Chapter 8

  Reianna - Invasion

  Reianna heard Fawna and Master Gerenet rush out of the room. She sucked in her embarrassment and walked through the now-empty sitting room. Once in there, she could hear Master Gerenet’s voice through the door. He wasn’t loud, but his sternness carried through.

  She slowly opened the door so as to not make any noise. Master Gerenet hovered over a boy with dark blue hair. The suit the boy was wearing made even Reainna’s shabby dress look posh. The boy lay on the floor with blood streaming down the side of his head. Just on the other side of Master Gerenet and the unconscious boy stood three boys dressed in noble clothing.

  Oh, she thought. The hostility that she’d felt throughout the entrance ceremony finally boiled over. Reianna was no stranger to violence. Her hometown was destitute. Destitution bred desperation, and desperate people were willing to do anything to get or protect food and possessions.

  But there was none of that here. This was more like a turf war, which both comforted her and made her nervous. She was comforted because she now recognized the hostility from earlier. It was a familiar violence. She had believed nobles to be above that sort of thing, but seeing those three well-dressed boys and the dead poor boy was all she needed to know that life at school would be no better than life at an abandoned barony.

  She was nervous because she’d never been a target of a turf war before. Despite her exposure to violence, she’d never been on either end of it—giving or receiving. She looked at her foreign teacher. Will he be able to protect us?

  “Miss Fawna, Miss Reianna,” he said. Reianna jumped. Why was he calling her? The angel took a step forward and grabbed Master Gerenet’s robe.

  “Would you and Miss Reianna please go get the nurse?”

  Her?

  “The nurse?” Fawna asked.

  Basque nodded. “There’s one on the first floor in this wing.”

  He wanted Reianna to go somewhere with the angel? After she’d embarrassed herself so completely in front of her? Reianna’s stomach fell. How could he do such a thing to her?

  “Understood, sir.” Fawna let go of Basque. The angel came over to Reianna. Fawna looked nervous, and Reianna couldn’t tell if it was from the situation or because she thought Reianna hated her.

  Stepping out of the door, Reianna nodded, and they went to the inner stairwell door. “Come on!” Fawna said. “We should hurry.”

  Why? Even if the boy wasn’t dead, he would be soon. Reianna didn’t say anything, though. She didn’t want to hurt Fawna again. So, she followed the blond girl down.

  Voices wafted up from the bottom of the stairs. They were high-pitched voices of girls Reianna’s age. They giggled and laughed as they came up. On the next landing, Fawna grabbed Reianna’s hand and pressed herself against the wall. She gestured with her head for Reianna to do the same.

  Reianna’s heart beat fast. The angel was holding her hand. Did that mean Fawna didn’t hate her? Fawna’s hand was so soft. Embarrassment overcame Reianna. Her hand probably felt like rough rocks.

  A group of four girls coming up reached the same landing. “Eww, Yani-poop! What the hell is that?” said a girl with canary yellow hair wearing a dress with too many frills on it.

  The other three noble girls also paused to look at the two Class E students. Fawna had her head down, but Reianna stared back at the lavishly dressed group. One of them rivaled Fawna in her angelic appearance. She was a beautiful girl with lilac eyes and hair, and wearing a lilac dress. The second angel pulled up a lilac foldable fan and hid her face; the others wrinkled their noses.

  The lilac girl stared at Reianna from over her fan. Because she’d hidden her face, Reianna couldn’t tell what sort of expression she was making. The girl’s beautiful eyes told her nothing.

  “Be careful not to get anything on you, Saraia,” said a girl with ruddy brown hair.

  “Yeah, the stank might not wash out,” said the fourth girl with aqua colored hair.

  The four of them giggled. Reianna didn’t understand what was said that was funny. She also didn’t understand why they wouldn’t leave. They kept looking at Reianna and Fawna.

  The lilac girl with the fan clacked it shut and pointed it at Reianna. “See, Jaezmina, the stitching is all wrong. Like I was telling you, they just leave all the seams out there for everyone to see. It’s our parents paying the tuition that will dress them in clothes they could never truly appreciate, and then, as Master Yashir said, they’ll go off and die in clothes too good for them. Why are they even allowed here? A waste of money and teachers if you ask me.”

  The ruddy-brown-haired girl, the one they’d called Sanya, snorted. “It’s worse than that, Miss Banca. I heard these two bouncing down the stairs like rabbits. They might crash into us one day and send us tumbling down the stairs.”

  “They’re Yani-loving menaces if you ask me,” chimed in the canary-yellow-haired girl.

  The lilac girl, Banca, pointed her fan at the ruddy-brown-haired girl. “Language, Miss Saraia. That’s twice now. I’ll overlook it just this once. We don’t need to talk like them.”

  The aqua-haired girl began giggling.

  “What’s so funny, Miss Jaezmina?” Banca asked.

