A Student's Dream (Twisted Cogs Book 1)

by Hemmings, Malcolm

  “Exactly! I mean, sure, the distribution of force would make an excellent blunt weapon, but how ridiculous would it be?” Lorenzo added.

  “A blunt weapon in sync with its user’s bow, unlike our current arrow design which could be reused by anyone...”

  “And yes, sure, that shape would make the sympathetic magnetics easier to pack into one end, instead of having to distribute the force throughout...but the heft of the projectile would change...”

  “Not that the heft would make much difference given the magnetics’ effect.”

  “...it would solve the tailspin problem...”

  “...control vectors for a teardrop would be easier than an arrow...”

  “...we’ll need a new kind of quiver...”

  Elena watched them with a sort of jealousy as the pair began conferring with each other. She couldn’t feel it in any way, but it was clear that their Storm had picked up the idea and run with it. It was a good feeling to know that she had helped, she only wished she could help herself as easily.

  Above her bed, the bell jingled gently, informing her that someone had just entered the kitchens. She turned to the window in surprise, and sure enough the first shafts of morning light were shining through it. Groaning, she turned back to the pair.

  “I have to get ready to help in the kitchens, do you both need any more help?” The pair was so deep in discussion, their heads almost touching, that they might not have even heard her. “HEY!”

  “Hmm? Oh! Thank you for your help Elena. You’re a good um...a good garzona. I’ll remember this, I promise you.”

  “Of course, Lorenzo,” Elena smiled, “why were you up so early in the morning?”

  “Oh, it’s morning already? I’ve been working on this bow idea all night...”

  “You haven’t slept yet?”

  “I um...I forgot.”

  ***

  “I’m not saying it was the wrong thing to do, I’m just saying that the other provisional garzoni wouldn’t have helped you in the same situation.” Ele stood with his face to the wall as Elena pulled on her uniform, the rainsluice shower had helped wake her up, but it also left her damp and cold in the late-autumn chill of her rooms.

  “The full garzoni have helped me,” Elena said, “they’re my friends, and I don’t see any reason I can’t be friends with Lorenzo and help him too.”

  “He could be scheming along with Leanarda and Mella, how is that for a reason?”

  “And that’s why he offered to give me my designs back? I’m dressed, you can turn around.”

  “Elena I hate how often we have this conversation,” Ele had a frown on his face when he turned around, “you’re always so eager to trust and it’s going to get you into trouble.”

  “When you’re actually correct in your pessimistic paranoia I’ll actually start listening to you.” Elena stuck out her tongue and shut her bedroom door behind her emphatically, smiling when he stepped through it with an annoyed look. Without turning to watch him she made her way down the short hall to the kitchen.

  “I was right about Leanarda. I said she was trouble the very first day we met...her...” Ele trailed off as they entered the kitchens, and following his gaze Elena saw why.

  An attractive man with blonde hair and dark circles beneath his eyes sat at the table in the center of the kitchen, a half eaten apple in his hand. He looked so familiar and yet so unfamiliar at the same time that Elena had a hard time placing him even though she knew she had met him before. At her and her Echo’s entrance he looked up and silently met their eyes. His eyes were a vibrant blue that went well with his hair, and it was the eyes that finally drove home that she knew this man.

  She had just never seen him alone without his mask before.

  “G-good morning, Garnet,” Elena said hesitantly. As soon as she’d said the words a horrible feeling twisted in her gut, the thought that he could answer her out loud and there was nothing she could do about it. Instead, as he did every morning, Garnet inclined his head carefully, once, not conveying anything beyond an acknowledgment of her greeting. She knew she was supposed to be doing something, but she seemed locked into place.

  It was the worst possible time to ask questions, but suddenly it was all she could do not to ask any one of the many that had sprung into her head. Besides the obvious ones like “where is Erik?” or “how are you here alone and unsupervised?”, there were stupid trivial questions like “why doesn’t your face have tan-lines?” or “if you can’t remove your mask, does that mean you’ve never kissed a girl?” She blamed his handsome face for that last one, but there was nothing playful or flirtatious about his manner. He simply sat there, eating the apple, watching her.

