The Miscreant (32 page)

“I…I don’t know. I thought I once knew certain things in life, but now I am not sure I know anything. You are truly an unbelievable person who has destroyed the last vestiges of my concepts regarding human decency and morality.”

“Aw, thank you. I think you’re great too.”

“That was so not a compliment.”

“It was, and I meant every word.”

“Hold on, how did you get under the bed without her seeing you?”

“I used an advanced diversion technique.”

“Which one would that be?”

“I pointed and said ‘look over there.’” Garran shrugged off Aniston’s dubious look. “She was as stupid as she was ugly.”

“You cannot be serious.”

Garran grinned. “I could be.”

Aniston shook his head and stalked away muttering to himself. “I’m taking a coach to hell, and my driver’s name is Garran Holt.”

***

Aniston crept across the grounds, slinking from shadow to shadow. Whenever he rounded a corner, he sprinted, hid, and waited several minutes to see if anyone was following him. So far, it appeared no one was. Garran had been right; while Dean Kelsey had no less than four sets of eyes on Garran at all times, he appeared to think having him watched was unnecessary. How he wished that were true.

He was not sure when exactly he and Garran had become friends. For the first year after meeting him, Aniston had hated him more than any person he had ever met and, in some ways, he still did. However, Garran had a sort of charisma to him, like an ugly dog. Sure, he was a rancid, flea-bitten mongrel, but he had the sort of character that made you forgive his less pleasant aspects. Besides, he was an exceptional agent, or would be very soon even without cheating. Aniston had no doubt that Garran could easily pass his exams legitimately if he was willing to put forth the effort, but the only things he had seen him put any energy into was getting laid, drunk, or high.

Aniston darted around the corner, hid behind a row of hedges, and waited for ten minutes before scaling the drainpipe. He pressed his body against the wall and held onto the pipe to maintain his precarious perch outside Dean Kelsey’s office window. Using a slim strip of metal, he jostled the window latch open and dropped inside.

With nothing more than the wan light of the outside oil lamps to illuminate the room, Aniston retrieved a small candle from his pocket and lit it with a sulfur stick. He went straight to the safe where Garran said the dean kept all of the unreleased exams and syllabi and unlocked it with the key he had given him. All of the exams were in one folder except for one that had Garran’s name on it.

Aniston could not simply take the exam since Dean Kelsey would immediately know of its disappearance, so he set it on the desk next to his candle and began jotting down the most important details using the quill and ink from the dean’s desk. Twenty minutes into his notations, Aniston’s head bolted upright at the sound of approaching voices.

“I am sure I gave you the tickets this afternoon,” Vivian insisted.

“I would have remembered if you had handed them to me,” Dean Kelsey retorted.

Aniston heard the sound of drawers being opened and slammed back shut. He hurried across the room, shoved the exam back inside the safe, and locked it tight. A key rattled in the office door.

“See, I told you they were not still in my desk.”

“That does not mean they are in my office. On the bright side, at least you did not find a pair of stranger underwear instead and decide to put them on.”

Aniston sprinted across the room and dove behind the big desk just as the door opened.

“Don’t act like I’m stupid! How was I to know someone was purposefully trying to infect me?”

“It is a classic switch. It’s like waking up to find all of your glasses gone except for a single cup on your dinner table. You damn well don’t drink out of it because someone is obviously trying to poison you, and it does not take an agent to know that!”

“I guess I’m just stupid then! Are you happy now?”

“I was not upset before. It is not as though it is your brains I am attracted to.”

“You’re an ass!”

“And we are both going to be late for the show.”

“You do seem to be the master of time. After all, it’s been two years and you still won’t let it go.”

Philip stalked toward his desk but stopped halfway to it and sniffed. “Vivian, did you open a window in here today after I left?”

“I don’t know, probably. It is hot out, and your office gets so stuffy.”

“Hmm…”

The dean walked closer to the window, his steps cautious and silent. Aniston reached over his head, grabbed a crystal figurine off the edge of the desk, and slung it toward the far side of the room. Dean Kelsey spun around and took several steps toward the sound. Aniston leapt through the open window headfirst, performed half a summersault, and landed in the thick hedges three stories below.

It took all of his will not to cry out. He could just make out the silhouette of Dean Kelsey’s face leaning outside and peering down through the shrubbery. The dean closed and locked his window, and Aniston allowed a small whimper of pain to escape his lips.

***

“What the hell is this?” Garran demanded. “Did you write this in Urqan? No, it couldn’t be, because I can read Urqan!”

“It’s shorthand, you turd, and you should be able to read that too. Ugh, I think I have internal bleeding,” Aniston complained as he lay on Garran’s bed holding his ribs.

“You know you are supposed to blot and sand before you roll it up.”

“Pardon me, I must have forgotten during my plummet out of a third-floor window whilst stealing
your
final exam! Ow, shouting makes my ribs hurt, so stop being a prick.”

“See, this is why I have to cheat!” Garran declared as he read over the notes. “Dean Kelsey has created a test impossible for me to pass.”

“Tonight, Mr. Chicken and Mr. Egg will debate who preceded whom. Mr. Chicken has proposed his first argument, and now Mr. Egg will voice his rebuttal.”

Garran glared at Aniston. “You’re a real comedian. Maybe if this agent thing doesn’t work out you can get a job as Remiel’s new court jester.”

“I’m just saying that maybe you bear some responsibility regarding the dean’s hatred toward you.”

“The only thing I’m going to bare is my ass at Kelsey’s face when Remiel presents me my pin. Get up, we have work to do.”

