NINE: THE ARBITRATOR

Orla

Master Porter led the pair of teenage girls across the commons to the rear of the Jupiter Forum, removing a ring of keys from her jacket pocket.

"We'll go through the staff entrance here," she said, crossing beneath an arch of yew hedges, heading for a seemingly blank wall. "Students aren't allowed this way normally, but it will save us some time today."

Rather than passing the key through a keyhole, she pressed the key to one of the bricks, and the wall dissolved inward, melting like a snowflake caught in a warm hand. Master Porter and Vera paid the phenomenon little mind, but Orla gawked. She was mildly concerned the wall would suddenly materialize and she'd run into it as she crossed the entrance.

Inside, the corridor was quiet but infiltrated by the subtle noises of crinkling paper, conversation, snapping fires, and clinking dishware. Orla peeked into a room as they passed it, finding a staff lounge with a few instructors inside, drinking tea or coffee or getting prepared for their classes. Some looked up at the intrusion, though most didn't pay her any mind.

"This way, Miss Tiernan."

Master Porter and Vera had gotten ahead, and Orla lurched forward to follow.

When Orla had first seen the building the evening prior, she hadn't realized how large it was, how the passages wended through the space, crossed by balconies or bridges overhead. What was stranger, however, was the whispering. It caroused and echoed, almost playful, and breathed against Orla's ear. She rubbed it, then looked to Vera and Master Porter to see if they heard it too, but neither did.

That...doesn't bode well.

Master Porter brought them to a door on the second floor, and she knocked twice.

"Enter."

The voice that spoke was reedy and strange, sending shivers through Orla and Vera. Master Porter simply opened the door and let them inside, bringing them into a large office filled from floor to ceiling with thousands upon thousands of wooden filing cabinets. A swirling nebula of tiny brass keys formed above their heads, each key like a star swathed in a curious, murky fog. A woman wearing a white blindfold was seated behind a circular desk. The most striking detail of her countenance was the four pairs of spider legs emerging from her back.

Orla didn't gasp, but it was a near thing.

"Good morning, Madam Arbitrator," Master Porter called, and the woman tipped her head in acknowledgment. If not for the spindly legs, she would have appeared normal—her Asian features young and pretty, delicate black hair tied in intricate braids along her scalp. She had to be blind, but she didn't seem to have difficulty pinpointing their location in the room. One of her spidery limbs lifted and tapped a key, sending it off to its cabinet.

Watching the cabinet open on its own as an appendage carefully slotted a new document inside reminded Orla of something Master Porter had said at Mr. Byrne's house. She'd mention how some Seraphium needed to remain in their communes because their Talents were too obvious to have in normal places. The Madam Arbitrator must have been one of those Seraphium.

"You have brought me another," she said in that raspy, reedy voice as the trio approached the desk. Orla held herself very still as one of those eerie legs moved over her head and gently patted her hair. A clicking laugh left the Arbitrator. "Braver than most."

"Indeed," Master Porter said. "Orla here is in need of her schedule."

"A first-year?"

"No. She's a second-year."

"Ah, interesting...."

The desk in front of the woman held many tomes with thick paper inside. A spidery limb shoved one of the books closer to her, and when she opened it, Orla saw that braille covered the page.

"Miss Tiernan will also need funds procured from the Assistance Program for her gear."

"Will I find authorization from the Board here?"

"You will." Master Porter shifted, leaning an arm on the desk's edge. "Eventually."

"Hmm. Am I to assume you will be taking her to the village, Master Porter?"

"Yes."

"Then I will see the funds delivered." Madam Arbitrator's fingers danced across the words before her. "Will Orla Tiernan require special accommodations for her Talent?"

Anxiety returned with a vengeance to attack Orla's morning waffles, and she swallowed. "I don't—have one?"

Madam Arbitrator made a noise in dissension. "Incorrect." She closed the book, and already another had been laid on the desk. Her spidery limbs never seemed to stop moving, always filing papers, selecting keys, or retrieving a new item. The sight filled Orla with a mixed sense of horror and amazement.

"It took me more than one visit to get used to it," Vera muttered next to her. "After a while here, though, it all becomes commonplace."

Orla couldn't imagine such a sight becoming normal, but then again, Morty had always been a part of her, and others would probably find him bizarre or frightening. She shouldn't be so quick to judge, especially when she didn't know what else Bilarthus had in store for her.

