Would she?
Tor could feel the fields on the metal, or else he would have thought he'd just screwed up and it hadn't worked. After that, tired as he was, he got up and ate some more. Yellow cheese and half stale bread, but it tasted surprisingly good for all that. There was even some dried fruit. The real kind, slow dried in the sun, not magically. Chewy apple slices that felt velvety to the tongue.
So, all Tor had to do now was go to each class, beg forgiveness for missing, and pray that Karen would decide that murder was too harsh a punishment. Tor thought for a second… Maybe he could bribe her with gifts? She'd mentioned not having flying gear yet, and he'd brought extra back with him, the new version even, and a shield? It wasn't much, but maybe it would distract her from being too angry with him? If she hadn't just written him off already and moved on to the next thing.
Dorris took his return with aplomb, of course, and simply indicated that he should sit with a hand gesture and that small half smile she almost always wore. After class he explained that he'd spent eleven days straight working and she bowed slightly, then sent him on his way with a tiny smile and another small wave towards the door. The novel build instructor, Fines gave him a long look and told him that his project was due soon.
“Oh, the light! I figured that out the same day, it took about an hour, so I kind of forgot about it and moved on to harder things. I'll bring something in tomorrow…” The man smiled and waved his hand.
“Oh, don't worry about it, what did you come up with that was so important you missed class for two weeks?” His voice made it clear that he trusted totally that Tor hadn't just been skipping at least. That was heartening.
The man seemed impressed, in a reserved fashion. He wanted to wait for it to actually work or fail before passing judgment. That was kind of him too, since Tor had no clue if it was even really possible. It did have a light incorporated, he let the man know, which earned a smile and a promise of a good grade if the whole thing worked. That would count as a light well enough, unless it was inferior in some way, the man assured him with a serious smile.
His other classes went about the same, much to his relief. He had to apologize and grovel a bit, but no one suggested he leave school over it yet. Tor went back to his room for lunch, ravenous already, even though he'd eaten just a few hours, five, before. Half way to the room, in the center of the cobblestone commons Trice and Sara found him.
The blond girl smiled at him, seeming friendly, but Trice stood facing partially away, refusing to make eye contact. She crossed her arms and huffed.
“Ready for the test? If you die, I swear I'm never talking to you again.” The words were funny, but the tone was so serious no one even chuckled. She sounded ready to cry.
Tor wasn't really ready; he had to grab the fields from the room. With a bit of math he decided to take half the metal pieces and the big wooden template. That would leave him enough for his friends if the others were needed for testing. Taking a deep breath, he walked out, not knowing where they were going at all. No one had given him a location for it.
Sara patted him on the back, her hand lingering for about fifteen seconds. Trice didn't react to it, so Tor figured it wasn't outside of what was proper really. Finally the pretty blond spoke.
“Oh, it's in our dining hall. You get to have lunch with us today…” Sara looked at him and winked.
It made sense that they ate daily, he'd seen them do it after all, but he hadn't been aware that they had a dining hall like his section had. The buildings were smaller, and set back from the rest of the school enough that no one would have ever gone into one by mistake. The walk wasn't that long, even if they had to walk at his pace, which still kind of limped along. Tor almost wished he had something better than browns to wear, since the girls both wore blacks, and really nice ones at that, made of fine, airy materials. Meant to keep them cool in the late summer heat? Neither looked hot, no sweat or anything, so they probably wore their amulets for that. He did. Otherwise even the school would have been too warm for him. Never the blistering heat of the Capital, but hot enough to annoy and make him damp in all the wrong places.
The room they took him in to was filled with people. Most in black but a few in much livelier colors, some of the girls in pretty dresses even. Many of them ate already, which made him more than a little hungry in response. The food smelled really good too. Maybe not palace level good, but at least two or three times better than what they got at the other dining facility across campus. At the front of the room the older bearded man, wearing a large, well draped black velvet coat, a bright green shirt under that and a red floppy hat, along with black trousers made of something that Tor couldn't identify and didn't bother trying too, watched him enter.
“Ah! Mr. Baker. Just the man. Please, come and join us.” The voice was warm and he gestured regally enough that the move wouldn't have been amiss in the palace itself.
As he got to the table he saw that it held plates of food, each dish was different, some obviously things he'd never encountered before. A few looked like raw meat, and one of them seemed to still be alive in a glass of water. An eel? He'd heard of them but had never seen one. Did people really eat those? Alive? Eek. It didn't look very good to him. It slithered in the clear glass, a grayish black that shone even in the water, making it look slick and slimy.
“The test is a simple one. Use your device on this food and find what's poisoned before we eat. Begin as you will. I don't know how the device might work. Do you need anything in particular, or a special condition for the food?”
Pulling one of the little copper rectangles from his belt he activated it with his thumb and just moved towards the food. He went slowly at first, not knowing if anything would happen at all. Most of the people in the room, students mainly, but a few older people, including servants, watched with a bored quality. Maybe they saw things like this all the time? As he approached a plate with mashed potatoes, gravy and beef slices the device in his hand lit up.
It didn't glow itself, instead, as he'd intended, the space around the hand holding the device glowed with a golden light so bright that it was kind of hard to look at. Tor wanted to make sure that the signal never got missed by mistake after all. If you sat in direct sunlight, it would be clearly visible. Good. He moved over the beef, holding the copper close to it, nearly touching, but the unit stopped responding, it was obviously the mashed potatoes then. Or the gravy. Either way, he wasn't going to eat it.
“I can't tell which part in particular is poisoned though, unless I separated them somehow, is that required for the test? I think it would make a bit of a mess and I don’t really want to touch poison, if I can help it.”
The older man smiled and shook his head, “No, I think knowing what not to consume is enough for now. Good to know it could be used to do that though. Knowing which part of a dish is tainted could help lead to who had access to the food for investigations. Please, continue.”
The next two plates were fine, but then he got to a fish dish that lit up. Again it had a sauce, this one some kind of fruit based thing. The eel, however unlikely that was, didn't make the device glow at all. Gross, but apparently it could be eaten and was even close enough to things he ate regularly to count as nutritious and wholesome. In all he found five plates of food that had been poisoned. The man nodded and clapped.
“Very good! One last test then…” The man clapped and a simple pot pie came out. The man indicated it with his head, telling Tor to test it.
Nothing happened.
Until he started to take the device away and it crossed the side of the ceramic baking dish. It obviously wasn't food, but the dish itself made the air light up. He didn't understand it, but Trice did.