Twig

by wildbow

  A dozen individual trains of thought all found their home. The things I needed to do, the things I wanted to do.

  There was a way forward.

  “I have a plan,” I said.

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  Lamb (Arc 17)

  “…You’ve each grown and taken on a fortitude that goes well beyond what your teachers and textbooks were able to impart. Wallace called it a preservation of the favored, and you favored students sit here now, having faced the gauntlet of testing, examinations, projects, and screens.”

  Lillian didn’t want to fidget and betray her anxiety, but she did dig one nail of her thumb into the underside of the other thumb’s nail.

  “You are what we sought to preserve. Recognize and be proud of the strength you have no doubt found deep within yourself, the courage, the commitment, and the willpower. Each of you have provided a long series of minor projects and two major projects to the Academy and Crown, strengthening it, much as Crown and Academy have strengthened you.”

  At the stage, Hayle stood at the podium. Radham’s professors, the mayor, two people Lillian didn’t recognize, and one minor noble Lady she had never seen all stood or sat behind Hayle. A man in a white coat stood by a long table.

  “Civil war, rebellion, religious mobs, betrayal of the Academy by its own members, and a plague that may well be covered in textbooks your children’s children read… it paints a bleak picture, doesn’t it?” Hayle asked. The grey-haired man stood to one side of the podium, not behind it, one of his hands behind his back, the other resting on the edge of the podium, periodically pointing. The deep-etched lines of his face were cut darker by the lighting. He might have resembled a fencer, given his stance, but if he was one, he was the old master.

  “But I’m optimistic, and I’m optimistic in large part because of you. You’ve witnessed and endured a great deal in the past five years. I believe our future is in capable hands. I trust each of you in that. Some of you will be commended for your efforts in these trying times, others will receive accolades. But each of you, by dint of the fact that you’ve earned your seats here, are remarkable. Some of you will go on to manage clinics or work in labs, others will join the military to offer your services. Others will push themselves even further, to earn your grey coats, or even your black coats.”

  He smiled. Lillian hadn’t ever seen Hayle try to be genial. She wasn’t sure he was very good at it.

  “Life, as each and every one of you know, is a remarkable thing. Your lives, dear students, especially so. You are better, and this is only the first leg of the journey for many of you. Now prove yourselves even better still, whether it’s in the face of life’s winding course, or if it’s in pursuit of greater academia and the best that Crown and Academy can provide you.”

  Lillian’s thumbnail dug deeper into the flesh. It would have been nice if Duncan had been able to sit by her, but he was a row ahead of her and way off to the left. Her second thought was Mary, but Mary would be in the audience at the very edges of the room.

  “I’ll stop torturing you all now,” Hayle said. The look on his face was especially dark as he smiled. “You want to hear your names spoken. I’ll cut right to it. Owen Barr!”

  The entire front row stood. Owen strode to the stage. Lillian watched as he hurried up the short series of steps and approached the table. Owen must not have slept a wink the night prior, because he had dark circles under his eyes. Had he not wanted to use medication to remove them?

  Owen accepted the white coat handed to him by the man at the table, shucked off his student’s jacket, and donned the coat of a doctor.

  He shook Hayle’s hand, then jumped a foot in the air as Hayle called out the next name the second his back was turned.

  “William Bray!”

  William ascended the stairs as Owen reached the lady noble at the far end of the stage. He bowed, and the noble lady inclined her head in acknowledgement, smiling.

  The audience at the edges of the room included powerful locals. Radham was a good academy, and by virtue of being what it was, it spawned a vibrant ecosystem of schools, businesses, industries, and military arms. The headmaster of Mothmont would be there, looking for young recruits to teach classes and tutor. He wasn’t the person that had been in charge of the preparatory school when the Lambs had attended or when the Bad Seeds had struck. That woman had been replaced. Edward Scullion was also present, a local businessman who ran a local plant and who often contracted with Radham to use the Academy’s facilities to handle especially big orders. His plant made psuedo-embryonic fluid for vat-grown life, custom-ordered by each given client.

  “Scotty Becksie!”

  Even now, they were being examined. The unwitting might not have picked up on that, but very few got this far in their studies while also being unwitting. Eyes were on them. People like Scullion had come with names in mind, and they would approach the new Doctors with offers ready. The people he picked would make more in a month than the average citizen made in a year, and if they could also earn Scullion’s favor, which was apparently not too difficult so long as they could handle their drink after hours, they would often be paired up with a local and attractive young aristocrat.

  Stumble on the stairs on the way up or show fear like Owen had when Hayle had shouted, and that possible future could easily be retracted. It was easy to make a mistake when nerves were this bad.

  “I’m pleased to announce,” Professor Hayle said, “Travis Birch, with commendation.”

  Lillian’s gaze was sharp as she watched a smiling Travis ascend the stairs. Rather than don his coat himself, he was give his coat by one of the professors from Claret Hall. After he approached Hayle, shaking the headmaster’s hand, Hayle affixed a little silver elaboration to the Academy crest just over Travis’ heart. It was small, a little silver bar with a stylized leaf at one end.

