The One Who Follows
Once Alex and Catherine sensed mana and rose from apprentices to Spirit Awakening, they began spending the night away more often than not. Even on the evenings they did stay at Lion Pavilion, they returned late and were gone again right after breakfast, so the others caught only a brief glimpse of them in the morning.
Ask where he slept, and Alex would put on that characteristic preening look and loftily declare that the likes of losers were not entitled to know. Catherine, at least, gave an answer. She had been learning the fundamentals of magic, worn herself out, and slept in the Spirit Awakening quarters.
One day, as the next class drew near, Chris asked her a question.
"Does a high-ranking mage like William treat Spirit Awakenings just as harshly?"
"Those people are difficult even to meet."
"Then who teaches you?"
"Thought Formulation mages. David, for instance."
"So a mage at the Thought Formulation stage is called a Thought Formulation mage."
Alex cut into the conversation.
"Catherine, I know your heart's in the right place, but try not to talk to ordinary people if you can help it."
Had he said not to deal with slaves, Tony would have nodded and let it pass. But Alex had said ordinary people. That seemed to take in the nobles as well, and it stung.
"Why not?"
At Tony's question, Alex looked at him the way he looked at Chris.
"Information from the great Magic Tower could leak outside. You have to be careful."
"We're members of the Tower too. Why would information leak outside?"
"We'll see."
There was something pointed in the way he said it.
Tony flared.
"You're saying we're going to fail!"
"It's been about three months since you started learning the incantation, hasn't it? The longer it goes, the lower the odds of sensing mana."
Mark joined them.
"From what I understand, they take in three or four hundred apprentices once every two or three years. How many of those succeed?"
That was precisely the question Chris had been burning to ask. He had swallowed it, certain Alex would ignore him, and now the prince had scratched the itch for him.
He won't brush off a question from His Highness.
Chris pricked his ears and waited.
Alex flung aside the bread he had been tearing into, stood, and gave Mark's shoulder a few pats.
"I told you it was a secret, Your Highness."
Then he walked out without a backward glance. Astonishingly, Alex had ignored the prince.
Chris blew out a disappointed breath. What Mark felt went well beyond disappointment. He looked thoroughly foul-tempered, veins standing out across his forehead.
Two months had passed since the second class—though they had not learned a single thing—and the residents of Lion Pavilion were on their way to the lecture hall for the third. No one had sensed mana, and the mood was bleak all around.
Smith spoke.
"What about the other squads?"
Chris answered.
"A few will have made it, same as before."
"You think so?"
"Yeah."
"Based on what?"
"They don't pull the successful apprentices out. They keep them sleeping in the same dormitory. Why else? They're leaving them there on purpose, so they'll teach their squadmates the secret of success. Whoever passed in the other squads isn't an arrogant, ill-mannered mutt like our Alex, so they'll actually share the tips. Riding on that, somebody's going to make it."
Alice said,
"Catherine told me there isn't any special secret to sensing mana."
So the girls talk about this among themselves.
Chris scratched his head.
"She did?"
"I think they keep us together so we'll get spurred on and try harder."
"Spurred on..."
Chris glanced at Mark and Tony walking ahead.
"Alex showed off so much that it backfired on our squad."
"Looks different from where I'm standing. These days the nobles are grinding their teeth and working themselves raw."
Mark, especially, was throwing himself into it. Lately he rose earlier than Chris and went to bed later.
They reached the lecture hall in the midst of the talk. The squad broke apart into the original six groups according to status. The Spirit Awakenings, Alex among them, did not attend. They received separate instruction, and there was no reason to appear at a lecture that only checked whether anyone had sensed mana.
A short while later, William appeared. Ever since Henry Jefferson had suffocated to death, discipline had snapped tight. The apprentices stood at rigid attention, and the hall was so still that not even a breath could be heard.
William seemed satisfied. He nodded.
"Anyone who has sensed mana, step forward."
People made their way to the platform one by one. Frank of Lion Pavilion was among them. So taciturn that no one usually noticed whether he was there or not, he now gave off a fierce presence.
The residents of Lion Pavilion gaped. Too afraid of William to make a sound, they only worked their mouths, eyes gone wide with the shock.
He sensed mana and kept it a secret.
Chris felt a strange sting of betrayal.
If it were me, I'd have bragged about it all over the neighborhood.
He had taken Frank for a simply quiet man. Seen now, the fellow was sly. On the off chance, Chris searched his squadmates' faces.
What if someone else sensed it too, and is sitting on the secret?
Their reactions said otherwise. No one else had.
William spoke.
"You lot, follow me. Failures, redouble your efforts. The next class is in three months."
On the way back to Lion Pavilion, Tony cursed.
"Sly bastard. There was no need to keep it a secret. It's not as if he was toying with us."
Faye said,
"I know."
She was a commoner, the same as Frank, and seemed to feel the betrayal all the more keenly. She looked gloomy besides. There had been three commoners in Lion Pavilion, and aside from her, both of the others had sensed mana. Of course it tasted bitter.
Alice said,
"Among the Lion Pavilion apprentices, the slave group is the only one without a single success."
Chris said,
"Yeah. We'll have to push harder."