  “Elena did you forget to brush your hair this morning?” Ele recovered faster than Elena did, “Garnet, we’ll be right back, just-”

  “Right, that’s taken care of, you almost finished with your breakfast?” Erik entered the kitchen, wiping his hands on the cloth shirt that stuck out of his Rhetorguard’s breastplate, but when he saw Elena and Ele standing in the opposite doorway he froze. “What...what are you doing here?” he asked guiltily.

  “What were you doing NOT here?” Ele asked. The corner of Garnet’s mouth tilted up in a smile, but Erik of course couldn’t hear him.

  “We came in early to help with breakfast,” Elena stammered, “sorry.”

  “Why are you apologizing?” Ele said, “where the hell was he? He just left Garnet here without a mask? What was he thinking?”

  “We just came in early, and I had to use the restroom...I figured,” Erik shrugged, “no one was around for him to talk to, I thought it’d be fine...he didn’t say anything to you, did he?” Elena shook her head. “Good, good, I didn’t think so, he’s a good Rhetor, that’s why I trusted him to...look, I’d take it kindly if you didn’t tell Rolf about this. He thinks I’m a poor Rhetorguard as it is...”

  “I WONDER WHY?” Ele yelled.

  “...and even though this didn’t hurt anyone, I doubt he’d see it that way. He’d turn me in to the Guardhouse, and they’d be even less understanding. Chances are they might even strip me of my armor. I’m not much of what you’d call a skilled worker, I don’t...” Erik fumbled with his gloves, as if he didn’t know what to do with his hands, “...don’t know what I’d do if that happened. I’ve got a niece on the city outskirts, and if I didn’t have the money to take care of her...” he trailed off awkwardly, seeming torn between the desire to avoid their gaze and to look at them guiltily. After a few moments he walked over to Garnet with knife drawn, holding it to the man’s neck as he finished his apple.

  “As far as reasons go to not turn him in, ‘I’m not a skilled worker’ is a pretty bad reason,” Ele said. Elena looked back and forth between Garnet and Erik, the former continuing to meet her gaze as he chewed, the latter nervously watching her out of the corner of his eye.

  “What d’you say, Miss Elena?” Erik prodded.

  “I...I think I’d better start cutting potatoes so I can have it done by the time Cook gets here,” Elena said.

  “Elena! Are you kidding me?” Ele said, “he’s a Rhetorguard! He has one job, to guard Rhetors! It doesn’t matter that Garnet behaves himself, just how badly does a person have to mess up before you’ll treat them even the slightest bit forcefully?”

  Elena ignored him. She could’ve responded, Erik had been around the Stormtouched garzoni enough to be used to them and their Echoes, but she wasn’t entirely sure how to defend her decision. She wouldn’t be responsible for stripping Erik of his armor, especially when no one had been hurt. Whoever his niece was and whyever she needed money, Elena wouldn’t be the one to remove Erik’s means of supporting her. Besides, having two Rhetorguard in the studio made her feel safer, even though she now knew that she had never been in danger from Cross in the first place.

  “I’d give you the ‘you’re going to get in trouble being so trusting’ speech, but for some reason it seems like I’ve already used that today,” Ele co
ntinued to fume, “...oh yes, it was just a few minutes ago. Is it going to take a disaster for you to actually listen to me?”

  It felt like a long time since Elena had pretended Ele didn’t exist, but she slipped into the old habit easily, pulling the bag of potatoes from the pantry and settling down at the table across from Garnet, who was carefully putting his mask back on.

  He worries too much. I would rather take a risk and keep friends around me than be as paranoid as him and not have anyone, she sliced the potatoes a little more ferociously than she needed to. If it was up to him, I wouldn’t have any friends, I’d be suspicious of everyone I ever talked to, but oh at least I would be “safe”. How much danger could I really be in, tucked away in the most prestigious studio in Milia? What is he so terrified will happen to me?

  She glared at Ele, who was too busy glaring at Erik to notice.

  What’s the worst that can happen?

  Chapter XXX

  The Worst That Can Happen

  “You’re going to use your Storm to spy on royalty?” even with her back turned, Elena could hear the skepticism in Ele’s voice.

