By breakfast, I had killed three ravagers.
This came as a surprise, since yesterday I had struggled considerably with one.
"They're saying you blew the first one off the quarry wall," Tomas told me as he sat down.
"I was on the quarry wall."
"I know."
"Did I survive?"
"Depends who's telling it."
He reached for the bread. His wrist was still wrapped, though the healer had assured him there was no lasting damage. I watched him pick up the knife, then looked away before he noticed.
Too late.
"It's fine," he said.
"I didn't say anything."
"You've been staring at it."
"I was admiring the bandage."
He rolled his eyes and began spreading butter.
Across the dining hall, someone glanced toward us, whispered to his neighbor, then looked away when I caught him. That had happened four times since I sat down.
Apparently, nearly being eaten was excellent for one's social visibility.
Clara arrived carrying a tray and looking annoyed.
"Someone asked whether I fainted."
Tomas looked up. "Did you?"
She kicked his boot under the table.
He laughed, nearly dropping the knife.
"That's a no, then."
"I should've said you did."
"People would believe you."
"That's why I should've said it."
She sat beside him without asking. I moved the jam closer.
"According to Tomas, I've killed three ravagers this morning."
"Three?" She looked offended. "I was only told about two."
"I'm improving."
"You were mostly falling off things."
"I prefer to remember the shooting."
"I remember pulling you up by your coat."
"Then we each have something meaningful to take from the experience."
She grinned and reached across me for the jam.
Our morning classes had been replaced by a meeting with Harlowe.
The three of us walked there together, moving past little clusters of students whose conversations briefly faltered as we approached. Clara kept her eyes ahead, but the attention clearly bothered her.
Near the stairs, a boy I recognized from basic theory stepped into our path.
"Did you really shoot it through the eye?"
"No," I said.
"What about the explosion?"
"No explosion."
He looked disappointed.
Clara stopped beside me. "There was a lot of screaming, though."
"From the monster?"
"Mostly."
Tomas made a choking noise.
We kept walking.
Once we were around the corner, Clara glanced at me.
"You weren't supposed to look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you were deciding whether to correct me."
"I was deciding which scream you meant."
Tomas lost the battle and started laughing.
Clara shoved his shoulder, not hard enough to disturb his wrist.
"Oh, stop it. You sounded awful too."
Harlowe had our route map spread across her desk.
There were three chairs waiting.
I disliked that more than I would have disliked being told to stand. Chairs suggested time.
Before she began, another instructor collected written accounts from us. Mine had been completed the previous evening, after Milo pointed out that leaving it until morning would not make the assignment disappear.
Harlowe read the first page of Clara's account.
Then mine.
"You disagree about when you first noticed the silence."
Clara straightened. "I thought it was before we finished eating."
"I thought you were still eating," I said.
Harlowe nodded and made a note.
We waited.
"That isn't an accusation," she said. "You are remembering a stressful event. I would be more concerned if your accounts matched perfectly."
Some tension left Clara's shoulders.
The questioning continued. Which direction had the grooves run? Had the marker been freshly broken? How long between the first tremor and the creature emerging?
When we reached the retreat, Harlowe stood and moved to the map.
"Why the upper shelf?"
"Height," I said. "We thought it would slow the creature."
"It did. What didn't you consider?"
"The shelf's condition."
"And?"
I studied the drawn quarry face.
Only one path up. A narrow ledge. No obvious way down.
"No exit."
"Correct."
She didn't sound pleased to have caught me. That made the answer harder to swallow.
The expedition had been suspended indefinitely.
Harlowe told us that before explaining what the survey teams had found.
An old drainage tunnel ran beneath the lower woodland. Part of it had collapsed beyond the exercise boundary, leaving a passage the ravager could widen.
"The morning patrol found no sign of it on the marked routes," she said. "We do not yet know when it entered."
"So the patrol didn't miss the tracks?" Clara asked.
"Not necessarily."
Clara looked down at her hands.
Harlowe noticed.
"You identified something you could not explain and agreed to withdraw. That was appropriate."
"I called them cart tracks."
"You said they might be cart tracks. There is a difference."
For the first time that morning, Clara sat back in her chair.
We were not receiving an ordinary score. Our written assessments would be reviewed individually, and we would repeat the exercise when the grounds reopened.
