisex. Robes were robes, and the only real concession to be made for sleeping shifts was to pull the lace trim off the hems, which felt stupid to him, and emphasized how meaningless this entire project really was.

But he’d at least gotten some shorts to wear instead of tightly-fitted bikini style panties, and he clung to that little bit of self-assertion as best he could, even as he told himself that this, too, was stupid and meaningless.

Sports gear would be tight shorts like Himari’s, though. Tight halter tops.

Would it bother him? He had no idea. Probably; but at the same time, keeping the things that bothered him completely suppressed was how he was making it through each day. So he followed Himari up to Academics, and into the new student supply rooms for the first time since the day he arrived.

While Bella bustled in the back, Riley found words he’d been struggling with the whole way up the stairs. “When, when I said that thing earlier about getting old?”

Himari had been staring off into space but now found his face with her eyes. “Yeah, sorry about—”

“I’m sorry that—”

“It wasn’t—”

They both stopped, and then Riley said, “Go ahead.”

“Something happened earlier today, with the Rangers.” Himari leaned forward to balance her elbows on her knees, clasping her hands, looking down at the floor. “They found something bad, and people… died. People I knew.”

Riley felt cold climbing up his back. “What was it?”

“I don’t know. Nobody’s stopping to explain it to a novice.” She shuddered. “But lately? I’ve been talking to Olivia. I don’t know if you met her. She graduated last year, and went straight for Ranger training, and I was talking to her about what that was like, you know, how I can do that too, all that shit.”

Riley could see it coming, but it was still a cold leaden weight in him when she said the words.

“She was one of the people on the expedition. One of the three people who didn’t come back.”

Riley didn’t know what to do. Or rather, he knew exactly what to do, but didn’t know how to do it. He could see it in his mind’s eye: getting up, sitting next to her, taking one of her hands, holding it.

Why couldn’t he do it?

Why were his legs like stone, immovable?

Why was the thought of showing basic human compassion to one of the three people he was closest to in his life causing his breaths to come in shaky bursts?

“I barely even got to…” She trailed off, then tried again. “She was from Argentina. I was learning the names of all her sisters. She didn’t have any brothers but she had five sisters.”

They sat in silence for a moment, and then Himari tried again. “I never knew anybody who died before.”

Riley’s vision swam and he felt himself rising to his feet. The sound of his thoughts in his own head was angry, frustrated, finally out of patience. Oh for fuck’s sake, we are not just going to fucking sit here and let her hurt like this.

Before he could stop himself, he had crossed over to her, sat down next to her, and taken her hand. Just like in his imagination.

Himari stiffened for a moment, and then took a long shuddering breath and slowly leaned her head over to his shoulder.

“I have,” he said. There was a flash of memory, of a wet red cave formed by the shattered windshield, of the dripping of it. “It feels like everything is different, afterwards.”

She whispered. “Like the whole world has changed.”

“And you think maybe if you had done something different—”

“Even when there wasn’t anything you did—”

“Like maybe if you’d gotten to the car faster, or dawdled longer, or—”

“Or if you’d told her about your feelings—”

“Or something had been different.” Riley sniffed back his suddenly runny nose. “Anything.”

Himari rubbed her face against his sleeve, and he could feel the dampness spreading there. “Yeah. Somehow.”

“I keep thinking about all this magic bullshit and how all we ever hear about is all the reasons we’re not supposed to do it, and all the ways it’s dangerous.”

Himari pulled back to look at him, but he was staring off across the room. “Right?” Her voice was low, intense. “What’s the fucking point if we can’t save someone?”

They were quiet for a moment longer, and then Bella arrived with a bundle of clothes which she thought would probably fit Riley and were as unisex as she could find in the storage room.

They were quiet as they made their way back to the central shaft and the grand spiral stair. As they started descending, Himari broke the silence. “You’re not okay, are you, Riley?”