  “That’s not what I’m saying at all, and you know it.” Elena’s stomach growled, and she turned her attention back to the contents of the icechest. The pair had been working all day and late into the night, late enough that dinner was hours in the past and she was hungry again. Somewhere beneath the ice was a leftover hunk of cheese, and she was going to find it no matter how numb her hand became.

  “Maybe I’m just misunderstanding it then-”

  “You’re purposely misunderstanding it, stop being so exasperating.”

  “Okay, maybe I’m hoping that if you keep repeating it you’ll eventually hear how dumb you sound.”

  “There’s nothing dumb about it! You’ve been shooting down my ideas all day, but this one is solid.” The kitchen was too dark at night to see the bottom of the icechest, so Elena fished around blindly for the cheese, “it’s still trying to figure out our Storm, it’s just working backwards from how we’ve been trying. Instead of figuring out why and when it works, we take an instance where it worked and try to duplicate it.”

  “By finding out what Milian royalty is doing.”

  “The Storm told us about the laws that govern the studio didn’t it?” Frustrated, Elena slammed the icechest shut.

  “You’ll wake someone up.”

  “If I do it’s your fault,” Elena waited for a few moments, listening for noise before she continued, “De Luca told us we were more or less correct about the studio laws. If the Storm got that right, it can get other laws right. If we can figure out laws, we can figure out other things. Plans, plots, secrets, or court...stuff. Court stuff.”

  “You understand why this makes me nervous, right? That the best-case scenario of your plan involves learning very powerful peoples’ potentially dangerous secrets?”

  “That’s what we need! Something big and huge and dangerous and...fine. FINE. You come up with something then.”

  “Come on, Elena,” Ele sighed.

  “No, go ahead. You seem to have fun poking holes in my ideas, let’s hear one of yours.”

  “I don’t have any-”

  The pair’s bickering was interrupted by a quiet knock on the kitchen door. Elena and Ele exchanged glances. It was rare for them to be awake so late, and had their sleep schedule not been so unbalanced lately the kitchens would’ve been empty at this hour. She crossed the short distance and opened the door.

  Standing in the courtyard was a squat young man, his upturned nose and bright brown eyes giving him a charming air. His grin was mischievous and roguish, and it made him look distinctive. Behind him, a large woman stood with muscular arms crossed, her brown hair done up in a bun. Both wore nondescript clothing, the sort that was worn by merchants or laborers.

  “‘ello luv!” the small man said brightly, his accent so thick Elena could barely understand it, “I already knows Hundred-Eye an’ Maple, so you must be Cog? You’s prettier than I heard.”

  “Slug.” Elena had meant for it to come out as a question, but when she spoke the words there wasn’t a doubt in her mind. The knowledge was supplied so fast that she briefly wondered if her Storm had provided it.

  “Right you are in one,” Slug answered agreeably.

  “Elena get away from the-” Ele began, but before he could finish his warning Slug had punched Elena in the shoulder. She staggered back, caught completely off guard, and the motion was enough for the small man to follow her into the kitchen and kick the door shut behind him, his eyes never leaving her. The stocky woman slipped through the wood of the kitchen door after him.

  “I didn’t mean to...to,” Elena’s vision lurched in the midst of her apology, and she stumbled again, her legs almost giving way. Her shoulder throbbed, she glanced down to see a small transparent tube sticking fast, its contents empty. If her past experiences with Cross’ bolts were any indication, she would be passing out within a few seconds, and she could already feel the ground rising up to meet her. Her lungs tightened, and she panted hard to take in shallow breaths. “Ele, get help,” she managed to gasp, and without responding her Echo sprang through the kitchen wall.

  “Fran, be a darlin’ and catch the Echo before he wakes up the whole bloody studio,” Slug said. The burly woman took off through the same wall Ele had, and Elena shivered, waiting for the fog of darkness to sweep her away. Long moments slipped by, and then suddenly she was being lifted, hauled from beneath the shoulders up to rest on the stool in the corner, the favorite seat of Erik.

