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“I don’t have any gift,” I said dryly, without even lying.
There were unusual abilities, yes, but there was no gift.
– And we still have to find out, Salaman. Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. This is what happens when you are in a hurry,” the woman realized with a smile. – Madame Noshli Pelisay. Welcome to the Midnighter Academy.
Chapter 3. Distant ancestors
My guide and I walked out of the main building of the academy, under the light of the lanterns, together with madam. During my descent to the first floor, I learned that my things would be brought directly to the room allocated to me. But not mom. My parent chose not to see me before leaving, which was incredibly offensive. But she sent a note through Madame Pelisey.
However, I didn’t read anything new in it. Aletra Evesey promised to write to me once a week and asked me not to be stubborn, emphasizing that my presence at this academy was the best decision for both of us. This way she wouldn’t worry about me, because I was now under reliable protection.
But she didn’t take into account that I’m not a soulless robot either. Where should I put my excitement? How to get rid of emerging fears?
Having stood on the porch of the academy to wait for Madame Pelisey to disappear behind the gate, I confidently headed towards it, completely ignoring both the gargoyle that was not sparing my nerves and the student assigned to me.
No matter what mom says, we will be safer together. I'll look after her, and she'll look after me. This plan worked perfectly for eighteen years.
And it’s elementary: who will be on duty while mom is sleeping? When I grew up, we took turns doing this service.
No, I understood perfectly well that she was tired. I didn't like the nomadic life either. At first it seemed interesting: new cities, new people, so much unknown ahead. But the complete lack of consistency is annoying. Everyone wants a home where they can return after long travels and feel relaxed and comfortable.
– Hey, where are you going? – the brunette called out to me as soon as I ran down the steps. – The freshman dormitory is on the other side.
“Go there yourself,” I snapped, simultaneously sticking out my tongue to the once again petrified gargoyle. “I’m not going to stay here just because your madam said so.”
“So they brought you here by force?”
“They brought it,” I stubbornly corrected, walking around the flower beds along the stone-paved path.
– I'm sorry.
I looked at the guy in surprise, but only for a moment. His face actually showed genuine regret.
“People rarely come here against their will. Usually due to an unstable gift.
– I don’t have any gift! – I repeated the lie.
“Yes, whatever you say,” he said conciliatoryly. “But you still can’t get out of the gate.” For this you need a pass.
– I can do without a pass. Go about your business already. I definitely don't need spies.
Having reached the gate, I just waved away the guy who again wanted to tell me something. Instead, she touched the gate, intending to simply climb over it. I hoped that my mother was delayed on this side or had not yet managed to drive away from the library, unloading my few things, otherwise it would be more difficult to find her.
But I will find it. Because together and only together we are strong.
However, as soon as I grabbed the metal bars with my other hand, I was abruptly thrown away from the gate. It was so thrown that if I landed on the grass or path, I would definitely have left bruises.
But I was lucky. The brunette softened my fall. By yourself. Having knocked him down, I found us in a flowerbed with shaped grass. Turning over to face him, she found it.
“I told you: you need a pass to go out the gate,” Nirel raised his head.
At the same time, he held me by the waist with both hands.
Resting her palms on his chest to be as far away from his face as possible, she looked around. It threw us back quite a bit – about thirty meters. I wonder if I can get a ladder around here somewhere?
The guy's voice broke into my thoughts:
– I understand that you are angry now.
I was truly surprised.
–Am I angry? Yes, I'm furious. Mom left me here, and she went to hell.
“She probably had reasons for this.” I'm sure if she could, she wouldn't leave you here.
Pulling me close again, he suddenly rolled with me. Now I was lying on the grass, which made me both embarrassed and taken aback, because his face was again unacceptably close, and he was hanging over me, supporting the weight of his body in his arms.
– You don’t even know her! – I was indignant, floundering under him.
In order to free himself, he had to turn on his side and with an effort, out of stubbornness, tear one of his hands off the ground. This was the only way I was able to roll away and get to my feet.
The student then stood up.
