Allister had a friend named Devan, and Devan was looking for a mentalist for a “project” he was working on. He was gorgeous. And he was brilliant, with all the abrasive personality quirks that came along with it. But most importantly, he was angry—the same kind of angry that she was, and for the first time in her young life, Zella learned that there’s nothing hotter than a shared rage.
Three days later, she was using her talents to help them steal the ledger scroll. Four days later, Devan was helping Zella identify an entirely new reason to hate arranged marriages—namely, the fact that forced celibacy until the age of twenty and compulsory monogamy until death were monstrous wastes of perfectly good hormones.
To Zella’s amazement, she found that she was among the last initiates in her class to make that realization. While she had cloistered herself in the Preparatory Salon to prepare for the Trials, the rest of her classmates had formed other priorities, and they mostly involved enjoying themselves as much as they could before they turned twenty and the party came to a halt.
As it turned out, no one agreed with this philosophy more than her intended husband. Allister had a sister in the War School, and he was continually incurring her wrath by paying late night visits to her friends in the girls’ dormitory. Martialists weren’t expected to marry at all, owing to an ancient code of honor that forbade commitments beyond those to one’s liege. As a result, tales of the War Schoolers’ proclivities were legend among the academic schools. Luckily for Allister.
When their Unveiling Day finally came, Zella wasn’t (too) scared, and she wasn’t (too) angry. After her mother lifted her veil and Allister’s father lifted his, after the ritualized introductions by Headmaster Parnick, after the joking toasts from their uncles and aunts...Zella looked around the room at all her friends who had gathered there. She’d been in love with three of them. She’d been intimate with eight. And when she started counting all the towering War Schoolers in the room who’d come for Allister, the number climbed well into the double digits.
After all the years and all the stories she’d heard about Unveiling Days, she couldn’t believe that no one had mentioned this—that when your parents lifted your veil, you’d find yourself surrounded by past lovers, smiling at you, wishing you well, and saying goodbye.
“Everyone cries on their Unveiling Day,” her mother had told her. She just never told her why.
---
"Come on, you wee bastard," Breigh said, slinging Allister’s slight frame higher up on her shoulder. "Let's go find a better use for your mouth than ruining people's evenings."
Zella watched them make their way farther down the cistern. She was shaking her head. “You should start a betting pool,” she said to Devan. “‘How long will Allister last before his new wife blows up his brain?’”
Devan pulled himself over to where she sat on the floor and wrapped himself around her. Sitting behind her, pressing his chest against her back, he kissed her shoulder, lightly. She just sighed. “You could stand to be a little nicer to him, you know.”
Devan drew back. “What? I didn’t say anything to him.”
“You know what I’m talking about,” she said. “I saw that you-fucked-up look you gave him.”
“Well…” Devan said, “he fucked up.”
“He really looks up to you, you know.”
Devan grunted. She knew Devan hated it when someone pointed out he was in the wrong. “Fine. All right. I’ll work on it.”
Zella laughed in a manner devoid of mirth. “So begins a lifetime of defending my husband to people.”
“He’s not your husband yet, you know.” Devan traced a finger up her arm. "You can do a lot of living in a year," he said quietly in her ear, his chin on her shoulder.
"I know," she said.
"And you could do a lot worse than Allister. You could've gotten Mael."
Zella smiled at that. "Oh, come on. She's cute."
"She's a tree stump," Devan said, running his hands slowly up the sides of Zella’s body. "She's dumb as a sack of doorknobs. And she's not you."
Zella arched her back as his fingertips brushed the curve of her breasts. "There's a lot of living in six months," she breathed. His hands stopped. "Doesn't make it better, does it?" she asked.
Zella turned in her seat and looked at Devan. She brushed his bangs back over one ear so she could look into both of his eyes. "So what do you want to do, Devan?" she asked.
"This," he said, leaning in, kissing her delicately along the neck. "Forever."
She moaned softly. "Making out in the cistern? Could we at least put down some straw on the floor?"
"Not just this," he said, butting her gently on the forehead with his own, making her laugh. "This—all of this. You, me, the others."
"Maybe Mael will understand," Zella offered.
Devan didn't respond. He didn't have to. Everyone in The Tower knew people who tried to hang onto what they had before they turned twenty, who tried to keep side relationships going in spite of their marriage vows. They never did. They never could. Life in The Tower just didn’t allow for that.
Zella scowled. Devan traced the side of her cheek with a fingertip. “You know,” Devan said, “Allister’s brain isn’t the one I worry will blow up.”