He didn’t know how to answer, and while he searched for something to say, she took his silence for a rejection. “Never mind, I didn’t mean to—”

“No!” He lowered his voice, aware that he had said that far too loud and abruptly in his hurry to reassure her. “Sorry. No, I’m just thinking how to answer.”

Another pause, and then he continued. “I don’t think I’ve ever been okay. I don’t think I know how to be okay. So even if I say that I am, it would be like, relative to what?”

“Not even when you were little? I think I was happy when I was little.”

Riley shook his head. “Especially not then. I was—” He stopped mid-word, and shook his head. “I was a foster kid. Um. Because of, uh. Bad stuff.”

“Shit. Sorry I brought it up.”

“No, it’s okay. You didn’t know, and like, I can’t ask all of you to tiptoe around my damage.”

Himari let out a quiet single laugh. “It kinda feels like that, huh? Like you’re gonna snap and we’re all trying to not be the one who makes it happen.”

He sighed heavily. “Yeah. Look, I’m sorry I’ve been so fucking difficult.”

“Nah, it’s not that bad. I have no problem telling you to shut the fuck up.” She grinned, which he could see just barely out of the corner of his eye. At the same time, her hand found his, and she squeezed, to take any sting out of it.

They walked for a few more steps before she said, “You should probably say something to Eve, though. She’s terrified she’s done something wrong and that you hate her.”

“Shit. How could anybody hate Eve? She’s like a…”

“Cinnamon bun.”

He nodded. “Do you… I mean, do you have a thing for her?”

Himari laughed. “Are you asking if I’m gay, or if I’m gay for her, or if we’re secretly making out when you’re not looking?”

Riley flushed and stammered. “I, um, all three, I guess?”

Himari started slowly. “I think… if I’m anything, I’m gay.” She paused. “Or at least, I’m not into men. Sorry,” she added, glancing over at him.

“Don’t look at me; I’m not into men either.” He let himself smile a little.

She snorted. “Anyway. I’m not really into anyone. But how do I feel about Eve?” She pondered for a moment. “I want to hug her and I want to protect her and fight anyone who would even think about being mean to her. I could imagine cuddling with her, I guess? But not, like, kissing. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kiss anyone.”

“So you’re ace?”

“I guess so? I never really think about sex at all, unless I’m teasing someone about it. I never imagine myself doing it.”

“Huh. But um.” He tried to think of the best way to approach it. “What you said earlier, about, uh. Olivia.”

Her pace slowed a fraction but there was no trace of anything in her voice. “Yeah. I guess I felt some kind of way about her. I don’t know. It wasn’t physical? I mean don’t get me wrong, she was fucking hot.” She smiled faintly. “I may not want to fuck, but I can still recognize ‘hot’ when I see it, okay?”

They arrived back at the gym. “You want me to guard the door to the changing room for you?”

He smiled gratefully. “Yeah, just for a minute. I’ll be quick.”

When he emerged back into the gym in black shorts and a matching halter top, Himari nodded in approval, and her eyes wandered up his body.

Fuck. He had forgotten how it was to be seen.

But something about knowing Himari wasn’t interested in him, wasn’t interested in anyone, made it easier to bear.

And then her eyes lingered on his chest, and he felt cold settling into his gut. Because he knew what she had seen, and it was the same thing he’d seen, and the thing he’d been covering himself with layer after layer of robes to conceal, and why didn’t he think about this?

Because you wanted someone else to know, the nightmare voice in his head supplied instantly. Because you’re exhausted by hiding and you’re exhausted by fear.

Because you want to be known.

Himari said nothing, and Riley said nothing, and she taught him some basic stretching exercises and by the end of it he was sweaty and felt achy but in a good way, not in the awful tense way he had been feeling. And back at the suite, he was eager to shower for the first time perhaps ever since arriving at the Tower, because of how nice he knew the warm water would feel, and how sticky and gross he felt, and he looked down at himself as he washed the sweat off himself and forced himself to open his eyes and make an admission, even if only deep inside his own head.

There really wasn’t anything else the aching, tender, soft swellings on his chest could be, was there?

