Free Web NovelNatasha opened her mouth.
She wanted to say something.
For example, an introduction.
Like, "Hello, I'm Natasha."
Or any normal opening line that followed social etiquette.
But Irene had already turned back to Pavela.
"Oh, did you know? Professor Klein assigned us a paper today—three thousand words on the tactical evolution of the Mech Knights Corps during the Second Border War. It's due next week."
"I got stuck halfway through because there are only two books on the Second Border War in the library, and both have been checked out—"
"Look for Dieter," Pavela said.
"Who?"
"The librarian. The old man with the round glasses."
"In the second ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) drawer under his desk, there's a manuscript he hand-copied when he was young. The handwriting is messy, but the content is more complete than the printed versions. Tell him you're interested in The Order's flanking maneuvers during the Second Border War, and he'll take it out for you."
Irene's eyes widened.
"How do you know that?"
"I happened to wander through today."
"You wander through libraries even though you can't read?"
"I look at the pictures. There's a whole wall of battle maps on the east side of the third floor. The annotations are very detailed."
Pavela took a bite of her bread.
"The old man saw me staring at the maps for an hour and came over to chat with me himself."
Natasha finally found a gap to interject.
She took a breath, preparing to speak—
"The caramel layer on the pudding is thinner today than it was last Thursday."
Alicia suddenly said.
Everyone looked at her.
She was gently tapping the surface of her second pudding with the back of her spoon, her head tilted as if listening for something.
"Listen. Last Thursday, the caramel layer made a 'crack' when tapped. Today, it's a 'thud'."
She looked up, her purple eyes turning toward Pavela.
"What do you think?"
Pavela thought for a moment.
"I didn't eat it last Thursday."
"That's a pity."
Alicia lowered her head, cracked the caramel layer of the second pudding, and began to eat.
The breath Natasha had taken was still held in her chest.
The topic had already moved on.
Over the next ten minutes, Natasha experienced a conversation unlike any she had ever known.
She didn't even want to admit it was a conversation.
It was more like some kind of high-speed, multi-threaded information exchange.
Irene was responsible for initiating topics.
Her topic-switching was as fast as flipping through a book—from the professor's paper to the new chef in the cafeteria, from guessing the chef was a southerner based on his accent to whether the southern climate was suitable for growing grapes, from grapes to a new fruit wine shop she saw in town last week, from the fruit wine shop to a dress in the window of the tailor shop next door—
"That dress was primrose yellow with lace at the neckline. I thought of Victoria immediately, but the waistline was too high. It would make Victoria's legs look short—no, Victoria's legs aren't short, it's the dress's fault—"
Alicia was responsible for inserting comments at unexpected points.
Her comments always caught up with the current topic instantly, but her angle of approach was always about thirty degrees off a normal person's train of thought.
"Primrose yellow looks greenish under gaslight."
"What?"
"The spectrum of gaslight leans toward a warm yellow. Primrose yellow fabric undergoes a color shift under such a light source, appearing with a slight green tint. It wouldn't happen under arc lamps."
"...How do you know that?"
"I've seen it."
"Seen what?"
"Colors."
Then the topic jumped from dresses to light spectrums, from spectrums to the principles of arc lamps, and from arc lamps to the lighting system in the academy's underground laboratory—
Natasha tried to insert "I heard the underground lab was destroyed in an explosion" at the "lighting system" point, but just as she organized her words, Irene had already moved from the lighting system to the progress of the post-explosion reconstruction, and from the reconstruction to how one of the workers on the construction crew looked like her family's former groom—
She gave up.
She picked up her cup to drink water, deciding to be a quiet listener.
The light outside the window dimmed a bit more.
The setting sun had already sunk below the beams of the scaffolding, leaving only the last remnants of the afterglow to seep in along the edge of the windowsill like a thin layer of honey, spread over the glass, the window frame, and the surface of this long table tucked against the wall of the cafeteria.
At some point, someone had turned up the gas lamps on the ceiling.
The frosted glass shades filtered the firelight into a warm amber, spilling down from the eight-meter-high oak beams onto the heads and shoulders of the four girls.
