Chapter 59: The First Week
The third-year who had locked his door on the first day did not relock it after the second.
I noticed this on the third morning when I came back from the early training session and he was standing in his doorway drinking from a ceramic cup, looking at the corridor like a man who had formed an opinion and wasn’t ready to share it.
He looked at me.
I looked at him.
He looked at his cup.
I went inside.
On the fourth morning he said: "You’re the one from the succession duel."
"Yes," I said.
He went back inside.
On the fifth morning he held the corridor door open for me on his way out.
I took that as progress.
The library had three floors and a basement collection that required a special access card. Anastasia found it on the second day and spent the third day reading through it.
She came back from the basement collection on the third evening with four volumes.
"They have it wrong in eleven places," she said.
"The Sanguine Compact attribution."
"Among other things." She set the volumes on the desk. "The historiography of the pre-classification period is built on secondary sources interpreting tertiary sources. The original accounts are in archaic script that most scholars can read but not interpret correctly because the vocabulary drifted."
"You can interpret them."
"I lived through them," she said.
She opened the top volume and began annotating.
I went back to the examination preparation materials.
Tessira found the cafeteria’s secondary entrance on the second day, which served the same food as the main entrance but with a shorter queue because most students did not know it existed. By the fourth day she had identified three tables in the secondary dining area that had good sightlines, minimal foot traffic, and proximity to the service window for refills.
She had also started arriving at meals with information.
"The third-year cohort has a study group that uses the east reading room on alternate evenings," she said, on the fourth morning. "They leave around the seventh bell. The room is usually free after that."
"How do you know this," I said.
"The librarian mentioned it when I asked about room availability."
"You asked the librarian."
"She was there," Tessira said, with the tone of someone explaining something very simple.
Anastasia was eating her bread with the careful attention she gave food she had decided she liked.
"The girl in the arena yesterday," Anastasia said. "The one with the wind sword technique."
I looked at her.
"She was watching you during the free practice session," Anastasia said. "Not directly. The way people watch things they don’t want to be seen watching."
"She placed first in the eastern prefectural examination," I said. "Wind affinity, sword discipline. She has reasons to pay attention."
"And what is she paying attention to," Anastasia said.
Tessira had stopped eating.
I looked at the window.
"Something she has not assessed yet," I said.
Tessira looked at her tray.
"Her name is Sera Halvane," she said. "Second-generation from the eastern circuit. She placed first in the eastern prefectural two years in a row. She is considered the most likely top rank from the first-year intake." She picked up her cup. "Before last week."
Before last week was another way of saying before the verification results circulated through the faculty and the faculty said things to people and people said things to people and the first-year intake spent its third and fourth days doing what first-year intakes always did, which was deciding what it was dealing with.
The arena was open for free practice at the second bell every morning.
I used it before the corridor had fully woken up. The floor was empty except for a handful of students with the same instinct about early hours. Halvane was there on the third morning, running a solo drill in the far corner.
She had the posture of someone who had been here first.
On the fourth morning she was in the same corner.
On the fifth morning she was three meters closer.
I did not acknowledge this.
On the sixth morning she said, from the corner: "Reinhardt arrives tomorrow."
I did not stop what I was doing.
"The western track transfer," I said.
"Yes." A pause while she completed a movement. "He placed second in the prefectural for two years. He has not placed second anywhere since."
"Who placed first," I said.
"Valeria Valentine," she said. "She is also arriving tomorrow."
She went back to her drill.
I went back to mine.
The conversation had not looked like a conversation. Two people training in the same space at the same hour, saying things to the room. Neither of us had asked.
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