Iolanthe grinned, even though her palms were damp. “They are hoping so too. Good day, ma’am.”
The prince waited for her at the door. She was surprised to see his expression of sullen impatience—it was unlike his controlled, reticent person. He didn’t speak to her as they left the dining room.
But when they were outside Mrs. Dawlish’s house, he said softly, “Well done.”
She glanced at him. “Was that why you looked as if you’d like to hit me with something?”
“She would be that much more watchful of you if she believed our friendship to be genuine.” His lips curled slightly, a halfhearted sneer. “Much better that she sees me as an arrogant prick and you an opportunist.”
Friendship is untenable for people in our position.
She never wanted to feel sympathy for him. But she did, that moment.
Titus was curious to see her reaction to their afternoon divisions.
They had Latin again, conducted by a tutor named Frampton, a man with a big beak of a nose and fleshy lips. One rather expected Frampton to speak wetly, but he enunciated with nothing less than oratorical perfection as he lectured on Ovid’s banishment from Rome and read from Tristia.
Fairfax seemed mesmerized by Frampton’s master-thespian voice. Then she bit her lower lip, and Titus realized that she was not listening only to Frampton’s voice, but also to Ovid’s words of longing.
She too was now an Exile.
They were almost a quarter hour into the division before she saw Frampton for what he was. As he read, Frampton passed by her desk. She glanced up and seized in shock: the design on Frampton’s stickpin was a stylized whirlpool, the infamous Atlantean maelstrom. Immediately she bent her head and scribbled in her notebook, not looking at Frampton again until he had returned to the front of the classroom.
After dismissal, she all but shoved Titus into the cloister behind the quadrangle, her grip hard on his arm.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“He is obvious. You would have to be blind not to see.”
“Are there agents who don’t wear the emblem?”
“What do you think?”
She inhaled. “How many?”
“I wish I knew. Then I would not need to suspect everyone.”
She pushed away from him. “I’m going to walk back by myself.”
“Enjoy your stroll.”
She turned to leave; then, as if she had remembered something, pivoted back to face him. “What else are you keeping from me?”
“How much can you handle knowing?”
Sometimes ignorance truly was bliss.
Her eyes narrowed, but she left without further questions.
Iolanthe didn’t return to Mrs. Dawlish’s directly, but walked northeast, along the road before the school gate. To the left of the road was a large green field; to the right a high brick wall twice as tall as she.
Hawkers lined this wall. An old woman in a much-patched dress tried to sell Iolanthe a dormouse. A sun-browned man waved a tray of glistening sausages. Other hawkers peddled pies, pastries, fruits, and everything else that could be consumed without plates or silverware. Around each hawker, junior boys congregated like ants on a picnic, some buying, the rest salivating.
The normalcy of the scene only made Iolanthe feel more out of place. For these boys, this was their life. She was only passing through, pretending.
“Fairfax.”
Kashkari. She inhaled: Kashkari made her nervous. He seemed to be the rare person who asked a question and actually paid attention to the answer.
“Where are you going?” Kashkari asked as he crossed the street and came to stand next to her.
“Reacquainting myself with the lay of the land.”
“I don’t think that much has changed since you were here last. Ah, I see old Joby is back with his ha’penny sherbet drinks. Fancy one?”
Iolanthe shook her head. “The weather’s a bit cool for it.”
But she followed Kashkari to a gaunt-looking hawker. Kashkari bought a handful of toasted walnuts and held out his palm to her.
“Look, it’s Turban Boy and Bumboy together.”
Iolanthe whipped around. Trumper and Hogg.
“Bumboy, is Turban Boy your coolie now?” sniggered Trumper.
Her reputation obviously had not preceded her here. Few schoolchildren in any mage realm deliberately chose to provoke elemental mages, as by the time latter were old enough to attend school, they would have had years of conditioning, directing their anger into physical, rather than magical, responses. And also because an elemental mage was almost never considered at fault, as long as the school hadn’t burned down at the end of a fight.
Kashkari must have seen the belligerence in her face. “Ignore them. They feel more accomplished when you rise to the bait.”
“I hate to pass on good fisticuffs.” She took a few toasted walnuts from him. “But after you.”
The walnuts were sweet and crunchy. They walked on. Trumper and Hogg shouted insults and slurs for another minute before giving up.