# # #

Therese didn’t really have visitors to her room. When she wanted to socialize, she generally found herself in the communal spaces overlooking the central shaft of the Tower, or in the much nicer and well-appointed rooms of either Key or Nora. In an environment where you could pretty much decorate your space in any way you liked, as long as it was something a craftsperson in the Peripheral Tower was willing to make for you, Therese never bothered with anything past ‘utilitarian’. Her divinatory chamber was her real ‘office’, and that’s where she kept anything she found interesting — Worked objects, books from the Archives, maps, charts, glassware and optics, and general mystical clutter. Here, in her room, she had a comfortable bed, a giant heap of blankets, a wardrobe, a dresser, and a mirror. Anything else seemed pointless; she woke up, left her room, and only came back when it was time to sleep.

The knock on her door was therefore not only unexpected, but concerning. Who would be seeking her out this close to midnight? It was only coincidence that she was still up reading her notes, and thus the light outside the door was still illuminated to show she was awake. She’d gotten fixated on trying to pinpoint the actual position of the strangeness in the Sisters portion of the Tree, on what methods of triangulation she could use to find something in a space that wasn’t a real space at all, and thus she was up an hour later than she might normally have been.

Though for the past month, her bedtime seemed to slip later and later. Anxiety, she supposed.

“Uh… come in?” she called, and the door obediently clicked to allow access.

Suliat pushed it open, looking nervous and out of place. “A- Adept Therese?”

Therese motioned her in. This was about Riley, of course. It had to be. It always was, these days. “Just Therese is fine. Titles feel weird, especially when I’m only a couple of years older than you.”

Suliat nodded, and then looked around in the dimly-lit chamber for somewhere to sit. Therese scooted up to the end of the bed, pulling her legs in, and indicated the foot of the bed. “Um, sorry. I don’t really have visitors, and I don’t do any work in here, so I’m kind of short on places to sit.”

The Novice climbed up onto the bed, and folded herself with a kind of grace Therese had never managed at any point in her entire life. It was as though she was completely accustomed to sitting on the rumpled bedclothes of an unmade bed, in formal gatherings, with aristocracy.

“This is about Riley, I’m guessing?”

Suliat smiled. “Maybe. At least, Riley is the reason I’m talking to you right now, and not to Alexis. You seem to have more… insight into his moods.”

Therese wondered if Riley had told her about the connection between them. “I do, though I wouldn’t describe us as friendly.”

“No, I think the unhappiness in his voice when he says your name makes that much clear.”

Therese winced inwardly. Magically bound to someone who dislikes you: not a place she particularly wanted to be.

“The broader question I have, which might come back to my suitemate and fellow student, is… have we been tampered with in some way? Magically, I mean. Have we been altered, as part of the admission process?”

Therese was startled by the question, and hesitated a moment before answering. “What do you mean by— do you mean, is there a Working on you? Are you asking me as an Adept or as a Diviner?”

Suliat looked puzzled. “I don’t think I follow.”

“I could use Divination to look you over, see if there are any active Workings on you. It’s part of what my field is about: looking at active magical effects and processes. But I’m not sure if you mean that, or if you’re asking—”

“If there’s some part of the whole Academy admission process that involves tinkering with novices in some way.” Suliat nodded. “The latter. Though I’m curious about the divination, too. I just keep thinking about the idea of Sealing. The Headmistress strongly implied that anyone going that route would have their memories gradually fade until they believed this place was a dream.”

“Ah. Yes. So you’re wondering if that’s because we’ve done something to your brain to make you forget, or if we would do that if you got Sealed.”

Suliat nodded.

Therese looked more closely at her face, trying to read it. “You’re not really worried about Sealing, though.”

She shook her head. “No. I’m worried about having my mind changed without me knowing it.”

“Why would—” Therese cut herself off. “Let me try again. What makes you think something like that might have happened?”

“Riley.” Suliat met Therese’s eyes, and smiled slightly. “I told you it might come back to him.”