Then he fired himself up.
"Hiyah!"
Mark looked as though Frank had clubbed him across the back of the head. He was in no mood for cheer.
"Quiet."
Chris smiled through the rebuke.
"I'll be careful."
Smith jabbed him in the side and whispered.
"You don't belong at the Magic Tower. You belong at the Tower of Flatterers."
Chris whispered back.
"He's a valued customer. Got to treat him right."
The moment they reached Lion Pavilion they scattered into their own rooms. They needed time to let the shock Frank had dealt them settle.
Frank's place was taken by Tony, as if that were only natural. Smith found it galling, but he did not protest.
Frank's success struck the Lion Pavilion apprentices like a goad. From that day on, every member of Squad 1, Chris included, drove themselves without mercy, cutting sleep to meditate and recite the incantation. Still, no one sensed mana.
As time passed, Mark grew haggard. Disappointment in himself, and the fear that he might never sense mana at all, ate away at him until he could not eat properly.
Disappointment, restlessness, anxiety—Chris felt them too. If anything, his were worse than Mark's, not milder. And yet, for all that private torment, he grew plump. A childhood spent going hungry as regularly as other people ate had trained him to take every meal, no matter how hard things became. His motto was that a meal once missed can never be found again, and he always ate his fill.
So the others assumed he was untroubled. Alice marveled that anyone's mind could be that strong, and Smith offered an insult dressed as praise, calling him a thick-nerved bastard.
Before they knew it, three months had passed. They entered the lecture hall, met Mage William, watched the successful ones depart under envious eyes, were told to come back in six months, and returned to the dormitory.
Alex, Catherine, and Frank were sitting in the lounge. Chris sidled over and spoke with warm familiarity.
"Aigoo, it's been a while."
These days the three spent more nights outside Lion Pavilion than in it. This was the first Chris had seen of their faces in eight days.
Chris had been the one to speak, but Alex answered Mark.
"Failed again?"
The lounge went quiet. The only sound was firewood burning in the hearth.
The dismissive words were a problem, but so was the manner. For the first time, Alex had dropped the formalities with the prince.
Tony said,
"Have you lost your mind?"
Alex looked sullen.
"What did I do?"
"You can't talk down to His Highness."
Alex raised a forefinger and wagged it.
"Outside rank doesn't hold inside the Magic Tower."
He touched his yellow belt as he went on.
"In the Tower, only a mage's standing counts."
"Even so, you shouldn't be the one doing it."
"You quit playing at rank yourself."
"Playing?"
"A childish game fit for little kids."
"Alex, you're carrying on as if you've already become a mage. You're only Spirit Awakening. Not a proper mage."
Tony had landed a telling blow. Alex's face twisted as if a sore spot had been prodded, and he spoke as though grinding his teeth.
"Either way, I've set foot in magic. I'm a different breed from you losers."
Mark's fist trembled. The air turned ugly, as if he might swing at any moment.
Chris had no wish to see a quarrel between customers, so he stepped between them.
"I'm off to do laundry tomorrow, and you've come at just the right time. I'll take your washing, if you please."
Catherine said,
"There's no need to do the laundry anymore."
Chris's eyes went as wide as they could go.
"Why?"
"We received transit passes. There's no reason to keep paying you a commission."
"Ah. You got transit passes."
He was sad enough that his eyes stung.
"Sir Alex, you'll still leave yours with me, won't you?"
"No. I'm done leaving mine with you too."
"If a noble lord hauls his own washing about, it rather wounds his dignity."
"Plenty of people will do it for free, so don't worry."
"For free... who?"
"You lot. Aren't you curious where the losers end up—the ones who never manage to sense mana?"
"Some go home. Some move to Stratton Village..."
Alex cut him off.
"And some stay at the Magic Tower and do the drudge work. Like Juan, the servant here in Lion Pavilion. A few of the losers from the class ahead of us have been assigned under Spirit Awakenings."
"I see."
Alex looked at Mark with a peculiar gaze. Chris caught a malice kept carefully hidden in it.
"Having a prince run my laundry errands sounds amusing."
Chris heard Prince Mark grinding his teeth.
A little later the squad had all gone, and only Chris and Smith remained in the lounge. Smith spoke.
"Did you hear Prince Mark grinding his teeth?"
Chris nodded.
"I heard."
"That Alex used to glue himself to the prince and kiss his ass, and now that the tables have turned he insults him to his face."
"That's exactly why he's doing it."
"What do you mean?"
"Alex has probably hated Mark for a long time. But Mark's station was far higher. All that bowing and scraping at his side must have piled up inside."
"Even so. I never cared much for the prince to begin with, but watching Alex go at him in the open, I felt sorry for him. The humiliation has to be brutal."
Chris warned him in earnest.
"Don't you ever say you feel sorry for him in front of His Highness. Do that, and it'll cut his pride. He'll try to kill you."
"You think so?"
"A prince pitied by a slave. I'd be furious too."
"Fair point."
Smith changed the subject.
"Anyway. What are you going to do?"
"About what?"
"Your customers just got cut in half."
That one bit deep. Running laundry errands, he had gathered twenty-one silver coins, and from here on his income looked set to drop by half.