Miriam watched as Jo prepared her uncle's favorite tea set in the kitchen. Though Jo usually wore a short, dark-colored skirt, today she wore a long yellow robe with a green sash. Her hair, which she usually wore down, was folded in several curls and ringlets on top of her head. She even wore makeup. "What are you doing?" Miriam asked.
Jo carefully poured boiling water into the teapot. "Preparing tea."
Jo did this often when Miriam's uncle had guests over. It was the only time Miriam ever saw her cousin in fancy clothes, which she didn't even wear to temple, much to her father's dismay. "Why doesn't he have the staff serve tea?"
Jo turned and looked at Miriam thoughtfully. "When father dies, I'll be the leader of the province. Then I'll have to make alliances with the other leaders to keep my people safe. They would laugh at a fourteen year old sitting in on their meetings, but it wouldn't be strange for me to be there if I'm serving tea."
Miriam nodded. "You're a spy."
"No," Jo said, but the chords in her voice were wrong. Miriam had been listening to the music she heard in others' voices for months now. She'd learned how to tell truth from lies, though she hadn't told Jo about it.
Miriam pretended that Jo hadn't lied to her. The only person Miriam hadn't heard lie was her uncle. "Do you like it? Serving Tea?"
"Yeah." The chords were wrong again.
"No, you don't." Perhaps Miriam shouldn't have said it, but she was too curious. She wanted to know why Jo agreed to do something she didn't like.
Jo stared at her, mouth open slightly. "How do you know if I like it or not?" Her eyes widened. "You can see the truth."
Miriam took too long trying to determine how to respond, and she knew her silence was answer enough.
"Well, you're right. I don't like it." Jo adjusted her robe once again. "But it's important." She picked up her tray and paused in the doorway to look at Miriam, "You know," she said, "when I go to Faraday, father could use a truth wizard around the house."
"Do you want to go to Faraday?" Miriam asked.
"Yes." This time, the chords rang true.
"Why?"
Jo looked down at the tray of tea. "I don't want to make alliances. I want to make friends."
When Miriam woke on her birthday, her mind was on her cousin. Jo had told her she had hoped to make friends at Faraday, but that was before she started stealing money from devastated parents. And yet, Mat had not caught on to her manipulation, as Tilli had suggested. Miriam told herself she didn't know Jo very well anymore. She was dating a house head. Maybe Antony had taught her how to be considerate. No. She would believe it when she saw it.
She did her morning exercises, as usual, and then found Tisheet at the front desk.
"Good morning," she said with a smile. Tisheet always seemed to be smiling. But her eyes, set behind silver-rimmed glasses, were somehow both gentle and as observant as Mrs. Putyam's.
"Um... is there a place I could get a broom?" Miriam asked. "I want to... sweep my room." She didn't know how to explain the birthday tradition of sweeping the last year away, but if ever there was a year she needed to do it, it was this one.
"A broom? Sure." Tisheet disappeared into the room behind the desk, and then came out with a broom. "Just return it when you're done." Up close, Miriam noticed embroidery on her shirt collar, similar to the embroidery Mat and Key wore.
Miriam took the broom and returned to her room. Ayan was awake and braiding her hair. She nodded to Miriam, but didn't say anything, lest she drop the strand of hair she held in her teeth.
Miriam set about sweeping. As she did, she concentrated on her her breathing, using it to expel the troubles of the last year out of her body, just as she swept them out the door of her room.
It was strange to sweep with Ayan in the room, even if she wasn't watching. Though her uncle allowed her to follow her religious traditions in the safety of her own home, he had trained her to act as if she followed the Danos faith required of all people living in his province. She knew she wouldn't be treated differently here for her Xurugwi faith--Tilli, after all, openly wore her rebirth necklace, and no one batted an eye. But Miriam was used to keeping quiet, so she spoke the mantra under her breath. It helped her to re-center herself for the upcoming year, even if that was difficult in a shared space.
When Ayan finished braiding her hair, she perched on her bed and watched silently as Miriam finished the sweeping ritual. Miriam stood in the doorway and spoke the last words of the mantra, then turned to her roommate. "Breakfast?" she said. The other girl nodded.
Miriam dropped the broom off with Tisheet on their way to the cafeteria, and they met the others at their usual table. Miriam was happy to see Mat and Key were both there. Not only had Mat been spending more and more time with Jo, but Key had taken to running off her with her new friends from Hawthorne House, which made the table feel lonely.
"Mat, you need to eat something," Key told her brother as Ayan and Miriam sat. His tray sat off to the side as Mat himself poured over a book. Key sighed and tried to move the book, but Mat held it down with his hands. "I need to study," he insisted. It took Miriam a moment to realize he had spoken in Zhohu, which was uncharacteristic of him.
Tilli rolled her eyes as she picked up a slice of plum. "Come on, it's like... the scientific method. Mat Truuit isn't going to fail a unit one test."
"Oh no," In her focus on her birthday, Miriam had forgotten about the physics test they had that day.
