Chapter 111 — Physics Is The Villain
The dormitory ceiling had no opinions.
She had been staring at it for forty minutes. It continued to offer none.
Unhelpful.
The festival had ended two hours ago. The lanterns extinguished, the hall emptied, the performance circle left to itself with its marks and its history and everything that had happened inside its silver lines tonight.
She was still in the festival dress. Not because she had forgotten — changing meant moving, moving meant stopping, and stopping meant her brain had to go somewhere. Her brain was currently refusing to go anywhere except back to eight counts and four inches and one second.
"It was the momentum."
She said it to the ceiling.
The ceiling agreed. Or at least declined to argue, which was the best she was getting from it tonight.
"The notation didn’t account for the entry angle."
Silence.
"Anyone would have—"
She stopped. Pressed both hands over her face.
"Anyone would not have. Because anyone would have pulled back."
She lowered her hands and stared at them.
The dark blue ink stain still faintly visible between two fingers from the library incident weeks ago. Her hands that had executed the lift correctly thirty-one times and then, on the thirty-second, had been in the wrong place at the wrong moment because of physics.
Physics specifically.
She pointed at the ceiling.
"This is physics."
The ceiling remained uninvolved.
"Not my fault."
She lowered her arm.
"Not his either."
She said it quickly. Moved past it the way you moved past something you had accidentally said correctly and had no intention of examining.
Tax appeared on the windowsill.
She looked at him.
"Don’t."
"I was going to ask if you’d eaten."
"Don’t."
"Since the festival."
"Tax."
"You should eat something."
"I’m not hungry."
"You’re lying in your festival dress staring at the ceiling."
"I’m processing."
"What are you processing."
She kept her eyes upward.
"Physics."
He looked at her. At the dress. At her hands. At the faint ink stain.
"The momentum," he said.
"Yes."
"The angle."
"Yes."
"The four inches."
"Do not."
Tax turned toward the window. Toward the academy grounds, dark and quiet now.
"He’s still in the practice hall."
She looked at him.
"Who."
Tax said nothing.
She returned to the ceiling. To Kael in the practice hall and the thirty-two mark on the floor and the silver lines and everything she was absolutely not going to think about.
"He can be wherever he wants," she said.
"Yes."
"It’s not relevant."
"No."
"To me."
"No."
"At all."
"No, Boss."
She sat up. Looked at Tax properly.
"Five years."
His expression shifted.
"Yes."
"I’m going to be gone for five years."
"Yes."
"That is what I should be thinking about."
"Yes."
"Not physics."
Tax glanced toward the window.
"Physics is also a worthy subject."
"Tax."
"Academically speaking."
"I will remove your corner."
"The kitchen corner."
"Yes."
"You wouldn’t."
"Test me."
He held the window a moment longer. Then he turned back, and something had changed in his expression — not the amusement, not the ancient weight. Something between them. Something that belonged to this specific hour, late and quiet, the festival finished, the wish made, the five years real now in a way planning had never quite made them.
"Varen," she said.
Not a question. Just the word, sitting in the room.
"Yes."
"You’ve been there."
"Once."
"Tell me something true about it."
Tax looked out at the dark.
"The first winter will feel impossible."
She waited.
"The second will feel normal."
"And the third."
"You won’t notice it."
She turned that over.
"That’s not about combat training."
"No."
"Or strategy."
"No."
"That’s about surviving being there."
"Yes."
She looked toward the window. Toward the night. Toward the direction of somewhere very far from here.
"What else."
"The people don’t waste words."
"Like Kael," she said.
Immediately.
Then closed her mouth.
Tax did not look at her. Which was a deliberate choice. She could tell.
"Like many people," he said carefully, "who understand that silence has more uses than speech."
She studied her hands.
"The training. What is it actually like."
Tax turned from the window and looked at her fully. The golden eyes, the ancient thing behind them.
"You know how you fought in Hell."
"Yes."
"And in Waystation."
"Yes."
"And how you absorbed abilities across the entire journey."
"Yes."
"Kestral will teach you to do all of that on purpose."
A pause.
"With intention."
"And control."
"Yes."
"From the beginning."
"Yes."
She looked at the ceiling. At what that meant. At what she had done without understanding she was doing it, and what it would mean to do it with full awareness. Five years of that.
"Oh," she said.
Tax returned his gaze to the window.
"Yes."
"That changes—"
"Everything," he said quietly.
"Yes."
