"Really?"
"Yes," ground out.
"But-"
"I was tired," Zorian snapped. "Very tired. And what the hell are you waiting for? Get inside."
She rushed inside and Zorian took a moment of collect himself before he confronted her. In his future memories, she never visited him once after he refused to go along with her mission to the sewers, which spoke volumes about her true feelings about this friendship of theirs. Then again, he hardly even thought about her himself until now, so he probably shouldn’t judge. In any case, he was even less inclined to join her on this mission now than he was in his future memories – he actually had more pressing matters to attend to this time, in addition to general apprehensiveness that was still as valid now as it was then. Accordingly, he felt a lot less reluctance in simply blowing her off, and it only took him an hour to convince her to leave him alone.
That done, he immediately set out for the library, making a short detour to a nearby bakery for a quick bite to tide him over. Once in the library he started searching for books on the topic of time travel and trying to identify the language the lich used in his spell.
To call it disappointing would be calling it mildly. For one thing, there were no books on time travel. The topic was not considered a serious field of study, what with it being impossible and all. What little was written about it was scattered across innumerable volumes, hidden in unmarked sections and paragraphs of otherwise unrelated books. Piecing together these scattered mentions was an absolute chore, and not all that rewarding either – none of it was useful in solving the mystery of his future memories. Finding the language the lich used in his spell was even more frustrating, since he failed to even identify the language, much less translate the chant.
He spent the entire weekend fruitlessly sifting through library texts, finally abandoning that avenue of research when it became obvious it wasn’t producing any results. Plus the library workers were starting to give him weird looks at his choice of literature and he didn’t want to create any unfortunate rumors. Hopefully he would be able to trick Zach into revealing what the hell was going on when school started.
"You’re late."
Zorian stared at Akoja’s stern face in quiet contemplation. He was glad he wouldn’t have to deal with any drama because of his disastrous evening with her – almost as glad as he was about the fact that he wasn’t dead – but he couldn’t help but wonder what her outburst had been about. She didn’t really look like she had a crush on him, so why did his comment hit her so heavily?
"What?" she asked, and Zorian realized he had been staring at her a little too long. Oops.
"Ako, why are you telling me this when more than half the class isn’t even here yet?" he asked.
"Because there is at least a chance you will listen, unlike them," Akoja admitted. "Also, someone like you should be an example to other students, not descend to their level."
"Someone like me?" inquired Zorian.
"Just get inside," she snapped irritably.
He sighed and went inside. It was probably for the best to leave things be – he had other problems to deal with, and she was far too rule-bound for his tastes anyway.
He didn’t know what he was expecting to happen when he walked into the class. Everyone to stop what they were doing and stare at him, maybe? At least then he would have a reason for feeling so unnerved at attending his first class of the year for the second time. But of course they did no such thing. It wasn’t a second time for them, and there was nothing visibly irregular about him for them to take notice. He quashed his unease and sat down in the back of the class, discreetly scanning new arrivals for signs of Zach. He was sure the other boy was connected to this somehow, and the mysterious boy appeared to be Zorian’s best chance at understanding what was happening to him.
There was a brief commotion when Briam’s fire drake familiar hissed up a storm and started chasing Briam’s terrified neighbor across the classroom before Briam calmed it down. Apparently the magical reptile liked the unfortunate boy even less than it did Zorian. In any case, Ilsa came in soon after and started the class.
Zach never showed up.
Zorian spent the entire class in a daze, shocked at this turn of events. Where the hell was Zach? Everything happened almost exactly as it did in his future memories so far, with Zach’s absence being the first major deviation. This firmly cemented Zach as somehow connected to this madness, but it also put the boy out of Zorian’s reach for the moment.
The lecture was even more annoying now than it was the first time he listened to it, since from his perspective he went through these review sessions less than a month ago. Apparently Ilsa worked off some kind of a script, because the lecture was virtually identical to the one from his memory, the only difference being that Zach wasn’t there to compete with Akoja for answering Ilsa’s questions to the class.
Funny how things seem clearer in retrospect. Zach was acting strange right from the start, in that very first lecture, but Zorian thought nothing of it. Sure, Zach volunteering to answer the teacher’s questions was out of character for the boy, but not completely implausible. It was just a review session anyway, and they had to know these things to pass the certification. It took two weeks before people really began to take notice the extent of Zach’s sudden improvement.
So many questions, so few answers. He could only hope that Zach would show up soon.
Zach didn’t come to class that day, or the next, or the day after that. By Friday, Zorian was pretty sure the other boy wouldn’t be showing up at all. According to Benisek, Zach simply disappeared from his family mansion on the very same day that Zorian took the train to Cyoria, and nobody had seen a hint of him ever since. Zorian didn’t think he could cook up anything the investigators hired by the boy’s guardian hadn’t thought of doing, and he didn’t want to attract attention to himself by asking around, so he reluctantly put the mystery of Zach aside for the moment.
His schoolwork was going well, at least. Thanks to his foreknowledge, he aced Nora Boole’s surprise tests and didn’t really have to study for any subject – a small refresher was sufficient to coast him through pretty much anything. Once his warding class really gets going that’s probably going to change, but for now he had all the free time he wanted to deliberate on what he should do about the rapidly approaching summer festival and the accompanying assault.
Sadly, with Zach absent, Zorian had hit dead ends in all the clues he had, and was now at loss how to proceed.
"Come in."
Zorian opened the door to Xvim’s office and defiantly met the man’s gaze. He was pretty confident in the accuracy of his future memories by now, Zach’s mysterious absence aside, so he knew this was going to be another exercise in frustration. He was tempted to boycott the meetings, but he suspected it was his stoic perseverance in the face of the man’s antagonism that eventually convinced Ilsa to take him under her wing. And besides, he felt that he would be doing Xvim a favor if he quit – Zorian had a distinct feeling that the man was trying to get him to quit the last time around – and he was far too spiteful to do that. He sat down without prompting, a little disappointed that the man hadn’t remarked upon his intentionally rude gesture.
"Zorian Kazinski?" Xvim asked. Zorian nodded and expertly snatched the pen that the man had throw at him out of the air, having expected it this time.
"Show me your basic three," the man ordered, not in the least bit surprised at the feat of coordination.