Here’s the thing:
Why would Adrian ask us if any of us were parents? Why would he ask if we’d killed anyone?
Why did he ask if any of us had raised the dead?
I know I shouldn’t over think it. I know that investigating further into this will only lead to trouble. Like, yeah, I’ve been wondering what Bird and his friends were up to, of course. And yeah, I was intrigued by their strange wall of studies, with all their notes and drawings and unintelligible words. Sure. Who wouldn’t be?
But I’m immune to mysteries now. Okay, not immune, I’ve just seen enough mysteries at this point to know what lies at the end of them. And these are just some people I met a few times. Were they enormously glamorous and fascinating? Yes, of course they were. But they weren’t my best friend. I don’t need to find out what happened to them. I can let someone else do that.
Or at least, that’s how I felt before Adrian asked if I’d ever raised the dead.
Why would he ask me that?
That was a week ago. I think Bass and Rook would still be down to investigate further. If we weren’t so busy with school and our ever increasing workout difficulty and Polecat care, I suspect we’d have gone back down to their study nook by now.
I’m trying not to go back. I don’t know how much longer I’ll last though.
Today the sophomore sorcery students emerged from their house of shadows. I don’t actually know how long they were in there, I was too busy worrying about my own desperate clinging to homework, but this morning when we entered the cathedral the Willowa table was more crowded, and more somber than usual.
There are like 12 sophomore sorcerers I think, and they were all sitting together, their heads bent over their plates. They weren’t even eating — I would know, I spent like all of breakfast watching them push their food around their plates aimlessly, trying to understand what weird aura was coming off them. If I saw them before they entered their house of shadows I don’t remember it — they entered their house of shadows in the first or second week of term — but I can’t seem to tear my eyes off them now. Their bent heads, and hollow eyes. It’s like I can smell them.
LOL I don’t know why I wrote it like that, but I don’t know how to explain what I mean any better. Like, they don’t actually smell, but something wafting off them is so familiar, and it’s reminding me of somewhere, but I can’t remember where.
Rook had to ask if I was okay before I realized I was staring.
Luckily before I had to try and explain why I was flaring my nostrils in Willowa’s general direction, Bass said, loudly, “Hey, who’s that?”
He was pointing up at the staff table, at the striking woman sitting beside Lily.
“That must be Masma Kev,” Andie said, somewhat awestruck, but the name meant nothing to me. “She’s a magician. A wizard and a sorceress. She’s not um… from here.”
“From Palefish?” Bass asked.
“No, from this reality,” Andie said, and after they said it, I could kinda tell. For starters she had a rusty red tattoo covering the whole bottom half of her face, covering her throat and zig-zagging across her cheekbones. She was tall, broad-shouldered, and she held herself with a strange bird-like lurching stillness. Her black hair was long, thick and shiny, and she wore it loose down her back. Of the new comers, only she was relaxed. She, Chase and Lily were carrying out some animated discussion, while her students seemed to struggle just to get their food onto their forks lol.
Remind me never to study sorcery hahahaha.