He shouldn’t have cared about the stupid pouch-shaped object. A silken wrapping with copper threads was nothing compared to the looming threat of Severa Montreal deciding he was her project for the day. Instead, he stared at it, and now he was being roped along like an inattentive fish that had mistaken a lure for drifting algae.
By the ti he registered how far he’d been led, they were already outside of the Synod. And he was still staring at that stupid pouch.
Why was she carrying it like that, balanced perfectly in both hands as though it were too important to pocket? Was it dangerous? Fragile? Was it food?
Co to think of it, I’ve never seen Severa eat food before.
Fabrisse had always wondered what posh upperclass people like her actually ate. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe the whole noble-caste stomach was vestigial, a rumor that commoners were ant to swallow. That would explain the posture—straight spines powered by smug caloric intake.
The road outside seed thinner than it had a second ago, its cobblestones no longer solid but brittle. His footsteps slowed on the pale flagstone road lined by iron lamp-posts and sycamores whose branches bent inside like gossiping clerks. Severa was still walking ahead, toward one of the sleeker black-lacquered vehicles hitched to a spotless bay mare.
The mare tossed her head once as Severa reached the carriage. The vehicle’s surface glittered in the light, lacquered black so smoothly it reflected the sycamore branches above. And of course she had her own driver—an older man in a crisp dark coat and a posture almost as rigid as Severa’s. The driver didn’t so much as glance down at their approach.
Severa, without pausing, placed her hand on the carriage door. “After you.”
His stomach twisted. Getting inside ant committing. But three thousand Kohns . . .
Severa could be many things, but he’d never heard about her being a liar.
He climbed in. The interior slled of cedar polish and so crisp floral oil that was probably imported at scandalous expense. Cushioned seats faced each other in the narrow cabin, and he sank into the one opposite Severa, trying to fold himself as small as possible.
The driver whistled, the mare responded, and the carriage lurched forward with smooth precision. Fabrisse clutched his knees, bracing against the movent, and tried not to look—
—but the rustle drew his eyes imdiately. The pouch shifted as Severa settled it on her lap. Every sound needled at his attention.
Of course she noticed.
“You’ve been staring at that for a while now, Kestovar,” Severa said.
He blurted out, against his better judgnt, “Do you . . . eat food?”
“Eat?”
“Uh, yes. Food.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you mocking ?”
“What? No. It’s a legitimate question. So people have . . . regins.”
She gave him a slow, assessing look, the kind you’d give a suspiciously-shaped cake before deciding whether to cut into it. “Do you think I eat food?”
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“Uh . . .”
She exhaled, long-suffering, and adjusted the pouch on her lap as though it were a relic rather than fabric. “These are the morning droplets from the last Euralei bloom on Mount Cravorre,” she said evenly. “Condensed at dawn, carried down the slope by attendants sworn to silence, and rationed by the spoonful.”
“That’s . . . that’s what you eat?”
That was either the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard, or a real alchemical regin that only people like her had access to. That cannot be true, right? But . . . she isn’t the type to joke around.
She didn’t smile; didn’t laugh; didn’t anything.
Which ant he had no choice but to believe it. Or at least believe that it could be true.
The carriage wheels kept rolling as they fell into silence. Fabrisse had almost convinced himself not to think about droplets, blooms, or spoonfuls when another rhythm cut in—hard and urgent hoofbeats, closing from behind.
“Severa!”
Severa unhurriedly drew back the velvet curtain.
A rider pulled up alongside. The horse was a narrow-chested black roan, but it was the woman astride it who commanded attention. It was her ntor, Affar Rubidi, with a nose like a blade, eyes that glared bright and pitiless beneath the sweep of her dark hair. Even the tight pull of her mouth seed to forbid softness.
“Montreal!” she demanded, her voice carrying over the clatter of hooves. “I have heard of so concessions you have made with the Headmaster. Why did you not tell —” Then the rider’s gaze slid past her, into the carriage, straight at Fabrisse. The rest of the sentence vanished, cut clean from her tongue.
Concession? Whatever they were talking about, he had no context for it, and therefore no foothold. ‘Concession’ could an a food stall. It could an a tax exemption. It could an giving up sothing you really wanted in exchange for sothing you didn’t. Best if he didn’t overthink it like he did with Severa’s pouch.
Rubidi’s stare pinned him for three long seconds, sharp enough that Fabrisse wondered if she was trying to read through his skull rather than his face. Her stare carved into him, clean and rciless, as though she were already dissecting the sum of his worth. The cabin seed to shrink around that gaze, each rattle of the wheels snapping like a struck nerve. Even Severa’s composure looked thinner in its path.
Then, as abruptly as if soone had closed a book, she turned back to Severa.
“We will speak once you have ti,” she said, and without another glance, drew the reins. The roan surged ahead, and her figure shrunk down the road until the clip of hooves faded into the clatter of the carriage wheels.
She hadn’t even acknowledged him.
Only when the roan surged ahead did the pressure ease, leaving the air ragged in her wake.
What was that? Why did she stare at like that?
By the ti the road leveled again, they had crossed into Ayburn Borough, a district Fabrisse had only ever heard about in passing, spoken of with the sa mixture of envy and irritation that his classmates reserved for noble privilege. The difference was imdiate: streets widened into smooth lanes, lined with gaslamps of wrought bronze rather than plain iron, and the houses no longer leaned or jostled for space but stood apart in orderly rows, white façades gleaming, windows curtained in silk. The entire borough was probably arranged like a showroom to demonstrate what wealth could buy.
And Severa belonged here. He knew it with absolution.
The realization made his throat dry, but he forced out the question anyway. “Are you sure I’ll be here for aetheric grain analysis?”
Her eyes didn’t move from the window. “Is there any way to misinterpret what I asked of you?”
“No, but . . .” He gripped his knees tighter. You literally just said rocks are a waste of ti yesterday. What changed?
Severa’s reflection in the window faded with the turn of her head. For a mont, he thought she wouldn’t answer at all. Then her voice ca heavy, as though dragged from her against instinct, “I know what I said yesterday, Kestovar. Consider this your chance to prove wrong.”
He wanted to think he didn’t need to prove anything to Severa, but . . . he did. He had to prove it to her; to Hajin Min; to himself, that he was ready for the next step up.
He could, and would, conduct the grain analysis.
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