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1.
He doesn’t look like much, a slip of a thing—scrawny, really. The kind of small that might get you sat on. She probably wouldn’t even have noticed him if not for the absolutely enormous tome he’s lugging around. Skinny little necromancer arms aren’t meant to carry weight like that. Usually it doesn’t matter, because books aren’t meant to leave their cases in the library.
She thinks for half a second. She decides. She heads over.
“What’s that for?” she asks, falling into step with him.
He looks up at her, suspicious, but he must realize she’s not going to do something drastic like turn him in or steal it. “For reading,” he says, completely unsarcastic.
“You don’t say,” she says. The same can’t be said of her. “What are you doing with it, right now?”
“I’m taking it back to my shuck,” He says. “It’s quieter there, easier to think.”
“They just let you take it?” she says.
“No one stopped me,” he says. It’s not exactly an answer, which answers her question in itself.
“Do you want help?” she says. She’s already got gloves on, after all.
“You’re taller than me,” he says. “Easier to notice.”
“I noticed you because you’re carrying that book around,” Camilla says. “Struggle sticks out more.”
He thinks, looks down at her hands, and then up at her face. He’s got these silvery gray eyes that look both too big and too old for his face, and they narrow. Of course, they’re still walking, so all this takes just a few seconds. She doesn’t see any need to smile reassuringly or try to tell him she can be trusted. He’ll come to that conclusion or he won’t, and then he’ll be right or wrong.
He bumps the spine of the book against her arm, and she moves to take its weight. “Got it?” he says.
“Got it,” she says, and lets her training robe fall around it. She’s sure not to make it look like it’s something she’s hiding, just something that’s not that important.
It doesn’t work for long.
“Hey!” They both turn. It’s an archivist, one Cam doesn’t know. “What in the Emperor’s name are you doing with that?” He marches up to them, pulling on his own gloves. “Where are you supposed to be? Who’s minding you? You—” He blinks. “You shouldn’t even have clearance! What’s your name?”
“Don’t yell at her,” the kid says. “I took the book. She’s only carrying it for me because she’s my cavalier.”
Cam blinks at him, but luckily the archivist is also looking at him and doesn’t notice her reaction. “Your—kid, there is no way in hell you have a cavalier. How old are you?”
“Eight and a half,” the kid says, as matter-of-fact as he’d been when he’d told Cam the book was for reading.
“Good grief,” the archivist says, blotting his forehead with the sleeve of his robe, careful not to touch the outside of the gloves. “You’d better come with me, both of you. There’ll be more forms to fill out than you’d believe. Which level did you even—” He cuts himself off and looks harder at the kid. “You—you’re Juno’s, aren’t you?”
“Archivist Zeta is my mother,” the kid says.
“Thought you looked familiar,” the archivist says. “I would have thought she’d impressed on you the importance of following the regulations on the books.”
“She did,” the kid says. “I was trying to be very careful.”
“Not careful enough.” The archivist sighs and finally looks at Cam again. “Come on, give it here.”
She looks over at the kid, and he gives her a tiny nod before she hands the book over. It's not exactly permission she's asking for. It's more a question of, “Will this get us out of most of the trouble we’re in?” She doesn’t know if he understood, but either way, it works.
“Emperor Undying,” the archivist says once the book is securely in his hands. “Come on, with me, both of you.”
They don’t say anything else as they follow the archivist and Cam thinks. She’s in combat training, of course she is, right alongside all the other kids who don’t have a shred of necromantic aptitude—but it’s too early for her to even have an idea where she’ll get sorted. She’s competent enough, but it’s anyone’s guess whose skill and talents will evolve in what way over the next five years. She hasn’t ever seriously considered becoming a necromancer’s cavalier. Well, probably they won’t keep them together anyway. It would be strange for an eight-year-old’s declaration to be treated as gospel.
2.
She keeps her weight on her forearms and toes and her body straight as a board, breathing through the strain in her muscles. She’s getting stronger, she knows. She remembers when she couldn’t hold this position for more than a minute. It still might not be enough. There’s an expiration date on this whole nebulous childhood thing. Just a few months until they’re sorted in her pod. She’s not bad with her blades, but she vastly prefers the weight of her short swords. She feels unwieldy with a rapier, as though the weapon’s chosen wrong and she’s letting it down. Not that that in itself is enough to disqualify her from one of the combat designations. She’s not the best in her pod, though, nor second-best. It’s unclear how the ranking really shakes out at present, but she’s not at the top. As for looks, well, how is she supposed to know? How are any of them supposed to know? She knows that to her, she and the kids in her pod just look like people. She also knows that, to people who aren’t nearly thirteen, they all look at least a bit awkward.
The door to the gym slides open and there’s a knock at the inside of the wall. There’s only one person she knows does that. “Come in, Scholar,” she says, not leaving plank position.
He does, letting the door slide shut behind him and skirting the edge of the mat. “I’ve told you,” he says, “you don’t have to call me that literally all the time.”