Silver, dark, platinum, and brownish-red.
Four colors, each shining in the same pool of light.
"—I'm telling you, the lady who owns that fruit wine shop is incredibly fierce. I just asked if I could have a taste, and she kicked me out—"
"Maybe she just didn't want you to 'taste' the whole bottle."
"I only had one small sip!"
"Your one small sip is three big gulps for anyone else."
"Pavela! Why are you taking her side too!"
Laughter.
Irene laughed until her eyes curved into crescents, her shoulders shaking so much she forgot to put down her knife and fork.
Alicia didn't laugh out loud, but the curve of her lips was slightly wider than before, and there was a faint warmth in her purple eyes, like the reflection of a hearth fire.
The clamor of the cafeteria became something distant in that moment.
The next table was still discussing white mechs, the sound of hammering outside continued, and the steam pipes hummed deep within the walls.
But all these sounds were blocked out by something.
It was as if there was an invisible, small space around this table, just large enough for four people, sealing off everything outside.
Natasha looked down at the water cup in her hand.
A layer of fine droplets had condensed on the side of the cup.
One was slightly larger than the others, hanging in the middle of the cup's wall, round and reflecting a tiny point of light in the amber glow.
It hung there for a long time.
Then it began to move.
Slowly, it slid down along the curve of the cup.
On its way, it met another smaller droplet, and the two merged into one, becoming heavier and sliding faster.
It met another.
And another.
Faster and faster, larger and larger, until it silently joined the small pool of water at the bottom of the cup.
Natasha suddenly felt something in her chest loosen.
It was like a string that had been taut for a long time, plucked gently by a fingertip in an inadvertent moment, letting out a very low, almost inaudible hum before returning to stillness.
She couldn't quite describe the feeling.
Relief, perhaps?
Her shoulders weren't as tight.
Her back wasn't as tight.
Her fingers gripping the cup weren't as tight.
The gazes stabbing into her back were still there, but she suddenly didn't care as much.
She was sitting here.
In the innermost part of the cafeteria, against the wall, in the commoner-among-commoners area.
Sitting beside her was a white-haired girl who only ate pudding; across from her was an illiterate silver-haired girl; and next to her was a daughter of a Marquis whose words came faster than a machine gun.
They were arguing about whether the fruit wine shop lady was too fierce.
This matter was completely meaningless.
It had nothing to do with the war.
Nothing to do with the Fire of Freedom.
Nothing to do with any of the heavy, cold things she chewed over repeatedly in the middle of the night.
It was just a few girls having dinner.
Just the sunset nearly finished, the light being warm, the pudding being sweet, and someone laughing.
She even began to hope this moment could last a little longer.
"—By the way, have you heard?"
Irene's voice suddenly slowed down.
She put down her knife and fork and wiped the corners of her mouth with a napkin.
"About the Old City."
Pavela's movements also paused.
"The Gendarmerie found a body in the Old City last week," Irene said, "in that cluster of alleys east of the Old District."
"I heard the face was severely damaged and they still haven't confirmed the identity. A young male, early twenties, with sand-colored hair."
"The official statement is a 'brawl between vagrants', but I heard from my sister's people... it doesn't seem like that."
Alicia's spoon stopped above her third pudding, without descending.
Her purple eyes moved from the pudding to look at Irene. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
Irene, however, turned her head to look at Natasha.
There was a very serious, sincere light in her golden-brown eyes.
"Natasha, you're better informed than we are in the academy," she said. "Have you heard anything from the Commoner Scholarship Students' side?"
Pavela also looked up.
Her grey-blue eyes rested quietly on Natasha's face.
Alicia's gaze also turned over.
Three people.
Three pairs of eyes.
All looking at her.
All waiting for her to speak.
The water cup in Natasha's hand suddenly felt very heavy.
The last droplet on the cup's wall was slowly sliding down the curved surface.
She watched it.
It didn't merge into the pool at the bottom.
It stopped halfway, hanging right there.
Neither up nor down.
