Overturned

Chapter Nineteen: A New Normal | Part 6

“Seerla… I…”

Something about those wide, innocent eyes made his nerve vanish. This wasn’t the time—if ever there would be a time.

Instead, he swallowed. “I miss you. But I know it isn’t your fault. We just have to make it to the end of the term. Then, your parents won’t have a pocketbook to hold over your head, and we can be pen pals as apprentices.”

Seerla somehow managed to flash him a sardonic grin while balancing several envelopes against her hip to open the rec hall door. “Unless we both end up in Eressee, hiding from the Selkies together.”

By the time Thirtyx made it to the mail stand, his arms burned with fatigue. As he dropped the applications onto the counter, he mentally cursed every apprentice program that required their forms in quadruplicate.

Mr. Blackstone eyed Thirtyx and his envelopes with disdain. “Are you really bringing me all of this two bars before I close for the day, Venmagalion?”

“Sorry,” Thirtyx panted. “It couldn’t be helped. Let me catch my breath, then I think I have the correct postage ready.”

Thirtyx thought Mr. Blackstone was sneering at how dismally out of shape Thirtyx was—perhaps he deserved that. But he didn’t deserve Mr. Blackstone pushing the envelopes back toward Thirtyx with a speed that increased as they neared the edge of the counter. By the time he realized Mr. Blackstone didn’t intend to stop, it was too late to keep the envelopes from cascading onto the floor.

“What was that for?” Seerla cried. Thirtyx let out a bitter sigh and stooped to pick them up.

Mr. Blackstone folded his stubby arms. “He needs to take them elsewhere. I won’t post them.”

Thirtyx paused before setting an armful of packets back on the counter. “What do you mean? Is something wrong with them?”

“Nothing wrong with the packets. Something wrong with their sender, though. Haven’t you heard?”

Seerla glowered at the Troll. “Mr. Blackstone, political tensions aside, I don’t think it’s very professional to—”

“The Devil council issued a new decree this morning,” he said over her protests. “Overturned that stupid anti-discrimination law they passed decades ago to appease Grimmary. Businesses in Ix can now deny service to Veriths for national security reasons. And last I checked…” He looked to the ground, then back at the children. “We’re standing in Ix right now.”

Heat rose in Thirtyx’s cheeks and neck. He knew there had been talks of nixing Verith protection laws, but he hadn’t known those talks were so close to action, especially in the jurisdiction where he lived. He looked from the envelopes in his hands to the many scattered on the floor. Any second, Mr. Blackstone would say he was kidding, right? He wouldn’t make Thirtyx suffer the humiliation of trying to negotiate and, in failing, picking up all of these envelopes just to lug them back to the dorm.

“Mr. Blackstone, that’s absurd,” Seerla said. “There’s no other post on campus.”

His grin suggested he was enjoying Thirtyx’s helplessness far too much. “Precisely.”

Numb and in a daze, Thirtyx bent down to continue collecting the packets. Blackstone would get immense pleasure from watching him, but he’d get even more if Thirtyx tried to stall. After a moment, Seerla wrapped her hand around Thirtyx’s arm and pulled him back to a standing position. Her touch startled him so much that he didn’t resist.

Seerla stared down Mr. Blackstone with a fiery determination Thirtyx hadn’t seen since the riverbank, the night of the Selkie party. She took an envelope from Thirtyx’s hands and tossed it onto the counter. “I would like to post this, please.”

The Troll snorted. “I just said I wouldn’t accept it!”

“You won’t accept it from him, but you have to accept it from me.” At Blackstone’s blank stare, Seerla raised an eyebrow. “The law allows discrimination against Veriths. Do I look like a Verith, Mr. Blackstone?”

“With you, who could tell?” Blackstone grumbled.

Seerla’s fingers tightened around Thirtyx’s arm, but she didn’t take the bait. She merely picked up another envelope from the floor and stacked it atop the first. “I have 12 in total. Would you like them organized in any particular way?”

Mr. Blackstone picked up the topmost packet with a heavy sigh.