Almost all of the kids were crying, the older kids especially, or huddled up on the floor like they wanted to be curled into a fetal position but they couldn’t bear to put their heads down. All of us under the crisp blue of an autumn sky, dry leaves on the air and crunchy under us, sunlight dappling in a slant through the leaves of dark maple trees in a mix of brilliant crimson and yellow and green around the edges of the room that was suddenly a forest clearing, the faint gurgle of water running over stones somewhere not far away like a promise, large grey stones emerging like islands from a carpet of moss and leaves, while in the far misty distance a hill climbed a little way above the tree line, with the wooden balcony and roof of a pavilion just peeking out from more cascading colors.
I stood there stupid for a minute or two and then a bird called from somewhere and I started blubbing myself, too. It was horrible. It was almost the most horrible thing that had happened to me in here; it wasn’t exactly as bad as the maw-mouth, but it was hard to compare because it was horrible in such a completely different way. I have no idea what they were thinking when they’d made it, except of course I do. They wanted to make a room that would look charming on tours and impress other wizards, and make them all say how lovely it would be for the kids to have such a nice place to come to for exercise, how lovely to have this to make up for being trapped inside the school for four years without ever seeing the sun or feeling the wind or seeing a single green leaf, all the water you drink tasting faintly of sour metal, all the food the regurgitated slop of massive kettles filled with different vitamins and barely there enchantments to fool you into believing it’s something else, knowing the whole time you’re probably never coming out again, and it didn’t make up for any of that at all.
People started running out of the gym in droves. The only ones who didn’t were the stupid freshmen, who were all wandering around burbling out nonsense like, “Wow,” and “Look, there’s a nest!” and “It’s so pretty!” and making everyone who’d been in here for more than five minutes during the safest year on record want to stab them with knives. I would have gone running out myself, only my legs were as mushy as if I’d just been born, and so I just sat down on one of the picturesque rocks sobbing until Orion was there grabbing me by the shoulders saying, “El! El, what happened, what’s wrong?” I waved my hand frantically and he looked around with his face only confused, and then he said, “I don’t get it, you fixed the gym? But why are you crying over that? I gave up hunting a quattria to come back here!” in a faintly accusatory voice.
It did help. I got a breath and told him flatly through my snot and tears, “Lake, I’ve just saved your life again.”
“Oh for—I can take a quattria!” he snapped.
“You can’t take me,” I spat at him, and I heaved myself up onto my feet and stormed out on the energy of pure fury, which at least carried me out the doors and away from the grotesque lie of the grove.
I lurched away down the corridor, wiping my streaming nose on the hem of my t-shirt—his t-shirt actually, the New York one he’d given me, which I’d stupidly worn today, like a declaration; maybe that had been part of why the Shanghai kids had come at me. Because they were afraid of what I would help New York do to their enclave, their families, and why wouldn’t they be afraid? I could do anything.
There were kids crying in huddles scattered around the corridors. I went into the labyrinth and all the way to my seminar classroom, where at least I could be alone except for any maleficaria that wanted to try to jump me, which I’d have really appreciated at that moment. I went down the narrow corridor into the room and shut the door and put my head down on the ugly massive desk, and through the vent a faint breath of autumn leaves came into the room, and I cried for another two hours without anything at all trying to kill me.
Nobody bothered me the last few weeks of the semester, except by sort of sidling around me warily like I was a bomb that might go off unexpectedly. Faint wafts of fresh air scented with crisp leaves and early frost were now coming through the vents at occasional moments that emphasized how awful the air was all the rest of the time. My delightful classroom up in the library got them quite often. My freshmen all took deep breaths of it while I did my best not to vomit. I saw kids occasionally burst into tears in the cafeteria when one blew into their face. Every time, people would glance at me sideways, and then pretend really hard that they hadn’t.