When I leaveEmrys's classroom, I almost walk into someone. Lanz.
"Oh," he says. "Gwenna."
"Who else?” I say, maybe a little too sharply. "Sorry. I just…” I look around. He's alone, no one else in the corridor.
"I'm taking over," he says. "We do all still have to eat and sleep sometime, you know."
I blow out a short breath. "The bodyguard thing is ridiculous," I tell him, and I catch him straight in the eye when I do. "You know that, right?"
“I…do," he says, after some hesitation. "I mean, I can see why it feels that way, and I'm sorry that I have to be part of somethingyou don't want to have happen, but—" He winces a little. "I kind of have to insist."
I purse my lips. "Fine, well, I need to go to the registrar's office and pick up a class schedule."
At that, his bright eyes widen a bit. "Really? A schedule? You're?—
“Re-enrolling,” I finish for him. “I’m sure Elena and her friends will be thrilled that their favorite punching bag is back in town."
I don't know where all the sudden bitterness is coming from. Maybe it's the reality of what I'm taking on sinking in for the first time. Being in Emrys’s classroom felt welcoming and familiar, even if everything he told me was completely strange and all but unbelievable. Now, out here with Lanz hovering—well, nottooclose, because he knows how to be deferential, but certainly nearer to me than would have been my preference—it's all got me on edge.
As if he can read my thoughts, he takes another half step back and holds his hands at the small of his back.Did they all learn that somewhere?I wonder.Like…knight school? Oh, ha ha ha, I’mhilarious.
Wordlessly, we troop down the staircases of the Classics building and out onto the quads.
It's softly silent, the way only a morning covered in fresh snow can be. I'm about to make some observation about how February isn't usually this pristine when I catch myself and clench my jaw. I don't want to make small talk, not with someone I don't really trust, and who doesn't think I'm capable of keeping myself safe.
Instead, as we cut through the white-dusted pathway that joins the Classics building to the main hall, I focus back on everything that Emrys told me, the list of texts he scribbled down for me. Legends, myths, documents. There won't be muchin the written record. It's going to be a lot of patching together, guesswork, approximations and scholarship, Roman Britain, Boudica. Not my specialty. The Annals of Ulster. I don't read or speak Irish, but I suppose I can...learn it.
And Kingston?—
I clench my fist inside my glove. Who knows what Kingston will do? Who cares? It doesn't matter. I can figure this out without him. Just because he has to be there doesn't mean he's going tocontributeanything. And something about the idea of solving it all without him, of being both the answer and the riddle itself, makes me feel just the tiniest bit smug. Probably not the healthiest emotion, but it beats despair or numbness. I'm not usually the vindictive type to gloat over beating someone to the punch on what I suppose is their life's work. But then again…I’m doing a lot of things that weren’t usual for me six months ago. Hell, three months ago.
"Can I ask you something?" I find myself saying to Lanz.
"Hmm?" he says, perking up. There is a certain hapless quality about him that would be charming under other circumstances. He's so attentive—maybe too attentive. And of the four of them, the most…I don't know what the word is. Laissez-faire. Relaxed. Continental. Like his blood doesn't run quite as hot as the rest. And that's why I need to know.
"Absolutely," he says. "Fire away."
"What's in it for you?” I say, the words puffing out in my steamed-up breath. "I mean, the whole brotherhood, or whatever it is. Swearing allegiance to the Consortium?—"
"The Consistory," he corrects automatically.
"Right," I say. "And this quest. Like, why do it?"
Lanz is silent a moment. He tips his head back and forth as we walk, like he's really considering.
"I—it's hard to explain," he says.
"I'm very intelligent, Lanz," I deadpan. "Try me."
He blinks those big blue eyes at me, as if not surprising me to be so snippy.Well, it's a new world, Lanz Dell’Acqua, I think.
“I have a—" He pauses. "Just this sort of family history, I guess. Not an obligation, exactly, like King does. And Kai," he hurries to add. “But. Um. It's more?—"
He's really stumbling over his words. I wonder if I've touched a nerve, if there actually is something more personal to this.
"Just…solving this, being successful, it would fix a lot of things that have been really hard on my family for a long time,” he says. “I really wouldn't expect you to understand.” He scrubs the back of his head with his hand, making his black hair stick up in all directions even more than it was before. “Sorry. I’m not making sense."
"No, it's okay," I say, suddenly walking back my aggressive needling. "I wasn't trying to pry. I just—it's such a big commitment, you know, the discipline, the vow. Although I guess the chastity part is?—"
