Chapter Thirty-Two
THERE WAS something going on between Elliot and Barve and Farlden intended to find out what it was. He watched them leave the campus together, their body language just plain weird. It almost looked as if they had argued, but Barve never argued with anyone except him, and they both seemed uncomfortable.
It felt strange to think that Barve was hiding something from him and worse if that thing was about Elliot. Something had changed between Farlden and Elliot recently, warmth in their interactions now that Dervyl’s presence in their lives was revealed. Farlden had thought that they knew each other well now but, he reminded himself, Barve had always really liked Elliot. Was the relationship between the Sapiens and his brother changing?
The thought made him feel ill and he didn’t know why, which made him angry. He wanted his brother’s happiness more than anything else and he would like Elliot to be happy too, so why not with each other? Elliot was kind and generous and loyal. If anyone was good enough for Barve, it was him, so why had Farlden always felt so opposed to the idea of them together?
He went to his lecture about abstract art and refused to let himself go round in circles thinking about Elliot and Barve anymore. So his mind instead confused itself with the puzzle of Nolan. He loved Eva. He was smart. He got letters addressed to Al Greela, who had a Nean name but looked Sapiens. That didn’t mean anything as, whatever the other half of the population liked to think, everyone had a mixture of both races in them and some people whose family were almost pure Nean could still look Sapiens, just as the opposite was true. Nolan also possibly wrote essays pretending to be Al. Whatever way Farlden put the pieces together, they didn’t make any kind of coherent picture.
He finished the lecture without learning a thing and walked back to the halls of residence in frosty weather with a biting wind that made him hunch down into his jacket. He kicked a few conkers out of his path and headed inside.
There was no sign of Barve and, after waiting ten minutes, he went and knocked on Elliot’s door.
“Come in,” the familiar sophisticated voice said.
He walked inside, seeing Elliot sitting on his bed, laptop out and books and pages of notes scattered around him. The sight was reassuring for some reason but the expression in Elliot’s eyes, when he looked up at him, wasn’t.
“What’s going on with you and Barve?”
A crease appeared on Elliot’s forehead and he looked down. “I should leave it to him to tell you.”
“No. Just explain.”
“He asked me out and I said I didn’t feel that way about him.” The look in Elliot’s blue eyes was almost fearful as he waited for Farlden’s reaction.
Did Fal actually scare him after all this time? Fal ignored the feeling of lightness in his body at the news that Elliot wasn’t interested in Barve, refusing to think about it, and said, “Poor Barve.”
“I didn’t want to hurt him,” Elliot said and the truth of that was obvious although, again, he seemed to expect the worst from Fal. “I never wanted that.”
“I know. Just give him some time. He had a crush on you from the first day he met you and it’s only got stronger.”
“I didn’t know.”
Elliot’s obvious distress made Fal want to hug him, but of course he couldn’t. They might be genuine friends now any physical affection would have been weird. “It’s not your fault.”
“Are we still friends?”
“Of course we are, you idiot, and Barve will want that too when he’s feeling calmer.”
“I hope so.”
Barve wouldn’t want to eat with Elliot tonight but Fal didn’t want to leave him alone with this sense of awkwardness between them. He reached for the first subject that came to his mind, taking a few steps towards Elliot. “I was thinking about this whole Nolan thing. It’s got me stumped.”
“Perhaps we’ll find out something from reading his mind tomorrow.” Elliot’s tone was indifferent, the subject relegated to a lower importance when compared to the current drama in their lives.
“This whole getting older thing is complicated, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Elliot smiled. “We attend all these classes in school telling us how to find the value of X in an equation and other things we’ll never think about again, and no one bothers to talk about the important subjects, like relationships. For that we have to rely on the TV and books and they seem a good few degrees removed from reality.”
“Neans are taught at home,” he said, not fighting a desire to share something personal. “I doubt it’s the same as what you experienced. A lot of it was practical because, as slaves, our family didn’t get any real education, although they taught themselves to read and write after they were freed. Me and Barve mostly studied from books, talking over subjects together. I’d never written an essay until I came here.”