She sat with it for a moment. The dormitory around her. The festival dress. The ceiling. The night. The five years that had just become something different from what she had understood them to be.
Not an absence.
A construction.
"Tax."
"Hm."
"I’m scared."
The words arrived before she decided to say them.
He looked at her then. Not with the weight of forty withheld things. Not with the distance of something ancient. Just looked.
"Yes," he said. "Me too."
She stared at him. The crow who had survived things she couldn’t imagine. Who had existed longer than she could process. Who was scared of her going to Varen.
"You’ll be here," she said. "When I come back."
"Yes."
"Five years."
"I’ve waited longer."
She held his gaze. At the golden eyes. At what lived behind them. At the crow who had chosen her shoulder out of everything available to him in the world.
"I know," she said.
Then she lay back.
Stared at the ceiling.
The dress still on. The festival finished. The wish made. The five years real.
The kiss existing somewhere in the room, unexamined.
"Tax."
"Hm."
"The momentum."
"Yes."
"Was entirely the notation’s fault."
A pause.
"Entirely."
"The entry angle."
"Completely miscalculated."
"By whoever designed the routine."
"Unforgivable oversight."
"Exactly."
Tax looked toward the window. Something moved through his expression, brief and gone.
"Boss."
"Hm."
"Change out of the dress."
"I know."
"And eat something."
"I know."
"And sleep."
"I know, Tax."
"And tomorrow."
She kept her eyes on the ceiling.
"Tomorrow what."
"Avoid him properly."
She frowned.
"I am going to avoid him properly."
"Starting tomorrow."
"I was going to start tonight."
"You were lying here thinking about physics."
"That counts."
"That is the opposite of avoiding."
"It’s internal avoiding."
"Boss."
"What."
"Go to sleep."
She looked at the ceiling. At the steady, unwavering absence of opinions it had been maintaining all night.
"The momentum," she said one more time.
"Physics," Tax confirmed.
"Completely."
"Yes."
"Not anything else."
"Absolutely not."
She closed her eyes.
He watched her. The festival dress, the ink stain, the person who was leaving for Varen in a few weeks and returning in five years changed in ways neither of them could fully anticipate.
Then he looked out at the night. At the direction of the practice hall. At the light still burning inside it.
He said nothing.
Kept it, the way he kept everything.
Until the right moment.
She changed out of the dress eventually. Not because Tax told her to. Because lying in it felt like the festival was still happening, and the festival was finished, and she needed it to be finished.
She hung it carefully. The dark blue catching the lamplight the same way it had caught the lantern light in the hall.
She looked at it for a moment. At the sleeve. At the solution that lived there now permanently, regardless of what happened next.
Then looked away.
Got into bed.
Stared at a different part of the ceiling.
Tax had moved from the windowsill to the desk. Was examining the thimble. Turning it over. At the V engraving. At the silver. At the specific thing it was.
She watched him examine it.
"He gave me that."
"I know."
"Before the festival."
"I know."
"It appeared on my desk."
"Yes."
"Without a card this time."
Tax turned the thimble over again.
"He’s running out of ways to attach notes."
She looked at the ceiling.
"That’s not why."
"No."
"The thimble doesn’t need a card."
"Oh."
"Because it’s obvious what it is."
Tax set the thimble down. Looked at it.
"A tool."
"For someone building something."
"Yes."
She looked at the space above her. At nothing.
"Tax."
"Hm."
"How many gifts."
Tax tilted his head.
"Since when."
"Since the ceremony."
He looked at the desk. At the thimble. At the ink set visible on the shelf. At the hair pin in its small box. At the notebook. At things she had placed around the room without thinking about why she had placed them where she placed them.
"You should count them."
She looked at the room. At the things in it. At the specific arrangement of gifts that had accumulated across weeks without her examining the accumulation.
"Tax."
"Hm."
"That’s a lot."
"Yes."
"He gave me a lot of things."
"Yes."
"Without making it—"
"Yes."
"Without ever saying—"
"Yes."
Something moved through her chest. She looked at the ceiling harder.
"He’s still in the practice hall," Tax said.
Not answering a question. Just saying it.
She said nothing.
"It’s been four hours."
"Tax."
"Since the festival ended."
"Tax."
"That’s a long time to be in a practice hall."
"People go to practice halls."
"At midnight."
"Some people."
"Which people."
She pulled the blanket up. Looked at the ceiling from under it.
Tax looked at the window. At the direction of the practice hall. At the light that was still on.