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“Are you all right?” Sage’s soft voice brought Merletta back to her surroundings. The other trainees were finishing up, clearly ready to return to their classes.
“I’m fine,” said Merletta quickly.
“I wish we could talk now,” Sage said uncertainly, her eyes on Merletta’s face, “but you know what Instructor Wivell is like about punctuality.”
“I thought you were with Agner today,” Merletta said.
“No, we train with Agner the last two days before rest day, remember?” Sage said. “We just took the morning off from Wivell’s class to join that patrol.”
Merletta had lost track of what day of the week it was, but she didn’t say so. Sage was already looking at her with enough concern.
“Well, I’ll join you,” she said decisively.
“What, in class?” Sage looked dumbfounded. “But you literally just arrived back! You’re not expected in class until tomorrow.”
“What am I going to do all by myself?” shrugged Merletta. “Much better to get back into it.”
Sage looked worried. She glanced around her. Oliver and Lorraine were gone, but Andre was hovering just out of earshot, clearly waiting hopefully for them to join him. Sage lowered her voice.
“Merletta, what aren’t you telling me?”
A shot of pain lanced through Merletta at the concern in her friend’s eyes. Sage deserved much more trust than Merletta had given her the year before.
“So much, Sage,” she whispered, her control fleeing her for a moment. “I don’t even know where to start.”
A look of determination crossed Sage’s features. “Forget Wivell. Let’s talk now.”
Merletta shook her head. “It’s safer for me—” she grimaced, “—for both of us, if we’re with the group. At least for now.”
Sage looked more alarmed than ever, but she didn’t argue, just grasped Merletta’s wrist with one unyielding hand. “As long as you promise you’ll tell me what’s going on later.”
Merletta nodded, a lump in her throat. Just the thought of telling Sage—of telling anyone—where she’d really been the previous month made her feel like a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. But would it just put Sage in as much danger as she was in?
The question was impossible to answer without more information. The two of them hurried to the doorway, joined by a smiling Andre. Merletta noticed that his eager gaze encompassed Sage as much as her. Clearly he wanted to be part of their little group, although she couldn’t imagine why.
They were trailing well behind the others by now, and they had to swim quickly to make it to Wivell’s teaching room on time. As it was, he had already entered when they surged through the doorway.
The middle-aged merman checked slightly at the sight of Merletta, cocking one eyebrow. She met his eyes for a breathless moment, wondering what he would say. But after that initial reaction, he reverted to his usual unimpassioned manner.
“Merletta. You have returned. I wasn’t expecting you today.”
Or at all? Merletta wondered.
But if that was the case, he was concealing it well. His reaction was certainly nothing like the horror Ileana had displayed at sight of her. He wasn’t exactly showing warmth, but then he never had. The detachment with which he proceeded to teach was absolutely normal for the chief instructor. The presence of a slum-dweller from Tilssted in his elite program was an inconvenience, but not one that he took personally, the way Instructor Ibsen seemed to do.
A shudder went over Merletta at the thought of the third instructor. He had always hated her, and she wouldn’t have been at all surprised to discover that Ileana was taking her orders from him.
Instructor Wivell taught literacy, and Merletta allowed her mind to wander a little as he went into detail, for the benefit of the two first year trainees, about the role of the scribes. Merletta didn’t want to think about their work in copying out records day in and day out in a constant battle against the water. She would only get frustrated at the futility of the exercise, given that records above water could last for generation upon generation.
She spent the time scanning the class instead. Oliver was continuing to ignore her, as she would expect, and Lorraine was watching Instructor Wivell with the carefully uncommunicative expression that seemed to be habitual for her. But Andre’s eyes kept flicking from the instructor to Sage and Merletta, and when he caught her eye, he gave her a quick smile. She returned it guardedly, still bemused by his manner toward her.
“Now, since you’ll all be training with Instructor Agner for the next two days, with rest day following, you won’t be with Instructor Ibsen again until next week. He has asked me to set you a practical task on his behalf, in preparation for your next class with him. It will require you to leave the Center. He wishes you to attend a marketplace in any of the three cities, and observe, without identifying yourself as a trainee.”
“What are we looking for?” Oliver asked, frowning.
“You are to consider what non-physical dangers the aggression of humans poses to the merpeople population,” Instructor Wivell answered calmly. “The question will be the focus of your first lesson next week.”
Merletta made a strangled noise and half-rose from her seat, the movement involuntary. Every eye in the room turned to her, and she struggled to get hold of herself. She didn’t want to give too much away to the wrong person. But she had to know what he was talking about.
