51. Sneaks (I) (Patreon)

Novices of the Mysterium Thaumica spend their days in rigorous recitation and their evenings in devoted study. It is said the average student spends twelve hours a day in courses or study six days a week. Sneaks at the Perdita Free Collegium spend but four hours in class each day, much of which is spent in games and contests. However counterintuitive, the latter approach seems to be at least as effective.
-Signor Jovani Kronia, from the Discourse on Thaumaturgical Education

Believe it or not, there's no hard and fast rule for how you become a Sneak. Most Sneaks are elevated from the ranks of Scamps, though a few rare souls are recruited directly into the Sneak program. Most are elevated around their tenth birthday, but there are exceptions to that, as well. Very few are expected to undergo a trial - instead, several students close in age are called to the administration and handed their Sneak glyphs after a short ceremony. Obviously, I was an exception to that rule because Rose Argent herself had vetted my loyalty and found me worthy.

As we made our way back to the Collegium in Rose's carriage, I asked her: "Did Mai pass her test, too?"

"Um…"

I gasped. "She didn't pass?"

Rose considered her next words very carefully. "I didn't say that, Vix," she said with a forced calmness. "I didn't test Mailyn - you were a special case…"

"Oh…" my breathing calmed. "Did you give her a Sneak glyph yet? Can I be there when you do?"

"Um… she should get it around her birthday…"

Unacceptable. The fact was that Mailyn's tenth birthday was four months away, three weeks before mine. How could I be a Sneak with her a Scamp for four whole months? Didn't Rose realize how impossibly long that was? Rose squeezed my hand when I started to hyperventilate and made shushing noises - obviously, she wasn't very experienced with kids. Then she dabbed at my tears and did the one thing she knew could calm me down.

"Let's get street food at the Night Market," she said.

The Night Market is, appropriately enough, the only public market located in the Shadow Canton. Situated in the junction between the Shadow, River's Run, and Foreign cantons, it opens at half first watch (that's eight o'clock to most folks) and remains in business until the end of second watch. For people who work inside throughout the day or who have nighttime jobs, it provides a venue to socialize, purchase goods, and people-watch. If you can't get out and about during normal market hours, it's the place to go. I'd been once or twice, but since it was closed during the day and was situated right next to the Collegium, there really wasn't any way for Scamps to make coin there - if a merchant needed an assistant, they could find an enterprising Sneak easily enough for only a bit more.

She led me past carts and haggling merchants, past a dozen little stands selling everything from incense to artifices, past a stall where a dozen Brezian men in turbans and silken capes placed bets and argued over beetle fighting. Finally, we made our way to a well-attended charcoal grill that sold kebabs Kronojic-style, the orange-hot coals hissing as caramelized marinade dripped down from the laden, sizzling skewers.

Rose escorted me half-way up the slate stairs of the Genealogical Archives, where we sat on a little landing and she pondered our Mailyn problem over shish kebabs of onion, ring-pepper, and goat chunks oozing with grease and red-brown marinade. I watched her intently and wordlessly, carefully sliding each morsel off of my own skewer and carefully wiping the juices off onto a napkin, lest someone think I was a savage.

"Okay, I think I can salvage this," Rose said eventually. "I'm going to need about two weeks and I'll need the Sneak glyph back…"

I shot her a look and chewed at my goat with great deliberation. Sure, she could take the glyph back and there's not a damn thing I could do to stop her, but there's no way I was just handing it over. My eyes must have conveyed as much.

"Okay, fine, yes," she sighed. "Yes, you can keep it. But you can't tell anybody that you have it. Nobody. Nada. Not even Mailyn. Okay?"

"Hmm…" Could I really keep an amazing secret from Mailyn for two whole weeks?

"Vix. You have to promise."

I huffed. "Yes, fine. I promise."

After factoring in the limitations of my age, it was probably the most difficult promise I've ever made. I remained with the Scamps for two more weeks, taking my all-tier-five classes, doing translation work for Mr. Hianchi (while training Mossy), and bathing in the Largotto with all the Scamps on Saintsdays with a sandstone glyph burning a hole in my hidden pocket. The glyph would even let me bypass the doors to the Scamp Hall if I wanted, and I couldn't even use it. I even had to watch Nima graduate to Sneak 'ahead' of me (not the artificer Nima, obviously), an air of smug superiority in her expression as she gathered her things and left the bunkhouse.

