There was a rush of voices and shuffling feet somewhere to my right. Sunlight poured through the window at the far end of the room and directly into my eyes. It took me a moment to remember where I was. I looked to my right. Students crossed the corridor beyond the half wall, most of them pretending not to notice me. To my left hung the lote tree banner I had never bothered to move. Oh yeah. I live here now. In an exhibition room. I looked back toward the corridor. One of the boys who had greeted me when I first arrived noticed that I was awake. He smiled and waved. “Good morning.” He said it with the same amount of cheerfulness that was annoying this early in the morning. I watched his smiling face disappear into the courtyard. I wondered if this was what zoo animals felt like. After my daily alarm in the form of early-rising students, I sat up and immediately noticed my leg felt way better than it did yesterday. Before she went home, Lynne got me another ice pack. She also wrapped my leg and told me to sleep with something underneath it. I thought it would've been a waste of time. I didn't even own an extra pillow anyway. I barely owned the first one. Still, for some reason, I had found a way to listen to her. I stuffed the rest of my clothes into the cloth bag Mr. Webster had given me and used that to prop up my leg while I slept. And damn, she was right. It felt almost normal. I rotated my ankle. No pain. Bent my knee. No issues. I pressed along the outside of my shin. A little tender, but probably fine. I ran up to the half wall to hop over it. I planted one hand on top and tossed both legs across. Smooth and easy. I landed without pain. In retrospect, this was probably not the test Lynne would've approved of. But my legs worked. I looked back at my room. It still looked almost exactly the way it had before I moved in. I mean, the bed was slept in, and my bag was on the floor. But besides that, it was basically untouched. For the first few days, I was worried someone might come in while I was gone and steal something. But what would they take? My uniforms? I thought about locking the door when I left, but that felt increasingly pointless. I never even took my keys out of the room because of how useless they were. Anyone who wanted to get in could just climb over the wall anyway. *** Natural Philosophy with Professor Aurelia was becoming increasingly interesting, and increasingly disheartening. I still couldn't perform any of the miraculous feats everyone else apparently considered normal. I couldn't fully recall the definition of gravity, but my stone sure could. Several students who had struggled to lift one previously could now manage it with enough concentration. Some could raise theirs an inch. A few managed several. The girl who had been training since she was six had gotten so good that she could lift the stone, move it slowly across the desk, and put it down somewhere else without dropping it. I could describe exactly what she was doing. I understood Professor Aurelia's explanation. I understood the distinction between what the stone was, what she intended it to do, and whether she possessed the capacity to make that happen. My stone did not give a fuck. No matter how much I understood the concept, I couldn't actually do it. Most of the class had begun practicing another basic skill: temperature. Apparently changing the temperature of a stone was possible so long as I properly understood the stone, myself, and the universe surrounding us. After studying this stone for however many days, I understood more about it than I did myself. Professor Aurelia moved between the desks while students held stones between their palms or rested their hands above them. Some managed to warm theirs slightly. Others made them cold enough for beads of moisture to gather over the surface. One boy produced a sharp cracking sound. Everyone looked over. His stone had split neatly in half. Professor Aurelia stared at it. Then at him. “That was not the assignment.” He looked disappointed. His failure was still more of a success than anything I'd been able to do in this class. Which, so far, was nothing. I looked down at my completely ordinary stone and concentrated even harder. Nothing happened. I'm pretty sure I just looked constipated. *** I had learned from the last few days and packed my woolen athletic clothes into the cloth bag before leaving my room. What I didn't know was there was no good place to change. There was something that resembled a locker room beside the training hall, but it appeared to be intended mostly for students like Lynne who lived in the surrounding town and commuted to the academy each morning. The students who lived in the dormitories generally arrived dressed for class. It didn't matter today. I told Lynne I wouldn't train until my leg was back to normal. I mean, it basically was, so I could probably get away with it. But I could already hear her saying something annoying like basically back to normal is not back to normal. There was still a little tenderness when I pressed the outside of my shin. It didn't