Discern, Mosaic Chronicles Book One

Chapter Two

Nicole felt Austin's eyes on her as she strode into the room with Lizzie trailing her. She plopped into a seat several rows behind him and forced herself to smile and look cheerful.

As soon as she saw the image projected on the screen in front of the class, she forgot about Austin. It was of a mouse-brown haired woman surrounded by cats. Her hair was snarly and very unkempt.

"There are seventeen cats in that picture." Lizzie turned to Nicole. "How can you possibly own seventeen cats?"

Nicole smiled. "Easy, if they're not all alive." She dropped her voice to a whisper when the teacher—the same woman from the picture—got to her feet. "Those are cats she's probably owned over the years. It's obviously been pieced together."

Lizzie shook her head. "Seventeen cats in one lifetime is still a lot. Didn't your cat live for fifteen years?"

Nicole nodded, turning her attention to the front of the room.

"My name is Professor Whitman. I'll be helping you understand the complexities of Arete history." She stared at each student one at a time, and a long, uncomfortable silence permeated the room. "Don't expect me to learn your names by the end of the semester—or ever at all. I have far too many things to accomplish right now to worry about something so . . . trivial." She turned away and shuffled through a huge mess of papers on the desk. "You'll find a copy of your course objectives under your chairs. Pull it out."

Nicole bent and retrieved the purple paper. She was surprised to see flowers printed along the edge. She glanced up at Whitman. The woman had finished shuffling and was waiting with her arms folded. Nicole looked back at the flowers. They did not match Whitman's personality. And besides, how common was it for college professors to actually print out the syllabus?

"My goal isn't to make your life difficult—that's Professor Coolidge's aim." She paused as if waiting for people to laugh. No one did, and her eyes narrowed. She continued. "The only thing that will be required of you is to get a good grade and do the readings. We'll have a quiz every time we meet to make sure you're fulfilling your end of the bargain."

Professor Whitman retreated behind the desk and started going through her papers again.

Lizzie scoffed. "Bargain? What bargain?"

Nicole didn't respond. She was staring at the required reading. "Take a look at this. She says she doesn't want to make things hard for us, but having a quiz on the reading every day is going to be horrible. The sections are fifty pages long."

"Are you serious?" Lizzie's face went white. "There's no way I'll be able to keep up. I'm already panicking over math."

Nicole nodded. With the reading for this class, work for her other courses, and tests for the expedition, this would definitely not be a great start to the year.

"Your attention, students," Professor Whitman said. Once everyone had quieted, she pointed to the presentation projected above her. "For today, I'll give you a brief history of Aretes. We'll be going more in-depth throughout the rest of the semester, but I wanted you to have a taste of what we'll be learning."

Several students rolled their eyes, but Nicole got ready to take notes. She didn't care if this stuff bored the others—her parents didn't like talking about these things. Of course, the information was all available online, but courtesy of her parents' dismissive attitude, she'd never been curious until close to her eighteenth birthday. By then, she was too busy with her senior year, applying for Katon University, and moving to Seattle to do much research.

The professor began going through slides in her presentation. "It was the Greeks who first started calling our kind Aretes. The word means 'excellence in everything.' It helps encourage us to live to our fullest potential. You can learn more about the history of the word by studying your book.