Chapter Six: An Unexpected Departure | Part 5
Professor Maloc—a mustachioed troll with a generally all-business disposition—swept his beady eyes across the classroom and didn’t miss a beat. “Venmagalion! Where is Grimmary this morning?”
Thirtyx inhaled through his nose and exhaled his scripted response. “He was called away to the palace. Left in a carriage early this morning. I don’t know how long he’ll be gone.”
He kept eye contact with Professor Maloc to make the message as earnest as possible, but that grew difficult as the troll strode up the aisle toward him. “Called away by the palace? For what reason?”
His classmates’ stares prickled his skin, but he forced his breathing to remain steady. Typically, he’d say he didn’t have all the details, but he currently had as many details as anyone else. There was no loophole. He had to tell the truth. “I’m not at liberty to say, Professor.”
Maloc scoffed. “Your roommate is skipping class, and you’re not at liberty to say why? No. Unacceptable. Out with it, Venmagalion.”
Thirtyx shook his head. “For reasons of global security, I was asked not—”
His tongue fell limp in his mouth. Fortunately, he was between words when it happened, sparing him the added stress of getting tongue tied in front of an audience. It did not, however, spare him the confusion. He ran his proposed sentence back through his mind.
When Tyren told Rhea and Benn to use discretion, he hadn’t known Thirtyx was listening. Thirtyx was never given such an order directly.
He pivoted quickly. “I’m not allowed to say why they left.”
“They?” Maloc raised an eyebrow. “Venmagalion, did an operative of the palace tell you explicitly not to reveal why apparently both Grimmary twins are headed home?”
“No. But Rhea and Benn are forbidden from discussing it, so I won’t either.” His heart pounded. He couldn’t fold the way he usually did when the teachers tried to exploit his inability to lie. This was too important.
Maloc folded his arms. “Are you positive they were forbidden? Or could they be lying?”
“They could not have been lying, sir.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Thirtyx turned his gaze to the ceiling as if begging the Twins for strength. He’d rehearsed this part, but it had seemed far easier in his head than it felt in reality. He met Professor Maloc’s eyes again with a steadiness he did not remotely feel. “Professor, if you believe I’m breaking the code of conduct by keeping secrets about my friends’ whereabouts—after they were summoned home by order of the king himself—I suggest you send me to the headmistress. She spoke with Ambassador Erven this morning, and I’m sure she’s privy to whatever information the palace was willing to share.”
Mumbling. Furtive whispers. The influx of energy fueled his anxiety rather than nourishing him. Professor Maloc bristled at being spoken to that way—by a Verith no less—but Thirtyx didn’t back down. The Troll’s mustache twitched in anger. He inhaled to shout something. Thirtyx readied himself to leave the room just as a puff of purple smoke dropped a note onto Maloc’s desk.
His boots made angry stomping noises as he retreated up the aisle. He unfurled the paper and barely grazed it with his eyes before tossing it aside. “Per the headmistress, Mr. Grimmary will not be in class today,” he said matter of factly, as if the previous conversation never happened. “Now, open your books, and let’s discuss last night’s reading assignment.”
The scene was similar in Thirtyx’s next class, except Professor Lessel had been forewarned about Rhea’s absence. Nevertheless, she wasted nearly a third of the period coyly pretending she wasn’t interrogating him before giving up and starting the lesson. By the third block, word had spread to most of the seniors, and they all watched eagerly as Professor C tried to Selkie-charm more details out of Thirtyx. He was so exhausted that it almost worked, so by the fourth block, everyone was taking bets on when he’d finally crack.
When lunch rolled around, Thirtyx strongly debated sneaking back to his room to nap through the meal and the subsequent free period, but he knew the chances of him waking up for his last two classes were slim, and the professors would be looking for any reason to punish him. He also considered a long, winding walk around campus—anything to avoid being around everyone else in the cafeteria—but that would just open him up to being ambushed without an audience.
So he put his head down on the table and tried to ignore the mild nausea of overfeeding. The fact that he was the only one who knew why the twins had left—and everyone wanted to know—was more energy than Thirtyx was designed to handle. The free period in the library wasn’t much better, although at least some people were studying there, momentarily distracted from their burning questions about the monarchs’ whereabouts.
But plenty of people still pointed and whispered, including the overcrowded table of Seerla and her friends. He put his head down again. He rubbed at his long ears as if that could ease torture of this horrific day.
And he must’ve fallen asleep, because the chime of 26th bar startled him so badly he nearly fell from his seat.
Calley Jones 