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"What, dredge the lake!"
Laura made a sound like a horrified cat.
Everyone knew the school's waste drained straight into the lake. The water had been sitting all winter , shallow, foul, the mudflats below thick as paste and piled with filth.
Asking them to dredge it was just a polite way of asking them to be suffocated alive.
Luo Wei let her expression crumple accordingly. "Can we go tomorrow? It's late, and I just finished eating."
"No." Theodore's face was grave. "The student council's orders: the lake surface gets cleared today."
"Today?" Luo Wei nearly split in half. "The lake is enormous. How are we supposed to finish in one day?"
"It's not just us," Gladys said. "There are others."
"Every magic apprentice on community service has to go," Theodore said. "Everyone else is already out there. You three are the only ones left."
So there was no getting out of it.
Luo Wei looked at Laura and Hall with a helpless glance. "Fine. Let's go."
Laura trudged forward like she was walking to her own execution. "Wah. Let's go."
She hated the lake.
When they arrived at the shore, all three of them understood immediately why the student council was in such a rush.
It had rained today. The water had risen. During their patrol, the student council had found fallen leaves and dead branches clogging the dam, causing rainwater to back up in the upstream channel.
If the debris wasn't cleared in time, a heavier rain would send the lake overflowing straight into campus.
The academy clearly had no interest in watching * drift past the dormitory windows, so it had reached out its wicked claws toward these innocent, pitiful students.
Standing at the water's edge, Luo Wei took a deep breath to steel herself. She hadn't expected to inhale a full noseful of rot, nearly dispatching herself ahead of schedule.
Theodore and Hall dragged over a pair of two-person rowboats that the academy had provided.
"Everyone on. Two per boat. There are scoop nets and sacks — dredge up whatever you find and bag it."
Luo Wei stared at the scoop net with hollow despair. Last time she'd used one of those to dig soil. Now she was going to use it to dig something else entirely. Life really did take its turns.
"Two per group, but there are five of us," Laura said. "How do we split?"
"One more person hasn't shown up yet." Theodore looked back over his shoulder. "Ah, there — Hessel! I'll go with Laura. Who are you grouping with?"
Luo Wei turned.
A silent figure stepped out from behind a willow tree.
She wore a black robe with upturned lapels. Her long legs were wrapped in loose shorts, boots of heavy leather with metal soles on her feet , a fashionable men's silhouette, on a girl.
Hessel Calansis.
She had a head of curly black hair pulled into a high ponytail that hung behind her. Her eyes were black in a way that seemed to reject light entirely, like two chips of cold obsidian set into deep, flat oval sockets.
Luo Wei rarely met people who shared her coloring. But Hessel's black was different , pure, absolute. The kind of black that made you feel, looking into it, like the air was thinning.
"Hey, Hessel, who are you grouping with? There's nobody left behind you." Theodore, apparently immune to her aura of isolation, asked again in his characteristic duck-rasp.
Hessel walked straight onto one of the boats. "Whatever."
Three people remained on the shore: Gladys, Hall, and Luo Wei.
"So... how do we split?" Gladys eyed the last empty boat with open reluctance.
She didn't like talking to strangers. And Hessel looked particularly terrifying.
Hall opened his mouth. "How about—"
"How about you two take that boat," Luo Wei cut him off, looking between them. "I can't swim, and Gladys probably can't either. You two go together. I'll partner with the senior."
"I can swim," Gladys said with a frown. "I just don't want to. The water is filthy."
Luo Wei smiled. "Then you should still go with Hall. He doesn't mind filthy."
"Fine." Gladys gave a small nod and stepped onto the last boat.
Hall looked at Luo Wei. Then he glanced at Hessel. Something seemed to register. He climbed onto the boat after Gladys without another word.
Luo Wei watched them push off, then stepped onto the one remaining boat. Hessel was already seated, watching her with those dark, heavy eyes. She said nothing about the dawdling.
"Senior Calansis. Good evening."
Luo Wei offered the greeting pleasantly once she was aboard.
Hessel didn't answer. She bent down, untied the rope from the gunwale, and pushed them away from the shore with the pole.
Luo Wei didn't take offense. She picked up the scoop net, dropped it into the water, and started pulling up fallen leaves.
"Senior, the fire-breathing design on your mechanical bird was very creative. I have a better idea, though. Want to hear it?"
Hessel's hands stopped. She turned her head and stared. "What did you say?"
"I said, the bird you made is fun, but it's not particularly useful." Luo Wei kept her eyes on the water, though the corner of her mouth curved. "Isn't that right? I knocked it down with a wooden pole."
Hessel's pupils contracted slowly, the black narrowing to something sharp and olive-thin. "What do you want?"
"Nothing." Luo Wei hauled the heavy net bag to the gunwale and dragged up a massive clump of reeking waterweed. She pinched her nose. "Senior, can you hold the sack open?"
Hessel gave her a cold look. Then she bent down and picked up the sack.
Luo Wei dumped the leaves in. The smell that came off them hit like a physical blow, and for a moment she genuinely thought it might bring her dinner back up. She retched, recovered, and immediately pulled out a handkerchief, folding it into a triangle and knotting it over her nose and mouth.
"Do you want one?" She fished a second handkerchief from her pocket and held it out.
Hessel's frown deepened. She turned slightly sideways. "No."
Luo Wei didn't push. She pocketed the handkerchief, picked up the scoop net, and went back to pulling dead branches and fish from the water.
Hessel watched her. A flicker of confusion passed over her face.
By her logic, anyone who spoke had a reason. She didn't believe this girl was out here saying pointless things for the pleasure of it.
Being studied by those heavy black eyes was starting to wear on Luo Wei. She set the scoop net down and turned around. "Senior, why do you keep staring at me? I'm not a fallen leaf."
"What do you actually want."
Luo Wei exhaled. "I told you and you didn't listen. I said I have a better idea. I asked if you were interested."
"What idea?" What was an idea?
Hessel's brow drew tight.
Luo Wei tilted her head toward the darkening sky. "I know of a machine called an airplane. It can fly ten thousand meters in the air and travel over ten thousand kilometers in a single journey." She paused. "Senior, can you build one?"
"You're dreaming," Hessel said.
"Just because you can't build it doesn't mean you should deny it exists." Luo Wei shook her head with a look of genuine sympathy. "That's a flying artifact even a master artificer would struggle with. It's perfectly normal you've never heard of it."
➤ Next: The Unfortunate Souls Who Fell Into the Lake
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