“It’s fucking monstrous.” Zella pulled away. “Locking people into a lifelong relationship their parents—“
Devan leaned his face into hers and kissed her, cutting her off.
“Their parents chose for them before they were even born? How can—“
Devan kissed her again, longer this time.
“How can they justify...justify doing that to—“
Devan leaned in one more time, his lips stopping just shy of hers. “You’re right,” he said. “I agree with you. Absolutely. It’s monstrous. It’s fucking heinous. But you know, we’ve got a whole lifetime to be angry. And I’ve only got six months left to be with you.”
The light from their lantern danced in Devan’s eyes, its shadows dancing across his face as the flame flickered. Zella’s expression softened, her lips parted.
“Devan,” she breathed. “There’s just one thing…”
“What’s that?” His breath was hot against her cheek.
Without a hint of warning, she grabbed Devan’s arm with both hands and lunged over the edge of the reservoir. He yelped, grabbed wildly at the air, but was powerless to stop her from toppling them both into the drink.
"Gods' fucking mercy!" he shouted, finally coming up for air.
“That’s! For making! Me think! About Instructor! Tevill’s! Ball sac!” Zella laughed, punctuating each exclamation with a splash to his face. Devan reached out and snagged her by one wrist, then the other. She squealed as he pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her and holding her until she stopped trying to wrestle her way free.
Zella covered Devan’s mouth with hers, covered his body with hers, and they lived, together, for at least one more night.
Allister
Allister’s head was crinkling. Or perhaps rustling. It was making some noise his head didn't normally make; that was the point.
Gods, Mom was right, thought Allister’s half-conscious brain, in the minutes before it was capable of rational problem solving. The drinking. It finally broke my brain.
Certainly his pulsating hangover headache served as clear, if circumstantial, evidence in favor of the broken brain theory. Perhaps opening his eyes would help him gather more clues.
He tried it. It felt like burning fat on his retinas. Shit, he thought, quickly shutting them again. I forgot. They keep the sun out there.
Carefully, keeping his eyes tightly shut, he reached up to explore his new cranial paradigm. His forehead felt firm to the touch. His temples were no more flexible than usual. He was on his way to the back of his head when one hand encountered something strange. Something that was neither head nor pillow. Before he had injured his brains with demon drink, he had had a word for the thing he'd found, the thing that had been
crinkling, or perhaps rustling. Paper, he thought, mentally snapping his fingers. We called it paper.
Spastically pulling at the twisted covers around him, Allister drew a blanket over his head, blocking out the tyrannical sun. He carefully opened his eyes, first one, and then the other. He blinked the paper into focus.
The Summit. Noon. That was all the small brown square of paper had to say for itself.
He kicked the covers off, braving the sunlight, and looked around his room. He'd left Breigh at her quarters on the eleventh level last night. The doors and windows to his quarters were locked, of course; he'd found that being a thief had a way of making home security seem especially important, since you not only had to defend against prowlers, but poetic justice as well.
The only other person with a key to his quarters was his father, since Allister was still under the age of consent. But his father rarely left the Conservatory during session months, so that mostly ruled him out.
“Devan,” he mumbled to himself, quietly impressed. “I guess Nalan finally taught you how to pick a lock.”
---
Allister arrived in class first that day. It wasn’t like him, but he wanted to give himself extra time to walk down the stairs in case the jostling caused the top of his head to crack and fall off.
From day one, the first law of the group had always been that they couldn’t appear to like one another. On top of hiding their various romantic entanglements, if anyone on the faculty saw Devan talking to Zella or Breigh or Allister, then they would automatically become suspected accomplices. Which was good, because the five of them had spent far too long cultivating rumors about Devan’s prowess as a thief: “his leg’s fine”; “he’s been faking it for years”; “he only works alone.” They weren’t about to undermine all those elaborate fictions with a hackneyed contrivance like the truth.
Only Nalan was allowed to deviate from the first law. Many people in The Tower knew he and Devan had practically fallen out of the womb together, but none of them would ever have suspected quiet, polite Nalan of being guilty of anything more scandalous than losing track of time at his workbench and being late for vespers. Still, he was expected to keep well clear of the other three, just to be on the safe side.
So when Nalan arrived in class, books tucked under his arm, Allister flashed the slip of brown paper at him as surreptitiously as possible. Nalan nodded and, once he was seated, produced a matching note—found, no doubt, on his pillow.
“Devan,” Nalan mouthed at Allister. Allister pretended not to notice, but nodded subtly.
Breigh was next to arrive, flanked as she often was by her lieutenants from the pit team. They didn’t chat in the halls so much as bark at each other, so the classroom could hear them coming from three floors away. Nalan caught her eye and artlessly showed her his note. Breigh bobbed her head in recognition. As she sat down at her desk, she produced her note and laid the brown paper face down on her pile of books.