hurt when I walked or when I jumped the wall earlier. I'm pretty sure running would probably be fine. But when I thought about changing into my athletic clothes, guilt washed over me. Can't break a pinky promise. My entire body was itching to train, though. I didn't even know why I wanted to train so badly. But it was fine. I had planned for this. I joined the class for the opening stretches. Once everyone began separating into lines, I approached one of the assistant instructors who saw me get my ass beat by Mamoru to tell him my leg might still be injured. He looked down. “Can you walk?” “Yes.” “Run?” “I think so?” His eyes returned to mine. “That was not permission to try.” “Damn.” He pointed toward a bench along the rear wall. “Observe today. Bring a note from the infirmary next time.” “Alright, fine.” I was hoping he'd tell me that a slightly tender leg was no excuse and force me to participate. Then technically I wouldn't have chosen to break my promise. Instead, the assistant instructor walked away and left me alone with my conscience. What a dickhead. I sat on the bench, pulled a sheet of parchment from my bag, and rested it against one of the books I'd brought with me. If I couldn't train my body, I could at least train my mind. The instructor called everyone into lines. I still didn't know his name. I should probably figure that out at some point. He demonstrated three positions. The first placed most of the body's weight over the front leg. The second kept it farther back. The third distributed the weight evenly between both. He ordered the students to move between them without allowing their heads to rise or fall. They practiced shifting forward, backward, then they would center their weight. Then they started rotating their hips and shoulders, first slowly, gradually increasing their pace until the loose fabric of their clothing whipped around them. The exercises afterward looked like something I knew but couldn't remember learning. A straight lead hand followed by a stronger rear hand. They practiced with an emphasis on stepping behind the punches, using them to enter before taking hold of the shoulders, arms, or waist. They stood fairly tall with elongated guards. The instructor wanted them to remain at striking distance until they had a reason to close. Once they closed, though, the lesson became wrestling. At first, the differences between the students seemed impossible to miss. Standing still, the hall looked divided into half a dozen different worlds. The local white kids were called Albions, or at least that's what Lynne told me. They were split between the ones wearing clothing similar to Cecily's and those in the academy's woolen training equipment. The first group looked like the subjects of Renaissance painted portraits. The second looked like their mothers were afraid they'd get too cold. Dishant and the other skinny prince dressed similarly enough that I would've assumed they came from the same place. Apparently that was a highly offensive thing to say. There were plenty of other students who looked similar enough that I would've grouped all of them together if they hadn't repeatedly made it clear that I shouldn't. The Zhanghua students were even more confusing. They were kind of uniform. But not really. June, for example, wore a blue silk jacket with frog buttons and matching trousers. A lot of the other Zhanghua kids wore similar silk jackets, just in different colors like red, black, green, white, or whatever. Some wore long-sleeved garments crossed at the chest with V-shaped openings and held shut with sashes. Still expensive-looking silk. Just a completely different design. The students dressed similarly tended to stick together. They stretched together. Talked among themselves in the same languages. And generally arranged the hall into a human rainbow. The colors were all there. Just self-segregating. Once they started drilling, though, most of those differences disappeared. I could barely tell where anyone came from by the way they moved. Their clothes were a much better indicator. A few were different. They followed the same instructions and practiced the same movements, but their bodies seemed to have accents. Like they understood what the instructor was saying but still had to translate it through their first language. I scanned the eastern students until I found Mamoru. When I first met him, I thought he was Zhanghua too. He looked Asian enough to fit in with the other students standing on that side of the hall. But maybe he wasn't. His clothes were different. Instead of silk, he wore a heavily stitched white hemp jacket folded across his chest and tied shut with a black sash. His trousers were wide enough that his legs could move inside them without giving away much information about where his feet actually were. No one else was dressed quite like him. The other students treated him with respect. Or maybe it was fear, not really sure. No one refused to work with him, though, he was never lacking in partners. But no one chatted with him during stretches or dicked around with him whenever