The next morning, Tulila came to Ortahn's cell. She entered silently, without knocking, and stood in the center of the room, radiating her usual business-like and dangerous energy.

  "I'm first!" she tossed at Esh and Taut, who had just arrived to wake him, and slammed the door right in front of them. "Congratulations are in order, Ortahn. Your flowerbed has bloomed, even if it was picked from another's garden. And what kind of elite fertilizer did you use to make our little flowers blossom so?"

  Ortahn, who had just woken up, had to concentrate his consciousness in his head to understand what was happening. Finally, Tulila's nonsense made sense.

  "Nothing special," he answered. "I just didn't get in the way of their growth."

  "Let's leave all that pretentious crap to the novelists; we live in reality, not a book of quotes," she cut him off, tossing a nothingness to her hands. "Perhaps it's my fault for choosing my words poorly. Let me put it another way: a large part of the class has suddenly stopped being vegetables. Now your 'just didn't get in the way of their growth' no longer fits. What is your secret, Ortahn?" she asked bluntly.

  Ortahn thought. To him, it also made no sense: why ignore lectures during their specially allotted time only to secretly, in a dusty storeroom, study the very same thing? But perhaps that was precisely the answer.

  He remembered the dark archive with a creak of everything, the smell of rotten paper, and the indecent sounds of Gron releasing air through his lips while trying to cast spells after Ortahn's first lecture to the class. He remembered Lun's eyes, lighting up for the first time at his own words, and Esh, with a focused expression, writing down every word as if it were her precious gem. They were doing it voluntarily. Against Ildara and everything she represented. For Tulila and everything she represented. For themselves.

  "Is it because I'm a woman?" Tulila asked with open frustration, interrupting his thoughts. It was possibly the first time in the history of the world that a woman had uttered such words in such a tone.

  So as not to remain silent in response to his teacher's question, Ortahn forced out, "We just... started listening. To each other, and to ourselves..."

  Tulila narrowed her eyes; her living eye became even more tenacious, and the artificial one turned blue.

  "So you think I'm wasting my time on lectures, and I should just listen to the students? That would be a sight to see if someone walked in: the students are clamoring, and the teacher is walking around putting her ear up to everyone."

  "I don't know," he admitted honestly. "I guess I meant getting the right information about another person because you want to get it. To hear what you haven't heard before, you must first want to hear."

  Tulila laughed quietly. Her laugh was short, with a rasp, as if she were allowing herself a long-forbidden luxury.

  "Some kind of nonsense. But it has a result, unlike my carefully calibrated sense," she brought a pause into the conversation, then removed it, adding, "I am offering you the chance to stay at The Scar. The Chancellery won't allow you to be a full-fledged teacher, but a special assistant—yes. You would be able to develop your ideas and methods and effectively become a male teacher of magic."

  A kaleidoscope of images flashed in Ortahn's mind, but with one common theme: Esh's smile, her funny tuft of hair, the warm smell of the food she brought, the nights in the archive. Here, in this iron tomb, he had found his place and people who believed in him. To stay meant stability, knowledge, almost-recognition, Esh-Faya. But to stay also meant accepting the rules of the game and becoming a tool of the Chancellery, even if through Tulila.

  "I need time to think it over," he finally said.

  "Think it over. And while you're at it, think over this," Tulila's magical hand seemed to pull an invisible thread from her temple and threw it at him. "The exam results will definitely interest the Chancellery. Here, I can protect you. Not here..." she spread all her hands, "...naturally, I can't."

  Tulila left, leaving behind a faint scent of aetheric perfume and a multitude of thoughts.

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  Esh, meeting him in the corridor, didn't ask the obvious: "Why did Tulila come?" She had probably heard their conversation, either by eavesdropping manner or unintentionally; Ortahn couldn't judge his door's soundproofing. They (with Taut) trudged down the corridor, and that focused expression appeared on Esh's face, the one that meant she was deep in analysis.

  "Tulila is very beautiful," Esh began thoughtfully, fiddling with the now-empty food pouch in her hands. "Tall, smart, strong, self-confident. And with a sense of humor."

  Ortahn was surprised by this topic of conversation, although Esh always loved to talk (from politics on astral stations to the optimal shape of a spoon), and the list of topics in the world she hadn't yet had time to discuss was growing ever shorter.