“Devan,” she mouthed over at Allister, even more blatantly than Nalan had.
Krist and Kroham, Allister thought, shaking his head. The guy who can shoot fireballs from his eyes shouldn’t be the most discrete member of your team.
Zella at least didn’t let him down. She had her paper tucked casually into the cover of one of her books, and as she made her way to her seat at the front of the room, she caught Allister’s, Nalan’s, and Breigh’s gazes one by one, each time casting her eyes downward at the note so there was no question what she was thinking.
“Devan,” Nalan and Breigh both mouthed at her at the same time. Nalan mouthed it one more time because he thought Zella might’ve missed it. Zella nodded curtly, as if trying to will them to stop. Allister buried his face in his hands.
An enormous iron bell rang in the shadowed heart of The Collegium. As was his custom, Devan stepped into the classroom as the last chime sounded, dragging his weak leg behind him. All four of them looked his way—even Allister was unable to help himself. One by one, and with varying degrees of craft, each produced their brown piece of paper and held it up just enough for him to see.
If Devan was surprised, he didn’t let it show. He just reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a brown piece of paper of his own.
Allister’s jaw dropped. Nalan squinted, his mouth hanging slightly open. Zella’s eyebrows arched. Breigh tensed as though she were about to fly into a rage.
Instructor Winselle walked into the classroom behind Devan. “Take your seat, Mr. Devan,” she said with ice in her tone. Devan didn’t reply. He looked to Zella as he took his seat, tapping his thumb on his ring finger.
Zella nodded sharply and turned to face front. Instructor Winselle was a powerful mage, but mental links operated on a different frequency from the magic forces she trafficked in. That made telepathy one of the safest ways for the five of them to communicate, even right under Winselle’s stubby little nose.
The moment Zella linked their minds, four gusts of frantic voices kicked up like dust storms in Allister’s head. Their thoughts scrambled over one another’s, wrestling for position.
Allister could see Nalan rocking gently back and forth in his desk chair.
Zella chimed in:
Devan
There were only three places where residents of The Collegium could actually go outside. The smallest of the three was the Headmaster's Terrace, but most tower dwellers would never set foot there in their lifetimes. The next in size was The Ring, which encircled the structure at the eighty-third level, and it was only open to adults. But the Summit—the largest outdoor area at The Collegium—was open to everyone.
Nearly half a mile wide, the uppermost level of The Tower was covered with long, soft grasses, kept healthy and vital through applied arts and sciences. It stood in sharp contrast to the burning wastes surrounding The Tower on three sides and the coal-colored mountains that bordered it on the fourth. While the view didn't have much to recommend it, The Summit was always teeming with students and teachers.
The Summit wasn't for Devan, though. He hated the way the uneven surface of the earthen field made him look as he walked with his cane, all jerky and awkward. Knowing that he was p
robably being watched didn’t help with his sense of unease.
Flipping a gold coin and catching it, Devan eased himself down into a seated position outside the shadow of The Spire. Much like The Summit itself, The Spire was pretty much just what it sounded like: a tall pike jutting up out of the very center of the grassy hilltop and rising nearly a quarter-mile above them. Apart from the stairwell access hoods littered about the landscape, it was the only distinguishing landmark on The Summit. That, Devan had reasoned, made it the most likely place for their mysterious epistolarian to show him- or herself.
The others were scattered about the great lawn, trying to look like they were enjoying themselves. Breigh jogged tirelessly in a wide circle around The Spire. Zella read the same paragraph in her book over and over. Nalan stared intently at a small yellow flower he'd found, as if trying to reverse engineer it. Allister laid in the grass, conjuring small, fluttering butterfly-like things, and then destroying them using tiny bits of ball lightning summoned forth from his fingertips.
It was after Breigh jogged past for the eighth time that Devan felt the hairs on his neck stand on end.
"Uncle," he said quietly, flipping his coin one last time and catching it midair.
Tolem's hand froze an inch above his nephew's shoulder. Smirking, Devan craned his neck and looked up from where he was sitting. "I didn't know you were back. But then I heard you breathing and, well..."
Tolem grunted and withdrew his hand. "You didn't hear a thing, lad," he said.
"I was being kind,” Devan said, pulling his cane under him and pushing himself to his feet. "I could smell you.” Actually, he was being kinder even than that—he could hear the old man’s hip pop as he walked.
Tolem laughed at that. "D...why couldn't your father be more like you? It's good to see you, boy."
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