“And on that note,” Emmy broke into our conversation, leaning over me to glare at the guy, “you two should really stop gossiping about them.”
“Sorry,” I muttered to the guy, after pushing Emmy back. “She hasn’t eaten yet.”
He chuckled. “No problem. I’m Atti, by the way.”
“I’m Willa, and my grumpy friend here is Emmy.”
Atti shook his head, his short curls jumping around a little like they were trying to escape his head. “Why haven’t I seen you two around before? I know Elowin keeps us locked down in service to her, but I thought I’d crossed paths with most resident dwellers by now.”
Before I could fess up to my mistake and our recruit status, a commotion across the room stole all our attentions. The recruits—who were now wearing no more than underclothes—were dragging themselves out to stand in the centre of the room. They were being paraded around. The two almost-identical demon-sols—Siret and Yael—remained standing at their table. Just standing. Smug, arrogant, assholes. They had these half-smirks on their faces, like they were enjoying the discomfort of the dwellers—feeding on it, even. Their huge bodies seemed to grow even larger, the perfect planes of their faces deepening. The shimmers of gold which tinted the darkness of their hair was stronger, almost as if they had this inner light which was shining brighter.
I was starting to see the gods-in-training thing, to really see it. There was nothing dweller in these sols, no matter what the history said of the origins of the gods and sols.
“Why does no one stop them?” I murmured, my feet shifting. I had to force myself to remain against the wall, I couldn’t stand to see others humiliated like this.
It was different when I was humiliated. I was used to it; I could handle it. They couldn’t. They had once been the brightest, the smartest, the most honoured amongst their own people … and now? All of a sudden, they were less than garbage.
Atti answered. “The teachers tend to leave sols to deal with things themselves. They don’t monitor them outside of lessons. They say the gods are always watching, and that usually keeps most of them in line.”
Except for the Abcurse brothers. Clearly they weren’t worried about the gods and their spying eyes. I tilted my head to the right, my gaze catching on Emmy. She started shaking her head frantically at me.
“Don’t you move, Will. Don’t move a freaking muscle or I will kill you. Drawing the attention of any sol is a bad thing; drawing the attention of those five sounds like it’ll be catastrophic.”
She had a point, but I was a pro at catastrophic. With that in mind, I took a deep breath and stepped off the wall.
Four
No one noticed.
No one!
Where was my clumsy curse when I needed to make a scene? I had no idea what to do short of stripping off my own clothes and running naked through the gaps in the tables. But how could that help the shaking recruits out there? Just as my hands went to my shirt, fists clenching the sides, another short, tinkling bell rang out, and the scent of food drifted in through a set of now-open doors.
Siret waved a hand then, and the room shifted. I blinked twice to make sure I was seeing things clearly. How in the hell? All of the recruits were back against the wall, fully dressed. It was as if none of the last few clicks had even happened. My mouth was open, like right open. A damn flying mantis could have walked right in there with no problem.
“He tricked us,” I muttered, managing to speak around my shock. As if he had heard my words, Siret shifted his body in my direction, and those shimmery golden-green eyes slammed against me. Hard.
Now someone noticed me?
I was grabbed from behind; either Emmy or Atti yanked me back against the wall, probably trying to save my life. If Siret or his brothers retaliated to my tiny attempt at making a stand against dweller-abuse … well, it would probably be the second time this sun-cycle those bullsen balls would try to kill me. How many times would it take for them to succeed?
A line of resident dwellers brought forth the sols’ dinner, looking completely oblivious and unaffected. I braved a glance from under my lashes, and managed to breathe deeply when there were no jewel-like eyes staring in my direction. Like most men, the Abcurse demons had one true love.
Food.
Emmy kept two eyes on me for the rest of the dining time. No other humiliation was dished out for the dwellers, if you discounted the normal shitty way they were treated. Trays thrown at them when the sols were done eating, barked orders for more drinks and food, mutterings about dirt-dwellers and their ineptitude at all things. All things.
The recruits were supposed to observe this first dinner, learning everything it was possible to learn before being expected to dive right in for the next dinner. Thankfully, there were plenty of other resident dwellers who stood with me and Emmy, waiting for a summons. Not all of them had active duties in here, so we didn’t stand out.
Right up until I heard a shout.