the instructor looked away. Mamoru didn't seem particularly bothered by this. I couldn't tell whether he preferred being alone or just looked like he did. I found myself feeling kind of bad for him. But then again, I didn't exactly have a crowd lining up to chill with me either. The instructor transitioned them into a pummeling drill. The goal was simple. Each person tried to work both arms beneath their partner's and lock their hands around the waist. From there, they were supposed to lift or throw. No hitting each other or getting “creative,” as the instructor worded it. Most students jumped right into the drill. One arm reached inside and under their partner's. Their partner blocked it while trying to reach from the other side. They'd fight trying to try fit their arm through that space between your body and arm for an underhook. But they'd also hold their arms tight to their body so their partner couldn't get do the same. They would solve this issue by trying to move and angle their partners so they could sneak in an underhook. And their partners would take the underhook from the other side. Mamoru was one of those types who barely reached at all. He kept his head upright, his hips beneath him, and his elbows close. His partners fought to swim their arms inside while Mamoru seemed to mostly care about making sure his head and shoulders and hips never got out of line. Whenever someone leaned too far trying to move him, Mamoru helped them lean even further. The underhooks everyone else struggled for seemed to just offer themselves to him. That was until he partnered with a boy wearing a dark green silk jacket. I hadn't paid much attention to him earlier. He was shorter than Mamoru. Not nearly as broad. The moment their arms touched, the drill looked different. The boy didn't reach beneath Mamoru's arms. He kept both hands between their bodies, elbows close to his sides, forearms almost upright. Mamoru tried to move one hand aside. The boy's other hand immediately replaced it. Mamoru tried the opposite side. Same thing. The boy was patient. He wasn't desperately reaching for the goal like everyone before him. He was creating roadblocks and forcing Mamoru to give up the inside position. Mamoru had to go on the offensive. I leaned forward. This was the first person I'd seen make Mamoru attack instead of just countering. Mamoru reached for the boy's left wrist. The instant his hand made contact from the outside, the boy shot his arm forward and underneath Mamoru's armpit, securing half of the inside body lock. Mamoru immediately tried to do the same on the other side. But the green-jacketed boy's right hand circled deftly over Mamoru's wrist. For an instant his wrist folded toward his own forearm, like he was making a shadow puppet of a swan. Mamoru's arm slid harmlessly past to the outside, failing to get underneath. The boy's hand shot straight through the gap between Mamoru’s arm and body, securing the body lock. That weird wrist movement he'd just used didn't look particularly powerful. But it was enough to redirect the much bigger and stronger Mamoru. His hands locked tightly around Mamoru's waist. He had won. Or at least, he'd reached the position everyone in the room was fighting for. He tightened his grip and started to lift. Mamoru's hands closed around the silk above his elbows. Then he turned. But instead of trying to get away, he dropped his hips beneath the green-jacketed boy and turned into him. One foot stepped across his path. Mamoru rotated until his back was partly toward him and drove one hip across the front of his waist. For a fraction of a second they were almost facing the same direction, with both arms still wrapped tightly around Mamoru from behind. Then Mamoru's other leg straightened and swept backward and up. His thigh caught the outside of the green-jacketed boy's leg. At the same time, Mamoru pulled both sleeves forward and down. The pull stretched him across Mamoru's back, lifting one foot off the ground while the other hopped desperately to stay underneath him. Before he could catch his balance, Mamoru's sweeping leg swept up traveling through and took that last leg out from under him. Both feet left the floor. His entire body turned over Mamoru's hip and sweeping leg before he landed on his back. Mamoru never let go of the boys sleeves however. He pulled upward through the final part of the fall and took most of the impact out of it. Surprisingly gentle. Last time we sparred, he straight-up slammed my shit. No consideration at all. I should've worn silk. The boy released his grip and stood. He looked mildly offended, though I couldn't tell whether he was offended by the throw or by Mamoru using his expensive clothing to do it. It still felt somewhat unfair. The entire purpose of the drill was to secure both underhooks, lock around the waist, and throw. The boy had done that. His hands were better than Mamoru's. He finessed the inside position, locked his grip, and even started lifting. Mamoru threw him anyway. I started taking notes. The boy had gotten what should've been the dominant grip. Mamoru