Nature appreciation was a key component of the Whitethorn method. By teaching students to appreciate the world they had, they could convince those same students to loosen their grasp on the world they were supposed to be forgetting. Cora liked nature appreciation. It was all lectures and hands-off, no-touching, but at least it was outside, in the open air. She’d take outside even without the lake any day.

  Some of the girls weren’t even allowed that much. They were the ones who’d gone to worlds with too much nature and not enough civilization, the ones who looked at the walls of the school like they were some sort of affront and needed to be torn down. When the rest of the class went on a nature walk, those girls sat inside and read from a pile of carefully selected books and magazines, all touting the wonders of human innovation and the spread of human technology.

  Regan was normally part of that group, kept away from anything that might make her think too much about the talking horses and endless farmlands of her home. It was a shock, then, when Cora stepped around a curve in the nature path and nearly slammed right into her.

  She was standing right in the middle of the walkway; head tilted back she could see the spreading green branches struggling to block the watery gray sky, and there were tears in her eyes, like this was the most beautiful, impossible thing she’d ever seen.

  It was a trap. A trap and a trick and Cora noted its nature even as she felt vaguely insulted that they’d thought she might fall for it. The Serpent had had far more respect for her as an adversary, and the Serpent had hated her. These people. They ran a school filled with heroes, and somehow they still thought they could treat them like children and get what they wanted without ever really trying.

  They were too far from the school for anyone to be listening in, unless Regan was being more closely escorted than she seemed. Cora stopped, falling back into her polite, polished pose, and tried to pretend to be enthralled by a particularly fascinating bit of lichen. It was purple, ruffled like a lace cuff, and remarkable only because it happened to be positioned so that looking at it offered her an excellent view of the athletic field. There were no matrons hiding in the tangle of the wood, of that much she was sure; they lacked the grace to work their way that deeply into the brush without breaking a trail, and once a trail was broken, students would try to take it, driven by their unkillable need to see more than they were technically allowed.

  There was no one. She and Regan were alone. Well, really, she was with Regan, and Regan was alone, still so focused on the trees that she hadn’t noticed Cora at all.

  “That’s a good way to wind up dead, where I come from,” said Cora. Regan jumped. Cora paid her no mind. “Ambushes are way easier when the people you’re trying to ambush aren’t paying any attention to the avenues of attack. You’re a trap, you know.”

  “I thought that might be why they let me outside, but I didn’t care if it meant I got to smell the green things, and I still don’t care,” said Regan. Her voice was worn out, resigned, like she had considered every way this conversation could play out, and decided none of them were worth fighting for. “I guess they know I’m not going to graduate, and they don’t want to send me home still broken. So they might as well dangle me for someone like you, to see whether you’ll take the bait.”

  It took Cora a moment to understand what Regan was implying. She scowled, too offended to measure the expression against the sort of things that were considered appropriate and acceptable for a girl like the one she was pretending to be. “So they sent you out here, and you went anyway, even though you thought they were going to have someone come along to kill you?”

  “You let your friend hit me the last time we talked.” There was a flicker of humor in Regan’s eyes. Under all the weariness, she wasn’t broken yet.

  “Yes, yes, to cover for you so you didn’t get in trouble for talking to us,” said Cora. “I’m not that kind of killer.”

  “Don’t you mean ‘I’m not a killer’?”

  “I say what I mean, usually,” said Cora. “I’m a killer. I’d bet most of us are, here. Doesn’t matter whether you admit it or not. Once you’ve killed, you’re a killer. The difference between a person they write songs about and a person they tell their children to avoid is volume, and how many lungs you ripped out.” Cora visibly caught herself, wincing. “Sorry. That was a little … intense. I’m not going to hurt you. Actually, I’m glad you’re the honeytrap they set for me. I have a question for you.”

  Regan looked dubious. “What question?”

  “You can talk to horses, and to things that look like horses but can’t possibly be horses. Some of the things you mentioned have feathers. Horses don’t have feathers. So is it a shape thing, or a hooves thing, or what? Can you talk to cows? Can you talk to deer?”

  “I don’t know what it is,” said Regan slowly. “I suppose it’s more shape than anything else. If something says ‘horse’ to the part of my brain that knows how to translate, I can do it. I understand what cows are saying, but I don’t know how to talk back to them, and I try not to listen too hard. Cows write really bad poetry about grass and clouds and the farmers they see by the fences, and it makes me sad.”

  “Are you a vegetarian?”

  “No, and that’s part of why it makes me sad.” Regan shrugged. “I like meat. I like sustainable farming practices and ethical slaughter and making the lives of domestic animals as pleasant and stress-free as possible, but I also like hamburgers, and steaks, and the sort of long-lasting energy I only get from protein. Honestly, I’m glad I’m not a vegetarian.”

  “Why?”

  “If I was, it would be because I know that cows write poetry. Which would make it part of what I’m supposed to be learning to forget, and means I would have been living entirely on bacon and bad dreams since I got here. They already restrict me to an all-meat diet.” Regan sighed. “Sometimes I dream about finding out which of the matrons sets the menu, and making her eat the slop they tell us is food.”

