Tessili Academy (3 page)

Every year, he saw it with the seniors. The
year they were to turn 18, the flashnodes tripped them up more and
more, making them pause, disorienting them, disrupting them,
turning them into slim, delicate statues with blank faces.

And then, every fall, there was a ceremony.
The dean spoke. The younger girls attended. Diplomas were
presented. Those girls, the dangerous ones, graduated.

But there were never any parents in
attendance. And afterwards, if the girls left, they did so by some
means Liam had never been able to discover.

Liam didn’t know, precisely, what happened
to them. But he had his suspicions. Because out beyond the bridge
and the gates, off the island where the school stood in its
isolated splendor, no graduate of Tessili Academy existed. As far
as the world was concerned, this place didn’t exist at all.

And Liam wasn’t the only one who’d noticed
the warning signs in Jey. A few days before, the Dean and Principle
had come to his classroom asking if he thought Jey’s timeline
should be “accelerated.” The question had made Liam sick. The words
these men used. The blandness of the Dean’s tone when he’d said,
“We believe she might be a candidate for early graduation.”

He’d answered their questions, not
expressing an opinion one way or another. After all, he wasn’t in a
position to defend anyone.

Still, it weighed on him. It was June. Even
if they didn’t accelerate her, Jey had six months.

Liam leaned on the windowsill, staring out
in the windblown darkness. In the distance, one of the hounds let
out its high, lonely bay. He was not an old man. Not yet. But
nights like this, he felt he carried the years of seven
grandfathers.

The sound of rattling cutlery startled Jey
from a deep sleep. She rolled over, disoriented, strangely
convinced she was somewhere other than her own room.

But then she saw Elle looking down at her,
dark braid hanging over her shoulder. A tray sat on the bedside
table, bearing a breakfast so fresh it was still steaming. Elle was
smiling. “Lucky you. They gave you a free day.” She tapped the
silver medallion that hung in the place Jey’s daily schedule would
normally reside on a board above her desk. “High Orderly Fras sent
this tray. He says you’re to eat now, even if you go back to sleep
after.”

Jey smiled up at her friend, mumbling her
thanks. By Delari, she was tired. She had to struggle to sit up, to
select a warm roll and crack it open. As the sweet smell of fresh
bread wafted up into her nostrils she felt her stomach growl,
clawing inside her like a caged tessila.

The thought made her look around the room in
sudden, vague worry. She caught a glimmer of red out of the corner
of her eye. The tip of a red tail dangled from a notch in her
headboard. It was one of her tessila’s favorite places to hide when
he was feeling sulky.
He’s been sulky a lot lately.
The
thought formed, and made her go still. There was something about
him, her tessila, that she should remember.
He’s been …. He is
….

On the other side of the room, Kae was
stepping into her slippers. “I think if one of us gets a free day,
we should all get one.” Kae was a heavy sleeper and would miss
breakfast daily if her roommates didn’t force her out of bed.

Jey picked up the small, rounded knife that
lay on the tray and dipped it into a dish of spun butter. The
butter melted as she spread it onto the warm bread.

Elle had been about to return to her own
preparations, but she frowned, turning back to Jey. With one of her
slim fingers, she pushed the sleeve of Jey’s night dress a little
further up her arm, revealing a long, shallow gash. “Oh Jey,” the
other girl said. “What happened?”

Jey went still again at the sight of her
arm. A thought struggled to surface.
He was waiting in the
lord’s bedchamber. He knew I would be coming. He ….

The thought broke off, but Jey’s heart was
hammering. Elle and Kae were both staring at her with evident
concern. Jey seemed to hear hoofbeats, feel the rise and fall of a
horse moving under her. But that was silly. She hadn’t ridden a
horse since … since ….

The flashnode in the corner of the room went
off.

•••

Jey blinked and set the butter knife on the
plate. As she moved, the sleeve of her night dress fell into place.
It had been pushed up her arm for some reason. She put the warm
bread into her mouth, sighing as the curling hunger in her stomach
began to calm.