  "A strange topic for conversation," Ortahn said just that.

  "Why strange? I'm just describing objective reality. She's not a short, stupid freak, right?"

  Ortahn didn't point out that people don't just describe "objective reality" for no reason. That would be like saying in passing, "Solara is a star, over there in the sky, where it always is. A hot thing, like the other stars," or "This light-weave in the shape of letters is meant to convey a message to us. How objective and obvious!"

  "That's... a very particular opinion," he answered cautiously, instead of pointing out the illogical construction of their dialogue. "It differs greatly from the opinions of the men in The Scar. They're more afraid of her. There's no admiration for her... femininity, I would say."

  Esh grunted. "So my opinion is strange?"

  "More like, just different from the others," Ortahn admitted.

  "Even from yours?" she asked with a narrowed gaze, and the question no longer sounded idle.

  "I respect Tulila," Ortahn answered honestly. "She's a pragmatist, not a fanatic. At the least, she sees us as tools or something worthy of study. At very least sources for jokes. Not just trash that needs to be broken."

  Esh said nothing, but from the way she nodded, it was clear to Ortahn: conclusions had been drawn, whatever they might be. Without continuing the conversation, she took Taut by the hand and gestured for Ortahn to walk on her other side.

  When they reached the archive, they were greeted by an almost home-like atmosphere and a portion of the "Wild Roses." For a moment, Ortahn wondered, "Why, when the exams are over?" And he answered himself, "Where else would they go? They were deceitfully given free time, but were given nothing but fear to fill it with."

  Vitl was lying on the floor, pretending to meditate. Lun was sitting in a corner, quietly inventing some game with scraps of shelving and bits of paper. Gron was pestering Torb.

  "Come on, metalhead! Just one little figure, the size of a palm. Without clothes, and thicker in the right places, for inspiration. Ortahn said inspiration is the best source of energy!"

  Torb was clearly trying to think of a reason to refuse that was different from his ignorance in that area. Lun, hearing their conversation, was immediately interested.

  "Exactly! Figurines! They can represent the players!"

  Gron and Lun teamed up to persuade Torb. An event as unlikely as a homunculus high-mage. Previously, Gron and Lun could only be in the same sentence with verbs like "bullied" or "teased."

  When Ortahn, Esh, and Taut entered, the "roses," without breaking from their activities, raised their hands in a silent greeting (including Vitl, who didn't even open his eyes). Esh, paying no attention to this creative chaos, sat on her stool and pulled out her heavier notebook, which had fattened to the thickness of a hefty tome.

  "While you were busy with exams, I reread all my notes and couldn't find an answer to a rather fundamental question," she said, addressing Ortahn. "Where and how does the split between female and male magic occur? The Matrix produces male aether too, right? So what's the difference between male and female aethers? And how do they distinguish us, by what trait? We differ in details, of course, but in the end, we're one species. Why is everything arranged this way? I have some ideas for experiments on this, but they're slightly unethical, and I don't want to start my career with that kind of reputation, that going to be less than brilliant as it is: unblessed, a foreigner, and they'll find something else, I'm sure."

  Esh had once again switched to speaking without periods, relying only on commas. This meant she was talking about something truly important to her. Ortahn listened, feeling an awkward realization rise within him: he didn't know. Not that he'd forgotten or was unsure—he just didn't know at all. And he would need the knowledge in these gaps, regardless of his choice. Either he would become a teacher, and this knowledge would be his tool, or he wouldn't, and then it would become even more necessary, but much harder to obtain without Esh.

  "There's a lot I don't know. What I do know, I learned unofficially, you know that," he admitted, then looked at Esh, then glanced around at his students: some were arguing, some were laughing, some were pretending not to hear. If it weren't for the morning conversation with Tulila, if the "Wild Roses" didn't exist, he wouldn't have even thought the next words, but... "You can leave the school, can't you," he said, so quietly that only she could hear. "Get me out of here with you. I have to get to a library."

  Esh slowly closed her notebook, and stared at him for a long time, trying to gauge the degree of his jest. Finally, the corners of her lips twitched.

  "Ortahn," she said with a gentle reproach. "I'm the one who's supposed to suggest mad adventures, and you're supposed to be the voice of reason, remember?"