“That had to be the longest two hours of my life.”
Philip Wightworth gave a long stretch and a groan as he led the way out of the lecture hall.
“Dunno why I thought Advanced Ampanian History would be any more interesting than Beginning Ampanian History.”
“Fourth class in a row you’ve said that.”
“My feelings are strong enough to deserve the emphasis.”
“Watch your mouth, Phil,” Malik Smedley called to his friends. “Pickett Randolph is gonna hear you, and we’ll all be in for another lecture.”
“Uh-uh. No,” Phil sputtered, his face going pale. “No, I cannot be lectured any more today. I’m going to go eat enough food that I fall asleep for the rest of the afternoon.”
Phil hurried forward to the front of the crowd again, slipping past other students who were filing haphazardly out of other classes with amazing dexterity for someone of his size. Beside Malik, another friend, Laurie, shook his handsome head.
“Your turn to prod him back awake through Norste classes. You coming?”
Malik took a step to the side, out of the crowd, and let his bag fall from his shoulder.
“I’ve got to change my books. They’re in my dad’s office. I’ll meet you there.”
“Getting Eleanor?” Laurie guessed.
“That too. See you in a bit!”
Malik did store some of his school books in his father’s office, just inside the door so he could pop in and back out with as little interruption as possible, but today Laurie was right. Malik merely dropped the unnecessary history tome inside the door of the empty office, and shut the door again. Getting Nora for lunch was his primary goal.
Since the Academy had gone back into session this fall, it seemed like he saw Triss more often than her older sister. Triss hung out in the Academy constantly, shadowing students and making friends, sitting quietly in the back seats of lecture halls trying to fill her hours with learning when amusement could not be had. There was still one more year before she could officially enroll (no one questioned the fact of her acceptance at this point), but she found herself welcome in nearly every class that didn’t involve a practical element. She was by far going to be the best-prepared student of her class next year.
Nora, on the other hand, had been pulled out of half the classes she might have signed up for if she were officially enrolled, due entirely to the schedule Henry Hotspur kept for her. Malik thought this very unfair, since it gave her so little chance to make friends and not much rounding in her education, but Nora was never one to complain. She was able to get private lessons with Pickett, which amounted to brunch on the weekends during which there was a lot of giggling audible from the hall, and Malik’s mother had insisted on a beginning-level alchemy course to round out her magical training, but otherwise she was nearly isolated in the crowded palace. So Malik had struck a deal with her and Henry. They could do all the magic (and advisor training) they wanted during his class hours, but he got her for meals. That way, Malik could introduce her to his friends, let her interact with the rest of the Academy, and start helping her make the kind of connections that his father, Pickett, and Henry all used to do their jobs. Pickett and his father had raised eyebrows at Henry until he agreed that this was a good idea.
He was careful to knock on the door before opening it (that was a lesson you only needed to learn once with a pair of magic researchers), but today it swung open with his knock.
“Got out a little late today, didn’t you, young man?” Henry Hotspur asked, beaming from behind his desk. He was surrounded by papers, and a pencil stuck out from his ear while another was held in his hand.
“Maybe,” Malik replied. “Professor Bicchieri did seem to go longer than usual, but I thought it might just be me. Is Nora here?”
“You’ve missed her today, my boy. Sent her to the dining hall to meet you two pages ago. She’ll be there waiting for you, I’m sure.” He held up two pages of tiny, complicated notes to express the time more quantifiably. Malik guessed maybe three minutes. They seemed to be mostly overlapping scribbles.
“Right,” he said. “Thank you, Mister Henry.”
“Good eating, Smedley my boy! Ask her about the high notes today. Charming, charming.”
Malik let the door close on Henry’s happy muttering again. He’d only ask about the research if Nora brought it up, as usual. Whether or not Henry realized it, Nora did have other interests. He took the wide entryway up to the dining hall to avoid any remaining crowd of students in the Academy. Nora may have waited for him inside the dining hall, for a better view of everyone coming in through the double doors, rather than in the crowded Academy corridor. Maybe she’d even sat down with Phil already and they were gossiping about him, chuckling together and ready to tease him for having gone out of his way. His feet picked up speed unconsciously. When he turned down the narrow path by the north meeting room, he could see that the hall had cleared, and let himself jog a few steps. Then, just as he reached the last turn, he heard voices.
“Let me pass, please.”