Aniston propped himself up on his elbows. “Now? I can barely move.”

Garran riffled through one of his dresser drawers and pulled out a small glass vial of powder. “Here, snort this.”

Aniston took the tube and looked at it dubiously. “What is it?”

“It’s mostly powdered willow bark. It’ll ease your pain.”

“I have never heard of snorting willow bark.”

“It’s better this way. It gets into your blood much faster.”

“Are you sure?”

Garran tilted his head and rolled his eyes. “If there is one thing I am sure about in this world it is drugs. Now stop being such a big baby and snort it.”

Despite the crushing weight of his misgivings, Aniston tipped his head back, placed the vial near his nose, and took a big sniff while tapping it with his finger. His eyes began to tear up, and he fought to contain the impending sneeze.

“Oh, that is fast. I feel better already.”

“There ya go, now take another snort.”

Aniston inhaled a second dose and smiled. “I can barely feel any pain at all. I feel good. I feel…Garran, why am I getting an erection?”

“Oh, that’s the rapture root.”

“You said it was willow bark!”

“I said it was mostly willow bark. You need to listen better. The key to being a good agent is having a keen ability to pick up on the details.”

“Why would you put rapture root in with willow bark?” Aniston demanded.

“The willow bark can only numb so much pain. The rapture root makes you not care about what’s left.”

“I spent my whole life treating my body like a temple,” Aniston complained.

“Well, your temple just got defiled.”

“You defiled me, Garran Holt. I should be furious right now but…where did you get these silk sheets? They’re so…silky.”

Garran grabbed his friend by the elbow and pulled him off his bed before he could take his shirt off. “Come on, we need to go into town. I’ll let you sleep with my pillowcase later.”

“You promise?”

“Yeah. You do have some money on you, right?”

“Yeah, of course. Why do you need money?”

“Because I’m broke.”

“How can you be broke? You sell like a ton of opium on campus.”

“I have some expensive habits.”

Aniston stifled a laugh and snorted. “Being stupid does seem to cost a lot.”

Garran growled and pulled Aniston toward the carriage stand near the university’s front plaza.

***

“Where are we?” Aniston asked as he stepped from the carriage and looked around.

“Print shop.”

“Why are we at the print shop?”

“We need to make a change to the invitations.”

“What kind of change?”

“The kind that will give me an advantage.”

Garran jimmied the door open and pulled Aniston into the cavernous chamber beyond. He lit a lantern hanging next to the door and looked around. The light illuminated a large, iron machine, stacks of paper, and shelves filled with various objects.

“Look through those boxes over there and see if you can find some paper we can use to print up the invitations,” Garran ordered Aniston.

Garran began looking through boxes and stacks of paper for a suitable medium. Most of the cut sheets were rough and used for flyers and newssheets. Leva was the only city that boasted a printing press in all of Anatolia. Only Opatia and Urqua could lay claim to also possessing one of these modern mechanical wonders.

Garran turned toward a loud clatter. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Sorry, that drug you gave me has me off balance. I’m like a blind man swinging a sword.”

“Be careful, and stay away from waist-height shelves.”

“Don’t snap at me! You’re the one who gave me this thing.”

“Are you saying I gave you a boner? Was it my sexy backside or my roguish charm? I always knew you fancied me a lot more than you let on.”

Aniston glared and fought to come up with a scathing retort, but his brain was foggy from the rapture root. “Shut up.”

“What the hell are you two doing in here?”

Garran and Aniston spun toward the new voice, and a lantern flared to life.

“We’re from the university,” Garran declared. “Dean Kelsey submitted an order for you to print some invitations, and he needs to make a small change before you make them.”

“You’re too late, I already printed them, and a courier is going to pick them up in the morning. Now get outta my shop.”

“You still have them?”

“Yeah, but not for long.”

“I just need you to add one more word.”

“I told you, it’s too late. The machines are shut down, and I don’t have the time. Kelsey got what he ordered, and if he changed his mind then too bad.”

Garran studied the machine and the tiny metal plates with raised letters aligned in the tray to make words. “I am not a mechanical genius, but it looks pretty simple to me. All you have to do is make the word here, roll on the ink, and press it onto the invitations you already made up.”

“Maybe it is, but there’s still one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t give a shit.”

“Really?”

The man grinned. “Really.”

Garran walked to the door as if to leave, but he whirled around and paced off the distance to the far wall. “It seems to me that your room has somehow shrunk.” He began feeling along the wall and tapping on it with his knuckles.

“Hey, you stay away from there and get the hell out!”

“Aha!” Garran leaned back and kicked open a hidden door to reveal the small room behind it. “Well, what do we have here?”

The man shuffled nervously. “Nothing, it’s just a small smelting room where we cast our letters and images for the press.”

Garran plucked a die off a nearby shelf and held it up to his eye. “Interesting, this letter looks just like a five dinarin piece. I see a lot of silver dinnerware and tin. It looks to me like someone is counterfeiting coins by fencing stolen silver and mixing it with tin. Do you give a shit now?”

Two more men appeared behind the press operator wielding knives. “Boy, you shoulda left when you had the chance.”

Garran held up his lantern and flashed his agent’s pin. “You don’t want to do anything drastic. Besides, there’s no need. I don’t care about your sideline job. Out of curiosity, who’s in charge of it? Coulain?” The man refused to say, but his face spoke volumes. “I also work for Edmund, so we’re all friends here. Now, how about those invitations?”