Therese waited for Suliat to continue, and after a moment, she did. “Riley has been in his room crying for the past few hours. I tried to lure him out for a Working we’ve been experimenting with, and he refused. Something happened today with Himari, and neither of them will talk about it, and he won’t come out of his room.”

Therese felt cold. She knew Riley was having an ongoing anxiety attack that was cycling between panic and despair, but she didn’t know why, and she absolutely wasn’t about to tell Suliat that she had a direct line to the boy’s emotional state. “Well, he’s had a difficult—”

Suliat held up a hand to stop her. “That’s not what I’m asking about, although maybe we could talk about his particular problems later? Because I have a feeling that I’m going to need to pull him out of this whatever it is, that neither of our cadre-mates is up to the task, and I seem to have made myself cadre-mom, whether I want that or not.” She smiled. “Of course, I do; diplomacy was always my calling.”

“So what then? Are you asking if someone’s messed with his—”

“Not his. Mine.” She pointed at her head. “Because… I don’t really know how to explain this without it sounding incredibly heartless, so I’ll just say it: why do I care about Riley Hawkins?”

Therese blinked.

“I mean that in more ways than one.” She looked down at her lap, folded her hands; in the relative dark of the room, her pale crescent fingernails were the only thing catching the light, seeming to glow amid her otherwise shadowed figure. “He’s an obnoxious arsehole. He’s a constant source of frustration for me, irritation for Himari, and terror for Eve. If I told you what being in the same space with him is like, anyone would wonder why I don’t just demand his removal. He sulks, he makes everything quietly stressful, and he immediately shuts me out when I reach out to him.”

Therese nodded. “You’re telling me things I’ve heard from all your instructors.”

“So: why do I care? Why do I want to help him? Why do we all want to? We talk, the three of us. We’ve tried to understand why any of us give the slightest shit about him. None of us can make sense of it.”

She put her hands on her knees, as though holding on to steady herself, and took a breath. “I said ‘in more ways than one’ and this is the other way. Eve and I have… we’ve been getting closer.” She paused to see if Therese took her meaning, and Therese nodded. It was pretty typical in most cadres, unless the girls had absolutely no hint of queerness to them whatsoever, and for whatever reason, the classes always seemed to have a greater than typical proportion of queer girls. Maybe queerness and magical aptitude were somehow related. Therese wondered if that was something Theory had ever examined, or if they were all too stuffy to consider it.

“Eve is a lesbian, and while I never thought of myself in those terms — my family is very conservative — I only very rarely find men interesting. So we’ve become intimate. Not to the point of sharing a bed, but sharing kisses?” She might have been blushing, but the light was too dim for Therese to be sure. Her voice had the timbre of someone fighting through embarrassment to speak. “And we’ve both agreed that… we’re attracted to Riley. He’s an arse and he’s unpleasant and we both want to, well. Snog him.”

Therese rocked back slightly. “That’s…” She trailed off, unsure what to say. That’s because he’s a girl bubbled up hysterically inside her, and she had to bite down on her lip to keep from giggling.

“For me, at least, it’s possible. The right kind of man, the right look… Riley is neither, but it’s possible. But Eve? She is a lesbian and is quite certain about it.” Suliat finally looked up, and Therese could see the pleading in her eyes. “So I’m asking: have we been tampered with?”

Therese shook her head. “No. Not to my knowledge. I’m an Adept, so I’m not one of the people in charge here, but I’m certain I’d have noticed something like that before.” She paused, catching her lip in her teeth, thinking. “But there’s an oversized elephant in the room.”

Suliat smiled. “Have you ever seen an elephant?”

Therese laughed. “No. American. Anyway, the elephant is the Tower itself. None of us really understand it, what it can do, any of it. The Tower is a big mystery and nobody has answers.” She opened her hands as though to show the lack of knowledge by their emptiness. “If it wanted to do something to you, I don’t think anybody would know. I’m mentioning this because you asked about Sealing.”