Elle turned away and walked to the mirror
above the washbasin where she straightened her hair. Kae looked up
from donning her slippers, a frown creasing her high forehead when
she noticed the silver medallion on Jey’s schedule board. “No
fair,” she said. “Why do you get a free day?”

Professor Liam’s classroom was one of Jey’s
favorite places. It was a large room with elaborate windows, the
ceiling vaulted stone. It seemed to her she had once attended
Liam’s classes with other students, but today she was here
alone.

Her tessila was in good spirits this
morning. He darted around the room in lazy loops, sometimes
stopping to hover above the bobbing flowers of the potted brillbane
that stood before the windows. Two orderlies sat in a corner,
notebooks open in front of them as they observed.

Professor Liam, who’d been sorting papers on
his desk, now looked up at her. Liam was a tall man, with square
shoulders and eyes that always struck Jey as both sad and kind. His
hair was gray at the temples and sideburns. He looked at Jey now,
keeping his eyes on her for a long time. Jey looked down at her
notebook, embarrassed for some reason she couldn’t define.
Professor Liam released a short sigh. He strode forward. “Please
place your tessila on the holdstone.”

Jey looked for her tessila. Sensing her
desire, he came darting through the air, red hide bright in
contrast to the gray stone. He alighted on her hand. As she felt
the gentle grip of his tiny talons, Jey was suffused with a sense
of love so great it took her breath away. She stared at the small
creature for a moment. His small body was warm. Though he was no
longer than her thumb, he had a presence that somehow filled her
mind.

Gently, she moved her hand towards the
small, gray stone that sat at the edge of her desk. It was an
unremarkable piece of rock, worn smooth and round. For a moment she
thought she could remember sitting with similar stones, seeking out
inconsistencies, rubbing them down with grit paper.

The thought faded. Her tessila stepped off
her finger and settled onto the stone. His sinuous tail wrapped
around its base. He set his sharp chinned face on the lip. His
tongue flicked out once, twice. He folded his wings, content.

Jey looked up as Professor Liam approached
her desk. He stopped quite close, closer than usual. He reached out
to take the hand she’d used to place her tessila on the holdstone.
She felt a little shock at his touch. She remembered something
else. Something to do with a slipper, his hand on the small of her
back.

She frowned. It made no sense. And she was
distracted by what Professor Liam did next. With his other hand he
pushed the white sleeve of her dress up a little, to reveal her
forearm.

There was a gash there, shallow and broad.
It was long, nearly reaching from the crook of her elbow to her
wrist. Professor Liam stared down at it, frowning. “This was not
made by a weapon.”

Jey frowned too, staring at her marred skin.
The edges of the wound gleamed, giving off a pale blue sheen.
Professor Liam saw this, too. He tipped his hand this way and that,
causing her arm to shift in the light from the tall windows.

Professor Liam pulled her sleeve back up
into position. He set her hand on the table. He turned away,
walking towards his own desk. “Do you not remember the passive
shield spell I taught you? Were you not wearing one?”

Jey let her eyes drift half closed. It was
always so hard, so strange, when her tessila was on the holdstone.
It was as if her mind grew very slow, and very deep.

Professor Liam waited with the air of
someone not expecting a quick answer. At last, she said, “It’s
tiring. Besides, no one ever attacks with magic.”

Professor Liam turned to look at her again.
His deep eyes were troubled. “But someone did.” He said this in a
tone that suggested he was speaking to himself rather than her.
Finally, with a sigh, he said, “We will practice. We’ll practice
holding a passive shield in place for a length of time.”

Jey couldn’t stifle a dispirited moan.
Nevertheless, she began to weave the spell, imagining the fabric of
it in her mind. “But,” Professor Liam continued before she was
done, “to make it a little easier, cast it on your tessila. Not
yourself. And hold it until our next session.” He paused, looking
at her. He added in a low mumble, “If you can, anyway.”

Jey adjusted her spell based on his
instructions. She’d practiced casting spells on her tessila before,
of course. He never seemed to mind. It would make holding it a good
deal easier. He was, after all, quite small.