“I didn’t realise. If either of you need help to get good grades, I’m happy to assist.”
He only shared one lecture per week, on a Monday, with Elliot but, beyond sitting together, they hadn’t had a chance to work together. “I know the information, but I don’t know how to share it,” he reluctantly admitted, feeling stupid. “I got one of the library leaflets Callie recommended but it was written for someone who already knew the basics of writing an essay. Me and Barve are both doing okay in the practical art stuff, but the essays, projects and presentations are a nightmare.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Elliot exclaimed, frowning. “We’ll work out times to do some study sessions together and I’ll go over everything you’re not sure of. You have to know how to go about writing an essay right away, though. Do you think Barve would be willing to join us so he knows what to write too?”
Elliot’s worried expression produced a spark of warmth in Fal. “I’ll go and get him.”
As he walked out of the room he realised, with a startled sensation, that no one, apart from his brother, mattered as much to him as Elliot.
* * *
The brothers quickly picked up what they needed to include in their essays, making Elliot wish fervently that they had told him earlier about the problem, or that a professor – any professor – would have been willing to help them.
The awkwardness between him and Barve had faded and, once he was satisfied that they would get good marks for their next essays, Elliot asked about the other subject that had been giving him sleepless nights. “I know there are things you can’t talk to me about until I decide which race to support, as crazy as that idea sounds in my head. But Dervyl said I could understand about the different races. She mentioned something about Neans having ancestral memories.”
Barve’s nervous frown vanished. “Oh, yes. That’s not even a secret. We have a sense of things that our ancestors experienced – not memories of other lives but an impression of knowing something.”
“It’s like if you have a fear of spiders or mice,” Farlden added. “Where does that come from? Sapiens have much less of it than us, but you still have a sense of fear or understanding over something that has come through the background of your people.”
Elliot frowned over this idea. “And how is that different from what you have?”
“We can separate what knowledge is our own and what comes from the past and it’s more detailed,” Farlden said.
“Dervyl said you might have remembered her people as myths if they hadn’t kept in contact with you after the first few meetings.”
“Exactly. We would have a sense of them but nothing as strong as a memory so we wouldn’t know if it was real or folklore.”
“And Izient brains are different from everyone else’s?”
“Izients can use more of their brains than Neans and Sapiens and they can use them in different ways. What we think of as magic is part of that. Elliot, you don’t have magic because of a mix of Sapiens and Nean DNA – Neans have had children with Izients and the magic you have is from you having some Izient DNA.”
Elliot ran a hand through his hair as he thought about this. His view of the entire world was beginning to change, reality turning out to be far more complex and confusing than he had ever imagined. “Some of this seems like science-fiction.”
“Wait until you’ve seen Dervyl’s dimension,” Barve said.
“You’ve been there?” Elliot asked at once, fascinated by the idea.
“Only once so far,” Barve told him, “but I’d love to spend a chunk of time exploring it.”
“It’s not like Earth?”
“No. Not at all.”
Elliot had hundreds more questions, but they would be here for days if he asked them all at once and, besides, he felt as if his brain would explode before he began to understand everything. “When did you know about Izients and their world?”
“Only a couple of years ago,” Farlden said. “Neans aren’t told until we’re old enough to realise what it would mean if anyone found out about the Izients.”
That made Elliot feel a bit better about them having concealed it from him, easing his hurt. If the whole thing was a secret even within the Nean community then he could understand why Farlden and Barve hadn’t told him about it. “But how could all your people have possibly kept such a massive secret? I mean, I accidentally found out about it.”
Barve shook his head. “You saw Dervyl because she wanted you to. You were always someone she hoped to tell the secret to one day. You’re linked to Izients through your DNA the same way you’re linked to us. Her people are partly your people. It’s your secret too.”
“Sapiens have been our enemy for most of our existence and Izients have been our hope for a better future,” Farlden added. “Neither torture, bribe nor anything else could have made us talk about Izients. Besides, Saps never asked us about them. It’s a lot easier to keep a secret when no one asks any of the right questions.”