  “Well, as Miss Sanya was saying, they were rushing down the stairs. I was just wondering if, you know, they happened to ‘trip’ and fall down. Wouldn’t that be funny?”

  Banca once again hid her face behind her fan. She waved it back and forth. “You know, it could be an interesting test. We could see if that stitching would hold up.”

  The other girls readily agreed.

  Slapping her fan closed again, Banca shook her head. “No, it wouldn’t be so great here. The exterior stairs, out in the Grand Entrance Hall, those are a nice straight line. We could test it out there, but these inner stairs wrap around too much.”

  Reianna let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

  Banca put her fan under Reianna’s chin and pushed the silver-haired girl’s head up with it. “This one… this one reminds me of something that I can’t quite put my finger on.”

  “A servant at home?” Saraia asked.

  Banca pulled her fan away, slicing it across Reianna’s chin. For some reason, the fan had an edge to it, or it was the force with which the girl moved it, but the fan cut her chin as it was pulled off. Banca poked the fan at Saraia, but didn’t touch the canary-yellow girl with it. “Don’t be rude. None of my servants are this shabby, though…”

  The lilac girl turned back to Reianna. “I like her. She’s kind of cute with that silver hair and those light blue eyes. The glasses need to go, though.”

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  Banca squinted at Reianna’s bleeding chin, then looked at her fan. “Eww.”

  “I told you, Banca,” Sanya said.

  Banca dropped her fan on the floor. “Dispose of that.” Without another word, Banca resumed her ascent, and the gaggle of girls left them.

  Reianna reached down and picked up the fan.

  Fanwa pulled on her hand. “Come on, we’ve lost enough time without picking up their trash.”

  They exited out onto the first floor. To the left, there was only a wall. Fawna pulled Reianna’s hand again and led them off to the right. They soon came to a door, and Fawna paused to read what was written on the door.

  “This is it!” she said and went in.

  A portly man with aubergine hair sat at a desk reading a book. He didn’t look up when they came in. In contrast, Reianna stared at him. The man was a nurse. She’d never seen a nurse before in her life. “You two seem fine. What’s the rush?”

  “A boy was attacked and his head is bleeding.”

  The man closed his book and set it down. Taking off his glasses, he set them on top of the book and stood up. “That sounds pretty serious. What flo—” He looked at their dresses again. “Third floor?”

  “Yes!” Fawna answered.

  “Lead the way,” he said and trotted around to the other side.

  Instead of going back to the inner stairwell, Fawna led them out to the Grand Entrance Hall. The three of them trotted up the stairs, and when they got to the third floor, Fawna pointed to the door of their hall. “On the floor, in there.”

  The man rushed off to the dorm hall with Fawna and Reianna following behind. Reianna didn’t rush. She wasn’t interested in seeing a corpse on her first day at school.

  As soon as they entered, Master Gerenet’s attention switched to them. “Are you the nurse?” he asked.

  “Hendrix,” the aubergine-haired man answered. Pushing through the students, the nurse knelt down next to the dark-blue-haired boy. After feeling around on the boy for a second or two, Nurse Hendrix said, “I need to get him down to my office.” The nurse picked the boy up in his arms.

  “Is he safe to move?” Master Gerenet asked.

  “Yes.” The man ran off with the limp body of the boy.

  “Miss Fawna, Miss Reianna, please go with him.”

  “Yes, sir,” Fawna said.

  Reianna didn’t want to go. She wanted to go read. But, she still hadn’t apologized to Fawna for how they started off, so she went with her blond roommate.

  With the added weight, the nurse was slow in his descent. “Can I help?” Fawna asked.

  “You can be quiet!”

  They went down the rest of the stairs in silence. When they got to the first floor, Fawna ran ahead and opened the door for the nurse. He thanked her and went through with Malcalm.

  Once inside the short hall containing only the nurse’s office, the nurse once again waited for Fawna to open the door. Rushing over to a table, Nurse Hendrix put the boy down on a table.

  The first thing the man did was to grab some fabric and place it on the bleeding wound. He then used more fabric to tie it down. Reianna wondered what the man was doing. If stopping death were as simple as wrapping someone with cloth, no one would die. Looking at the scene, the only thing Reianna could think of was how difficult it would be to wash those white rags.

  He’d just finished wrapping the boy’s head when a servant walked into the room.

  “Nurse Hendrix?”

  “Yes,” the nurse said with an annoyed tone.

  “Deputy Headmaster Krill needs to see you immediately.”

  The nurse slammed his hand against the wall. “Can’t you see I’m with a patient?!”

  The servant said nothing. He simply stared at Nurse Hendrix.

  “Can’t you let him finish first?” Fawna asked.

  The servant looked at the beautiful angel like she was something stuck on the bottom of his shoe. Reianna hated him. He turned back to the Nurse. “The deputy headmaster is waiting.”