“And I told you,” she says, “I’m probably going to anyway.”
He drops it and sits cross-legged on the floor against a mirror wall. “I’ve been thinking,” he says.
“I know,” she says. “That’s literally all you do.”
“It isn’t.”
“All right, but you are thinking all the time.”
“Fair. But I came to talk about something I’ve been thinking, specifically.” She says nothing, and he takes it as the go-ahead it is. “It’s almost time for you to receive your designation, right?”
“You know it is, Scholar,” she says.
“So there’s a limited span of time before I lose you to the Alexandrites,” he says.
She huffs out a laugh, her breath temporarily staining the mat in front of her face. “You know I wouldn’t be an Alexandrite,” she says. “They’re going to stick me in data or something.”
“Sure, whatever you say,” he says. “But what if you don’t do either of those things?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “What do you think is more impressive, my combat technique or my looks?"
“That’s not what I mean,” he says. “I mean I’ve been asking about permissions and protocols, and I want to know if you’d want to be my cav, for real.”
For that, she leaves the plank. She shakes her arms out and sits on the mat cross-legged, mirroring Pal. “You already got permission?”
“No,” he says. “Permission’s as good as sealing the deal. I needed to come talk to you first. And I don’t just mean they wouldn’t let me. I want to know what you think before I make any official inquiries.”
For a long moment, she just looks at him. He looks back, neither of them blinking or backing down. There’s no point in asking why. Who else would there be? But she hasn’t let herself think about it. This isn’t what her fathers have set her up to expect.
“I’m crap with a rapier,” she says.
He shrugs. “You can practice. And you’re terrifying with the short swords.”
That’s true. And she knows enough to know that he wouldn’t ask something like this if he hasn’t turned it over in his mind until he was completely certain. “There are better fighters than me,” she says. It’s not a no.
“I know,” he says. “But I don’t think I’ve ever met one sharper than you.”
“There aren’t any other fighters who learned the scientific method from you,” she says.
He shrugs. “Cam,” he says. “Just tell me this—do you want to be my cavalier?”
Nothing’s easy, except for letting people tell you where to go. Even then, that usually leads to decidedly difficult things. And that’s what feels strange about this moment, she realizes. This is a choice that’s just hers to make, and it is easy.
“Yeah, Scholar,” she says. His face breaks into a grin that looks like it’s too wide to fit there. “I’ll be your cavalier.”
3.
He’s leaving the library when she finds him. Her first thought is that it’s a good thing she didn’t catch him in the middle of anything. Her second thought is that even if she had, he’d have dropped it when he knew how urgent it was. Is that right? Probably. She hopes neither of them will live long enough to disprove it, anyway. She hopes they live a long time.
This isn’t guaranteed, of course. Without Pal’s help now, she’d lower the probability (at least in her case) significantly.
“I need your help,” is all she has to say.
He barely pauses, then nods once, short and sharp. "Where?"
"Atrium B-23-X." The pause is even shorter this time. He sets off and she follows at the perfect half step that's become instinctual. She does not let herself think about an end to this where Palamedes turns her in, where he looks at her as though seeing something monstrous. She does not think about what will happen if he can't help her. He wouldn't, and he can.
Although.
He's going to have some sort of opinion about it—hard to remain neutral on the subject of manslaughter, necromancer or no. She wonders what his will be.
The vacant atrium's not as neglected as one might expect; the servitors get in here, oh, once or twice a month, probably. Cam made sure of that. It would be a rookie move to leave footprints in the dust. Not that she has much experience in this area, and not that she had much choice of location. She's stashed the body behind a low free-standing bookcase by the far wall.
"Hmm," Pal says, and they spend the next several moments in silence. He looks down at the body, nearly as still as it is. What is he thinking? Is he wondering if she regrets it? (She doesn't.) Is he wondering who this was and which of his relations have outlived him? (She doesn't know his name. He wasn't in her pod. But she's seen him around.) Is he wondering why she did it? (She does not ever want to tell him.)
Finally he straightens up and turns to her. "Okay," he says. "I think I know the route least likely to get us seen with it. We just have to stay here for the next..." He looks at his watch. "...seven minutes, give or take."
Camilla breathes in, then out. The knot in her stomach doesn't go away, but she feels it loosen.
4.
Palamedes has never had what you’d call a rosy complexion, but now, as he trudges down the hallway toward her, his skin looks downright gray. With his robes and his forgettable brown hair, there’s really no color to him at all except his sclera, bloodshot and painful looking. Lack of sleep, maybe? His face is dry and pale rather than blotchy, so it’s not from crying.
Neither of them says anything as she falls into step with him. Camilla walks with her arm brushing Pal’s rather than observing the proper cavalier half step behind, and they both understand that she is leading. They maintain this silence until they reach their rooms. Even then, after she’s locked the door behind them and led him to their tiny, utilitarian couch, he doesn’t say anything.