She looked up, as though at the bulk of the structure above her. “Sealing is something we do with a Working, and it more or less permanently locks the celestial realm away, making you unable to perceive it, and thus unable to call Sigils and unable to Work. It’s a kind of blinding. It could be undone, but there’s never been any reason to do so, so it’s never been done. But the memory loss…” She waved her hands as if to signal a brushing-away of memories. “We don’t do that.”

“The Tower does?”

“It’s the only explanation that seems to fit. If you can’t even perceive the celestial world, the Tower, the central point of that world, seems to just fade away over time. Like the reality of it can’t exist without at least some scrap of celestial power to link you to it. It becomes like a dream; your mind gives up the patterns of it the way that dreams scatter when you wake.”

Suliat nodded. “So if this regard for Riley is magical, it’s the Tower doing it, and we’re stuck with it.”

“You don’t sound all that angry.”

“I wanted explanations, not a way out.” Suliat smiled, and her smile was also a challenge. “Riley is mine. Riley is ours. If that’s because of the Tower, then so be it. It doesn’t make the feeling any less real.”

Therese blinked, startled, and knew that it was written across her face from the way Suliat’s smile broadened into a grin.

“In case anyone thinks the right way to deal with Riley is to send him away.” She made a cutting motion with her hand, that Therese interpreted as a gesture of finality, of excision. “He’s awful, but he’s ours. Eve and I, at least, and I imagine Himari would agree. We will fight with everything we have to protect him. From anyone.” She looked meaningfully up at the ceiling, indicating the entire Academy and its whole hierarchy and the Tower itself, if need be. “Anyone.”

Therese nodded. “Yeah. For what it’s worth, I think he’s important in some way. Like, in a magical way. I don’t know what I’d be able to do, if it came to it, but I’d stand in the way of anyone trying to get rid of him. The, uh.” She looked aside, wondering how much to share, then deciding fuck it, let’s go. “The Tower pretty much told me I had to protect him.”

“The Tower itself?” Suliat’s eyes widened.

“Dream divination is scary shit. Especially when it happens while you’re awake.” She shuddered as the memory crept in.

Suliat nodded, as if coming to a decision. “All right, then. Since we’re agreed on the subject of Riley.” Her expression became desperate and her voice became pleading. “What’s wrong with him? And don’t you dare say ‘nothing’. He’s been crying for hours and I don’t know what else to do to reach him. I don’t know what else to say. I feel helpless.”

Therese imagined this was an unusual state of being for Suliat, who always had the initiative, who was always moving forward, moving towards something. The frustration in her voice was as thick as the pleading.

“I want to help you.” Therese pressed her hands together, trying to will her sincerity into her voice. “I do. But there are things…” She struggled for words, as Suliat waited. “I know things about Riley, things I’ve learned in confidence, that I just can’t share. Things I’ve promised to keep to myself.”

“Promised to whom?”

Therese tasted her answer, considered it, then said, “Riley.”

“This is part of whatever there is between you two, isn’t it?”

Therese nodded. “It is, but it’s more than that. Believe me when I say that I would tell you everything if I didn’t know it would hurt him more than it would help.”

Suliat’s eyes had narrowed at Therese’s hesitation, but after a moment she nodded. “Fine. I believe you. But if that changes? If you think—”

“If I have to betray this promise to save Riley, I’ll do it in a heartbeat, don’t worry. He doesn’t like me, but I don’t feel the same way about him at all, and I’m trying my best to help his ungrateful ass.”

Suliat laughed. “I just don’t get it. He’s such a prat. Why do we care so much?”

“I wish I knew. I really do.” She leaned forward to take Suliat’s hand. “For now, I think you just need to keep trying. Keep talking to him. Don’t give up on him. I really believe he wants us to reach him. And eventually…” She examined her feelings, decided this was the honest truth and not just wishful thinking, and said, “Eventually, I think he’s going to be okay, and this will all have been worth it.”