– Can we get a ladder? Or a high stepladder?
Carefully suppressing the embarrassment that arose out of nowhere, I took a closer look at the surrounding surroundings. I looked among the flower beds, grass, benches and bushes for something that I could use to build a lifting tower. The benches were not suitable for this purpose: their metal legs were embedded in the paths.
– Very unlikely. And even if something similar can be found at the academy, no one will give you anything. Let's go, I'll take you to the dorm. There is still a little time before dinner to settle into the new place.
– Nirel… That’s your name, right? – I clarified, just in case, and, having received a confident nod, continued: – Nirel, you need to go and settle in. And I need to get a pass. Where can I get it?
– Only with the freshman curator. And for this you need to go to the hostel.
A mocking smile appeared on his lips. And so I understood its nature. To get the pass, I still have to do what I just tried my best to avoid.
“I’m sure you’ll like it here,” he softened, motioning for me to go forward.
– But not me.
Walking around him in a wide circle, I walked with an independent air to the two-story building closest to the academy. It was also built from gray stone. Under the night sky it seemed dark and gloomy.
“The freshman building is on the other side,” they politely informed me, but I directly felt that the guy was laughing at that moment.
Personally, I was not laughing. Time irrevocably slipped through our fingers, and the longer we walked along the paths past benches and lampposts, falling under the shadows of trees with voluminous foliage, the stronger the confidence grew in me that I would not make it in time.
I won’t be able to get near our rental car before my mom leaves.
–Are you a freshman too? – I asked, looking sideways at my guide.
I felt comfortable walking next to him in silence, but my innate curiosity did not allow me to remain silent. Nirel was like those who were called “golden boys” in the schools where I studied. Ideal appearance, ideal manners and enormous pride tied to immense arrogance.
If these guys didn't have a brain at all, they were incredibly annoying. And if everything was in order with the thought, then they evoked fear on an instinctive level. Because they made wonderful manipulators.
I didn’t yet understand which nut I got.
– Freshman? – the student was restrainedly surprised, defiantly raising his right eyebrow. – No, I'm already on the third. There are two and a half years left until graduation.
– And this one?
Hinting at Spider-Man, I played with my eyebrows.
– This? – Nirel asked, frowning. -Are you talking about Percy? He's also in third. He just can’t come to terms with the fact that I have a better gift of premonition than he does.
A chuckle escaped the expressive lips, and with an effort of will I forced myself to look at his eyes.
“I thought that I wouldn’t be able to find him in the form of a spider.”
– Find… Were you playing hide and seek, or what?
I was horrified. Is there really nothing to do here?
– You can say so. Only the territory is not limited and there are no rules. Each of us has abilities. So we checked them.
– Like acute vision or hearing? – I suggested casually, trying not to be seen as being overly interested.
The guy thought for a moment.
– Let’s put it this way: what do you know about Midnighters anyway?
As promised, by this time the guy had escorted me to the freshman building, but I was in no hurry to go inside the gray two-story building.
I understood that running to the gate, rustling with slippers, no longer made sense. Now you need to act with a cool head, with a clearly defined plan. This technique worked best. At least with mom.
Sitting down on a bench opposite the high porch, I decided to find out as much information as possible. Moreover, Nirel answered willingly, did not hide anything and tried to add more details, as if he were explaining to a child.
I was not a child, but my knowledge was characterized by one single word – meager. There was nothing I could do to make the story easier for my interlocutor. I knew almost nothing that was really, in my opinion, important.
I only learned today that there is a territory hidden from human eyes. After a sleepless night spent on the road, a hectic morning with changing cars, and a not very tasty lunch at an eatery with the telling name “Massacre,” my mother brought me to the central city library in Ashwool.
This building was very different from its counterparts on the street. The old houses here were demolished one after another due to their unsuitable condition, and in their place two-story townhouses with an attic under the roof were built. Red brick, dark brown roof. The houses with several apartments looked cozy and well-kept, but the library did not correspond at all to their architecture, or to the new look of the area as a whole.