  But that was a decoration that Travis could wear for the rest of his career. Every person who wore a lab coat knew what it meant, that he had placed himself head and shoulders above. Sometimes they were politicized, sometimes they were downplayed, or someone might comment that a given professor handed them out freely to good looking students or any student with a nose sufficiently caked in brown… but there wasn’t a student in the auditorium that didn’t want to hear the headmaster announce them with commendation.

  It opened doors, it fast tracked them along certain paths, giving them an automatic in where others would be questioned, tested, or second-guessed. It afforded a measure of authority, all else being equal.

  It, to be cynical, kept the students hungry, even after they knew they had a right to walk up on stage and claim their white coats.

  She joined in with the applause, she smiled politely. She felt the hunger, and it gnawed at her in a way; her thumbnail bit deeper into the quick of her other thumb as she clasped her hands on her lap once again.

  More names. Nicholas Booth. Sidney Brown. Luther Cockwill.

  It wasn’t until the last names had passed into the realm of ‘D’ and two more boys had had their names called that the first girl got to walk up and claim her coat. Jean Dahl. Lillian had tutored her for a little while. She hoped Jean found some measure of success.

  Bruce Dearly. D.J. Derrick. Wesley Dillon.

  “And I find I have to pause here,” Professor Hayle said. “Because this next name deserves special mention, above and beyond even commendations.”

  Lillian’s heart jumped in her chest. Was Duncan there, at the front of the line?

  “For exemplary service to Academy and Crown, for showing capability, intelligence, and skill that did the Academy proud, the collective faculty of Radham Academy is unanimous in wanting to recognize Max Fortin.”

  Lillian joined the crowd in applause, watching as professors stood from their chairs, all applauding. The noble lady, too, stepped forward.

  Hayle spoke, as multiple professors, the mayor, and even the noble gave their congratulations to Max. “As a student, now a Doctor, Max Fortin jo
ined three members of our senior faculty in the labs, and it was his keen eyes that helped us identify two individual infection vectors for the carmine plague.”

  There was no saying that someone like Max got lucky, that he had brown nosed his way into this, that he had cheated, or that he had slept with the right old pervert. Commendations and accolades. It was the result of committee, heated debate between staff members with favorites, with agendas, and, among people with black coats, very often people who wanted to protect the reputation of the accolades they had received, once upon a time. They wouldn’t tarnish the elaborate decorations on the badges they wore for formal occasions.

  Lillian’s disappointment staggered her. For Duncan and for herself. Commendations were something that were parceled out, often with each professor handing out one at most. Accolades were a once-a-year thing. There were tales of years with two, and a single year with three, but Lillian had long suspected that those years had been calculated, that they were dealt out primarily to give hope whose names had yet to be called.

  And she did hope. It was a bad year, wasn’t it? It would be a good year to be generous.

  “With my own commendation, Duncan Foster,” Hayle announced.

  Lillian watched as Duncan ascended the stairs. If he felt any of the same disappointment she did, he did a marvelous job at not showing it. He smiled, extending a hand in a wave for someone at the back of the crowd, and beamed as he met Hayle at the table, shaking the headmaster’s hand before allowing Hayle to help him don the white coat.

  Students to the left and right of Lillian were standing. Lillian joined them. She was suddenly so close to the stage.

  “Alexander Fox,” Hayle announced.

  Alexander ascended the stairs. Lillian moved forward. One student between herself and the stairs.

  She could see some of the crowd at the side and back of the room now. She saw Mary in the crowd, smiling, and was struck by the memory of Mary lying on a street that was only a twenty minute walk away from the auditorium. Her own hands had been slick with Mary’s blood from fingertip to wrist as she had performed field surgery on her friend, Jamie’s voice calm as it spoke in her ear, helping to guide her.

  She saw Ashton, still so young in appearance, and it wasn’t a stretch to imagine the others, as they had once appeared.

  “Tom Gabriel,” Hayle spoke.

  Tom ascended the stairs, and Lillian felt the air move in his wake. Nothing between her and the stage now.

  So many years ago now, Hayle had spoken to her in his office. She had been terrified of him then, much as Oliver had, earlier. He had spelled out that he needed a field medic for a project, and that the medic had to be young. He hadn’t been headmaster then, but he had been a professor. He talked about time away from the Academy, and how she would be compensated with allowances and some help from him and other members of the administration. He’d spoken her praises, going over her grades from Academy prep and her introductory tests. Was she interested?

  She had almost said no, purely out of fear. She had been such a scaredy cat.

  But her fear of upsetting this terrifying man and dooming her career before she had even had her first midterm had won out. She’d been afraid of what her parents would think or say if it somehow got back to them that she had been singled out as special and she’d said no.

  Fear on one hand and fear on the other.

  Seeing Mary reminded her that there was more to that story. She had interacted with the Lambs, one particular Lamb for all of twenty minutes before she had gone straight back to Hayle to ask him to take her off the project. He had talked her back into it.

  “And I’m pleased and proud to now announce a student that I’ve followed since the beginning of her studies here. This exceptional young lady has consistently been top of the class or close to it, and she maintained that academic standing while traveling to war zones and cities under siege at my order. Lillian Garey, with commendations.”