# # #

The Armory crafter, a woman named Marama, had separated them into pairs, and each pair had been given a small private work cubicle. The other cadre was, for a change, present as well; since this was meant to be a high-level survey and practical instruction, all eight current first-year Novices were being taught simultaneously.

“It’s because it’s tedious for me to have to monitor you all twice times over. You’re not going to hurt yourselves, and this is completely hands-on and self-directed.” She’d smiled, and not entirely in a friendly way. “But I’m not letting any of you out of my workshop while you’re messing about with my artifacts.” Her Kiwi accent carried a sharp, intense edge, and almost no musicality whatsoever. She wanted to be heard, understood, and obeyed.

Riley had been paired with Eve, and while she seemed perfectly fine with the arrangement, he could feel an undercurrent of tension, possibly even anxiety, in everything she said. He had composed and discarded a number of attempts at reconciliation, or apology, or explanation. He’d tried to imagine ways to put her at ease, but all of them felt like they’d just make her anxiety worse. How do you acknowledge that you’ve been an asshole and you’ve seemed dangerous without making yourself seem even more dangerous?

Riley had seen a movie about this once. It was, of course, a horror movie.

So mostly they sat quietly, the object on the workbench between them, and every so often one or the other of them would make a suggestion as to what they ought to try next.

The thing was a rod, the thickness of Riley’s thumb, and about a foot and a half long. Eve said it was a half meter, and she seemed confident, but Riley had no real intuitive sense for metric units, so he trusted her judgment and wrote down ‘0.5 meters’ in his notebook. It was matte and metallic and had a rounded end; the rounded end was rough stone to the touch, and looked like a darker gray.

Their goal was to figure out how to activate it.

It was some kind of Worked item, and they’d been given some extremely general guidelines for using Worked items, and then told to ‘figure it out’. The only other thing they knew about the particular object they’d been handed was that it was a tool, not a weapon, and that Crafter Marama had made it herself, as in forged the metal herself in her Peripheral Tower workshop.

Apparently Crafters almost always had a workshop outside the Tower itself, where they could make loud noises and horrible smells and work forges and so forth, without disturbing the calm academic environs of the Tower. It also meant they could Work to enhance their crafting without the Tower shutting them down for little things like ‘making a furnace as hot as the core of a star’ or ‘creating a total vacuum for a while to really make sure there were no impurities’ or other, doubtless perfectly safe, procedures.

Marama had given over the rod with a glare and an assurance that if they damaged it somehow, they’d be made to suffer some unspecified fate. This came after she’d assured the whole lot of them that their modest powers would be unable to so much as scratch the artifacts, so Riley couldn’t be sure if this was meant as a comment on him in particular — his various adventures had apparently become common knowledge among the Adepts — or just a warning given to each pair, just in case.

They’d tried drawing a Sigil with its tip on the workbench, and in the air. They’d tried calling a Sigil and then grounding the energy from it into a Working directed at the rod. They’d tried turning and twisting it, waving it like a wand, and bending it — the last was Riley’s idea, and Eve let him try it while insisting that if anything happened it was not her fault.

Now they were looking at it, occasionally prodding at it, and reviewing the notes they’d taken on everything they’d tried.

Riley had run out of small talk, and they had run out of ideas.

“So um,” he started, and his voice came out as a strange croak. He cleared his throat, which caught Eve’s attention. “So, uh, I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

She blinked, tilted her head slightly. “For what?”

“Being an asshole. Lately. Or I mean, since I got here, but definitely lately.”

She was quiet, and he thought what she’s supposed to do, say yes, you’re an asshole? Quit being a fucking coward.

“I um, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I’m… why I’ve been like this.” He’d pulled back away from her, and he was trying to seem as small as possible, in hopes of not freaking her out further. Because on one hand, this was the first chance they’d had to talk, just the two of them, in a while. And on the other hand, he was a guy in a confined space with a girl and there wasn’t an easy way for her to escape the conversation.

So even in trying to admit to being an asshole, I’m being an asshole.

