Heart of Dorkness

Terror Thirty-Six - Light

“Contact with too much light could cause some issues, especially so soon after the procedure,” the priest says. I take notes in my pad, to make extra sure I won’t be forgetting anything important. “Your eyes might not be entirely ordinary. Some part of your soul has changed since you lost them, and I’m not certain how that will manifest.”

He’s right. Felix’s eyes don’t look normal. They’re not brown or black, as is pretty common around here. I’ve seen some blue eyes too, and green, but those are rarer. I’ve never seen eyes like Felix’s though. They’re a pale, pale yellow. If it wasn’t for a faintly darker ring around the edge, it would be hard to make out her iris at all.

“Will the headache go away?” Felix asks.

“In time, yes,” the priest says. “No more than a few hours from now, I would imagine. Though if they do persist, I would suggest a small dose of laudanum for the pain.”

“Thanks,” I say. “I’ll make sure she takes care of herself.”

Felix chuffs out a laugh. “Sure,” she says. “I think I’ll just keep this on for now.” Reaching up, she touches the band around her face. Her blindfold has been loosened a little so it doesn’t squeeze her new eyes too much, and so she can tug it down easier.

“You shouldn’t have to,” I say.

“It’s easier for now, and besides, I can see everything with my wind. I can take some time and learn how to see normally when you need it.”

“When I need it?” I ask. That’s a weird way of phrasing it. “Well, whatever. Taking it slow is probably for the best. Thank you, sir.”

“It’s nothing. Come, I’ll escort you girls out of the temple.”

The priest does as he says, and if he has us lingering around the donation box for a while, I don’t comment. I do drop in a few of the copper billon taking up space in my purse, just to be nice. I don’t want to seem cheap, after all.

And then Felix and I are back outside and on the busy streets of Montele.

“What do we do now?” Felix asks. Her smile is so broad it’s almost scary.

“Now we, ah... hmm. That’s a good question. I suppose we could check in with Esme, but it wouldn’t be nice to have gone around all morning without getting anything done. How about we go check out the academy?”

“That sounds nice,” Felix agrees.

I wiggle my fingers, and she easily grabs hold of my hand. It’s nice. Mom is great, but it took a whole lot of work to get her used to hugging, and she’s still not super great with physical affection.

Finding out where the academy is is my next challenge. I walk over to a pair of guards standing by a corner and wait until they don’t look too busy. “Excuse me, sirs?” I ask.

“Yes?” the younger of the two asks.

“Do you know where the academy is? The Hero’s Academy, I mean.”

The guard smiles. “Of course. Visiting a brother?”

“Uh, no? Just want to see it while I’m in the capital.”

“Ah, I see. You know, they don’t accept young misses. It’s not a proper life for a girl.”

I blink. Girls can’t be heroes? That’s stupid. If I weren’t already a villain, I’d consider becoming a hero to prove stupid people wrong. But then that might take a lot of time away from my reading and magic stuff. “Okay. I just want to see it.”

“Certainly,” he says before pointing down the street. I listen to his instructions, which mostly rely on keeping track of a couple of landmarks. A bakery on one corner, a small cathedral on another, then the academy itself, which has a wall all around it to keep people out, but there are breaks in it here and there.

I thank the guard before pulling Felix along after me.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to just walk in there,” Felix says.

“No, but it won’t hurt to know what the place looks like,” I say. “Besides, I’m curious now. Have you ever heard of this place?”

“Not really, no.”

Well, it’s an academy, or so the name says, so I presume that they teach things there. And it’s an academy for heroes, so that’s probably what the people who leave there become. That doesn’t tell me much about their curriculum though.

What is heroism? How to wear a nice caplet and convince people you’re pretty swell? Or is it more like a military academy?

There has to be one of those somewhere, so why also a hero’s academy?

That’s probably that stupid god of the heroes, with his silly name, and his long-lasting grudge against Mom. Just because she killed a few of his pals when they tried to break into our home some time ago.

Every time she talks about him, I get this mental image of some sporty jock guy who’s very cocksure and rude. Like a peacock... or maybe a territorial goose.

I tell that to Felix, and I get a happy giggle in return. That keeps my mood up as we make it through the city and towards the academy.

The first I see of the academy are the towers sticking out on the corners. Four buildings, with windows all over them poking above the smaller buildings all around. They’re joined into the academy walls, which are only about a storey tall and lined with crenulations that partially hide what must be a walkway that reaches all around the entirety of the school.

There’s a larger building at the rear too, a sort of castle, all square and robust-looking, with thinner towers here and there and big windows along its sides. A cathedral?

It’s a pale imitation of home, but I can’t help but think of that as I stare up at the building.

“There’s a gate there,” Felix says as she points ahead.

I look, and she’s right: there is a gate within an arch in the wall. A big, heavy gate made of iron bars. No one’s guarding it, though.

“Let’s go check it out,” I say.

Felix and I cross the road--looking both ways!--and move over to the gate. I jam my head through to see out the other side.

The academy has a large open space at its centre, with some buildings on either end. Smaller walls and hedges within separate everything into what look like distinct sections. There’s the big castle at the far end, with some open yards before it where a lot of young men in white robes are swinging wooden swords while an instructor walks by them.

The other end has smaller buildings. They could be any one of the homes in the city, really, only they have bigger yards and some are connected by bridges on their upper floors. Administration buildings? Barracks? I can only guess.

“We’re going to need some of those robes,” I say.

“Why?” Felix asks.

“Because all of the students are wearing them,” I reply. Some of those students are walking around the many paths around the buildings, carrying things and doing chores. “If we don’t want to be noticed, then that’s how we’ll do it.”

I notice two things then. First, a cart being pulled by a pair of donkeys, making its way along a cobble road in the middle of the site. It's covered in books. A whole heap of them.

Then, off to the other end, a single man in trousers and a plain shirt, pushing a wheelbarrow piled high with dirty robes.

“I think I have an idea,” I say.

“Oh?” Felix asks.

“That guy, with the wheelbarrow. He’s our mark.”

Felix nods, and I’m worried by how easily she caught onto my new plan.

We watch the man move over to a similar gate in the far wall, one that’s opened up by a bored person in the same white robes.

“Let’s move!” I say.

Felix and I run, hand in hand, all the way to the end of the academy wall, then along the sidewalk that hugs the frontmost section of the estate. There’s a building instead of a wall, with barred windows overlooking the street and a big gatehouse at the very front. That’s not where our target exits though.

Instead, we find him on the other side. The moment I swing around the next corner, lungs already burning, I see him walk down a street and turn a corner. “We need to go faster.”

“You’re the slow runner,” Felix says.

It’s very hard to run while pouting, I find, but I manage.

***