A Student's Dream (Twisted Cogs Book 1)

by Hemmings, Malcolm

  “I need to talk with Vittoria and Frederica,” Niccolo said, “you take this plate back to your room and I’ll meet you back there in a few minutes, alright?” Elena nodded and accepted the plate wordlessly, and Niccolo and Nicci left through the courtyard door.

  The roll was good, she had to admit, soft and flaky and still warm from the oven. Nibbling on one corner, she walked down the hallway with the plate in her hand. Ele was silent until she walked by the door to her room without stopping.

  “Where are you going, Elena?” he asked cautiously. His tone of voice got on her nerves, that he still spoke as if she was a dangerous animal who needed to be kept calm.

  “You and Niccolo both said I don’t have time to be alone, that I don’t have a choice but to work on my project,” she said, climbing the stairs to the workshop, “so that’s what I’m going to do.”

  The workshop was also less busy than she would’ve expected. Only Leanarda, Mella, and Lorenzo worked at their workbenches.

  “Hi, Elena!” Lorenzo waved from his stool. Leanarda and Mella both gave her friendly smiles as well, and Elena gave them a brief nod in return as she sat her plate down on her desk. The random materials, pieces of cloth, a can of oil, paper and charcoal seemed to stare at her from the surface of her workstation, and she realized that she still didn’t have the faintest idea what to do for her project.

  Normally she would try to talk it through with her Echo, but she wasn’t in the mood to talk to him yet. Instead she just continued nibbling at her roll and staring at the items on her desk. Maybe she could create some kind of flexible armor that could be worn under clothes...or a better mask for a Rhetor that they could eat through but never take off.

  She shook her head. Her Storm wasn’t supplying anything, but that was hardly surprising. New inventions were the domain of the Machinator, and she was just a Fabera. She couldn’t build anything that hadn’t been built before. Perhaps she could design a sheath for a small knife she could wear underneath her clothes and access the second she needed it. Her temples buzzed as she turned the idea over; it could hang just beneath one shoulder, and when she needed it she could just reach into her sleeve and—

  The mental image of Slug’s face in front of her as the knife sprouted from his neck struck her like a physical blow, and the buzzing in her temples and fingertips vanished as she shivered. No knives. Nothing violent. She would be glad if she never had to encounter real violence ever again.

  “Hello there, Elena.”

  Elena jumped and almost shrieked for the second time in the day, turning fast on her chair to find Leanarda standing next to her. The other girl looked positively thrilled at something, but Elena didn’t like her smile. It was casual and light but somehow detached from anything that would make Elena smile. It reminded her of Garnet.

  “What do you want?” Elena asked.

  “Is it true that you killed a garzoni from Gritti’s studio?” Leanarda asked, almost breathless. Elena turned back to her desk and stared at the cloth and can of oil again. “Dulces sermones pabula it IS true! I didn’t believe it at first, but the rumor is going around...you’re still here, so I just assumed it must’ve been exaggeration or made up completely, but I can tell from your face it’s true! How did you manage to avoid getting arrested? Did De Luca pull strings or something? Why? Was he just saving face or do you have something on him?”

  “I really don’t want to talk about this, Leanarda,” Elena said quietly, “I’m just here to get some work done on my projects.”

  “Oh, you still think De Luca is going to choose you as one of his four garzoni after killing someone? I envy you, I don’t think I could ever be that optimistic,” Leanarda smiled again, wider this time, “that’s a really good trait to have.”

  “An even better trait is minding your own damned business,” Ele snapped. Elena returned to nibbling on her roll, content to let them fight and not really caring about the outcome, but before Leanarda could respond the door to the workshop opened.

  “Elena,” Frederica barked, “De Luca wants to see you in his office.” Leanarda turned back to Elena, smirking. Elena stared blankly at Frederica and chewed for a few moments, briefly considering simply not going.

  He’ll just send someone else if I don’t...or come himself, angrily. Elena gathered her second roll and followed Frederica, Ele trailing along. They moved in silence, for which Elena was grateful, their footsteps echoing along the marble hallways. When they turned right down a hallway instead of left, Elena stopped.

