It takes Kiddu a few min­utes to notice the note. When she does, she gets a goofy grin on her face and scrib­bles some­thing on her own tablet.

i am SO HIGH right now

Gil rolls his eyes.

i thought you said you weren’t going to do that ever again

Now she rolls her eyes, and scrib­bles furi­ously:

i said i wouldn’t DRINK ever again
don’t you need to DRINK soma?
yeah but that’s dif­fer­ent from DRINKING
drink­ing means beer
or wine i sup­pose
what’s with the giant penis?
it’s a SERPENT
oh i see
are you excited for our SECRET OPERATION tonight?
Priest­ess Matreya
Gil!

He jerks up from his tablet.

Gil
Yes, Priest­ess?
Priest­ess Matreya
Well? What are you wait­ing for? Answer the ques­tion!
Gil
Um. What was the ques­tion? Sorry, I was tak­ing notes—
Priest­ess Matreya
Pay atten­tion! Why is haz­aram for­bid­den?
Gil
Oh. Because of the Ancients.
Priest­ess Matreya
Be spe­cific!
Gil
Oh. Okay. The Ancients built huge tow­ers out of the haz­aram. Accord­ing to leg­end, the tow­ers scraped the belly of the Ocean-and-Sky God­dess…
Priest­ess Matreya
Accord­ing to leg­end? You doubt their author­ity?

Gil glares at his desk. The priest­ess has been pick­ing on him a lot lately.

Gil
I just meant that some peo­ple don’t take the story lit­er­ally, like it’s a metaphor for human hubris. And the savants—
Priest­ess Matreya
I do not care one bit what the savants say! They can teach what­ever they want at the impe­r­ial school—I will not be forced to put up with that non­sense in my class­room! But you are cor­rect, Gil. The Gods for­bid the use of haz­aram after the ensu­ing Cat­a­clysm…

The priestess’s atten­tion wan­ders away, and Gil glances back at Kiddu’s tablet.

well?
BESTIAL LIBERATION!
don’t write that down!
it’s evi­dence if we get caught

She looks at Gil with a face that looks almost con­de­scend­ing, in a parental sort of way. Then, with a grand flour­ish, she sweeps a small brush across her tablet. Par­ti­cles of chalk flow down over the edge of their table.

Gil dis­creetly erases his own notes, mak­ing sure no traces of the words are left. He’s been ner­vous about tonight since Kiddu convinced—manipulated, really—him to go along with her.

He glances around the class­room. The water clock on the wall almost reads 3:00.

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