Page 65 of Avalon Tower
My mind is roiling as I cross back to them.
“If I don’t eat soon,” says Serana, “I’m going to end up charging after Tarquin and rage-killing him myself.”
We have twenty minutes until the next lesson. Serana is always famished between classes, so I’ve started making cheese and chutney sandwiches to keep her from getting cranky. “I’ve got you covered,” I say.
I’m lost in a haze of worries as the three of us trudge down the stairs through the shadowy halls, but once we get outside, the bright midsummer sun warms my skin and calms my mood. Buttery summer light ignites the leaves of apple trees, and little baby apples hang from their branches.
The three of us cross the grass, which is dappled with forget-me-nots and primroses. I subtly scan our surroundings, trying to take in everything and everyone around me. It’s a habit we’re all supposed to develop. Something draws my attention, a strange tug, and I notice a tall woman with cherry red hair frowning at me. She turns and strides away, and I wonder who she is. Not one of the instructors or the regular staff, but she looked interested in me for some reason.
Tana sits beneath an apple tree, and we join her. I reach into my leather bag and pull out three sandwiches wrapped in wax paper.
Serana accepts my offering with a flutter of her eyelashes. “Thank you, darling. You are good at looking after me.”
I smile at her. “Okay. Let’s practice. How many people are behind you, and what are they wearing?”
She purses her lips as she concentrates. This is an exercise we’ve been working on for a while. Spies should always be aware of everything around them and take in every little detail, even when they look relaxed. A spy who doesn’t notice they’re being followed is a dead spy. Or caught—and everyone knows that being captured by the Fey is worse than death.
“Six people,” she says. “Gisela and Oren by the statue. She’s wearing a blue gossamer dress, and he’s wearing those leather trousers that look far too tight, the same ones he wears every day. There are four demi-Fey women on the bench on the other side of the pond, all in dresses, two green, one purple, and one gold.”
“Good, but it’s not purple. It’s more of a periwinkle gray,” I say.
She glances over her shoulder. “Aw, right. But I was right about the rest.”
“Those really are tight trousers.”
“Who’s behind you, and what are they doing?” Serana asks me in return.
I shut my eyes, trying to picture what I’d seen. “Gael, Penelope, and Horace are standing by the old gravestones, the ones with the winged skulls. Gael is holding a mauve book and lecturing them about poetry.” I open my eyes.
Serana raises an eyebrow. “You can’t possibly hear what he’s saying.”
“But he’s talking, and he’s wearing that pretentious expression of his, and Penelope is looking at him all doe-eyed,” I say. “That only happens when he’s reading verse.”
Tana laughs.
“All right,” Serana says. “Now, which of them is carrying a weapon?”
I bite my lower lip, picturing it again. “Penelope is. Slight bulge in her boot. She has a shiv hidden there.”
“Well done.”
We both look at Tana.
She sighs. “Oh, please, don’t.”
“You need to master this for the Culling.” I say this as gently as possible. I’ve come to learn that underneath Tana’s serene exterior, she’s a worrier. “You’ve got this. I know you can do it, Tana.”
But the truth is, I’m not sure I believe what I’m saying. The Culling is only six weeks away. They’ll test our endurance, our fighting abilities, our spycraft. And they’ll test my magical abilities. A cadet who doesn’t do well on the tests is removed from the academy. Occasionally, they leave grievously injured—or not at all.
The Culling is brutal. Avalon Tower can’t risk sending out mediocre agents. If a spy gets caught during a mission, the consequences could be disastrous for all of MI-13. A captured spy could spill every secret we have.
Serana can barely pronounce Fey words. I can still barely control my powers. Meanwhile, Tana is having a serious problem with being aware of her surroundings. Even if she can easily see what’s around her, she gets confused by when it’s happening.
“Um…” She hesitates. “There’s a…man behind me? He’s wearing a blue tunic? He’s smoking a pipe.”
I look over her shoulder. A man is lying in the grass in a velvet waistcoat, reading a book. “Can you tell me more?”
“Well…he looks like the man from the painting in the dining hall. The famous bard, with the long beard…oh”—she deflates—“he is that poet.”