  “De Luca’s offices are that way.”

  “I know, I lied. Niccolo asked if you could work with us, which was dumb of him because obviously you can, but you weren’t in your room. Vittoria saw you in the workshop just now so they sent me to save you. Come on.” Elena didn’t think she needed saving, but she followed wordlessly until the three of them reached one of the dormitory doors. A small sketch of a woman eating fruit hung on the door, the eyes so lifelike that Elena knew at once who had drawn it. Vittoria must’ve been watching, because no one knocked and yet Niccolo opened the door for them.

  The room was larger than Elena’s, and the bed had been pushed into one corner to make more space. Lanterns added to the light that streamed through the windows, and the whole room was so cozy and comfortable that it almost lifted Elena’s spirits in spite of herself. Nicci lounged in the corner next to the desk, and Niccolo walked back to his seat on the desk’s corner, picking up a half-fletched arrow and resuming his work. Frederica joined Fred in the other corner, where a six-foot block of wood stood with a rough figure half-carved in it.

  “It’s good to see you, Elena and Ele,” Vittoria and Vi had been sitting on the bed with their backs to the wall, sketching, but Vittoria rose from her seat as soon as they entered, pulling the unused chair from the desk until it sat between the bed and the block of wood. “I saw you trying to concentrate in the workroom, and thought this would be a more peaceful place to work.”

  “Thank you, Vittoria,” Elena mumbled, sitting down and clasping her hands in her lap.

  “I told you you’d be able to tell the difference between Vi and Vittoria eventually,” Niccolo smiled from the desk. Elena glanced back and forth between the girl and her Echo dispassionately. Their features were the same, but she had no difficulty telling the two apart, and she wondered why she had before. Somehow it didn’t seem a very impressive feat to her now.

  “Here you are,” Vittoria pressed a sketchpad and piece of charcoal into her hands without touching her, “the rest of us won’t bother you while you work.”

  “I don’t even know what I’m going to do,” Elena protested, “I don’t know what to make, nothing impressive like you all.”

  “Then just doodle. Sketch a bunch of nothing. It’s alright, I have plenty of paper, and no one here will judge you.”

  Vittoria settled back onto the bed with Vi and worked on her own sketches, and the room was quiet except for the scratch of charcoal on paper, the scrape of Frederica’s knives on the wood, or little rattles as Niccolo slid another arrow into his quiver. The room was warm, and the presence of people was soothing now that she didn’t have to worry about them talking to her.

  Elena pulled her legs up onto the chair, took a deep breath, and began to sketch.

  Chapter XXXIII

  ...The Storm

  It took a full week before most of the shock and horror of Slug’s attack and Garnet’s escape had slowly faded, but Elena was still more quiet around the Studio than normal. The stress of a broken Storm and the worry that she might never find out how to fix it had weighed down on her shoulders and dampened her mood. This morning, however, she wasn’t alone in her quiet. The entire breakfast meal was muted and reserved, each of the garzoni at the table lost in their own thoughts and plans. Elena herself had only come up with a plan for a final project the night before, and Vittoria’s warm and comfortable room seemed to call to her.

  As quiet as the table already was, when Master De Luca cleared his
throat the brief murmurs went silent immediately. At the Echoes’ table, Bea and the other Echoes quieted and turned as well, all attention on the Master of the Studio as he rose to his feet.

  “Many years in the past, I used to pretend as if the upcoming few days were no more important than any day in the studio,” De Luca sounded tired as he spoke, his grave voice loud in the silence. “I’ve since come to realize that acting so casually, as if you aren’t all preparing furiously, isn’t fair to you garzoni. Now, when this point comes around every year, I’ve learned to speak plainly. This Saturday marks a point exactly two months after our newest batch of garzoni arrived. In accordance with tradition far older than any of you, Studio De Luca only trains up the best four garzoni in all of Milia. Unfortunately, this means that on Saturday four of you will be dismissed from the Studio.”

  He let the statement hang in the air for a few moments.