Then, on a Crownsday two weeks and three torturous days after I'd earned my Sneak glyph, Rose Argent strutted into the residence hall after breakfast but before our morning classes. As soon as she entered, the din of morning preparations dropped into absolute silence. You could have heard a mouse cough. Rose, dressed in her long leather jacket with its golden buttons and horn buckles, a dozen jewels fixed in her dark hair like stars, her black Shadow's cloak billowing behind her and exuding Shadow's confidence. She looked every bit the Perditan privateer, queen of the seas.

"Mailyn Watt… Alvixia Altorelli…" she handed Mailyn her glyph and then 'handed' me a glyph. It was just a flat disc of sandstone around the right size. "Welcome to the Collegium, Sneaks. I'll expect you at naval drills in two hours."

"Um… what about me?" Aldo asked in a small, forlorn voice.

Oh no! Aldo! I'd completely forgotten to ask about him and, predictably, it hadn't crossed Rose's mind at all. Horror flickered across Rose's stern expression, but she quickly schooled it. Her eyes went back and forth as she went through some form of memory drill, no doubt to recall Aldo's birthday, because the next thing she said was:

"Oh… unfortunate mix-up with the paperwork. Yours'll be about another week. I'll be sure to deliver it personally, though, Aldo Carnoffi, my young friend…" I remember her making a point to enunciate his whole name. And his tenth birthday was, indeed, just about a week away. Even so, Aldo's chest puffed out when everybody in the bunkhouse saw that the Rose of Floria knew him by name.

"That'll give me time to finish things up," he said easily.

"Just so! See you soon, Aldo. Girls, come with me!"

As we made our way out of Scamp Hall #5, Rose grumbled under her breath, "How could I forget Aldo? Why didn't you remind me?"

"Remind you? Miss Argent, we only just found out," Mailyn said. When she looked to me, I just shrugged - I was damn well going to keep the secret. I'd promised, after all.

Rose shot her an awkward look. "Right you are, Mailyn. I was referring to my, um, second officer. She's supposed to remind me of these things."

"I thought your second officer was Leon Matrie…"

Rose bulled her way right past Mailyn's critique with a forced laugh. "A real conundrum! Come on, girls!"

The two of us bumbled after Rose, both of us dragging all of our worldly belongings with us (minus our bunk pads, which we told Aldo he could do with as he liked). We only had whatever we could stow in our little footlockers, but that was still a lot to carry all at once. By the time we got to the entrance to the hall, Rose was annoyed at having to repeatedly stop so we could catch up. She glanced to the nearby proctors and gestured them over.

"Hey, you two! Carry these things, will you?"

The Greycloak girl shot us the stinkeye. "I'm not carrying things for a pair of Scamps…"

"They're Sneaks, and you're not carrying their things for them. You're doing a favor for Rose Argent." She flicked the little rose jewel on her lapel with her fingernail.

"Oh! Sorry!" The girl snapped to attention and saluted sharply. "Yes, ma'am, Miss Rose! Er… Miss Argent! Right away!"

"Hmm… this place might not be the worst post in the world," Rose mused.

"What post?" I asked.

Rose looked down at me and grinned. "Oh, nothing special. While the Thorned Drake is in for repairs and upgrades, I've been asked to teach you Sneaks a little seacraft. Like I said… I'll expect you at naval drills in two hours."

Thus did Rose, Mailyn, two eager-to-please Greycloaks, and I make our way to our new digs in the heart of the Collegium. The residence halls for Sneaks and Greycloaks weren't too far from the Scamp Halls. They were about five minutes due west, forming three quarters of a circle around a large courtyard paved in ochre-yellow bricks and right off the ossatree-lined avenue leading down to the Shadow Hall. From the road, you could see the great tower of the hall looming over the canton, a full two hundred fifty meters from base to apex. The residences themselves weren't too different from the Scamp Halls, but for the number of windows and doors - since there was no need to limit ingress or egress at night (and, indeed, many Sneaks and Greycloaks need to come and go at night as part of their duties), the windows went right down to ground level and there were a half-dozen doors for entry and exit on each structure. There were fourteen of them in all, done in gray and red brick and resembling a large, if simple, home in the Mouldevican 'continental' style: twelve residence halls for the Sneaks under the supervision of Greycloak bosses and two smaller halls for the remainder of the Greycloaks.

A fifteenth building lay just beyond that circle of buildings - a small administrative… belfry, I suppose. It resembled a squat, slightly-deteriorating bell tower of the sort used in the Avatarine faiths. And, while it resembled a belfry, it stood alone like the sentry towers dotting the Gionian countryside from the bygone days of knights and chivalry. This is the building that Rose took us to, telling the Greycloaks to wait outside as we ascended to the second floor and she rapped her knuckles on an old oaken door with a brass placard reading:
Valeria Goodfellow, FPFC
Chief Prefect

"Enter," a woman called from within. I felt a pulse of thaum as something within the door's lock was disengaged - a magical lock and one a few levels above my limited ken.

