A Deadly Education

There almost wasn’t room when Orion and Ibrahim arrived from lab. A couple of people shifted to let him sit next to me without so much as a word. I was mostly resigned to that, too. After my performance this morning, people would now assume we were dating even if I tipped his soup over his head. If he did start actually dating someone, everybody would have us in a love triangle for the year.

I had languages after breakfast, and Orion had alchemy. He put the rubbish from his piecemeal breakfast on my tray and bused it for me, and then just as we were going out the door, he said quietly, “Thanks. But I know you didn’t mean it.”

“I did too mean it,” I said, irritated, because now I had to work out why I did. “Someone’s always got to pay, but why should Homicidal Todd get a leg up on anyone else? You’re stupid for letting down your side, but you’re the one who wants it to be fair. Go to your lesson and stop looking for a cwtch.” It irritated me even more that he actually shot me a grateful look before he headed for the stairs.

Orion didn’t say anything back. He just stood there with egg literally on his face and blobs of porridge clinging to his hair, pale and bewildered. Everyone around was darting uncertain looks at him. I stood up and said to Todd, “You’d sail right out of here, enclave boy. And let the mals eat the kid in the room next to yours instead of you. That’s what you’d do. But yeah, have a go at Orion. Sorry, did I miss why you have more of a right to live than anybody he’s saved? More than Mika? How long did it take for him to stop screaming when you shoved him into the dark? Do you even know, or did you just plug your ears and look the other way until it was over?”

The whole room had gone so deathly quiet I could hear Todd’s gulping as he stared at me bloodshot. Everyone was probably holding their breath not to miss a single nuance of this magnificent escalation of gossip. I picked up my tray and turned round to Orion, who looked back at me still shut-down, and I told him, “Come on. We’re getting another table.” I jerked my head to Aadhya, too, who was gawking up at me herself, and she scrambled up and grabbed her own tray and fell in with me, darting looks at my face sideways. Orion did come after us, moving a little slowly.

The only empty tables left were bad ones, far at the edges and right by the doors or under the air vents—obviously nobody had left the cafeteria a second early with this excitement going on—but as we were passing him, Ibrahim blurted into the still-total silence, “El, we have room,” and waved some of the kids at his table to slide over and make space for us. The senior bell went off then, and we sat down surrounded by the sudden burst of activity and noise of all the seniors jerking into motion at once, shoveling in the last of their food and grabbing their things to rush out. Todd went out with them, weirdly separate from the rest, a ring of space left round him.

Orion sat down on the end of the bench, empty-handed. Yaakov was on the other side across from him; he picked up his napkin, hesitating, and I reached out and took it and shoved it at Orion. “You’re a mess, Lake,” I said, and Orion took it and started wiping himself clean. “Can anyone spare anything?” I put one of my own rolls in front of him, and then one after another every single one of the kids at the table started passing something down, even if it was just half a mini muffin or a section of orange, and a kid at the table behind us reached out and tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a carton of milk for him.