  “Oh.” Cora frowned. “You didn’t answer the whole question. What about deer? Can you talk to deer?”

  “They look enough like perytons that I can,” said Regan. “Why?”

  “Because I don’t think any of us has ever met the headmaster,” said Cora. “We’ve met a man who says he’s Headmaster Whitethorn, and he does a pretty good job, but he’s not the headmaster, and I think we’re in an awful lot of danger here, if we stay.”

  Regan stared at her. Cora beamed, looking relieved to no longer be carrying this terrible revelation entirely on her own.

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s go find the rest of my class. If we’re going to start planning a way to get out of here, I guess we’ll need to make sure they can accept you as one of their own. While we walk, you can tell me about lichen.”

  “Why lichen?” asked Regan bluntly.

  “Because I expect the matron to ask what I was looking at that took me so long, and lichen’s about the most boring thing I can think of that still might be believable, and you look like the kind of girl who might know stuff about lichen.” Cora started walking, slow and decorous, leaving Regan plenty of time to catch up.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Regan.

  “You can talk to horses. You don’t get to question me.”

  “I like lichen. There’s nothing wrong with liking lichen.”

  “That was exactly my point,” said Cora, and laughed, bright as a summer morning, and led her new friend deeper into the woods, away from the looming shape of the school, toward the trembling and uncertain future.

  PART IV

  JAILBREAK

  13 LICHEN AND LIES

  CORA’S CLASS WAS CONSIDERABLY deeper into the woods, clustered on the path and studying a leopard-spotted slug with the sort of intensity that most of them normally reserved for more fascinating things. Sumi had found a twig somewhere, and was poking the poor thing in the side. The matron—Miss Lennox, a matron with a name, a matron who could be picked out of the herd with an identifying mark, something that branded her as an individual—was standing a short distance away, technically supervising them, but shifting from foot to foot like she no longer quite knew what to do with herself.

  That was interesting. Everything about this day had been interesting. Sometimes going undercover among the enemy was the best way to make a bad situation into a slightly better one. Cora approached Miss Lennox, Regan beside her and a pleasantly bland smile on her face.

  “I found Miss Lewis in the woods,” said Cora. “I think she got lost, because there wasn’t anyone with her, but she didn’t hide or try to run away when I said hello, which means she can’t have been doing anything wrong on purpose. Can we help her find her way back to her dorm?”

  Miss Lennox looked briefly confused. “I … Miss Lewis, where is your class? Who has responsibility for you right now?”

  “I came so close to graduation, and the other Compulsion students don’t want to have me around, because they’re afraid I might hold them back.” Regan’s cheeks burned red with embarrassment. The color deepened as the other students turned to look at her, their eyes bright with the many unexpected excitements of the day.

  “I see,” said Miss Lennox. “That’s—” She stopped, appearing to struggle with whatever she was going to say next.

  Cora narrowed her eyes. That was interesting. She’d never seen a matron at a true loss for words before. But Miss Lennox didn’t look like a matron anymore, did she? She had when the day started, all bland disapproval and interchangeable strictness, but that had been before she had a name. Giving a person a name changed them.

  He made a mistake, she thought, and it was a thrill and a delight and so big that she almost missed it when Miss Lennox started talking again.

  “Well, that’s simply not fair, and not reasonable in the slightest,” she said. “Whoever is supposed to be responsible for you should be ashamed of themselves. I know you’re not a part of my dorm, but you’re welcome to do your studies with us until this can be settled.”

  Regan’s eyes widened. “Do you mean that, ma’am?”

  Miss Lennox didn’t even look annoyed at being questioned. “Of course I do,” she said. “We have a responsibility to make sure you’re given a proper education, and part of a proper education is seeing to your social needs and emotional health. I—” She stopped, making a small, startled sound and raising one hand to her forehead, closing her eyes in what was clearly pain.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” asked Sumi, dropping her twig.

  “Of course I am.” Miss Lennox lowered her hand, the pained expression fading. “My health is not your concern.”

  Interesting. Following her instincts—which had always served her well, or at least always been enough to get her out of trouble, even if they were the reason she got into trouble a lot of the time—Sumi smiled blandly and said, “Of course not, Miss Lennox. I understand my place. I simply didn’t want to disrupt the nature walk with a medical emergency.”

  Miss Lennox blinked, expression a mixture of confusion and bewilderment, like nothing made sense anymore. It was fascinating. None of them had ever seen a matron look like that before.

  “Right,” said Miss Lennox. Even her voice was different, dazed and slightly distant. Behind her, the girl without a name looked actively stricken. “Nature walk. Regan, please join us. We’re going to look for native flora and record it in our sighting books.”

  “I would love to,” said Regan.

  Miss Lennox began walking. The others followed, Regan among them, while Cora hung back, waiting for her chance. When the nameless girl began to walk, Cora reached out and grabbed her elbow, pulling her to a halt. The nameless girl gave her a startled look.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “We need to talk,” said Cora, keeping her voice low to avoid attracting attention. “Will you walk with me?”