She didn't see where the typewriter came from, only hearing it when it landed before Madam Arbitrator with a heavy bang and rattle of metal gears. The woman didn't miss a beat, her hands moving in tandem with her many appendages as she pressed a small bronze coin to the typewriter's side, and it started typing on its own.

"Monday: Kinesiology and Physical Education, Discernment and Identification, and History of the Western Empire. Tuesday: World History and Social Ethics, Languages and Literature, Application and Phenomena in the Arts. Wednesday: Study Hall and Arithmetic and Astral Augury—."

On she continued, filling the rest of Oral's week with the oddest-sounding classes Orla had ever heard of. She spoke, and the typewriter followed along until she reached the final afternoon slot on Friday—Application and Phenomena in the Arts—and the typewriter chimed. Madam Arbitrator took the new page that had appeared and pulled it free of the carriage. She extended it first to Master Porter, who reviewed the information and handed it to Orla.

Vera leaned close, and Orla jumped, startled. "As I thought," she confirmed, smug. "We have most of the same classes. Everything but Application and Phenomena in the Arts, and Arithmetic and Astral Augury."

What are these classes? Augury? Arts? Orla furrowed her brow as she read through the list, finding she had most of Wednesday off, and the schedule included times for meals. It didn't look anything like the curriculum she'd had in Dirgemore.

Master Porter cleared her throat. "We'll need a Gregory as well, Arbitrator."

"Ah." The spider-woman reached into the drawer below her workspace, and her hand emerged holding a gray rock. At least it looked like a gray rock until she passed it to Orla, and the tiny gargoyle wriggled in her palm, turning to direct his pinprick-sized garnet eyes up at her.

It's moving!

"He's a map," Master Porter commented, perusing a list on a clipboard, distracted. "Ask him directions, and he can tell you the way to go."

"He's worthless," Vera hissed by Orla's ear. Gregory looked scandalized. "Mine almost got me lost in the forest. Twice."

Worthless or not, Orla thought the little thing was adorable—in the way that very small, fanged terrors could be adorable. "I'm sure he wouldn't do that on purpose," she said. "Would you?"

The gargoyle considered her, then eventually shook his head. It didn't inspire much confidence in Orla, but she nonetheless tucked her new map inside the pocket of her too-large t-shirt.

Master Porter finalized whatever she'd been reading and signed the bottom, exchanging the clipboard with Madam Arbitrator. The words on the page shimmered as they changed from letters to braille. "Your textbooks will have to be ordered. It should not be long, but in the meantime, Bilarthus hosts a generous library where you can complete tasks. For today, I'll write a note for your instructors that you are excused from any assignments, given it's a Friday. Starting next week, I expect you to begin participating in your classes to the best of your ability, and we will arrange tutoring during your study hall to get you up to speed."

All this sounded incredibly difficult to Orla, who'd never done well in school and didn't have the best relationship with her teachers. Mr. Byrne would ground her when she brought home bad grades, and while he'd made passing attempts to help her with homework, the content had frustrated him. He didn't have the patience for it.

I guess I know why now. He learned this kind of weird stuff in school, not that. Orla grimaced.

"Tomorrow being Saturday, I should have the time in the morning to take you into the village and purchase your things. I expect you to be as early as you were today, Miss Tiernan."

"Okay." Orla tried to infuse her voice with some enthusiasm, but her mind turned again to how much all this would cost and if it would matter in the end. What if she didn't have a Talent? Yes, she had Morty, but from what she'd seen, the other students could control their abilities. Maybe not perfectly, but at least to some extent, whereas Orla had no say in what Morty did, no authority over his autonomy. What if she was a Seraphium...but not Seraphium enough?

Vera tapped her hand—a brief, tentative touch meant to get her attention. "We're going to be late to Languages and Literature," she explained, pointing to the class on the schedule. "In the Jove Wing. I'll take us there."

"Okay," Orla said again, feeling as though she was barely treading water, and Vera was throwing her a lifeline. She still feared that line would snap or suddenly be jerked from under her grasping hands, but for now, she would trust it. She had to.

She folded her schedule closed, making a messy crease along its middle, and turned to the woman behind the desk. "Thank you, Madam Arbitrator," she said.

"Blessings of Inasiahl upon you, child."

As Orla and Vera left the office, the latter leaned in closer. Vera smiled, and said, "It means good luck."

Orla was going to need it.

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