It was a pretty smart idea, if you asked me.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite get it to jell together. The first part of it worked well enough, and I scooped aspects out of Clem’s aura without her even realizing what had happened. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stop small amounts of jinsei from entering my core at the same time. That woke my Eclipse nature and forced me to spend a minute or two calming it back down before I could try again.
Clem was understanding through the whole process, though by the end of the class her patience had begun to fray.
“Whatever you’re doing seems awfully difficult,” she said. “If you tell me what it is you hope to accomplish, maybe we can figure it out together.”
“Maybe,” I said with a dejected sigh. I couldn’t tell Clem, or anyone else, what I was trying to do without revealing my Eclipse core. “Let me think about it some more.”
“Up to you.” Clem shrugged.
I knew I’d irritated her by dismissing her offer to help, but there was no helping it. Until I came up with a suitable cover story for why I could only try the technique every couple of minutes, she’d just have to think I was being a jerk.
That sucked, but there wasn’t an alternative.
I puzzled over my technique problem for the rest of the day, barely paying attention through history and struggling to keep my focus on the Intermediate Scrivenings course.
“Due to some unforeseen circumstances, Professor Ishigara will no longer be instructing the other half of your class in the fine art of scrivening. All second years now fall under my purview,” Professor Shan said. The way she twisted her mouth into a disgusted little grimace told me she wasn’t thrilled by the added responsibility. “As a result, there will be more group projects, starting now.”
As if on cue, the door to the scrivenings hall opened and the rest of our classmates from the second year spilled in. They all looked around, confused and unsure of where to sit.
Except for Ray.
She spotted me immediately and waved enthusiastically as she headed in my direction.
“It’s going to get crowded in here,” Clem grumbled from the chair on my right. “There goes all our individual attention from the professor.”
“Like you need it,” Eric said with a grin from Clem’s opposite side. “You’re the best in the class. This won’t affect you at all.”
“It’s already affected me.” It was hard not to notice that Clem’s eyes didn’t waver from Rachel as she spoke, and it was equally clear she didn’t like what she saw.
The new students found seats, and it got more crowded by the moment as they filled in all the gaps. A burly kid I didn’t recognize pushed his way past the other students, his eyes on the seat to my right. Fantastic. I didn’t want to spend the rest of the year with an oversized neighbor constantly jostling me with his elbows. I had enough trouble keeping my temper under control in this class without the added grief.
“Taken,” Rachel said as she slipped past the big guy from the other direction and plopped into the chair next to me. She pointed to an empty seat down near the front of the classroom. “Try over there.”
“That was my seat,” he protested.
“I don’t see your name on it,” Rachel said with a smirk.
“Making friends,” Clem muttered.
Rachel turned toward my pink-haired friend and thrust her open hand past me.
“I’m Rachel Lu. You must be Clem. I’ve heard so much about you. I’m so excited to get to see the best scrivenings student in school at work in such close quarters!”
“Yes.” Clem took Rachel’s hand and gave it a firm shake. “It’s nice to meet you too.”
For a moment, the girls were very, very close to me. Their hands were clasped in front of me, their shoulders pressing against mine from either side. A faint wisp of perfume, delicate and citrusy, tickled my nostrils, but I wasn’t sure if it came from Clem or Rachel. Their eyes sparked, and I felt a sudden tightness around my heart.
“All right, students,” Professor Shan called from the front of the room, “looks like you’ve all got seats. Excellent. This is today’s group assignment.”
The professor flicked her hand toward us, and tiny squares of metal fluttered through the air like confetti. They grew as they spun across the room until they were three inches on a side. One of the squares landed in front of me, and another in front of the girl to Eric’s left. More squares dropped onto the shared tables until exactly one third of the students had one.
“If you have a square, then your partners are to your left and right,” Professor Shan continued. “It is up to each team to repair the scrivening on their square. Do not activate them until after I’ve given you approval.”
Rachel and Clem both looked at the square, then at me. There was something strange in their eyes, and I didn’t like it even a little bit.
“This will be fun,” I said. I groaned inwardly and hoped the hostility I felt building between my two friends wouldn’t explode into an open argument.
“Yes,” Clem said, her voice cheerful. “It will be.”
“It looks simple enough,” Rachel agreed.
We all bent our heads over the square, analyzing the scrivening for its flaws. There were some obvious gaps in the connecting swirls, and a strange set of vertical slashes on some lines needed to be smoothed out.
“We should start here,” Rachel offered. “If we inscribe a new connector between these two lines—”
“We’ll end up disrupting this pattern here,” Clem responded. “It’s subtle, but these secondary effects are connected to the primary script through the border. We have to be careful not to remove those connections accidentally.”
The two girls gave each other wide smiles filled with straight white teeth.
“Have either of you ever heard of the Machina?” I blurted out to draw their attention to