  “Why should I?” The nameless girl shook free, taking a step to the side to put herself out of reach. “I said I’d help you with this stupid plan of yours, but I’m not taking any risks I don’t have to. I’m getting out of here, not getting locked up for painting a target on myself.”

  “I think I know why you still don’t have a name.”

  The nameless girl stopped breathing.

  “The matrons don’t have names. The matrons never have names. I’ve seen them go to ridiculous lengths to keep from using anything that might even be shaped like a name—but Miss Lennox has a name now, and it’s changing her. Can’t you see how it’s changing her? Names have power. Names define things.”

  “Why are you being so mean to me?” There were tears in the nameless girl’s eyes. “I said I’d help you get out of here. I said I’d go with you. I know I was mean to you before, but this is … this is worse than anything I did.”

  “No.” Cora shook her head. “I’m not being mean, I’m telling you to look, and see. She didn’t have a name and she was happy to be just another matron, all rules and regulations and making sure we toed the line. Now she does have a name, and suddenly she knows we’re people. I think the headmaster, whoever he is, takes their names away to make sure they do what he wants them to do. I think your name would have come back to you already, if you hadn’t been here. If you hadn’t been in a place where stolen things are forced to stay stolen.”

  The nameless girl still looked confused and hurt. None of this was reaching her; it was slamming up against the shields she used to protect herself from an uncaring world. Cora supposed she couldn’t blame her, but it was all so inconvenient. Things had been easier in the Trenches, when she’d been the only hero around, when everyone had listened to her without thinking twice about whether that was the right thing to do.

  To be fair, it hadn’t always been. But they’d had an awful lot of fun finding that out.

  “How did you lose your name?”

  “The … the Rat King stole it when I said I didn’t want to be his bride,” said the nameless girl, voice gone small with pain and memory. “I had to come back here so he couldn’t use it against me. My … Bright said she thought it would follow me through the door, that the Rat King couldn’t hold it if I wasn’t there, and then once I had time to recover I could come home, and we could be happy. But I kept getting smaller, and my name didn’t follow me. One day I’m going to wake up and I’ll be something else. I won’t be me anymore. And I won’t even be able to go to the Rat King for protection, because he doesn’t exist here.”

  “I’m so sorry that happened to you,” said Cora. “But I don’t think you’re listening to me. I think your name is here. It’s flittering around the edges of the school grounds, trying to get back to you, and it can’t, because it’s being stopped by the same magic that keeps the matrons from having names.”

  “Then why didn’t it come back to me as soon as I left?” said the girl, clearly wanting to believe and afraid of false hope. “Why didn’t it come back to me all that time before I came here?”

  Cora shrugged. “Maybe the curse needed time to wear off,” she said. “I bet it would have, if you hadn’t come here.” She smiled, quick and tight and unamused. “You came here because you thought this was the best place for you. I think it’s the worst place for you. It’s like being allergic to salt and hiding in a seaside cave.”

  “No one’s allergic to salt,” said the nameless girl.

  “Shows what you know.” Cora grabbed the nameless girl’s elbow again, pulling her along as she followed the group. “The matrons aren’t supposed to have names. It makes them into individuals. I don’t think the fake headmaster was supposed to say what he did, and someone’s going to have to come and steal her name again. If they don’t, who knows what might happen? Something wonderful, and they don’t want that, not here. Not now.”

  The nameless girl stumbled as Cora kept pulling her along. “What does all this even mean? How is it supposed to help me?”

  “Easy. If we take you away from here, I’m betting your name will find you fast as a hungry shark, because it wants to be with you as much as you want to have it. But getting away means understanding what’s going on, and you’re small and quiet and fast. Smaller and quieter than Sumi, even, which is a neat trick. So tonight you’re going to sneak out, and you’re going to watch to see how they take Miss Lennox’s name away.”

  The nameless girl stared at Cora. “You’re insane.”

  “Probably,” said Cora placidly. “Sticks and stones, as the sages say; sticks and stones. I know what I am and I’m happy this way, and saying something true shouldn’t be an insult, ever, because that’s not how words want to work. Don’t you want to leave this place? Don’t you want to go back where your name can find you, whatever it’s shaped like?”

  “I already said I wanted to go,” said the nameless girl.

  “Good.” Cora bared her teeth in a smile. “Now act like it.”

  The group had stopped to study a small, flowering bush gamely struggling to hold on despite the encroaching chill of fall. Cora made silent note of the perplexed expression on Miss Lennox’s face, like all of this was somehow new to her, like she had never seen this trail, or these students, or a flowering bush before in her life.

  Whatever the false headmaster had done when he so casually gave the matron back her name, it was waking her up, bringing her rapidly through levels of self-awareness that she might not even have realized she had been losing. Cora narrowed her eyes, watching the woman move. She was jerky, unsteady, like a fawn finding its legs. She was lost.

  She had been lost.

  Slowly, like she was approaching a wild and wounded animal, Cora skirted the group to stand beside Miss Lennox. “There’s something I’ve always wondered, ma’am. Is it appropriate for me to ask you a question?”

 

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