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Chapter 5. Spider webs
Someone unceremoniously touched my nose. It tickled the very tip, forcing him to twitch it to get rid of the irritant.
But it didn't work out.
That's why I opened my eyes. She opened it and saw above her, instead of a light ceiling, a bent green plant with small round eyes, a narrow slit that replaced its mouth, and limbs.
The leaves of this creature were wide, but about two-thirds of the length were occupied by elongated arches, similar to fringes or the experiment of a child who was given scissors for the first time. A kind of Frankenstein, created equally from howea and monstera.
If I saw him for the first time now, I would certainly scream in horror, waking up the entire freshman dormitory. But we met this green monster last night, when he tried with all his might to escape from his pot, scattering soil on the only work table in the room.
And on the bedside tables. They stood on either side of the table, next to the single beds. Immediately behind the table there was a large semicircular window with a wide sill, and opposite there was a wardrobe and a door.
The latter led to a common corridor. One of two on the second floor. The layout here was circular.
– Oh, sorry, sorry! I left him for two minutes, and he was already right there. He jumped onto the nightstand again,” the neighbor who returned to the room apologized, but her voice immediately changed, becoming menacing, commanding: “Come on, tidy up your appendages!”
Raising myself on my elbow, I was in no hurry to throw back the black blanket under which I slept. With an inexplicable smile, she watched the green-eyed whirlwind. The red curls jumped up and down fu
In general, she did not at all resemble a pale-ski
The numerous books occupying all the free space on her half of the room definitely hinted at the fact that she was still a nerd, but I only saw this as a plus. D-Rolly really knew a lot and was a real treasure to me personally.
As soon as I checked in, she immediately showed me the dining room. While we were having di
Part of this gloomy colossus with a separate entrance belonged to werewolf students, another part belonged to witches and witchers – we shared a fence with them, and the last part was empty.
“They used to train hunters there,” she explained, wrapping spaghetti around her fork. – Now all three branches of the academy use this land for common needs and common holidays.
– I wonder why they suddenly decided to leave? – I was curious, trying to find out as many details as possible about the mysterious hunters.
– They say that they equated themselves with people. They stopped considering themselves Midnighters and rebelled against the entire midnight world. Until they left, they were busy catching offenders, and then we all suddenly became criminals for them.
– There must have been some reason for this?
I pushed D-Rolly in the right direction with all my might.
– Don't know. But personally, I wouldn't want to run into any of them. What they tell about them in class instills real fear. Have you finished eating? You need to get in line for the showers.
There were two bathrooms on each floor of the two-story building. In any of them you could find four sinks and a large full-length mirror above them, two showers behind separate doors and two offices for deep thoughts.
Considering that two students lived in each room, and there were eight rooms on the floor in total, this was enough to avoid standing in line for hours.
I was also immensely pleased that the second floor of the building was allocated exclusively for girls. The guys lived on the first floor, and, unlike us, they had noise until the very night yesterday. However, I also heard girls’ voices, which means we were allowed to move between floors.
Between floors, but not between rooms. Both the first and second floors had their own common living rooms, and they were the place for gatherings. The neighbor also showed me the room for washing and drying clothes, the storage room where they got clean towels if yours with the academy emblem became unusable, as well as the curator’s room.
There were five buildings in our part of the academy, depending on the number of years of study. There was a separate building dedicated to the work of healers. They were witches and witchers, and sometimes students were transferred here for practice. This is how D-Rolly met our neighbors in the territory.
– You won’t get lost alone, right? – the neighbor asked for the second time, as soon as we returned from the showers to our room. “I need to transfer Rory to the witches’ side before class.” They have sun there, and it grows better,” she explained, as if apologizing.
I took out from the common closet the uniform the curator gave me yesterday.
– Go, of course. Meet me in the dining room.
Grabbing her ward, for whom she was either writing a course paper or doing a lab, the redhead ran out of the room like a whirlwind. I just shook my head and smiled, looking after her.
In general, I was given three sets of casual clothes. The first is red and black: black turtleneck, black trousers and burgundy jacket. The second one is completely black – a sports one, consisting of pants and a T-shirt with long sleeves.
But I was going to wear the third one.
It consisted of a simple white shirt, a blue jacket, a short skirt and a matching tie. It seems to be strict, but not entirely official. Rather mischievous.
Having changed my clothes, putting on sneakers instead of the soft slippers given to me, I went out into the corridor. Having greeted the curator of our floor, I preferred to quickly hide from under her gaze, because Mademoiselle Ornina Welby fully lived up to her name.
Dark-haired, brown-eyed, a little on the body and about my height. She created a pleasant impression until she opened her mouth. The woman screamed at her charges from the bottom of her heart, without really understanding who was right and who was wrong.
But that was precisely her job. Maintaining discipline was why she was here in the first place. However, she could equally be called a business executive. Bed linen, towels, household products and uniforms – she was responsible for all of this, as well as for the safety of furniture and repairs in our rooms.
But the most important thing is that she was the one who decided who would receive permission to visit the city. One-time passes were given to students only for good grades. I found out about this when yesterday I asked to be allowed to go pick up my office for a while to study. I tried to cheat, but they simply gave me a whole box of everything I needed.
Then I decided to go the other way. She asked me to be released into the human world for an hour in order to give my mother important documents that she had forgotten in my backpack, which was a lie. But she was refused again. Because I didn’t yet have a dagger – an artifact enchanted by witches.
It was issued to all graduate students, and only with its help could one open a passage to the Light Side using the doorway on the second floor of the city library.
True, there was another way to get to the other side – together with a teacher for a practical lesson. That is, whatever one may say, in the current conditions I had only one option – to study. Of course, unless I come up with something else.
Having passed the stairs, I, along with other first-year students, climbed out onto a small porch. I felt unusual going out under the starry sky. The body said that it was early morning, but the eyes saw something else – a solid dark canvas and the absence of the moon. And also lanterns, trees and darkened paths among flowering bushes and neat flower beds.
The air smelled of something sweet, but unobtrusive. The slight coolness did not constrain the body. On the contrary, I felt the freshness that happens on an early summer morning, when the dust of the day is still nailed to the roads.
I felt great. For the first time I didn’t put on lenses, and without them it was as if I could even see more clearly, sharper. And I was breathing completely differently – more freely, as if a rope to which a heavy stone had been tied had finally been removed from my neck.