Charles du Ravine, clothes a mix of colors beneath his orange coat and his tangle of red hair pulled up into a messy knot, stepped inside the room. He wasn’t carrying much, only a book and a glass tablet with a smear of notes inked across it. The room quieted.
“I hope you remember who I am from your first day here. You can call me Charles; it saves time in emergencies.” He set his glass tablet against the desk at the front of the room and picked up the ink brush at the base of the glass writing board that covered the whole front wall. “I will be going over some of the most common injuries seen in soldiers and chevaliers today—wounds and blows to the head.”
I leaned forward. This might finally be useful.
“He’s so starry,” Madeline said and sighed. She rarely dropped her serious mask, but now she was all smiles. “Smart too. It’s very unfair.”
I twisted to glare at her. “I’m certain the gorgeous, genius vicomte needs little more to feed his vanity.”
“Just remember, you said ‘genius.’ I didn’t.”
“I’m already trying to forget,” I said.
“Mademoiselle Boucher!” Charles’s call cut through the room, and my cheeks burned before I could even turn to look at him. “How many bones are in a human skull?”
Of course. Finally I could prove one of the people with my fate in their hands wrong, and I hadn’t been paying attention. Everyone in the room turned around—Madeline and I had claimed the chairs in the very back of the room, so no one could talk behind our backs—and I pressed my hands together, forefingers against my lips. It was an incomplete question.
“What age of human?” I asked.
My model skeleton—I had named it Basil and decorated it for winter solstice until Mother had disapproved and given it away—had always stood, labeled, next to my desk at home.
“Do not play with me or waste my time. There’s no room for that in an emergency.” Charles scowled. If we had been at court, I would have called his glare cutting and expected no one to speak with me again. “Who do I work for? How many children do you see on battlefields?”
“Several,” I said. “Some pirates will not kill children, but that does not mean children are not in the line of fire. I thought specificity in triage was important?”
His face softened. “Boucher, how many bones are in an adult human skull?”
Someone in the room snickered, and I said, “Twenty-two.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Now, unfortunately, our brains are quite often in the line of fire…”
He did not call on me again.
I didn’t mind, though it felt like punishment. He was a good teacher, and by the end of the class, I somehow felt more ass than student.
It had been a vague question.
“It was not a vague question.” Madeline didn’t raise her eyebrows as we left the room, the model of restraint.
Rainier, wiping the blue ink from his white hands, snorted. “That could not have gone worse.”
“Yes, it could have,” I said. “I could have gotten the question wrong.”
“What happened is making sense now.” Madeline led us to the courtyard for lunch. “You think every question asked, no matter what, is for you.”
“If a question is asked of me, I answer it.” I threw up my arms in surrender. “It has worked until now.”
We sat on a bench in one of the many courtyards and ate lunch. The proper students, the nobles and children of the wealthy who could afford to attend university for longer than a season, banded together on picnic blankets and tables set out by their assistants, varlets, and hacks. Our trio sat in the shadows of the medical school, away from prying eyes.
“If it were only you, this wouldn’t matter, but this isn’t about only you.” She sat next to me, shoulder brushing mine. “They’ll take whatever they think about you and apply it to me.”
I picked at a savory pastry stuffed with cheese and onions. “The other students don’t matter. Only physicians.”
“Why are you even here? Girls like you have other options,” said Madeline. She nibbled on half of an apple.
The money I had taken from my purse had been enough to cover tuition, an appropriate small wardrobe, and supplies. The amount I had left was questionable at best. The price of food was far higher than I had anticipated.
No wonder Laurel was gaining ground.
At least Annette was sending me money to arrive in the next day or so. Her last