The maestra stiffened, breath sucked in hard.
Bee swiftly turned to a more palatable historical sketch of the Romans kneeling in defeat at Zama before the newly crowned queen, the dido of our people, and her victorious general Hanniba’al. And she kept talking. “I am so very deeply anticipating our outing to the Rail Yard next week, where we will be able to view the airship for ourselves. How incredible that it propelled itself all the way across the Atlantic Ocean from Expedition to our fair city of Adurnam! Not a single human or troll lost in the crossing!”
“Imagine,” I added, unable to control my tongue, “how the cold mages must be celebrating its arrival, considering that the mage Houses call airships and rifles the reckless tinkering of radicals who mean to destroy society. Do you suppose the mages mean to join the festivities next week as well? It’s said half the city means to turn out to see the airship, if only to stop the Houses from attempting something rash.”
Every pupil sitting near enough to overhear my words gasped. Hate the Houses if you wished, or kneel before them hoping to be offered a trickle from the bounteous stream of their power and riches and influence, but everyone knew it was foolish to openly speak critical words. Even the lords and princes who ruled the many principalities and territories of fractious Europa did not challenge the Houses and their magisters.
The proctor snatched Bee’s book from the table and tucked it under an arm. “The headmaster will see you both in his office after class.”
Half the girls on the balcony snickered. The other half shuddered. The twins kept taking notes, although I didn’t know them well enough to say if they were that oblivious or that focused. Maestra Madrahat took up her guard post at the entrance, her keys hanging in plain sight to remind us that no one could sneak out and down the stairs and that no venturesome young male could sneak up and in. None of that here, in the abstemious halls of the academy.
The headmaster will see you both.
“Oh, Cat, what have we done now?” Our hands clasped as we shivered in a sudden cold wind coursing like a presentiment of disaster down from the high windows.
Bee and Cat, together forever. No matter what trouble we got into, we would, as always, face it as one.
4
When the lecture ended, we all dutifully snapped fingers and thumbs to show approval. Afterward, some students stood to offer praise, one male pupil raising a song while a chorus, scattered through the hall and balcony, clapped a rhythm and sang the response:
To the maestra of learning, heavy with wisdom.
On this day we greet you.
Our ears like maize grow ripe with knowledge.
On this day we greet you.
Bee hummed and tapped along, offbeat and out of tune. The academy’s head of natural history offered a mercifully brief speech thanking the eminent visitor for gracing us with her presence and illuminating insights, and afterward reminded the gathered pupils of the academy-sponsored trip to the Rail Yard to view the airship, coming up next week, and the public lecture to be offered on this very evening by the very same visiting scholar on the very same subject.
Bee sighed as she returned my pencil. “Father will make us go. It’s hopeless. We’re doomed to the dreary gray of Sheol for another evening of hearing the same lecture all over again.”
“I thought you’d given up believing in the afterlife after last year’s lecture series on natural philosophy.”
“Reason is the measure of all things. It’s perfectly reasonable to assume I will die of boredom if I have to sit through the same lecture all over again.”
“You just said that.”
“Exactly my point. I won’t even be allowed to draw.”
“Say you have a headache.”
“That was my excuse last week when the eminent scholar from the academy in Havery was speaking on the origin, nature, range, function, and persistence of ice sheets.”
“That one was actually interesting. Did you know that glacial ice covers all land north of fifty-five degrees latitude and once covered the land as far south as Adurnam—”
“Quiet!” She dropped her head into her hands, strands of black hair curling around her fingers. Her elegant silver blessing bracelet, given to her by her mother seven years ago when she made twelve, glimmered like a dido’s precious keepsake in the amber light. “I’m devising a desperate scheme.”
I slipped my schoolbook into my bag beside the essay and buttoned the pencil into its pocket, from which Bee could not easily steal it. We waited for the balcony to clear: The back-row students always descended last. When our turn came, we rose in order and filed out past Maestra Madrahat. The proctor still clutched Bee’s sketchbook, and I wondered if Bee would snatch it out of her hands, but the fateful moment passed as we pushed into the narrow stairwell, following the other whispering girls down the steep steps while the last of the row clipped at our heels. The gaslight’s flame murmured.