EIGHT
GWENNA
The next morning,I wake up in a cold sweat. It’s a few long minutes before my pulse calms down and I remember where I am.
Caliburn. Morgan.
I sit up. The room’s sizeable, almost as big as our double back in Broceliande, with a wardrobe, desk, and loveseat in addition to the bed. I fumble on the bedside table for the time when I realize: I don’t have my phone. They take them when you check in, and I didn’t stop to get mine back.
Instead, I pull my blanketed knees to my chest. It’s a strange kind of relief, actually. Except that I do want to know the time.
Among other things.
A single thought crystallizes in my mind:
Emrys. Answers.
Inside the wardrobe are clothes.Myclothes, technically, the ones I’d left behind at Camlann House.
The ones Kingston bought for me.
I swallow hard. I have no choice. And they are nice clothes. No point in denying it. I pick something out—sweater, skirt,fleece tights—get dressed, then open the bedroom door and find?—
—no Morgan.
Callahan.
Sitting at the foot of the door.
Awake, but looking tired.
“I’m…sorry,” he says, scrambling to stand up. God, he’s tall. “Morgan got back last night and told me to come in. Said it was weird if I just stood in the hall.”
“Oh,” I say. “No. That’s…”
Fine?I think.Is it fine?
“She has class,” he says. “But she says she’ll catch up with you later.”
“That’s…thanks,” I say. “I’m going to just…” I press my lips together and glance back at the bathroom door. I suppose he’ll be close by until whoever’s next takes over. “And then I need to go see Emrys,” I finish.
Callahan only nods.
Our walk across campus is silent. In the daylight, Caliburn feels less…overwhelming than it did last night. Or maybe I’m just getting used to it again. The Classics Building looks like a gingerbread version of itself, frosted out with icicles and a thick smear of snow, and the endless stairs up to Emrys’s classroom get my blood pumping in a way that’s not unpleasant.
And then we’re there.He’ll be in his classroom tomorrow if you want to stop by, Morgan had said. I’m notuninvited.
Still, though. I’m here, but I’m not…here. In any permanent way.
Feeling suddenly sheepish, I knock on the door.
"Please," says the voice from behind it. “Come in.”
I do.
Stepping back into Dr. Emrys's classroom is like walking right into a memory. Nothing about it has changed—not thebookshelves, the battered desks, the old posters, the ancient radiator—but I see it all differently now, as something lost, vanished, no longer mine. Because I'm not technically a student at Caliburn. I withdrew. That was part of the whole process. Now I'm just here as some kind of…interloper.
But if that's how I feel, Dr. Emrys doesn't seem to agree.
