Chapter 269: The First Evening

The smell reached him at the garden gate.

Whatever Mara had decided to make, it had been going for at least two hours. He followed it up the steps and through the front door into a common room that already had people in it, which was the specific warmth of a villa that had been empty for three months and had finally remembered what it was for.

Ashe was in the armchair with her boots off and a small bowl in her lap she had clearly negotiated from Mara ahead of schedule. Lyra was at the table with her glass ledger open. Isole was in the other armchair with the book she had left on his desk two days ago, her staff leaning against the wall beside her. Valerica stood at the window with a cup of tea, looking at the hill.

“Isaac is not here,” Ashe said.

“He has four minutes,” Lyra said, without looking up.

“I am hungry now.”

“Those are unrelated facts.”

Mara appeared in the kitchen doorway. She looked at the room, performed a rapid count, and looked at the empty chair. “He has three minutes,” she said, and went back to the kitchen.

Isaac arrived in two, which Ashe noted with the specific disappointment of someone who had been hoping to be right. He sat down. Mara served the food without ceremony, braised pork with the eastern spice blend she had discovered in the Villa 4 stores and had been using with growing confidence since. She ate at the counter with her back to the table, which was her preferred arrangement when she had opinions she was keeping to herself.

“Sections,” Ashe said.

Lyra turned the ledger around. “I compiled the distribution from the assignment boards before the commencement hall cleared. Forty sections, twenty students each, twelve sections with twenty-one. Alphanumeric — A through Z, then A1 through N1. The randomization was weighted to prevent last year’s clustering. One top-twenty student per section, with minor exceptions.”

“Which is why Isaac and I are in the same section,” Isole said from the armchair, not looking up.

“You both ranked outside the top fifteen individually. The algorithm treated you as two separate floors rather than two ceilings.” Lyra paused. “Isaac placed sixteenth.”

Isaac set his chopsticks down.

“After four practicals,” he said.

“After four practicals, yes.”

“And a sixty-hour Embrasure deployment.”

“The rankings account for the deployment.”

“Who placed fifteenth.”

“An exchange student from Vellian.” Lyra looked at her bowl. “Section G. I would not concern yourself.”

“I am not concerned.”

He picked up his chopsticks and ate with such deliberate neutrality that Ashe had to look at the ceiling to manage her expression.

“My section is fine,” Ashe said, returning to her food. “There was one moment of confusion at the start but it resolved quickly.”

“A student questioned your Special Admission ranking,” Lyra said.

Ashe looked at her. “How do you know that.”

“Three separate students mentioned it to me between homeroom and arriving here.”

“Three.”

“Independently.”

Ashe sat with this for a moment. Something moved across her face that was not quite pride. “He is fine. Good instincts, just aimed incorrectly at first. He will be useful.” She reached for more pork. “Fast, too. His Authority does something interesting with contact momentum, I could not fully read it from across the room.”

“I will find the record,” Lyra said, and made a notation.

Valerica had moved from the window to the table at some point without anyone marking when. She ate with the same upright posture she brought to every meal. “Mira Caer is in my section,” she said to Vane.

“I remember her.”

“She spent last year running an influence campaign through the student liaison networks.” Valerica turned her bowl a fraction. “She is in a room of twenty with no resources and a ceiling she cannot reach. I expect she will find cooperation more attractive than opposition this year.”

“She will try another angle first,” Isole said.

“Yes.”

“She will not find one.”

Valerica looked at her. “No,” she agreed. “She will not.”

Mara came through to refill the serving dish, topped up two bowls without comment, and went back. She moved through the room without giving anyone anything to notice.

The evening found its rhythm. The food diminished. Isaac recovered from sixteenth with the dignified application of a second bowl. Lyra closed the large ledger and opened a smaller one she appeared to be reading. The mana-lamp burned at its lower evening setting, warm and unhurried.

“Our section instructor asked us to introduce ourselves by saying what we had found most difficult about first year,” Isole said. She had moved from her armchair to the table at some point, the book face-down beside her bowl. “Isaac said he found squad coordination more demanding than the constructs.”

Everyone looked at Isaac.

“It was accurate,” he said.

“Did the room know how to respond to that,” Vane said.

“There was a silence,” Isole said. The corner of her mouth moved. “A considerable one.”

“I stand by it,” Isaac said, and finished his second bowl.

Ashe made a sound that was the very beginning of a laugh, which she converted into clearing her throat. Isaac looked at the ceiling.

Mara came through one last time, surveyed the table, determined the meal was finished, and collected the serving dish. “The spice blend is almost gone,” she said. “I need to find where they source it.”

“Eastern market district,” Ashe said. “Two levels down, south gate, red awning. Ask for Shen and tell him you are from the Razar compound. He will not charge you double.”

Mara produced her ledger from somewhere, wrote this down without expression, and went back to the kitchen.

The leaving happened in stages. Lyra first, both ledgers under her arm. Isaac shortly after, four sentences to Vane about section distribution and administrative intent, then gone. Ashe pulled her boots on, stood, and punched him once in the shoulder with the specific impact she used when the evening had been good and she did not intend to say so, and went out into the dark.

Valerica stopped at the door. She looked at him for a moment with the dark eyes that had been looking at things directly since she decided that was the only honest way.

“Tomorrow,” she said.

“Tomorrow,” he said.

She went. The door closed quietly behind her.

Isole was already standing, staff in hand, the book tucked under her arm. She crossed the common room toward the door.

He reached out and took her hand.

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