He tried again. “I know I’ve been pretty inconsiderate of everyone else’s space and feelings. I talked to Himari about it some, a couple of days ago? And she kind of told me I’d been really shitty to you and that I needed to talk to you about it.”

Eve seemed to wake up from whatever startled place he’d put her into. “No, no, that’s— I mean, you haven’t— I just take things too seriously sometimes, is all.”

He gave her a skeptical half-smile. “You’re trying to apologize to me, for me being a shitty friend.”

“No, I’m not— I’m just—” She trailed off, and then nodded. “I mean, I don’t want to be trouble for anyone and you seemed like you were. Going through it? A lot?”

“That’s not really an excuse to take things out on you. Any of you. I made myself a problem because I, I don’t really know how to handle my feelings, you know? Men are taught not to have any feelings except anger. So we never learn how to have any others.” He looked down, away from her completely guileless face. “Fuck. I’m trying to shift blame. It’s not that men are assholes, it’s that I’m an asshole because I think that’s what men are supposed to do.”

Eve nodded. “It’s something every girl learns pretty quickly when we all hit puberty together. Men can be fine and lovely unless there’s more than one of them around, and then they wind each other up.”

“Like a performance.” He picked up the rod and began to fidget with it. “Except there isn’t anyone here to perform for, for me. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe without an audience of men, I don’t really know how to behave. I mean, this place is kind of a constant challenge to my sense of self.”

Eve’s eyes crinkled at the corners with a tiny smile. “I can imagine. The underwear alone.”

He gaped at her, and she giggled and blushed and covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh fuck, I can’t believe I actually said that out loud.”

Riley laughed, and spun the rod in a practiced twirl. One of those little fidgety things he’d learned when he decided to teach himself to juggle on a whim. Eve’s eyes widened. “Oh, that was lovely. Can you do that again?”

So for a couple of minutes, he did all the silly contact juggling tricks he knew with a rod, none of which seemed to activate it or otherwise affect it in any way. He’d noticed that it quickly rose to body temperature when handled, though, so he told her so, and she dutifully wrote it down in their notes.

“Anyway. I had a couple of nasty shocks a while back. You can probably figure out when; it’s when I started really leaning into the being-a-jerk thing. And it’s just been, I dunno. Sulking and acting out. Maybe I’m trying to convince everyone here that they made a mistake in letting a boy into their girl’s school. Like being the only one here is something I have to somehow live up to.”

Eve picked the rod up from the workbench where he’d left it. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me, you know. I mean, you can! If you want to!” She looked up quickly, eyes wide, waving her hand. “I’m not saying I don’t want to hear it! I just mean, you don’t owe me an explanation. I’m just someone you were kind of stuck with.”

He reached out and touched the back of her hand. “I want to believe we can be actual friends, though.”

She looked away, and seemed suddenly shy. “I think I’d like that, too.”

“Christ knows, I haven’t had any friends.” He scrubbed at his face. “Basically ever. I have no idea how to even go about it.”

She looked back to him, tipping her head in that quizzical way again. Why is she so fucking cute when she does that? “What, never? Not even at the park, on the swings, just for an afternoon?” She tapped the rod on the palm of her other hand.

He shook his head. “People avoided me then, and they avoid me now.”

She continued to look at him, as she rolled the rod around in her hands, and the moment of silence stretched a beat too long. Finally she said, “I think you might be avoiding them. I think it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Huh.” He considered, and then changed direction. “You’re more confident these days.”

She flushed. “I— I’m sorry, I was being— I didn’t mean—”

“No, no, sorry, I was just, that was supposed to be a compliment!”

They both crashed to a halt, temporarily too flustered to know what to say.

He held his hand out, and she looked at it, blank.

He wiggled his hand up and down at her. “The rod. Gimme. I want to fidget with it now. It’s my turn.”

“Oh! Yes, right, sorry!” She put the end of it in his hand, and then—

— they were both touching it.

Riley? What’s going on?

I don’t know. We’re not… we’re not talking out loud, are we?

No, I don’t— I think we’ve found out how to activate the object.

