since.”
Vivik nodded.
“Then there are the Wights, who are like, bad ghosts or something. And the Ghouls — don't they eat dead stuff? Oh, and those Horror things, like the one on the roof. They are sort of like wild animals, right? Dangerous, but only if you bump into them and piss them off. Otherwise, it isn’t like with the Witches or the Weir. They aren’t organized. How’s that?”
“Not bad for someone who can barely speak English,” Vivik admitted. “I think Windsor will pass you if you make an effort.”
Alex hesitated for a moment, and Vivik waited indulgently for the question he could see coming. He gave the simplest answer that he could.
“Field study?”
Alex asked as if the words themselves were unfamiliar.
“Grigori, Chandi, and Hope just came back from theirs. The Academy sends you off to work in the field underneath someone who currently has the position you’re aspiring towards. Margot’s doing field study right now with the Audits department. They bumped Eerie’s up by a couple months so it would coincide with break.”
“Okay, but what is it that Eerie is studying, anyway? I can’t exactly see her fighting or doing science or anything…”
“If the Administration had its way, she’d be a doctor. Sort of.”
“What does ‘sort of’ mean?”
“Well, they would like her to be a doctor. That biochemical thing she does, you see. She won’t let them study her, but everybody has ideas about what it could do, over in Life Sciences.”
Alex sat up, rubbing his head and grimacing.
“That sounds a lot more like guinea pig than doctor.”
“Don’t get pissed off, it’s not what you are thinking. She has a gift for it. She’s not dumb, you know. Actually, she’s quite smart. You probably haven’t even noticed,” he said crossly. “Anyway, Li says that a couple years ago, a kid in her fitness class broke his leg, playing soccer. She did something that fixed it — no one really agrees what, and since then, everybody keeps thinking that she’d be a natural.”
“I’m having trouble with this idea…”
“You’re not the only one,” Vivik agreed, frowning. “Eerie hasn’t ever shown the slightest inclination to go along with it. And she doesn’t have to, since technically, she’s on loan to us, from the Fey.”
“What’s up with that, anyway? The Fey? Fairies, right?”
“I don’t really know,” Vivik admitted, sounding exasperated. “That’s actually bothered me for a long time. There’s almost no documentation. If you believe the unclassified section of the archive, then no one knows what they look like, where they come from, what they do, or why they left. However, that must be a lie. The Academy records say they’ve had four changeling students over the years. Therefore, they have to know. After all, they signed a treaty with someone, or something. But everything about the Fey seems to be a secret.”
“I’m getting used to that.”
“I’m not surprised. Anyway, Eerie doesn’t want to be a doctor, or anything like it. For a while she wanted to be a veterinarian, but though the Academy staff is large and multifaceted, nobody had a need for a half-sane veterinarian.”
“Makes you wonder why they saw the need for a half-sane doctor,” Alex pointed out.
“Since then she’s moved toward information technology,” Vivik continued on, pretending not to hear Alex. “Eerie is one of the best coders at the Academy right now. So my guess is that her ‘field study’ will actually be down in Central at Processing, where the servers are, probably sitting in some cubical writing code for the Etheric Network.”
“That is… very difficult to picture,” Alex said, after trying and failing to imagine it. “She must be miserable doing that.”
“Actually, according to my friend Adel, who did a summer internship down at Processing with her last year, they practically had to turn the lights out to get her to leave the building,” Vivik said, shrugging as if to show that he would have doubted it himself. “She eats candy and codes away, apparently.”
“That’s… well, actually, that’s believable.”
Vivik was a little worried about Alex. He couldn’t help but be concerned. After all, it wasn’t like him to be so down about things. However, he was also more than a little bit grateful that his thoughts seemed to have turned back toward Eerie, even if it was galling that Alex could simply ignore the girl of Vivik’s dreams throwing herself at him. Still, he felt a sense of obligation to his friend.
“Do you want to come back to my room and watch anime? I downloaded new episodes of Toradora and Full Metal Alchemist and stuff…”
“Alright,” Alex said, finally sitting up from where he’d been lying on the bed. “But I’m not watching the one with the girls in the cartoon band again. Nothing ever happens, and the music is annoying.”
“Okay,” Vivik said, smiling as he held open the door for Alex.
“And not one where they talk forever about how powerful they are and hidden techniques and all that shit but never actually get around to fighting. I’m sick of giant swords, and I’m not staying up all night to find out who wins.”
“Okay,” Vivik said as they walked down the hallway, humoring him.
“Oh yeah! No more shows where all the girls throw themselves at some lame guy who spends his time running away and having nosebleeds, because he’s some kind of porn-obsessed moron who’s afraid of girls. That shit drives me crazy. It’s totally unrealistic.”
“Sure,” Vivik said, fumbling with his card key. “So, what do you want to watch?”
“I dunno. Something with zombies. And boobs.”
11
“You don’t want to?”
“No, I do, really.”
“You don’t seem like you do.”
Alex hesitated for a moment, and then he broke down and told her the truth. It seemed like the simplest thing to do.
“I’m a little worried that your sister might kill me,” Alex said, laughing nervously, but not at all joking. Emily laughed along with him as if it was funny.
“Don’t worry; she won’t do anything to you.” Emily paused, and then gave him a very fragile smile. “There will be other people there, so I don’t think your girlfriend will mind. You can even bring her, if you want to.”
Alex looked back down at his notes, as if they had something to tell him, some way to avoid the situation that he couldn’t see for himself. The pages in front of him remained mute on the subject.
“Assuming you mean Eerie, she’s not my girlfriend…”
“Assuming that I mean…” Emily imitated, rolling her eyes.
“She couldn’t come anyway. Eerie is grounded, and Rebecca is making her work in her office during non-class hours, and she had to do field-study in Central over break.”
“That’s terrible,” Emily said, with what he could only assume was false sympathy. The concern on her face looked genuine, but it couldn’t possibly be. “How lonely. Since you are free, then you should definitely come to my dinner party tomorrow. Wear something nice, okay?”
“There is no chance that boy owns even a single article of clothing that could be described as ‘nice’,” Anastasia said, walking to her seat, followed by a dour, fine-featured boy with muddy brown hair and an athlete’s build.
“I don’t have anything nice to wear,” Alex admitted. “Who’s your new lackey, Anastasia?”
“His name is Timor, and you are not obligated to act like a jerk all the time,” Anastasia said mildly, taking her usual seat, two rows up and dead center. Timor looked around for a moment before settling down one desk over from where Anastasia sat. “Don’t take Alex personally, Timor. He is simply deflecting a discussion of his own
