Key left early on Springday to go with Tisheet to meet the shooting club. Tilli slept in, and then sprawled out on the floor with her art. She wanted to work on something she could submit to the local gallery, which meant it had to be her best work. Mr. Tearshik had not been impressed by her drawing of Key's baby shawl and still insisted she needed to "get out over her comfort zone," whatever that meant. Tilli thought for a while. She was used to drawing landscapes, but always from a distance. She thought of what the Taend forest looked like when she was walking through it. She thought of Applestar's town, with its houses built right into the trees. Could she capture the feeling of walking down the street the way Mari had done?
She was working on the shadows cast by the morning sun when a knock startled her so badly that she jerked her pencil across the entire sheet. She pushed herself up, looked at the streak cutting through one of the houses and swore. The knock came again."Tilli? Key?" Miriam's voice called.
"Coming." Tilli slammed the top of her art box shut, stuffed the picture into its tube, and opened the door.
"Are you coming to dinner?"
Tilli glanced at her watch. "It's already dinner time?" Her stomach grumbled in response. "Let me grab my keys. Where's Ayan?"
"She's getting Mat. We haven't seen him all day either. What about Key?"
"Mat's working in the infirmary today. Key's been at shooting club, but she said she'd meet us at dinner."
When they got to the cafeteria, Key was already there, sitting with Ayan. As Tilli and Miriam joined them, Tilli looked at her watch again. "I didn't think was Mat was supposed to work this late."
"Maybe something happened in there?" Key suggested.
Ayan pointed her fork at Key. "There was that girl this morning."
"This morning?" Tilli asked, "What else did I miss?"
Key looked at her salad as if she was re-considering it. "Trust me," she said, "you're lucky you missed it.
"Miriam set her fork down and laid her hands on the table. "Well, it's a good thing Mat's not here because I've got something important I need to tell you about."
Ayan turned to her roommate. "Something you can't tell Mat?"
After a glance in Key's direction, Miriam told the table, "Jo said Antony told her he's been lying about something."
Tilli looked at her. "You're the truth wizard, aren't you? Is he lying?"
"Yes." Miriam turned to look at Key again, which was unusual for her. "And no."
Key spoke as calmly as ever. "Mat's a very private person. Sometimes he doesn't even tell me things. Antony says he's lying, but how do you know it's not just Mat trying to keep a secret?"
"I don't. Is there anything you know about Mat that he would be trying to hide from people?"Key considered this for a moment, and then said, "Nothing that Antony should know about."
Ayan picked up several pomegranate seeds and then let them fall back into her bowl. "I remember Mat saying something a while back... before the fire... about Antony... giving him advice or something?"
Miriam had still not picked up her fork. "Do you think Antony set him up?"
"If he did..." Tilli tried to calm her anger as she felt a breeze whip through her hair. Then Key slammed her fist on the table.
"Did you not hear anything I just told you?" She glanced around the cafeteria, and Tilli wondered how much of her gust of wind Key had felt. "Mat is a private person. Even if Antony did set him up, he wouldn't want us looking into it."
"But if Antony did something, we need to report it," Miriam insisted.
"No. Let Mat report it if he wants to. But I'm guessing he'd rather stay under the radar." Key locked eyes with Tilli, but Tilli shot a glance at Miriam, who had returned to eating. "Fine," Tilli told her roommate, "we won't get involved."
"That means you two too," Key told Miriam and Ayan.
Miriam raised her head with a surprisingly casual air and agreed. Ayan fidgeted. "Shouldn't we at least tell Mat? I mean, if Antony did..."
"He's tired of people prying." Key's tone reminded Tilli of her father's mother, warning her and her siblings about the nasty reincarnations that awaited misbehaving children. She made a mental note to be wary of Thisaazhou matriarchs, should she ever travel through the Southern Continent.
Trying to look as casual as possible, Tilli took a bite of her risotto. "You're right. He's barely spoken to Antony since the fire. He probably already knows."