Malik turned the corner with his throat suddenly tight. Nora was there, just outside the physics classroom, with her back against the wall. She didn’t hunch — she didn’t have to — and she looked up with cold fury in her face. Above her loomed Keller Upton, a perfect red curl dangling over his forehead as he leaned against the wall over Nora’s shoulder, his hand braced for balance. He smiled down at her charmingly.
“One date, that’s all I ask. That’s not too unreasonable, is it?” Keller crooned.
“Let me pass, please.”
“Come on, Eleanor. What’s one evening? It could be the best night of your life. I’ll take you somewhere nice enough to deserve you.”
“Let me pass. Please.”
Her hands were clean of any magic, but her arms were crossed resolutely over her chest. Neither of them seemed to notice that the hallway wasn’t empty anymore. Keller used his free hand to brush his bangs out of his face. They fell back down in the same place as soon as he was done.
“You can tell me if you don’t think I’m good enough for you. Tell me what you’re looking for. I can be better.”
“Hey!”
It was much more of a shout than Malik had intended, but he couldn’t think about his volume when his heart was pounding between his ears. Keller raised an eyebrow his way lazily, while Nora blinked in surprise, her mouth half open.
“I think she asked you to let her pass.”
“Go on inside, Advisee. We’ll be there in a minute,” Keller drawled.
“You should listen to her.”
“Hey. Smedley. You’ve had plenty of time to make your move, yeah? Let someone else try.”
Keller rolled his eyes while Malik spluttered something incoherent, his hands tightening into fists at his sides. His face felt red hot. Nora didn’t seem to know what to do. She was giving Malik a stare that clearly asked for some kind of help, but he wasn’t sure what he could do other than wedge himself between them. Keller was a year older, and made of muscle. Nora could easily take him out with magic, of course, but she wouldn’t. She took her position too seriously to dare.
“Ignore him a second, Eleanor. El, sweetie. You know I could make you so happy.”
“Let me pass, please,” Nora growled again.
“Come on now El, don’t be a bitch. I’m only asking for one—”
Malik’s brain clicked back on after a momentary pause in function, during which time he had closed the distance between himself and Keller, grabbed the taller boy by his shoulder, and connected his fist at full speed with Keller’s perfectly straight, pointed, upturned nose. Somewhere beside him, Nora gave a squeak of surprise, while pain shot up through Malik’s arm, then back down where it throbbed in his knuckles. Keller wrenched himself free, swearing and holding his hand over his face.
“You okay, Nora?” Malik asked.
Nora had no time to respond. Malik couldn’t feel half of his face for a second, while at the same time his whole body veered to the right, led foremost by his head and neck. Then came the pain — stinging and burning beside his left eye, which blurred in and out of focus while Malik swayed for his balance. Keller swore something at him, but Malik had neither the presence of mind nor any inclination to listen to him. What he did care to do was punch him again.
“He like this to everyone who tries to talk to you, sweetie?”
Malik was hoping to land his punch in the same place that Keller had gotten him, but his balance was still shaky, his vision not totally clear, and worse yet Keller saw him coming. He did not react quickly enough however, and Malik’s fist connected with his already bent and bleeding nose again. He reeled sideways, his arm almost hitting Nora’s face. Malik moved to stand in front of her, so she couldn’t be trapped again. But Keller recovered quickly. He grabbed Malik tightly by both shoulders, almost around his neck, and pulled his knee up between Malik’s legs.
It was pain like Malik had never felt. His eyes teared up, he was facing the floor and he wasn’t sure how he’d gotten there, he couldn’t feel his legs except for when his knees hit the wood floor, and that hurt too. His whole head started to pound and his vision blurred again. Something was happening right in front of him and he couldn’t even see what it was.
Nora was screeching. That was her in front of him.
“Bitch!”
Her legs staggered out of Malik’s view again. Keller was on one foot, rubbing at his shin, cursing. He dropped his leg gracelessly, and opened his ugly mouth to say something more. Malik decided instantaneously not to give him the chance. He launched himself forward from his knees, lowering his head, and squaring his shoulders for the best impact he could manage.
The top of his head slammed into Keller’s pants, exactly where he’d been hoping to hit. Keller gave a high, short scream that ended in a whimper, and collapsed backwards onto his rear. Malik’s momentum conveniently put him on top of Keller’s legs, so he couldn’t roll over to protect himself. At first, Malik just wanted to hold him down, make him promise never to call anyone, especially Nora, that word again, but Keller’s fists came up swinging in what could reasonably have been called self-defense to someone who hadn’t seen the whole encounter. Malik took one hit to the cheek, and returned it, as well as a punch to his stomach, and one that grazed his throat before the door they were nearest slammed open.