knew how to fight from the position everyone else was treating as a loss. The grip kept their bodies connected. The attempt to lift brought the boy's hips forward, and his own pressure supplied a large part of the movement Mamoru needed. Mamoru hadn't escaped the body lock. He'd used it. I looked down at my parchment. If someone wrapped both arms around my waist and drove forward, ripping myself free wasn't necessarily the best answer. Everyone else seemed to treat getting grabbed like an emergency, something they needed to escape as quickly as possible. But a grip connected two people. If they could use it to move me, then I could use that same connection to move them. I didn't always have to remove it. I could take advantage of it and decide where they went instead. I wasn't sure I could do the same throw Mamoru was using, though. My legs were still weak enough that putting another human being across one of them sounded delusional. But the idea was useful. There had to be other ways to use it. The boy Mamoru was drilling with was better with his hands. Mamoru had just stopped competing with him for grips. He let the boy reach the position he wanted and took advantage of what should've been the inferior outside position. The boy won every point of the exchange. Mamoru still won the conclusion. I looked down at the notes scrawled across my parchment. I'm going to use natural philosophy and study this specimen So first is grammar. Before I could beat someone, I needed to know what that someone was. I placed the tip of my pen against the page and wrote: Mamoru. Then beneath it: What is he actually doing? Strong wasn't useful. I scratched it out before I had even finished writing it. Large? Yeah obviously, that's also useless. Mamoru was bigger than me, but plenty of people were bigger than me. Most of them still felt like flesh when hit. Mamoru didn't. I remembered kicking his thigh. The throaty exhale immediately before impact. Then pain erupting through my shin when I actually connected. It felt like kicking the corner of a wooden desk. The same thing happened when I hit his body. It looked like he was just flexing whatever part I was attacking. But the more I thought about it, it wasn't just that part. His feet would settle into a low, stable posture. His hips and torso seemed to lock into the same structure. And he'd breathe out. I wrote: He braces while exhaling. I stared at it. Okay. What else? What was he actually doing? I watched him with another partner for a while. His feet settled into that same low, stable posture, and his spine stayed straight while his shoulders remained loose. He wasn't actually tensing everything all the time. He'd stay relaxed until something happened, and then he'd breathe out and everything seemed to lock together. Maybe bracing wasn't just tightening. I drew a line beneath it. Next came Logic. Which things I thought I had seen were actually connected? Did the exhale make him difficult to hurt? Or did he exhale because of whatever he was doing with the rest of his body? Could he breathe the same way in a bad position? Could he do it while moving? Could he do it if I surprised him? Arithmetic. How long could he maintain it? How many times could he do it? Could he keep doing it indefinitely? Did repeated impacts change anything? Geometry. Where did his feet have to be? What would happen if he wasn't balanced? What if his spine was bent? Can I even misalign him? He looked almost impossible to move when everything was lined up properly. The green-jacketed boy had shown that Mamoru could still be redirected through his arms. So whatever Mamoru was doing clearly had limits. Music. His breathing, his movement, and the timing between them. There was a rhythm to it. I remembered my leg kick. The first time it worked, Mamoru didn't expect it and hadn't exhaled before I hit him. The second time, he knew it was coming and breathed out right as I kicked him. That shit sucked. What if I made him breathe out before the kick actually landed? Or made him brace for the kick and then didn't kick at all? I could go for a takedown instead. How long did the brace last? Could I change the rhythm and make him prepare for something that wasn't coming? Astronomy. When did Mamoru decide he needed to brace? Where does he usually look on his opponent? How much warning did he need? If he had to prepare before impact, there had to be a moment when he wasn't prepared yet. Then Rhetoric. What could I make Mamoru believe was about to happen? I could hit toward his head to make him change his posture, or go low to make him settle his weight. If he became difficult to hurt because he aligned his body correctly for whatever was about to hit him, then hitting him harder wasn't going to do anything. I had to get him to align himself for the wrong thing. I stared at the page. This might've been the closest thing to an answer I had right now. Professor Aurelia had said understanding preceded power. Alright, fine. Maybe I can't throw rocks with my mind or whatever. But I was going to throw Mamoru with these hands!

Chapter 31