  “Bea and I will make this decision based on the skill and artistry you have displayed over the past few months, on the potential we see. I understand that all of you are finishing up rather large projects in the next few days...and those without large projects I have instructed to start one," he smiled at Mella, “so I’m sure it will come as no surprise that this last project will play a great part in the decision that we make.”

  In the silence that followed the proclamation, Elena gazed across the table, at the men and women who listened to De Luca’s speech. Lorenzo chewed thoughtfully on a thin cut of pork, but he was staring off into space as if his mind was elsewhere. Mella poked at a nearly-full plate, and Leanarda seemed more concerned with her friend than with De Luca’s words. Carlo looked restless, as if he couldn’t wait to get back to work, but Vittoria and Frederica gave the Master their full attention. Niccolo was watching Elena, and when she saw him looking she blushed and stared down into her empty plate.

  “The skill, dedication, and artistry I’ve seen from you eight over these past few months has been...” De Luca’s voice faltered for just a moment before he continued, “...has been breathtaking. I will be quite sorry to see four of you go.”

  He paused for long moments, as if at a loss for words, and from the Echoes’ table Bea spoke.

  “Much as we enjoy sharing meals with all of you, we’ve decided to give you every last possible moment to prepare for Saturday...‘Showing Day’, some of the past garzoni have called it. For the next few days you are all excused from morning and evening meals and chores, so that you can adequately prepare. Now, we won’t detain you any longer. When the De Luca garzoni eat together again, it will be a party of ten Stormtouched and Echoes. Go make works of art, garzoni.”

  ***

  “Why doesn’t Carlo ever join us in your room, Vittoria?” Elena asked as she curled her feet up in her now-customary spot in the chair in the corner. Vittoria and Niccolo lit the lamps around the room as the other garzoni and Echoes spread about into their little work areas.

  “He gets a little stressed, this time of year,” Vittoria said, “more stressed than the rest of us, I mean. Being around anyone but Carla is like torture to him when he’s so anxious, so he holes up in his room working until Showing Day arrives. This year especially, since someone broke the old brushes he had lying on his workdesk.”

  “I think he does it to spare Carla more than due to his own anxiousness,” Vi said from the bed, where she lay sprawled on her back with a sketchbook on her legs. “Sometimes I think Carla wants him to be a Master Artisan more than even he does.”

  Elena considered the statement as she rolled her design sketches out on the floor, sinking down from her chair so that she could consider them all at once. The warm room and company of friends over the past week had carried her through some very rough days, and she couldn’t imagine facing the stress of the next few without them.

  “Is today the day you finish sketching and start assembling?” Nicci asked from the desk where she and Niccolo worked. Her tone was light, but Elena thought she caught a hint of concern from the Echo. The deadline was approaching, the time for casual doodling over.

  “Today’s the day,” Ele replied.

  “In fact I think we start assembling...now,” Elena said hesitantly. She had already secured the small boards of wood from Frederica, as well as one of the Caelator’s old knives, but she still looked down uncertainly down at the designed in front of her.

  “Your final project is a carving?” Fred looked over with interest from the large block that had slowly been gaining definition over the past several days. Though the individual features were still rough, it was quite clearly the form of a young woman, her wavy hair captured perfectly in the pale wood.

  “Don’t be dense, Fred,” Frederica didn’t even look away from her work, “Elena is a Fabera, Fabera build things.”

  Elena cut careful notches in the wooden pieces, moving slowly so that she wouldn’t cut herself on the unfamiliar tools. She tried to follow the designs she’d laid out for herself, but the cuts were inexact and awkward, and she knew she would have trouble putting the whole thing together.

  When she finished the final notch cut into the boards, Elena looked up to find that Fred, Niccolo, and Vittoria had been watching her work.

  “I don’t get it,” Fred said, “you’re a Stormtouched, why does your work so far look so...ugly?”

  “Fred!” Vittoria scolded.

  “I’m just confused! We know she’s a Stormtouched, shouldn’t her final project be something...I don’t know, artistic and of fine quality?”