“Would you kindly— MALIK.”
Malik’s whole body froze at the sound of his mother’s voice, and Keller managed to hit him once more, full force, on the left side of his jaw. He shouted at the pain, then groaned at how painful it was to shout. Keller pushed him off his hips and onto the floor, where he sprawled a little dazed, wondering where Nora had gone.
“Professor, I was merely talking to another student when he—”
“I will hear both sides of the story when you’re no longer bleeding, Mr. Upton,” Amna Smedley snapped. “Jowett should still be in his classroom. Go get his help in healing. Now, please.”
Malik was still getting to his feet, so he didn’t see Keller’s expression as he stalked away, but he did hear the disgruntled sniff and muttering of that word again as he passed by. Amna waited for the door to the magic classroom to close behind him before speaking again.
“I’m not certain that I care to know what you were thinking.”
“He just called you a name, Mom.”
“I’m certain he did. I’ve been called it before, and I will be called it again, and it will continue to not matter.”
“But he—”
“It does not matter, Malik,” Amna said over his protest. “I do not care what language was used by whom against whom. I would rather know why you decided to respond like a prize ram rather than like my son.”
Malik frowned at the floor while he tried to think of some answer that might satisfy his mother, and came up with nothing. Amna’s usually infinite patience gave out to her fury after less than a minute of silence.
“Did you think about what you were doing? Did you think at all? Your actions do reflect not only on myself and on your father, but on Raul as well. You would have people think that this is how Ampany settles its arguments? That this is the best we can come up with? I did not teach you to react to any sort of provocation in such a base manner. I do not care what the circumstances were. I cannot imagine any circumstances that would excuse such behavior, such violence, such…”
She fumbled over her words, her fingers twitching in her frustration, until she simply groaned and held one hand against her forehead to calm herself.
“It was because of me.”
Nora had reappeared, or more likely never left. She looked positively tiny next to Amna, who loomed over her with exasperation plastered as plain over her face as Malik had ever seen.
“I cannot imagine you told him to get in a fist fight, Eleanor.”
“No. Keller Upton had cornered me up against the wall. He wanted me to promise him a date before he would let me go. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just kept asking to be let past until Malik found us, and…”
Amna still did not look particularly sympathetic as Nora’s voice faded from a mumble down to silence. She did not remove her hand from her forehead, nor press for any further details. After a long moment, she let out a long sigh.
“Just… go back to Henry, Eleanor. Malik, go to your father’s office. You can eat later. Go and stay until I am calm enough to speak to you again.”
Nora turned to the nearest hall out of the Academy at once, but Malik waited to watch his mother stalk back inside her classroom. She didn’t look at him, though that was probably for the best. It was when she looked him in the eye that she was truly angry. When she had to walk away, it was usually because she was struggling to hide her feelings. Once the door had been pulled shut behind her, Malik hurried after Nora.
“Hey. You okay?” he asked.
Nora didn’t answer. She hardly even looked at him. Instead, she grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him quickly, not down the main hall, but around the quieter path between the ballroom and the gallery. She peeked around the corner at the end of the hall to check that it was empty before tugging him after her.
“Sit here,” she said. “I want to be able to see what I’m doing. Hold still and let me put your nose back the way it was.”
“Who do you think won that?” Malik laughed, looking up at her cross-eyed while she knelt over him. He still felt a bit dizzy from the first punch to his temple.
“I think your mom won that fight, but I was a close second,” she snickered back. “You beat Keller, though, if for no other reason than I’m going to make sure your face is in better shape than his once all the healing’s done.”
She put her hands on either side of his nose and mumbled for him to hold still while she drew. It was difficult — the warmth of her magic made his nose weirdly itchy — but he did his best. She frowned at it.
“Pull off your sock so I can do a better spell.”
“That’s going to smell horrible. You don’t need to do that.”
“You’ll smell it more than me,” Nora retorted, nudging his knee with her hand. “It’s going on your face.”
She did wrinkle her nose at the smell when he took his shoe off, but gamely said nothing when he handed it to her for casting. She took her time laying repeated spells over his nose, his jaw, and the left half of his forehead. The throbbing decreased dramatically after the first spell, and by the time she was done he felt almost completely normal again.
“I don’t know what can be done about any pain down… there…” she hesitated, handing his sock back. “Don’t get undressed for me, anyway.”
“You sure?” he said with a wink. Nora’s cheeks went a dark maroon.