Rose nudged the door open and strode in. "Val," she said with a nod of recognition.

"Rose," the woman behind the desk replied. She actually looked a lot like Rose - slim and beautiful, pale (albeit a bit darker than Rose's alabaster-pale complexion), and with very dark brown hair compared to Rose's inky black. Her hair was pulled back in tight braids banded with little silver skulls. She dressed in sleek, dark fabrics, though none of it was black - twilight violet and midnight blue, but for a silver brooch featuring a leaping dolphin. As she stood, I noted that she and Rose were of exceedingly similar height and build - given their fashion sense, they could have swapped clothes and nobody would notice. As the two of them shook hands, the prefect's eyes flitted over to the two of us.

"I see they've 'promoted' you to prefect, Val," Rose smirked.

"And you've been promoted to seamanship lessons," Valeria replied with a twinkle in her eyes.

"Only until I get the Thorned Drake back, faster and better-armed."

"Indeed. Onward and upward, eh, sister? So… who's this duo who have the honor of a personal escort by the Rose of Floria?"

"Ah." Rose's eyebrows flickered upward and she glanced to us, as if just then remembering that we were here. "These are Mailyn and Vix, two of the children Herrick and I rescued from Gionian slavers a few years back. They've just made Sneak and I wanted to get them personally situated before I take them out with my seamanship class…"

"Hmm…" Valeria flipped through a cabinet before retrieving a pair of files. She glanced at them, frowning. "I'm afraid that won't be possible, Rose."

"Oh? And why's that? Too much favoritism for our esteemed institution?"

"Not as such," Valeria said with a hint of amusement. She rapped her silver-ringed knuckles against one of the folders. "These two have seamanship on even days - today's an odd day. You teach the intermediate class today."

"Ah…" Rose ran her finger along her little rose brooch, visibly embarrassed by her posture, though not a hint of blush touched her cheeks. "I suppose our trip out to Alhred Island will have to wait until tomorrow. What residence hall shall I take them to?"

"Hmm…" Valeria rang a bell on her desk and, a moment later, a red-faced girl came jogging up.

"Yes, Prefect Goodfellow?"

"What hall are we on with the new Sneaks," she asked. "Seven?"

"Eight, ma'am."

"Eight. That's Purspine Hall if you want to be fancy about it. Well… Mailyn and Vix, was it?" She rooted around through a green cardboard folder. "I've got your schedules here - it'll be set for the first month and then things will change as needed. Welcome to the Collegium."

"Thank you, Miss Goodfellow," I said with a curtsy and accepted my schedule from her.

"It was nice to meet you," Mailyn added.

Rose nodded. "Thanks, Val. Good to see you."

From there, we met up with the Greycloaks carrying our stuff and made our way out to Purspine Hall, one of the big brick residence buildings. Each building housed eight crews, each crew containing two Greycloak 'bosses' and between ten and eighteen Sneaks. While the center of the residence square was a big brick courtyard, there was plenty of green space between the buildings, bone-white ossatrees, shingle-trunked palms, and pink-flowered poinciana trees livening the neat brick walkways between buildings. Out in the square a group of girls went through fighting drills, sweating in the Florian sun, and a nearby group of boys played citadel in the shade and unsuccessfully tried not to be obvious about watching the girls.

"Ah, this brings back memories," Rose sighed.

"Do all Shadows know one another?" I asked.

Rose chuckled at that. "What? No, Vix - there are over five hundred of us. But I do know most of the ones within a year or two of my graduation. I imagine it'll be the same when you graduate."

"You think I'll make Shadow?"

"I know you will," Rose said. As a point of note, less than half of Sneaks make Greycloak and no more than a sixth of Greycloaks ever make Shadow, so Rose was either uncommonly confident in my abilities or just telling me what I wanted to hear. I like to think it's the former. She handed Mailyn and me each a strip of paper with our assignments. Mine simply read 'sixty-one'.

"Sixty-two?" Mailyn asked.

"That's the crew you'll be in. There should be a number above the door to your bunk. Find an empty footlocker - that'll be your spot until a better one becomes available - and relax until one of the bunk bosses turns up to show you the ropes."

"But we're in different bunks," I said.

Rose shrugged. "You wanted to come in at the same time. Well… only one kid gets added to a bunk at a time. You guys will literally be next door to one another, and mandatory bunk hours are only midnight to the end of third watch. You'll be fine."

"But…" Mailyn added. She shot me a pleading look, as if I could do anything about the Collegium's hard-and-fast rules.