  “This isn’t the final project,” Elena picked up two pieces of the notched wood and began carefully lining up the grooves and notches in them, “this is just a...a tool that I’m using for the final project.”

  The notches and grooves didn’t fit perfectly, and she had to use the handle of the knife to hammer the two pieces together, but when she set them down the snug fit kept them together. Elena picked up a third and fourth piece, fitting the notches into the first two.

  “It’s a puzzle,” Niccolo said, tilting his head to one side, “a puzzle in three dimensions.”

  Neither Ele nor Elena answered, and Ele pointed to show Elena where one of the notches was sticking. The mental image of her flesh fitted together like puzzle pieces in her dream made Elena shiver.

  “I don’t know,” Fred raised a skeptical eyebrow, “it’s still shoddily put together...”

  “Fred, maybe you should keep still and let Elena work in peace,” Vittoria said, her dreamy voice firm. Fred lapsed into silence, and Elena kept on working, fitting the pieces together one by one. Occasionally one would need a few extra cuts or a little application of force, but when she was finally done and set the little box down on the ground, it held together firmly. She leaned back to admire her handiwork.

  “That’s Studio DaRose!” Niccolo exclaimed, “I recognize the front, and the layout of the place. You see, Fred, it’s more than just a puzzle.”

  “I suppose a puzzle that’s also a model could pass as ‘art’ for a Fabera, but is that really going to be enough to impress De Luca? And how would you use that to fight other studios, we already know Studio DaRose’s layout.”

  Elena ignored Fred’s criticism, steepling her fingers in front of her and staring at the small model. Studio DaRose had been the studio that Arturo had joined when Master De Luca had turned him down. Modeling it correctly wasn’t impressive since she had seen it before, on the Street of Grey Artisans when she’d gone with Frederica to sell her sculpture. The model was only a tool, one that hopefully she could use.

  “Don’t try to hold the studio in your mind anymore,” Ele murmured from her side. “The studio is there, in front of you. Use your mind to fill it in.” Elena tried to clear her head of everything, tune out the warm room of friends around her and focus on the little studio. Without having to keep it in her mind, it was easier to focus on the little details that weren’t there...the way the iron gate swung back and forth on smooth wheels set in the wall, or the slope of the roof that kept ra
in from pooling in its courtyard. “Are you getting anything?” Ele asked. Elena shook her head, fighting disappointment.

  If my Storm can’t use this, I’ll have nothing to show for a final project. I haven’t come this far to leave without a struggle. Her past experience had taught her that forcing her Storm was useless, so instead she simply stared and focused.

  “Maybe enlighten us as to what you’re doing with your little model Studio?” Fred asked. “I’m dying of curiosity.”

  “‘My little studio’,” Elena replied, “needs to get food and supplies somehow, and I’m trying to figure out how my little studio gets them.”

  A cart, the same cart for both food and supplies, she thought, it could deliver them in crates at sundown to ensure that it’s not caught up in the roads’ traffic.

  The Storm that buzzed down her spine, her temples, and her fingernails was as refreshing as a stream’s current and energizing as a strike of lightning. She looked up at Ele and saw the same surprise and excitement in his eyes.

  “It’s back...my Storm is back!” she cried, “they get their food and supplies on a cart, at sundown!”

  Niccolo leaned back and whistled, and Fred nodded thoughtfully.

  “Your Storm lets you...what, tell the future?” Fred asked, “a bit like Carlos’?”

  “Faberi build things...I think my Storm gives me the ability to build whatever things exist in the present,” Elena said excitedly, “Studio DaRose exists in the present, so I can build a model and use my Storm to build how it works in my mind!”

  “I’m...not sure about that,” Ele was furrowing his brow thoughtfully. “We’ve built lockpicks from wire and thread...and what about the wheel of the cart that we fixed with braided quorley? Or when we built your Uncle that basket that could hold water without leaking.”

  “Lockpicks, wheels, baskets, they exist in the present don’t they?”

  “But then why has the Storm not been working lately? Don’t you think there’s more to this that we might be missing?”