“Well— I— We’re— Not in the hall at least, you know, Malik, I only— never mind.”
“It’s already getting better,” Malik reassured her, laughing. “Show me the spell and I’ll do what I can later tonight.”
“I don’t know that you should be casting on yourself without supervision,” she replied sternly, though she winced again when she realized what she’d implied.
“What if I do it in the bath?”
“Promise me you’ll lay the spell in a washcloth and only do it once?”
“Promise,” he said. Satisfied, she pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and a stubby pencil from somewhere in her hair, and sketched for him. “Thanks, Nora. It’s good to have you as a second in my first fight.”
“Second doesn’t usually act as medic, I think,” Nora sniffed.
“Thought I saw you get in there a little while I was on the ground?” He beamed at her, and her smile tilted up a little, wickedness hiding in the high left corner.
“It looked like he was going to kick you while you were down. So I got his shin with my boot. That’s all though. Thank you for stepping in. That wasn’t what I would have asked you to do, but… it might keep him off my back better in the long run.”
“You could always make a barrier between you, so he can’t trap you like that.”
“I will, in the future,” Nora said, pouting a little. “By the time I thought of it, he was too close and might have burned his hand. I panicked. I’ll take care of things faster next time, so you won’t have to bring shame on the royalty of all Ampany for me.”
“You don’t want me to fight for your honor?” he teased.
“Not on a regular basis,” Nora muttered, but she looked him in the eye and lowered her voice, “but just this once, it did feel good to see him get punched in the face.”
They laughed together, quietly, and she checked his face once more.
“Run to your dad,” Nora whispered. “Don’t let your mom beat you there. See you for dinner.”
“I’ll get plates and we’ll eat in the library, avoid the stares.”
“Thank you, Malik. That sounds perfect.”
She shooed him in front of her, and didn’t let him turn around to grin at her before they went into their respective rooms, stomachs growling quietly, sharing in the laughter they could feel in the air between them still. He turned to her for one last glance with his hand on the doorknob, and caught her turning away from him, back to Henry’s study, her face flushed, incapable of hiding her smile. Malik pushed the door open.
“Hey, Dad.”
“That was a quick lunch,” Malik’s father commented. He was standing by his desk, shuffling papers into order, and hadn’t looked around yet. “Come to get your books for— Why is there blood on your shirt?! And what happened to your hair?”
“So, before Mom gets here, I want you to know that he cursed her and Nora, and he was harassing Nora, and he absolutely deserved it.”
Advisor Nehemiah Smedley blinked twice at his son, then put both hands over his eyes and rubbed.
“Is it his blood or yours?”
“Uh,” Malik hesitated. “Could be either? Probably? I haven’t looked in a mirror, to tell the truth.”
“I take it Eleanor has stopped the bleeding?”
“She helped me clean up a little, yeah,” Malik admitted. “Don’t tell Mom we took a detour?”
“I expect I won’t have to tell her anything.”
“Oops?” Malik tried, trying and failing miserably at miming an expression of apology.
“Oops, indeed,” said Nehemiah.
“Are you angry?”
Nehemiah hesitated rather than answering directly, another good sign. Of course his parents would have to look angry about their son fighting with other students, particularly wealthy, prominent students like Keller Upton, whose family owned a large swath of the coastline east of Northpointe. But then, in quiet whispers over the evening paper, Malik had heard his parents curse over those families and the problems they caused, particularly when they rubbed up against Pickett. If it could come down to two kids in a hall, fighting over name calling, maybe that wasn’t so bad. Next time, all Malik would need was better witnesses.
Oh. Wait. There probably shouldn’t be a ‘next time’.
“If I were as angry as I should be,” Nehemiah finally admitted, “I might rightly be called hypocritical for it. By Raul in particular. Just… promise me you won’t make a habit of this, and if it must happen again, make certain it does so in a manner and place from which I will not hear about it from any reliable source.”
The door beside Malik opened again just on the end of Nehemiah’s sentence. Amna swept inside, silent and scowling.
“Who was the other participant?” Nehemiah asked her in a calm voice.
“Marcellus and Eugenia Upton’s son.”
Nehemiah at once looked impressed and horrified, and gave a long sigh as an excuse to cover his face with his hands again.
“You certainly know how to pick your fights, Malik, I’ll give you that.”
“I see Eleanor cleaned you up,” Amna observed. “Did she share her version with you, Nehemiah, or have they discussed it alone?”
“I told you what happened!” Malik protested. “He was harassing her! She couldn’t do anything without making the palace look bad—”
“A position that you and she share.”