In the corner, one of the orderlies yawned.
Jey closed her eyes, put the final touches on her spell, and looped
its weave over her tessila. He didn’t fight it. She snugged it
close around him and opened her eyes to see Professor Liam staring
at her with a look so intense it made her jump a little.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “we’ll see how you’ve
done.”

With that, Professor Liam strode from the
classroom, withdrawing into the small attached office. The two
orderlies stood as well, collecting their notes and stretching as
if they had sat through a long and boring class instead of a very
brief one. Jey consulted her timepiece and her schedule. She saw
with surprise she had quite a long time before her next class,
which was with Professor Straph. She felt a strange reluctance to
move.
No flashnodes in classrooms.

She looked down at the red curl of her
tessila’s body. She felt that stirring in her heart again,
something sweet and deep.

The orderlies were making their way across
the room. “Come on, now, Jey,” one of them said in his smooth, soft
voice. “Class is dismissed.”

Jey rose with reluctance, holding out her
hand for her tessila to come onto. He’d had his eyes closed. Now he
opened one, cocked his head, and released a brief, soft hiss.
Startled, she glared down at him. “Come on, Phril,” she whispered.
“We have to go.”

A moment passed before Jey registered what
she’d said.
His name is …. This time, I will remember at least
that.

Jey’s heart began to beat faster. The
orderlies were closer now. Somehow Jey knew it was very, very
important they not see her tessila showing signs of rebellious
behavior. Once or twice, there had been little girls – girls whose
tessili had not done as they were told.

Those girls were gone.

Jey’s tessila stepped off the holdstone and
onto her hand. Her chain of thought snapped. She turned and took a
few quick steps to stay ahead of the orderlies as they moved
towards the door.

Professor Straph lunged at Jey, whirling his
staff towards her head in a long, smooth arc. Jey rolled to the
side, executed a graceful tumble, and popped up again beside him.
But Professor Straph had anticipated her. He reversed the direction
of his swing. The edge of his staff caught her in the shoulder. He
pulled the blow and her shirt was padded, but the impact threw her
off balance. She stumbled, losing the fluidity of her movement. On
the holdstone at the edge of the sparring area, Phril hissed.

Jey scrambled to reset herself. She took a
few steps backwards and settled into a ready stance, her weight
balanced evenly between her two feet, her muscles relaxed but
ready. She drew in a long, slow breath and waited for Professor
Straph to come at her again.

Except, he didn’t. While she had moved away,
the lean man had set the end of his staff on the ground. Now he
stood looking at her with his dark eyes. “You’re distracted, J114.”
His voice was low and smooth, difficult to hear if you weren’t
paying enough attention. “And your tessila is restless.”

Phril,
Jey thought.
His name is
Phril.

It had been an hour since she’d left
Professor Liam’s classroom. She’d taken a walk around the quad,
hoping to settle herself and her tessila both. She’d stood beneath
a flashnode and waited for it to fill and go off. It hadn’t helped.
I can remember.
The time between her lesson with Professor
Liam and this moment was whole – a complete, unbroken block of
memory.

Jey felt as if she’d found herself on a
road. Although her shoes were worn with walking, though she carried
a pack and clothing, when she looked back there was only a sheer
cliff face with a thousand foot drop into empty, fog filled sky.
The road continued ahead of her, but it did not go back.

She bowed her head. “My apologies, master.
Professor Liam has asked me to see how long I could hold a spell.
It’s distracting for me, and uncomfortable for Ph … for my
tessila.” She tried to take deep breaths, to keep her eyes soft.
She knew things, things Straph himself had taught her, about how to
make her body suggest to others it was harmless. That she was
harmless. She called upon that knowledge now.

Professor Straph’s eyes sharpened. He took a
step towards her and looked into her face. Although her mind was
racing, Jey forced her gaze to relax. He was near enough she could
smell the sandalwood scent of his soap. “When was your class with
Liam?”

She pretended it took her some time to find
the answer. She let her eyes slide partway shut. “Just before
yours.” This had the benefit of being true, even if it was
misleading. Liam had used only a few minutes of their lecture hour,
but if Straph checked her schedule, he would see her period with
Liam had ended five minutes before she’d arrived here.