  “...Yani loving…” the nurse muttered under his breath and headed towards the door. He looked back at the two girls. “I’ll be back to help your friend as soon as I can.”

  With that, he left. The servant who’d come to call him spun on his heels. He looked both girls up and down, then sneered. He didn’t say anything as he left.

  Not knowing what else to do, Reianna pulled Banca’s fan out of her pocket, while Fawna wandered over to look at the boy.

  Focusing on the fan, Reianna turned it over in her hands, inspecting it. Giving it a push, the fan opened up to reveal its lilac interior. Reianna loved the color. It was so pretty. Opening it completely, Reianna looked at the intricate design on the inside. Reianna had never seen anything like it. She closed the fan. This one accessory probably cost twice that of the dress she wore, yet that girl Banca, had thrown it out like it was nothing. Reianna put it back in her hidden pocket.

  Turning back to her roommate and their charge, she met Fawna’s big deer eyes. “What do we do now?” Reianna asked. Her palms felt sweaty. She didn’t want to mess up again. Was that too cold?

  “I guess we wait.” Fawna’s reply seemed normal.

  “Do you think he’ll take long?”

  Fawna shrugged. “He said he’ll be back as soon as he can.” Fawna walked over to the unconscious boy. She looked down at him. “Why are they doing this to us?” Fawna asked.

  Reianna stared at the girl. What sort of life had she lived? She was definitely a commoner, but it seemed as if her life experiences were worlds different from what the other kids who’d cowered in the dorm hall had experienced. It was as if Fawna had grown up at the complete opposite end of the quality of life scale from Reianna.

  She knew none of the suffering and hardships that Reianna had grown up with. The way Fawna looked at the hurt boy, Reianna felt like it was Fawna’s first time ever seeing someone injured like this.

  However, instead of resenting Fawna for her fortune, it made Reianna love her more. She wanted to protect Fawna from the world. She didn’t want the angel to be muddied by reality, but at the same time, that would be impossible at this school because Reianna, Fawna, and the rest of her class were targeted.

  Maybe if Fawna had not come to the academy, maybe she could have lived her life with that innocence and been protected, but not here. Even though several seconds had passed since Fawna asked her question, Reianna answered, “They see us as insects.”

  “What?”

  “The nobles, they see us as insects.”

  Fawna frowned. “No, they don’t.”

  Reianna paused. She’d seen a turf war like this before. The nobles wanted Class E’s turf. Anything in that turf was a mosquito in need of swatting. “They do.”

  “Avali doesn’t!”

  “She will. She’ll have to to survive.”

  “Don’t say that!” Fawna screamed.

  Reianna bowed her head and trembled. She continued in a whisper, “We’ve invaded their space. We’re cockroaches in the kitchen.”

  Fawna just looked at her. Reianna wanted to run away again. She’d done it again. There was no recovery from this.

  “Is…is that how you see me, too? As a cockroach?”

  Reianna shot her head up and looked at Fawna. “What?”

  “Is that why you’re so cold to me?”

  Reianna started shaking her head. She couldn’t stop it. “No! No, no, no, no. I…I’m scared of you.”

  Fawna’s head jerked back. “Scared of me?”

  Reianna gave a slight nod.

  “Why would you be scared of me?”

  “You’re perfect; it's intimidating.”

  Fawna shook her head. “I’m not.”

  “Your aura glows. You radiate a warmth that would melt away the deepest winter.”

  Fawna stared at her for a second. “No, I’m just a regular girl. Don’t put me on a pedestal.”

  “I see auras, Fawna. In all my life, I’ve never seen someone with an aura like yours. I don’t know how to react.”

  Fawna’s mouth fell open.

  Reianna went on, “I just don’t want you to hate me, but everything I say and do seems to hurt you.”

  “So, you don’t hate me?”

  Reianna shook her head hard enough to send her short silver hair flying. “How could I hate the sun?”

  Fawna groaned. “I told you, don’t put me on a pedestal. You don’t know me.”

  “After how horrible I’ve been, you’ll let me?”

  “Of course! Let’s get to know each other! Let’s be friends from now on. It’s good that we’re roommates, that means we can spend a lot of time together. I was so worried that you hated me. You don’t know how happy I am that you don’t! But! I don’t want you to call me ‘angel’ or anything silly like that. Even in your head! I’m really flattered, but I promise you, I’m not an angel. I’m just a silly girl who talks too much.”

  “Okay,” Reianna said.

  Fawna nodded. “Well, I mean, I can’t make any promises. We can at least try. I don’t know if you’ll like me in the end.”

  “How could I not like you? That’d be like not liking a cool day in summer or a warm fire during the winter!”

  Fawna burst out laughing. Reianna loved the sound.

  “There you go with the pedestal again. You don’t know how much I talk. Oh Yani, just ask Avali how much I can chatter away once I get started. I never stop. Even my mother complains about it. She would—”

  The boy on the bed vomited and started convulsing.