Q-Tip(KOTLC) {Completed}

19

The next morning, Janessa, Sophie, and Biana went to the boys' treehouse. Fitz was finally declared healed by Physic, so he and Sophie would be doing Cognate exercises.

Janessa, having already downed her elixirs, worked on lifting gradually heavier weights with her left arm to strengthen her shoulder next to Dex, who was still working on making the Twiggler, the gadget to get into Lumenaria's secret archive, better.

After an hour or two, Mr Forkle and Granite entered the common room, dragging in two large gray trunks.

"Enduring Exillium will be your greatest challenge yet, in many ways. Do not let your goals distract you from surviving." Granite said.

"Surviving?" Sophie repeated.

"Exillium is more of an institution than a school." Janessa said.

Mr Forkle nodded. "It exists for the Unworthy — the hopeless cases. You must follow all the rules, no matter how unfair or bizarre they seem. Names are forbidden. Friendship is forbidden. Talking or interaction of any kind is forbidden." Mr Forkle continued to list rules. "There are no restrictions for the punishments the Coaches choose. The less attention you draw to yourselves, the safer you'll be. You need to blend in."

Mr Forkle handed each of them a thick stack of grey and black clothes, along with heavy black boots and a silver-studded black half mask.

Biana offered to try it on, then clomped back in steel-toed boots laced up over fitted black pants and a black long-sleeved shirt tucked under a grey vest with silver buckles and chains across the front. The back half of the vest flared and draped low like a trench coat and it had a hood with a deep cowl. It was impossible to tell what Biana looked like, especially with the mask.

Mr Forkle explained that every day the location of the campus changes and gave them each a long black cord with a single bead. Biana then noticed the pin on her vest and Granite explained that there were pins for each ability.

They were each given forms the Collective had filled out about them for their records and Janessa and Sophie noticed that, on the line designated for the names of her family, was written Mr Errol L. Forkle.

Sophie scooted her chair back, shocked. "You?"

Realization dawned on Mr Forkle's face. "I'm not who you think I am."

"Who are you?" Biana wondered.

"Her... father." Fitz gasped, reading the paper.

"No, I'm not."

"Then why would you list yourself as family?"

"I am family. My name is on her Inception Certificate. Both of theirs. Someone had to vouch for their existence since their genetic parents couldn't reveal themselves." 

"Why the secrecy? Can't they know their family?" Della asked.

"No. If you knew who it was, you would understand." Janessa replied.

Everyone gaped at her.

"You know who our biological parents are?" Sophie gasped.

"One of them. I've never met them before. And I don't need to know who the other is until Mr Forkle says I can. I wish I could tell you, but you'll understand someday." Janessa said.

"For now I can assure you that I am not your genetic father." Mr Forkle said.

Sophie and Mr Forkle stared into each other's eyes and everyone knew they were having a telepathic conversation.

After their staring contest, Sophie looked back at her form and asked "What does ID mean?"

"That's your inception date, the moment your life began." Mr Forkle explained.

"But that's months before my birthday."

"Oh, yeah, this is going to sound really weird for you, but elves don't count starting from their birthdays. They start from their ID. This freaked me out when I first heard this. So really, you're not 13, you're fourteen and little more than five months like me, since we're twins and all that." Janessa explained in one breath.

Sophie's jaw dropped, stunned, and the others had varying reactions. Fitz stared at her like everything had turned sideways, Keefe laughed and said, "Only Foster would find a way to age nine months in a day. Also, welcome to the cool fourteen-year-olds club!", holding his hand for a high five that Sophie didn't return so Janessa hit it, and Biana said, "Huh, so you're both older than me."

As the others continued to marvel over Sophie's new age, comparing it to their own, Janessa began doing more exercises for her shoulder while listening in on the conversation. Biana was thirteen and a half, Dex would be fourteen in a few weeks, Keefe was almost fifteen, and Fitz was almost sixteen. Dex commented that they were kind of in the middle and that Sophie was closest in age to him.

Janessa grinned. "Actually she's closest in age to me, but you're a close second, Dex."

Dex glared at her and she widened her eyes innocently.

Mr Forkle then began explaining the differences between human and Elvin pregnancies. Janessa rolled her eyes as they began to ponder the philosophy behind humans waiting to count from their birthday.

"It's not because they're scared of running out of time. Honestly, I'm still disappointed I'm not going to grow old and wrinkly when I'm eighty. It's just because birth is when something beautiful comes out of great pain. A baby is a mother's pride and joy, but the pain she must go through is excruciating. Celebrating birthdays is a reminder of the good that can come out of pain. At least, that's what I think. Or it could just be because humans don't know when their inception date is." Janessa corrected his theory that once the clock starts for a human, there's no turning back, hence why humans start counting later.

The rest of the group sat in silence for a moment, thinking over her answer. "That was very insightful, Janessa." Mr Forkle commented.

"I've lived with humans since I was born. Just like Sophie, I know their perspective and Elvin perspectives, to a degree. Human life isn't as complicated as elves make it out to be. We just have very few worries because we'll never run out of time."