"I think this went well, don't you?" Rose said to herself, seemingly oblivious to our ongoing angst. "See you kids tomorrow, yeah?" And with that, Rose Argent was off, out to the avenue where her coach seemingly knew when and where to whisk her away to wherever she needed to go.

Unconsciously, I fumbled out and grasped Mailyn's hand and we wandered into the residence hall. The main door was unlocked, opening into a large common area with a dozen dining tables and another dozen or so shabby upholstered chairs. High above, a wrought iron chandelier cast the muted glow of glowglobes throughout the place. It looked a lot like I imagine the apprentice artificer's quarters would have looked like if abandoned for two decades or so and then given a very thorough cleaning - every surface that could be polished had been polished, but the wood on the floors showed uneven wear from years of use, the corners of everything were frayed or eroded, and the windows had the hazy gauzy translucency of aged glass. Perhaps a dozen Sneaks and Greycloaks lazed about, mostly in the padded chairs, studying or engaged in quiet conversation. A little lacquered sign near the stairway bannister indicated that bunks sixty-one through sixty-four were upstairs.

"I guess we're going up," Mailyn said.

We headed up and peeked into the bunkrooms. Each room consisted of two rows of bunks - sixteen wooden frames supporting mattresses in varying states of dinginess, with a footlocker at the base of each bed and two small drawers beneath each bunk for less-secure items. Not much, perhaps, but truly luxurious if you've been sleeping on a pad on top of a slab of wood for the past few years. There were several study desks, a small communal bookshelf, and a door at the back of the room securing the semi-private room of the bunk bosses.

"Wow… I could keep so much stuff in these drawers," Mailyn said.

I couldn't help but agree - not only were the footlockers about the size of our Scamp lockers, we didn't have to store bed pads in them because we got actual (if somewhat dingy) mattresses, and each drawer could store nearly as much, albeit less securely, since somebody could jimmy the bolts out of the wood if they really wanted to. And there were windows, too, looking down onto a neat little garden with peppers, tomatoes, melons, a bed for herbs, and an enclosed space for mushrooms. For a recent Scamp, it was practically like being royalty.

I paced down the row of bunks, finding four with empty and unlocked footlockers. I found the least dingy mattress - it was lumpy and had a slightly musty smell but no visible stains - and Mailyn and I proceeded to smack the hells out of it with iron mattress rods to pounds the lumps out. I laid back on the mattress and found it to my liking - I would want to get top sheets, but it would be a dream to sleep on. Then we proceeded to bunk 62 and proceeded to do the same thing for Mailyn's new bed, albeit with a bit less giggling since there was a boy studying at one of the desks. When we were done, the boy padded over and inspected our work.

"If it's still too lumpy, there's always somebody willing to trade for a few tollos. Just make sure it doesn't smell like pee," he said. "I'm Dash."

"I'm Mailyn and this is Vix."

"I'm in sixty-one," I said with an awkward wave.

"That's Nafiah's crew. He's hard as embersteel in the fighting fields but pretty nice otherwise. Come on, Mailyn, I'll introduce you to the sub-boss - he's down in the common room if I recall."

"What should I do?" I asked. I hoped he'd offer to let me tag along, or else I might just volunteer to do so myself. But, alas, Dash had other ideas.

"Why don’t you get situated in your bunk and wait for somebody to turn up and show you the ropes? If I see anybody from sixty-one downstairs, I'll send 'em up. Okay?"

Mailyn shot me a nod, which was my signal not to pursue the tagging-along option. I steeled my nerves and nodded. "Thanks, Dash. I'll see you later, Mai."

So, only slightly dejected, I unpacked my things, locking everything marginally valuable away in my footlocker and putting all but my Saintsday best clothes in the drawers - I'd need to get locks for them, too, but most Sneaks were too large or too well-dressed to get anything out of my casual clothes. I figured they'd be pretty safe in there. Then I lay back on my almost-lump-free mattress and let my thoughts wander. I didn't even notice my eyelids growing heavy and my breaths growing deep and regular… it had been a long time since I'd rested on a proper mattress. The next thing I knew, it was a few hours later and a boy's stubby fingers were poking uncomfortably against the side of my head.

"Wh-" I started.

"Oi, girl, what're you doing sleeping in Corandi's bunk?"

A slim girl a few years older than me nudged him away from the bed, looking down with a smirk as I struggled to sit up. "You must be the new girl. I'm Aria and this toad's rear is Billy Stout. Welcome to our little crew. If you work hard and don't mouth off, you and I will have no issues. What's your name, princess?"

"Vix. Vix Altorelli. And I'm not a princess."