"You passed Mrs. Theelnin's test on the first day," Tilli continued, "surely you can survive physics."
"But it is Mrs. Putyam." Miriam had started studying science with her father's co-workers at five or six, but still, the thought of the hawk-eyed woman standing over her while she filled in her answers made Miriam's stomach do somersaults. "And of course she had to do it today."
Mat looked up, eyes wide behind his glasses. "What do you mean? What's today?"
Ayan coughed lightly and looked at Miriam as if waiting for an explanation. Miriam tried to stare her down, but she wasn't sure how. She wasn't used to being in the spotlight.
"It's Miriam's birthday," Ayan said after a moment of silence.
"How did you know that?"
"The sweeping ritual."
"Sweeping ritual?" Mat asked. Miriam noticed that Key used this moment of distraction to remove the physics book from the table and push Mat's breakfast toward him.
"In Xurguwi tradition, you sweep away the troubles of the old year on your birthday. It's bad luck not to."
"You are Xurugwi!" Tilli said.
"Well, secret's out, I guess," Miriam muttered.
Mat swallowed and looked down again. When he saw the tray in front of him, he turned to Key for the book. But his sister pointed at the tray. "Eat." She turned to Miriam. "Why didn't you tell us it was your birthday?"
Miriam stared at her plate. "It didn't seem important." That was true enough, but it was also clear that the others thought it was. She forced herself to look up at Key, reminding herself that eye contact wasn't taboo in Nefrale. "We never made a big deal out of birthdays at my uncle's house. We were usually busy with other problems."
"Do you want to do something for your birthday?" Ayan asked.
"Not really." Even before her parents had died, birthdays had mostly consisted of a nice dinner with family. And every dinner at Faraday had been nice so far... except when half the table disappeared."
Can we do something for my birthday?" Tilli said.
"When is your birthday?" Mat asked.
"Eastday."
"Sure!" Ayan sat up straighter. "What do you want to do?"
"Anything, as long as it's an excuse to get away from my brother and sister."
It seemed odd to Miriam that Tilli wouldn't want to spend time with her family on her birthday, but her words rang true. Ayan shook her head slightly, setting her braids swinging. "I'll come up with something. But for now, we had better get to class."
As Ayan stood up to take her tray, Miriam and Key joined her, since they all had algebra together. "Is your brother all right?" Miriam whispered to Key as they left, "he looks like he didn't get enough sleep last night."
"Apparently he and Antony were talking and lost track of time." This was less troublesome to Miriam than Mat spending time with Jo, but she still worried that she might need to intervene. She considered telling Key about her worries, but decided against it. Key barely tolerated her as it was. If Miriam started saying distrusting things about her brother, that would probably be the end of their relationship.
They reached their algebra class, and Key reached into her bag to get her textbook. "Oh no!" she said.
Miriam and Ayan both turned her way.
"I forgot to give Mat back his physics book."
"They'll already be in class by now," Ayan said, referring to Mat and Tilli.
"Give it to him at lunch," Miriam agreed. She didn't mention that lately, neither Mat nor Key ate lunch with the others, but she hoped it would encourage both of them to be there.
Mat did eat lunch with them that day, but he looked no better than he had that morning. He arrived after the girls, looking just as tired as he had that morning, and Miriam noticed that, for the first time since she met him, Mat's hair hung loose, rather than it's usual braid. She tried to measure Key's reaction before she said anything. The other girl frowned at the sight of Mat's loose hair, but said nothing.
"So, how was the test?" Tilli asked. He was the only one of the five who had physics before lunch.
Mat rubbed his forehead. "I don't think I passed."
Miriam tried to look up and him, but couldn't bring herself to. Like Tilli had said that morning, she had told herself that the first test would be easy, but if Mat couldn't pass it, how would she?
Key bit her lip and pulled Mat's physics book out of her bag. She laid it on the table next to him. "Sorry, I didn't mean to keep it."
Mat barely glanced at it. "It wouldn't have helped anyway."
"Was it really that hard?" Ayan asked. Miriam imagined Mrs. Putyam standing in front of the class, smacking a ruler in her hand, as she was wont to do, ready to call out anyone who so much coughed during the sacred silence of an exam.
"Probably not," Mat said. Miriam raised her eyes slightly when she heard the sound of truth in his voice. "I... didn't have enough time. I couldn't focus on what I was reading."
"Maybe you should have slept last night," Tilli remarked, and Miriam looked up long enough to see Key raise an eyebrow at her roommate.
Mat also turned to Tilli. "Aren't you the one who's always telling me I work too hard? That I should spend more time having fun?"
"Well, not at the detriment of your grade! Faraday doesn't take just anyone. You don't want to lose your spot."
Miriam saw Key swallow at this. Mat hefted himself up with his crutch. "It's one test." He turned his gaze to each of them in turn. Again, Miriam tried to meet it, but couldn't hold it. "I've learned my lesson. Are we finished?" Without waiting for an answer, he picked up his tray and left the girls in silence.
