a moment, then reluctantly returned to sentry duty.
Four would have enforced better discipline, Torbidda thought. Still telling himself this was none of his business, he dropped onto the nearest boy. He landed feet-first, clumsily, but his weight was enough to knock the boy into the one standing watch, and he pulled the curtain down with him. The boy holding the pillow didn’t wait for orders but abandoned his post to rush Torbidda, and as the girl felt the pressure ease, without even trying to remove the blankets, her fingers shot up, searching and finding Fifty-Nine’s eyes. The pillow boy had pulled Torbidda down and the three of them were kicking and punching him until he curled into a ball. Fifty-Nine’s scream made them turn just in time to see the girl pull her thumbs out of their leader’s face with an audible pop. She stood onto the bed and pulled herself up onto the wardrobe.
The boys forgot about Torbidda – he was stupid with the beating anyway – and leapt up on the bed to follow her. She’d get them individually if they let her escape. The three leapt for the walkway together, figuring to rush her. She kicked one in the face and knocked him back onto the floor, and as the other two got to their feet, she backed away carefully. She took the set of keys from around her neck and threw them at Torbidda’s foetal body. ‘Hey, Sixty!’
The jangle as it landed made him open his eyes.
‘Lock the north door behind you,’ she ordered.
Torbidda grabbed the keys and as he started crawling to the door she turned and limped towards the other, then stopped abruptly and turned to face her pursuers.
‘You’re trapped,’ one of the boys shouted, and laughed. ‘We blocked that door.’
‘I guessed you would,’ she said calmly, and raced towards them. She knocked the first boy aside with an elbow as she threw herself bodily at the other. They tumbled off together, but she twisted as she fell so that he took the impact. She smashed his head on the floor, just to be sure, then went to examine the other three. The one she’d kicked in the face, the first to fall, had broken his neck.
As he limped back from the door, Torbidda saw her kneel beside the one she’d elbowed off the walkway. He was clutching his ribs and moaning. She tenderly lifted his head into her lap, then twisted it sharply left. The moaning stopped.
Fifty-Nine was writhing on the bed, streaming blood from the holes in his face. As she carefully rechained the curtain, she looked at Torbidda and said flatly, ‘You’re late for class, Cadet. Leave my keys in the door.’
She didn’t need to say she owed him. It was obvious. Torbidda limped to the door, unlocked it and shut out Fifty-Nine’s smothered screams behind him.
CHAPTER 5
‘Flaccus believes in a mechanistic universe that can be mastered with levers and winches. Be warned. Nature is a far more subtle monster, and one that you must first understand if you are to tame her.’
The class stood in the Alchemistry Hall at the edge of a massive circular sheet, shivering in the frigid air. Five long chains were connected to the sheet. Varro ushered them closer. ‘Get comfy – not that close, Signore Vitale! Step back, Signorina Inzerillo. All right, let’s see …’ He looked at the levers in front of him, feigning confusion.
Torbidda stole a glance at Four and his acolytes and looked away quickly; Four was watching him. Fifty-Nine’s suicidal attempt to establish his independence had allowed Four to consolidate control of the city boys, making life trying for everyone else in general and Torbidda in particular: the girl was too big a target, so by default he had become the focus of Four’s campaign of vengeance. Leto observed that avenging fallen comrades was an excellent cause to unite a group – but Torbidda was less interested in history, than practical suggestions as to how he could survive.
Varro pulled one of the dangling chains, the sheet lifted and the children stepped back. The water started only two braccia down, but it looked at least five braccia deep. The pool’s surface was alive with writhing limbs, spastic hands and gnashing animal jaws as shapes turned and shifted unstably and cubes and spheres broke the surface and dissolved.
‘Look, children, at the monster our wisdom captured. Beautiful bride, isn’t she? The pseudonaiades are pure water, and water only. We compromised creatures are at once