Riley’s laugh wasn’t audible, either. Just a sense of amusement, a brief note of satisfaction. I think we have. I wonder what else it does?

Let me try something. Eve radiated concentration into their shared mental conversation, and then gasped. I felt something. Like I could see into you. Like you have some kind of a wall—

Riley went cold.

Oh, shit, Riley, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to— I wouldn’t intrude on— We should stop. Eve’s mental voice was receding, and Riley could feel her about to release the rod, and all at once he knew what he was going to do.

No, wait. This is probably the only way I’m ever going to have the chance to tell you this, and the only way I’ll ever have the courage to actually say it.

Eve’s mental voice went quiet, and he could feel her nervous anticipation.

How much closer do you think we can get in this place? He tried imagining himself moving.

I don’t know. She sounded somewhere between frightened and eager. If I try again, what if I end up too close, again?

Let’s just let it happen. There’s something I want to show you.

I don’t want to hurt you.

You won’t. I was just surprised, that’s all.

He drifted closer to her, and she to him, and with neither of them pushing the other away, it took almost no effort for their thoughts to completely merge.

They saw, in Eve’s mind, she and Suliat, together, tangled around one another with hands resting lightly on thighs, breasts, cheeks. Lips meeting. Whispered words. Words about Riley. Words about their worry for him, their care for him.

They saw, in Eve’s mind, her fear, but in this new light, never fear of him, but fear for him, fear of what might happen to him if she pressed too hard, was too insistent, was too much in his space, unwanted and unwelcome.

You could never be unwelcome.

Well, you say that now, you wanker. There was no sting in Eve’s thoughts, just a kind of affectionate exasperation.

I suppose it might have been less true a week ago.

They paused for a moment in that close space, their thoughts mingled and entangled.

Okay then, now we’ve seen my own mortifying truth, she thought.

You and Suliat. His voice was neither jealous nor teasing. It was some other thing, something she didn’t have a word for, something like happiness in the happiness of others.

Yes, yes, but what did you want to show me? We could try getting to the bloody point!

Yes. Sorry. It’s still really hard for me. I’m still holding it back. Fuck.

Riley? You’re an idiot. We’re rummaging about in each other’s minds. I can feel everything you can feel. What could you possibly tell me that I wouldn’t accept completely?

She could feel everything he felt, she realized, and that’s how she could feel the little trickle of emotion that was absolutely not coming from inside Riley’s mind at all. What is that, anyway?

It’s Therese. She’s been there since… well, since she first found me, months and months ago.

What, all the time?

Unfortunately. She says it’s not something she did, and not something she knows how to undo, and she seems as upset by it as I am. And I believe her because, like, I can feel how she feels about it. Right through that little trickle of emotion. All the time.

Fuck. That’s horrible.

I could really do without it, yeah. He gathered himself, taking the mental equivalent of a deep breath to steady himself. Okay, here it is. Come inside.

She approached closer.

She had a moment of disorientation, like her thoughts were suddenly fragmented into pieces before they came back together.

And a new voice spoke in the space between them. A girl’s voice. Tentative but strong, nervous and confident all at once.

Hi, Eve. I’m Riley. And uh. I’m a girl.

persenche

Welcome to chapter 8! Things are going to start happening very quickly for Riley now, as you might imagine. There will be Gender, and there will be Danger, and eventually? Romance. But before we get there, Riley's got some important apologies to deliver. So I'll see you here on Wednesday, for the conclusion of chapter 8! It's somewhat shorter than usual, because there really wasn't a better place to break this into two pieces. I mean, not without leaving off the sort-of-important final bit of this half.

If you're enjoying this, the two things you can do to thank me are: One, leave a comment. You have no idea how thrilled I am every time one of you has something to say, whether it's a theory or an analysis or just general excitement. Those little notifications make my entire day. Two, you can share this with someone you think might enjoy it. I've really only got word of mouth to promote this novel, and I'd really love for as many people to read it and enjoy it as possible.

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you on Wednesday!