I glanced at the form beside Harlowe's hand, looking for Failed.
She followed my gaze.
"You are not being penalized for an interrupted assessment, Lewis."
"Good."
"You will, however, attend additional terrain instruction."
"Less good."
Tomas nudged my ankle.
Harlowe's mouth twitched.
"All three of you."
Outside her office, we stopped beside a window overlooking the practice yards.
Students were training below. Someone missed a target, swore, and earned a sharp correction.
Ordinary academy life continued with offensive enthusiasm.
Tomas flexed his fingers.
"I thought she was going to ask why I couldn't hold the first barrier."
Clara turned toward him. "Against that thing?"
"I know."
"You stopped it."
"For about a second."
"That was quite an important second," I said.
He looked at us, then down into the yard.
"I suppose."
Clara leaned against the windowsill.
"I thought I'd be better at it."
"The meeting?"
"No. Yesterday."
Neither of us interrupted.
"I've read about dangerous creatures. My brothers talk about hunting all the time." She pulled at a loose thread on her cuff. "Then it came out of the ground, and I just stood there."
"For a moment," I said.
"It felt longer."
I remembered the creature's mouth opening. The blank space between recognizing the danger and moving.
"It usually does."
She looked at me, perhaps hearing something in my voice I hadn't intended to put there.
Then Tomas said, "I nearly dropped my pack trying to climb."
"You hit me with it," Clara told him.
"Oh."
"Twice."
He winced. "Sorry."
She smiled a little.
"Next time, pack something softer."
We found Milo in my room, sorting the remains of my coat.
Clara paused in the doorway.
"That's worse than I thought."
A long tear ran beneath the collar, with several smaller ones across the back. Milo had laid it flat to examine the seams.
"It caught on the stone," he said.
"And on me," Clara added.
He looked up.
I realized I had described being pulled to safety without explaining who had caught what.
"Clara," I said, "this is Milo. Milo, Clara Ashcombe."
She stepped closer and offered her hand.
"Hello."
He hesitated before taking it.
"Thank you," he said.
Clara's expression changed. The easy smile faded into something smaller.
"Oh. Well. Tomas helped."
"I heard."
There was an awkward pause, which Tomas solved by asking whether the biscuits on the desk were available.
Milo moved the plate toward him.
I appreciated the intervention.
Clara stayed.
At first, she perched on the edge of the spare chair as though expecting to leave in a few minutes. Then Tomas found the bent brass token in his pocket, and she insisted on examining it again.
"We should keep this," she said.
"The academy might want it back."
"They've got others."
"That defense may not survive questioning," I said.
She turned it over. "You keep it, then. You're harder to tell off."
Milo looked at me.
"No, he isn't."
Tomas nearly spat out his biscuit.
I stared at Milo.
He immediately became interested in the coat.
Clara's grin widened.
"Oh, I'm going to like you."
That, apparently, settled the introductions.
Within ten minutes, she had moved her chair closer to the desk, stolen a second biscuit from Tomas's reach, and begun explaining why his version of our escape was wrong.
"I didn't push you," she said.
"You absolutely pushed me."
"You stopped in the middle of the path!"
"Because Dare was behind us."
"And then he was behind me because you stopped."
I let them argue. Milo listened while gathering the torn coat, occasionally looking toward me when their accounts became particularly animated.
I nodded when they were right.
Which annoyed them both.
The room eventually grew quiet.
Clara had the token balanced on one finger. Tomas was watching the practice yard through the window.
"I don't want to do it again yet," he admitted.
Clara caught the token before it fell.
"The exercise?" I asked.
He nodded.
I could have told him we would be better prepared. We would know more next time. All true enough.
None of it changed yesterday.
"Then it's fortunate they've closed the grounds."
He glanced back.
"You still want to go?"
I considered lying.
"Yes," I said. "Not tomorrow."
Clara looked relieved.
"Good. Because I'd quite like a few days where the ground stays where it belongs."
Tomas smiled.
Milo set the ruined coat aside and reached for an undamaged one.
"We could go into town," Clara suggested. "When we're allowed out."
Tomas turned from the window. "All of us?"
She glanced around, as though that should have been obvious.
"Yes."
I leaned back in my chair.
For once, I didn't ask whether there would be anything interesting to shoot.