Mason Marks is a screw up.
Every day is a struggle to cough up enough money for rent, to ignore the reek of despair flooding the streets, to stop himself from slipping further into the shadows and slums of Downtown L.A.
And he is sick of it.
When h...
QUIN does not show up to any of the training sessions the next day. Or the next day. Or the day after that. Or today.
I sit with my feet slumped against the beaten floorboards, fiddling with the drawstrings of my sweater as Warden Leopold rambles on about which selkie queen killed which dwarven lord and who is still bitter about not being invited to the Second Region ruler's hundred and third birthday party.
Carter scribbles diligently a few seats down. Her pen flies across the paper, allowing the obnoxious white of her notepad to be swallowed by an inky black. As Leopold turns around to jot something down on the blackboard, she folds the sheet and flattens its corners into a paper airplane.
I arch an eyebrow from my slumped seat as the airplane is launched into the sky, lingering in the air before promptly collapsing at the legs of Haze's desk. Haze is quick to pick it up. After a pregnant pause, he crumbles the paper between his fists, crushing its wings with a disgruntling crackle. Before Leopold turns around, Haze casually flicks the now wrinkled ball of paper onto my desk.
It rolls to a stop in front of my hands. Haze goes back to half heartedly listening to the lecture while Carter resumes taking notes, neither spare me a glance. I unfold the paper, smothering it with my forearm to combat the offending wrinkles on its surface.
Haze, give this to Marks, thanks. Marks, flip to back. With a furrowed brow, I obediently do as told. Two words are smeared across the back. Two words and yet the moment my eyes touch their elegantly inked lettering I find myself sinking further into the depths of my hoodie. Two words: Where's Quinton?
"Do you have something to share with the class, Marks?" Leopold says, his eyes landing upon the re-crumbled paper airplane with its pathetically shriveled wings limp upon my desk.
His slim fingers pluck the paper from in front of me, expertly flattening the creases as one might handle an ancient scroll, of which in Leopold's case, might be more common than not. Silver eyes skid along the scribbles marking the note's surface. Until they come to a stop. Find mine with a flicker of uncertainty and return the paper face down before me.
Leopold leans back upon the blackboard, smearing the chalk to drooping clouds while resting his fingers against the pen tray. After a moment of searching, he finally finds untangles his tongue and speaks:
"For those of you compassionate or stupid enough to care about the absence of one of your fellow Juniors. Quinton is—with Warden Brooks' and Nguyens' permission—spending a bit of time in his hometown in Somnium while his arm heals. He should be fine, but due to a particularly bad infection near the claw marks, we thought it best for him to take some time off. But you lot have better things to worry about starting with the test on the complete geography of all waterways and gulfs in the fourth region tomorrow! Focus on your work, then you won't have time for worry or 'compassion'."
His eyes meet mine, ringing of a pain that I'd never known and wish never to become familiar with.
"Compassion can be a dangerous thing."
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