“I’m not an Advisor’s assistant!”
“No, you are one’s son, and the son of an Academy instructor.”
“That’s different and you know it, Mom.”
“Enough,” Nehemiah interrupted, holding out one hand, but still hiding his face. “Enough. Malik, is there anything you want to add to what you’ve already told me?”
“I hit him first, but he made it dirty.”
“You will need to apologize then.”
Malik groaned loudly.
“I don’t make the rules, but I will need to insist that you follow them in this case,” Nehemiah continued. “Get your books and go eat. I know you have class soon. We’ll continue this discussion tonight after dinner. I want to hear about your apology from at least one person in the hall by then. I know I will hear exaggerations from people who did not see the fight.”
Malik mumbled something that consisted of both “sure” and “fine”, though he made it clear that he felt neither sentiment. His parents waited silently for him to stuff a book into his pack and walk out the door again. They’d keep talking without him. He wondered irritably what Keller had told his mother. At least she was unlikely to believe much of his story.
The entire dining hall looked up to see him walk inside, but he didn’t have long to bask in the embarrassment.
“You’ve stepped in it now, Smedley,” Keller’s voice growled to his left. It was probably supposed to be intimidating, but he was going to have to try a lot harder than that to follow up on Malik’s own parents.
“I’ve been asked to apologize to you,” Malik sighed instead. “So, I’m sorry for hitting you so badly.”
Keller’s face was splotchy, red, and twisted in his fury, but Malik was too amused to be intimidated. Jowett had gotten rid of the pain and the blood, but he’d put Keller’s nose back together slightly to the left of where it had been before.
“I don’t care about an apology. I want a rematch, somewhere where mommy won’t come scoop you out of trouble.”
“Go upstairs and get your dance card, then,” Malik sniffed back. “I heard what you called my Mom.”
“You know what that makes you, then?”
“The offended party?” Malik guessed airily, knowing full well the answer Keller wanted him to come up with. “But anyone who had to look at your face would be an offended party, so that’s not new for you, is it? Look, give me a time and place, and I’ll gladly best you again, but know for the future that you got off lucky. You were provoking a casting prodigy.”
“You don’t get to say what she does with her life.”
“Neither do you,” Malik shot back. “So next time she wants to be let past, you let her pass. No questions. Got it?”
“Fine. You want her? She’s all yours. Have ugly, angry babies together for all I care.”
“Oh man, I am sorry,” Malik crooned back as Keller turned to stalk away. “I was hoping I might have punched some sense into you, but sounds like I didn’t hit hard enough. Oh well. Let me know about that rematch.”
Keller paused in his steps, and Malik’s legs and shoulders tensed, ready to dodge or run away. He would be in trouble if they started punching again that quickly. But Keller merely huffed, and Malik was able to scurry back to the buffet tables for food as the dining hall started to buzz with the sound of gossip again. He found Phil, Laurie, and the others as soon as he had his food, and they pushed together to clear a space for him.
“You need to fix your hair, Malik.”
“What’s on your shirt?”
“Where’s Eleanor?”
“I’m eating,” Malik told them through a mouthful of food. “Don’t have much time left.”
“You need a second for that rematch?”
“You’re like fourth on my list if I do, Laurie. Phil’s way bigger.”
“Was that your mom we heard earlier?”
Malik choked on his sandwich.
“How much could you hear?”
“Something about dishonor on the whole palace and she didn’t raise you to be an animal.”
“Yeah, that was the gist of it,” he mumbled.
“Your dad know yet?”
“Did you at least get a champion’s kiss?”
“A what?” Malik asked with his mouth full.
“You know, ‘oh! My champion! My hero!’ and she kisses you?”
“No, of course not!” He swallowed, and took a long sip of Laurie’s water. “She did kick him, though, in the middle of it. Don’t tell.”
“You mean Keller got taken down by a girl half his size without her using magic?! Come on, we gotta spread that around!”
“No!” Malik spoke so quickly that a little food flew out of his mouth and onto Wes’s empty plate. This got his attention better than the verbal protest, at least. “No, she was trying to stay out of it. Say whatever you want about me, but leave her out of it, please.”
A chorus of groans greeted this request, but the chimes went off for class before anyone could respond one way or the other.
“Please?!” Malik tried again, shoving the last of his food into his mouth.
“Fight us, Smedley,” Phil said with a wink. “For the honor of your lady love.”
Malik laughed, his shoulders relaxing at the joking tone.
“Oh trust me, I will.”