As Tilli had suspected, Matsias loved bowling, and the girls loved finally finding something they could beat him at. The experience brought them closer, but only for the time being. By Wintday, Mat had returned to skipping dinner with the girls to go to the movies with Antony and his friends. At least it wasn't another school night though. If Mat stayed up late, he wouldn't be trying to frantically study for a test at breakfast.
She found him the next evening in the common, sitting at a table filled with books. Key pulled out a chair. "You know, I can't even tell anymore if you're reading for class or just reading."
"Check the language, I guess. All my textbooks are in Shugbo. Except for literature, of course."
"Why is that again?"
Mat blinked at her from behind his glasses, as though she had had asked for help on a particularly easy math problem. "All my classes are in Shugbo."
"Yeah, but Ayan's textbooks are all in Imk. Wouldn't it have been easier if you could at least read the material in a language you understood? It would be faster, certainly."
Matsias took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt. "Mrs. Putyam said that after I failed the physics test," he told her quietly.
"And what did you tell her?"Mat put his glasses back on. "That if my books were in Zhohu, I won't learn Shugbo as fast." He hung his head, looking much the way he had when he'd had to tell his mother about sneaking into a movie house. "Besides, if I see the words in Shugbo in the book, I understand what she's talking about in class. If they're in Zhohu, I have to learn all the words twice."
"Hey, I'm not criticizing," she told him, "I just... I don't always understand you, okay?"
"I could say the same about you," Mat told her quietly in Zhohu. She ruffled his hair, which hadn't been braided that day. It was unusual for him to leave it down, and she hoped it was a good thing. But she was too tired to worry about it at the moment. Key yawned.
"You should go to bed," Matsias suggested.
"Look who's talking."
Mat returned a sheepish smile. "I'll go to bed soon." He glanced at the boy's dorm. "I just haven't been sleeping well lately."
This caught Key off guard. "Really?"
"Nightmares are back." Mat reached for his crutch, which he used as a comfort object, even when he tried to downplay things that bothered him.
"Do you need more tea?"
He tapped the crutch against the floor and let it fall from one hand to the other. "I've got plenty. It just... it doesn't help me sleep."
"You're dreaming about the fire?"
Matsias took his glasses off again, but this time, he set them on the table. He let his hair fall into his face, as if trying to hide behind it. Key slid closer to him. "Matsias," she whispered in Zhohu, "you don't have to hide from me."
Matsias nodded and sniffed, though he continued to hide his face in his hair. "I keep seeing Lamel's face..."
Key rubbed his back. "I'm so sorry, Mat."
Mat tucked his hair behind his ear. "The goddess would say to have hope." Key knew hope was the greatest of virtues in the Epaluno tradition, almost as if Tsia Xitano had known the struggles her people would face in the many centuries after her death. Nevertheless, Mat's ability to hope in the wake of his family's death amazed her.
She hugged her brother. "Come on. Let's get you to sleep."
Mat relented. He wiped his eyes and put his glasses back on. Key helped him gather his books and walked Matsias back to his room. Then she went to her own room.
The next morning, she woke early to meet Kaylee and Ketu for breakfast, as they had promised her a surprise that morning.
"It's about a thirty minute walk," Kaylee told Key, "not difficult, but long."
"It's worth it," added Ketu. Key guessed from this comment that whatever they wanted to show her was something in Kporo, but to her surprise, they led her in the opposite direction, away from both Faraday and civilization.
They led Key up a hill. The path was narrow, but the ground around it was solid and not too rocky, so it was a fairly easy hike. When they reached the top, Key let out an audible gasp."You like it?" Ketu asked.
"It's beautiful." They stood at the top of a cliff. Trees and a river swept out beneath them, a reminder that Faraday really was almost at the edge of the city. But mostly it reminded her of the cliffs in Virarona, outside the city of Tempo, where she'd been born. There was a Shax'ia shrine there, where her family always stopped. She held her breath and imagined the echoes of stomping feet and the smell of wood smoke. "Thank you for sharing this with me."
Kaylee sat cross-legged next to her, a slight breeze whipping her hair. "I guess it's become a bit of a Hawthorne House tradition."
"What has?" Key was suddenly worried now. What had she gotten herself into? Were they going to push her off the cliff and expect her to magic her way back to safety?
"This place." Ketu sat next to Kaylee and patted the ground next to them. With a sigh of relief, Key joined them. Ketu continued. "Every year, someone from Hawthorne House takes a freshman up here. Two years ago, Edhal Mahelan brought me and Charlie Newman, and last year, I brought Kaylee."
The name Edhal sounded familiar, but Key couldn't imagine she had met the older boy, so she she asked the other question on her mind. "How do you choose?"
Kaylee grinned at Key through her hair. "We try to pick someone who needs a change of view."
Key gazed out at the landscape below her. She had never imagined the north could be as beautiful as the Southern Continent, but when she looked at it now, she felt like she was home. She wanted to run back to Victoria House and drag Matsias out here, even with his bad leg, to show him what it looked like. But at the same time, she wanted to keep it a secret, so she could have something that belonged only to her. A voice nagged in the back of her mind, telling her that her gods wouldn't appreciate her behavior, but she ignored it. She could always tell Mat later.