  Commendations.

  Lillian’s eyes dropped for a second. The fingernail of her index finger bit into the quick of her thumb for a second as she felt all of the doubts and fears she’d been keeping at bay wash over her. The true nature of that noble on the stage, what she’d heard about Hayle’s lies and the conspiracy to keep her black coat from her, one she wasn’t entirely sure she had averted.

  Getting no accolades felt like another play when it came to that conspiracy.

  For an instant, she thought she might turn and walk away.

  But what good did that do? What good did it do to run, when she’d found the guts to stay in this all this time?

  She could face down this particular monster.

  She could put a smile on her face, ascending the stairs, acknowledging the applause. She moved with a confidence that she hadn’t been given by her parents, in genetics or in upbringing, and she met Headmaster Hayle at the end of the table with the coats and scrolls.

  The applause continued, polite applause from students and meaningful applause from others. Mary was clapping, smiling.

  Hayle bent down a fraction, speaking in her ear. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head, still smiling. She had fought so hard to get here, and even being on this stage was something special, a vindication of too many moments of terror, too many times that she had bled and times that she had made others bleed. Countless nights studying until her eyes could no longer track words on the page.

  “Thank you for your help in putting me here, headmaster,” she said.

  “The vast majority of it was you,” he said. “Trust me. Come to my office later tonight. We’ll talk.”

  “Alright,” she said. The applause was dying down. He offered his hand and she shook it. She turned, allowing him to slip the lab coat into place.

  Her back to the rest of the stage, her eyes passed over the crowd, her smile wistful.

  She saw her parents, but she didn’t acknowledge them, she didn’t let her eyes stop for a fraction of a second as her gaze swept past them.

  She searched for specific, more important faces and she didn’t see them. It would have been insanity to expect those faces to appear here, of all places, but insanity played a fair part in defining at least one of those individuals.

  I did it, Lambs, she thought. Her hands tugged at the lapels of the coat. It wasn’t one of the generic white coats. This one had been made to fit her. A special touch by Hayle, no doubt.

  She turned to face him, so he could pin the commendation in place, and felt the shock of the unexpected, a hand at her arm, as he steered her, so that her turn completed without a stumble or a moment of confusion.

  The noble lady stood before her. Pale, white-haired, with oil-black lashes on her eyes and a slender, graceful frame and a gossamer-thin dress, the woman was young as nobles went, no older than twenty-five. The noble lady’s fingers were long, the painted, pointed fingernails like a brandishing of daggers that fenced Lillian off from being able to reach out and take the commendation that lay in the cup of the palm.

  No move was made to pin it on Lillian’s breast.

  Automatically, Lillian curtsied. She drew on everything she had, and she maintained her composure.

  “My lady,” she said, her voice soft, almost inaudible in the dwindling applause.

  The noble didn’t move, and the noble didn’t speak.

  Lillian stayed still, confident, her head held high. She was dimly aware of Mary in the background, and of Duncan, who wore a troubled expression. She kept her eyes on the noble, though lowered in deference, and she tried very hard not to think about what the rogue Lambs had said about the nobility.

  The Lady leaned close. Lillian did her best not to flinch.

  “You’ve been witness to the death of a noble,” the Lady whispered. “And you’ve talked to so many who brought such things to pass.”

  Lillian declined her head. She was aware that five hundred eyes were watching the exchange, curious about the words being spoken. “To my regre
t, my Lady.”

  “Indeed,” the Lady replied. She took hold of the commendation, rolling it in her fingers. She exposed the point of the pin.

  Poison?

  No, it didn’t even have to be poison. It only needed to make her bleed.

  It took everything Lillian could summon up to hold firm as the Lady pinned the commendation in place. The pin didn’t penetrate flesh. No damage was done. Lillian turned away in the same instant the noble Lady did, and she measured her steps with care so she couldn’t be perceived to be fleeing the stage.

  “Chris Gateman,” Hayle announced the next name.

  “You okay?” Duncan whispered, as Lillian found him in the group of students that had already stepped off the stage.

  She managed to put a false smile on her face and nod, and she turned to look up at the stage.

  She wasn’t okay, but she would have been hard pressed to articulate just why. She was angry, at Hayle and at her parents and especially at the noble, this moment she had worked for tainted.

  But she could look at the noble, and in a way, she had to wonder if the woman had acted as she had because of fear.

  Was that creature, supposedly once a human, now simultaneously one of the most powerful people in the world and one of the most pitiable?

  “Charles Gateman,” Hayle spoke.

  ☙

  Claret Hall was busy, as countless students were joined by parents and loved ones, gathering in the lobby and at the dining halls. There were local business owners, politicians, teachers and other powerful figures now courting new Doctors, meeting here and there, making pitches and hearing students sell themselves.

  Owing largely to the special attention from Hayle, a noble, and to the dramatic, just-long-enough pause before the commendation was pinned in place, Lillian received more than the usual share of glances and stares.

  She ascended the stairs, and even on the second floor, there was a lot going on. It wasn’t the crowd that was on the floor below, but the wide hallways and the open spaces were dotted with clusters and groups, each spaced out so they were just barely out of earshot of one another.