Instead, he holds out a crumpled bit of flimsy. It’s warm, as though he’s been carrying it in his pocket or his hand for a long time. She knows what it is as soon as she sees the handwriting, but she still finishes unfolding it and reads it from beginning to end.
It’s kind. She’s never been anything but kind. That was never a concern. Fortunately or unfortunately, she’s also well aware of the reality the three of them inhabit. Dulcie stresses that it has nothing to do with her personal feelings, that she does truly like Palamedes. It simply isn’t possible.
Camilla believes that that in itself wouldn’t be enough to reduce her necromancer to this ashen shell, but when she gets to the end of the letter, she feels her own throat close up.
“Dearest, you mustn’t bother about me. I would be delighted if you kept writing me, of course, but I am not and never will be your responsibility. I would understand if this letter changes things irreparably. You don’t deserve to tie your hopes to a corpse, and that’s all I’ll be before too long. You deserve someone who can stay with you for decades, who won’t burn out in a moment. I hope you find someone like that, and that they are so very good to you.
I wish you every happiness, every single one.
With great affection…”
Tears blur out Cam’s vision at the very end. She’d told the Warden that this would happen, hadn’t needed to tell him but had anyway. And he’d sent the letter, knowing that this would be the result. It was as though he couldn’t do otherwise. They were always going to end up here.
Cam blinks and looks up at Pal, only to see his eyes have become even redder. She realizes belatedly that it must be from the effort of holding back tears.
“Warden—”
“If you’re going to tell me I’m being—”
“I’m not,” she says. “I’m sorry.” She drops a hand onto the couch between them, and he takes it. His other hand pushes under his glasses to cover his eyes, and not even a moment later, his shoulders are shaking and he’s wheezing and gasping, as though he never learned how to cry properly and now he’s drowning. Cam supposes that’s probably true—the first part, at least. She never exactly learned to cry, either. Her own shoulders remain still and her breathing even as tears stream down her face. They squeeze each other’s hands until their knuckles turn white.
5.
There’s a celebration for them when he gets the invitation, even if the invitation is just for him.
“It’s not just for me,” he argues. “If you weren’t there, there’d be an uproar.”
“They only know who you are,” she points out. She's not actually offended, but she is enjoying being a bit pedantic. “You could show up with anyone and no red flags would be raised.”
“Until I needed an actual cavalier,” he counters. “Anyway, they only know me by name. I’ve only communicated in writing with even the people I ‘know.’ We could show up and say that you’re Palamedes Sextus the necromancer and I’m Camilla Hect, the greatest cavalier the Sixth House ever put forth.”
“Until I needed to do anything necromantic, or you needed to fight someone,” she says. “It could be funny for a few minutes, though.”
“You think we could keep them going until we actually had to do anything?” Pal says. He flexes one skinny bicep. It isn’t just because it’s covered in fabric that nothing seems to happen. “I appreciate your faith in our acting abilities, but they’d take one look at us and the game would be up.”
“Inevitably, Warden,” Camilla deadpans.
“That’s another thing,” Pal says. “Could I get in the habit of calling you ‘Warden’?”
“Don’t even joke about that.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t,” he says, sobering up. “I’d hate to build the habit by accident.”
Camilla rocks forward and backward on her feet. She idly brushes hair back from the side of her face, but even facing the mirror, she isn't seeing herself. She's thinking about the people the Warden knows, or "knows"—what she knows about them, and the fact that soon they'll have faces and voices and impossible to fold away and stash safely in a desk drawer.
"You're going to be okay?" she says. Neither of them have brought up Dulcinea by name for the past year. He knows what she means, anyway.
"Yeah," he says. "I'll be okay. It'll be... odd. But I can be an adult about this." He shakes his head. "God, ridiculous, wasn't I?"
"You don't have to do that."
"What?"
"Act like you regret caring," she says. The words are a little cumbersome in her mouth. He seems to appreciate them anyway.
"Right." He takes a breath. "Ready to go?"
Parties aren't really her scene. Parties where she'll be on display are even less her scene. But she's been ready to follow him for nearly the last two decades of her life.
"Yeah, Warden," she says. "Let's go."
+1.
Of course she knows what to do. She always does. Or, well, one of them does.
Camilla’s never really been alone, is the thing. The Sixth House feels so crowded all the time, even though she knows that objectively, there aren’t terribly many people there. There are enough to surround, at any rate. Technically, she still isn’t alone. With Coronabeth being like that, as though someone’s made it her job to be “life, condensed,” she thinks she shouldn’t be lonely.
But now, it seems there’s only been one person for a long time who kept her from feeling like this, and he’s somehow in a shard of bone in her pack. She trusts him, of course she does. She accepts that he’s there even if she can’t feel him. She keeps it stashed away as she tracks Nonagesimus through the jungle. It’s not that it’s painful to hold it. It’s just that it doesn’t feel like anything.