“It’s a school tradition,” I said. “None of the initiates go home for vacation during their first year. It gives you time to reflect on what you’ve learned and master anything you’ve had a hard time with.”
“Do our families know we won’t be home for the holidays?” Christina asked. “I don’t want my mother to worry about me.”
Her words brought back memories of my first year at the School. My mother had been reluctant to let me go. I hadn’t spoken to her at all during that year until I’d called to warn her that Tycho Reyes and his family were coming after her because of my crimes against him. I chewed at the inside of my lip and clenched my fists at the memory.
“All of your parents know you won’t be home,” I said. “Besides, you’ll be so busy during the break you won’t even realize you missed it. I’ll be here, and Hahen will help me work you to the bone.”
“That’s supposed to make us feel better?” Vera, a skinny twig of a girl who always seemed to have dirt under her nails, snorted. Her accent marked her as a native of the New York undercity, though she never talked about it or her home life. “We need a break.”
“A break is the last thing you need,” Hahen said as he appeared at the front of the room. “None of you has advanced at all since you arrived.”
The students had worked hard to master cycling, and Hahen and I had given them plenty of hard work to keep them busy. It was time to reward them for their efforts.
“Hahen,” I said to the rat spirit, “can you get the case?”
The students had no idea Hahen had stored all the vials they’d filled in an old servant’s tunnel connected to the classroom. It was too small for me to walk through, and Cruzal clearly didn’t know it was here. Hahen, though, could navigate it with ease. He’d used that same tunnel to smuggle my share of the aspects and jinsei out of this part of the School and into my room.
“You think they deserve it?” he asked. “I’m not so sure they do. There’s been so much whining out of them today.”
The hollows had all leaned forward in their desks and watched us intently.
I pretended to consider his words, then shrugged. “Consider it an early holiday gift.”
“If you insist,” Hahen called as he made his way to the back of the classroom. He vanished into the cupboard, and a moment later I heard the sound of the hatch closing behind him.
“What’s going on?” Christina asked, her eyes narrowed. “Is this some sort of trick?”
“You’ll see,” I said. “I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”
Hahen emerged from the cupboard a few moments later, a battered old case he’d liberated from somewhere on his shoulder. A faint jingling sound accompanied his steps, and the students couldn’t tear their eyes off of the rat spirit as he made his way to my desk at the front of the room. With a final grunt, he heaved the case up onto the desk and clapped the dust from his dexterous paws.
“There you go,” he said. “Perhaps they will work harder when they understand what is at stake.”
“Maybe you’re right.” That drew groans from the class. Despite their protests, I had their attention. Curiosity aspects burned in their auras, and they fidgeted in their seats. “Oh, fine. I’ll give you all a little taste.”
I popped the latches on the front of the case and spun it around to face the class. Silver light emanated from inside the open container and lit sparks in the students’ eyes. They’d seen jinsei often enough to know what the purified sacred energy looked like.
“You’ve worked very hard,” I said with a glance toward Hahen. The rat spirit grunted noncommittally. “This jinsei is most of what you’ve purified so far this year.”
I pulled a single vial from inside the case and tossed it to Christina. The glowing container tumbled through the air, and I was pleased when she caught it easily.
“It’s pretty,” she said. “It’s hard to believe that we purified all of that.”
“It’s yours.” I gave her a shallow bow and clasped my hands in front of me.
“I can’t take this,” she stammered. “It’s worth far too much.”
“You purified it,” I said with a shrug. “You deserve your fair share.”
While it was important for me to teach the hollows as much as I could about their cores, it was also important to me to treat them fairly. Tycho had used me as a slave in exchange for my tuition to the School during my first year. I’d worked myself half to death, and I’d had to steal back some of the jinsei I’d purified to help me pass my classes. That theft had been necessary to stay at school, but it had almost cost me everything. I wouldn’t put any other students through that. We’d split the jinsei evenly.
That was the honorable thing to do.
And, it was totally worth it to see the students’ eyes light up when I tossed a vial to each of them. One purified vial was worth a month’s rent on a two-bedroom apartment in the undercity. They or their parents would’ve had to work a week, maybe two, in the labor camps to make that much money.
Most of the students were skilled enough now to purify a vial in less than an hour.
I saw the light of realization flicker in their eyes. Their hollow cores couldn’t hold jinsei for any length of time, but that made it easy for them to separate polluting aspects from the sacred energy. Even if they never advanced and never healed their cores, they could become very wealthy simply by turning polluted jinsei into pure, silvery power.
The door to the classroom burst open. A tall, stocky man strode in, his