No, this building also looked clean and tidy. But at the same time, it felt like Her Majesty the Queen in a fluffy crinoline dress was stuck between modern families from an advertisement for toothpaste or mayonnaise. I was even afraid to go inside. No, I wasn’t afraid that the walls would suddenly collapse, but I was sincerely worried whether we could even go there.
What if, instead of a library, there has long been a museum with the most valuable exhibits from the times of that same queen?
I was wrong. Inside, the treasury of knowledge resembled the most ordinary library, as I imagined it in my imagination. Not a school one, of course, there were many times more books here, but it was not forced to the point of “impossible to pass through.”
Along the walls there were neat, identical cabinets made of light wood, up to the ceiling. They stood inside the hall in such a way that they created endlessly stretching rows, at the very end of which only dull darkness could be seen.
To the right of the entrance, behind the long counter, a dressing room with elongated floor hangers with dozens of hooks was visible through a wide window. And right in front of us there was a narrow table, behind which, under the dim light of a table lamp, a stern older lady was revealed.
Everything seemed strict: the neat bun of gray hair, the look, and the light gray dress, which I could see only after the woman stood up.
– A psycho has been chasing us for eighteen years, and we came to the library? – I was puzzled, shivering under the gaze of almost colorless gray eyes. – What do you want to find here, mom? A guide on the topic “how to properly bury the corpse of a maniac”?
Mom tried to stop me:
– Don’t be sarcastic and stop being angry.
– But you don’t explain anything! Although I promised! – I was indignant, raising my voice.
“It’s not customary to shout here, mademoiselle,” the librarian croaked colorlessly.
And I had a persistent desire to poke her with a stick from a distance to ask: “Is she even alive?” Because of the echo, the voice seemed otherworldly, as if distant and at the same time three-dimensional.
Turning to me, the parent hugged me tightly, squeezing my shoulders. And when she pulled away, her gaze found my eyes. She looked carefully, piercingly, directly, as only she could.
If she now says that we will now live here, I will certainly bite her.
“Sally, I just don’t have that much time to tell you everything right now.” One question will lead to another. This conversation is not for one minute,” she tenderly touched my cheek with her palm. “But I want you to know, daughter, that I love you very much.” Everything that I have done, am doing and will do is solely for your sake.
– Why did we come to the library? – I persistently repeated my question, because the answer to it was the simplest.
And something else will definitely not follow him. Just one word: information, books, manual. About how to survive autonomously in the forest for a whole year if a maniac is chasing you.
But my mother couldn’t fit it into one word:
– Because this is where there is a passage to places where ordinary people cannot get.
– But we are ordinary people!
I became stubborn. She became stubborn because she wanted to finally hear at least some specifics. The recognition that I had been secretly waiting for for the last four years – ever since I realized that I was a little, but still different from normal people. Ever since I began to subconsciously guess that the maniac was somehow connected with my abilities.
Guess, yes. But don’t believe in it, don’t think about it, don’t reflect. Out of fear of being right, I cut off my guesses in the bud.
The lady in gray was clearly starting to get angry:
– Silence.
“One more second, please,” Mom asked, turning around for a moment, after which she said with a soft smile: “No, Sally.” We are not ordinary people. At least I do. I'm Midnight, honey. One of those who never sleeps at night. Of those who maintain order on this side of the world and on the other.
– Which one? By Dark? – I remembered her words in the car.
– This is what I was talking about. Behind one answer there is the next question, but I really don’t have time now, although I would really like to finally get rid of this burden. One thing I can say for sure: you will get all the answers to your questions elsewhere. Then when you are safe. We're on the second floor.
The last statement she made was no longer for me. Hearing this simple phrase, the Gray Lady silently took her chair again and feigned painstaking work. We freely walked past her desk to the massive gilded door that was located on the right.
The simple curls on the canvas sparkled under the dim light of the lamps. The door looked like the entrance to a treasury and nothing else, but behind it there was a wide staircase of two flights, with carved railings and finials in the form of folded wings of bats.