  “Oof. I’d never call a lady fat, Miss Cog, but I can say with certainty that I ain’t strong enough for this kinda lifting,” Slug was behind her, arranging the stool so that she leaned against the wall. When he took a step back he wore the same charming smile on his face. “Now that’s done with, we can get to the fun bits. Can you talk?”

  Though she hadn’t passed out, Elena’s whole body was locked in place on the stool, her jaw included, but she managed to move her tongue enough to say something between clenched teeth.

  “Please, I didn’t mean to break your bolts,” she whispered.

  “Good good. What about somethin’ louder? Can you scream?”

  She knew it was useless without even trying. Each breath was such a struggle through her tight lungs that it was all she could do to whisper.

  “I didn’t know there were rules,” she wheezed.

  “See that’s where we run into problems, Cog,” Slug said. Elena strained to understand his accent as he turned and dragged a chair to sit facing her. It reminded her of the Englissian traders that had visited her hometown, but it was somehow less civilized, more raw. “See, I somehow doubt De Luca sent you to Gritti’s without tellin’ you the rules.”

  “He didn’t know. I snuck out, I just followed my teammates! Please, Slug listen-” Elena’s pleas were cut short when Slug’s Echo came back through the wall, holding Ele in an armlock with one hand, the other arm slung around his mouth.

  “Thankee, Fran,” Slug said.

  “What’d I miss?” Fran’s accent was even worse than Slug’s, so much so that Elena couldn’t even follow it.

  “Cog here was just explainin’ how we should go easy on her, on account of she didn’t know there was rules. Problem is, even if she didn’t know there was rules, she still mucked up me bolts didn’t she? What you think, Fran, let her off easy?”

  “Not bloody likely. She thinks she got one over on us, give her a reason to think otherwise,” Fran said. Ele made a jerking motion to try to get out of her grasp, but she held on to him easily. “Oy, Cog, if your Echo don’t stop muckin’ about, I’m gonna break both of his legs. Don’t think I’ve heard of an Echo with crutches, but I reckon he could try it out.”

  “Ele, stop,” Elena breathed, “just stop, let them hurt me, it’s better than seeing you get hurt.” Ele stopped, but his gaze flicked back and forth around the room, as if searching for something that could help.


  “You hear that, Slug?” Fran said, “mebbe I should break his legs, jus’ to teach her a lesson.”

  “No, none o’ that, Fran,” Slug ran his hands over his belt, and Elena noted that he had several small clear capsules hanging on it, each similar to the one that stuck out of her shoulder, “Cog broke me bolts, Cog pays the price for it.”

  “Get on with it then.”

  “Gettin’ to it, Fran, gettin’ to it,” Slug murmured, finally selecting one of the small vials from his belt. Like the bolts, the vial had a small fang on one end, and he stepped forward and stabbed it into Elena’s shoulder, just below the one that already hung from her skin. It hurt, but she was anxious enough that the pain barely registered. “Right, that’s the enhancer.”

  “Talk it through, Slug, tell her what she’s got in store,” Fran said, jerking to hold Ele up a little straighter.

  “Ah, right you are me darlin’. See, Cog, we used to know this doc when we was younger, genius man. He used to give me advice. ‘If you’ve ever got work to do on a patient,’ he told us, ‘just talk to ‘em. Tell ‘em what it is you’re doing. It makes the work go smooth’, that’s what he said.” Slug looked Elena up and down again as he spoke, less like a man looking at a woman and more like a butcher looking at a pig. “It took me a while to figure, but wouldn’t you know it, it don’t just work for doctorin’, it works just as well for hurtin’!”

  “Surprised to learn that, we was,” Fran broke in.

  “Surprised as anythin’. So, Cog, let’s talk it through. What I just injected you with was some of me own venom, compliments of me Storm. First injection as I came it was obvious, borin’, a paralytic. This second one is more interestin’. In a few seconds you’ll feel a little heat rush, then we can really get started. In the meantime, a little gab never hurt anyone, don’t you think?”

  “What...what’s gab?”

  “Gabbin’! Chit chat. You know, talkin’. So what’cha do, where ya from?”

  “I’m from Carpi,” Elena said, “De Luca will-”