Class Reptilia

“Here,” Naz said, passing an ice pack to Ember. She raised it to her lip, grimacing. The area was swollen and tender, and her head throbbed with the pain. Naz pressed a hand over Ember’s forehead, looking at Carn with concerned eyes. “The fever is getting worse.”

“Tell me one more time,” Carn said, folding his arms over his chest. “This is from a training accident?” 

Ember nodded, knowing that he didn’t believe her, but thankful that he didn’t press. The last thing she needed was the hotheaded fox deciding to confront her rival. “Okay,” he said, sounding entirely unconvinced. “I need to go to class now, but I’ll come back tonight. If it’s not better by then, you’re going back to the infirmary.”

“Fine, fine,” Ember said, waving him away. She’d taken the first trip immediately after the encounter with Roland, armed with a different lie about what had happened. They’d been unable to save her tooth, which had cracked in half after hitting the rocky trail. The mysterious fever had risen steadily in the three days since.

The moment the door to her dorm room shut behind Carn, Naz leaned forward. “It was that hawk, wasn’t it?” 

Ember groaned. “How did you know?” she asked painfully. 

Naz pointed an accusatory finger. “You act so weird about that guy. Why won’t you report him? This is assault.”

Ember gave her a look, attempting to explain herself. “Don’t act like… this is uncommon among Linnaeans. The last thing I need… is to be branded a coward. Besides…” she trailed off, thinking of the conflicted look in Roland’s eyes. “Something weird… is going on. Don’t think… he was off of the treatment… but we reacted to each other so strongly.”

Naz sighed, moving Ember’s sweat-soaked hair from her neck. “With a direct predator, that’s not impossible. Especially if your subspecies are from the same region.”

“It’s not just that. He’s… afraid of me, but what sort of snake… threatens a hawk?”

Naz shook her head. “That’s beyond me. If anyone would know, it would be the headmaster.”

Ember leaned back on her pillows, closing her eyes. Yes, the man who has never given me a straight answer. Perhaps it is time for me to see him again. 

***

Ember looked up, causing a fat, cold raindrop to splatter on her cheek. Ahead, wrapping around the tree trunk like a serpent, was a spectacularly designed treehouse. It spanned several stories, jutting out onto the sturdiest branches and connecting to ladders that reached into the canopy. The entire complex was veiled in a curtain of falling rain, lit only by the occasional strike of lightning in the distance. 

Cold and shivering, she pulled her hood tightly over her head, sending rivulets of water cascading down her arms. She approached the tree’s base, where an unassuming door was embedded into the wood itself. It was an atypical, eccentric sight: exactly what she would have expected of the entrance to Corax’s study. 

She turned the door handle, finding it unlocked, and stepped into the trunk. It was dark and musty, and smelled sweet, like sap. She pulled a match from her bag, lighting it and holding it in front of her eyes, and was greeted with a narrow, winding staircase. 

She touched the wall, momentarily baffled. From the outside, the fir was indistinguishable from any other, but it had been shaped to contain two layers, the gap between which housed the stairs. 

Ember took each step cautiously. Though the air was still, the match flickered, and she held it tightly between both hands for fear of losing the flame. The dense wood swallowed up all sounds, and she had to strain her ears to hear the pattering of rain and the gentle plodding of her footsteps. In the edge of her vision, insects scurried away into the darkness. 

Looking back at the faint light of the entrance, she began to rethink the choice to use her infirmary-mandated break from training to see the headmaster. Since it had been her first day back in class since the accident (she had skipped Monday due to the rising fever) she was already fatigued. Now, the sensationless stairwell was setting her teeth on edge, worsening her headache, but turning back into the stormy forest was no more appealing. 

She continued faster, dragging one hand against the outer wall to keep her bearings. After a dozen circulations, warm light spilled onto the stairs, marking the transition into the treehouse. She blinked away the ache in her eyes, waiting for them to adjust, and looked around. 

Directly ahead was a short hallway that terminated in a door marked with Corax’s name and title. The walls were made from planks of wood and hung with various art pieces: portraits of Linnaeans in white coats, the shed antlers of moose and other deer, and head-sized moths preserved in glass frames. There was a single, small window whose pane was dimmed by streaming raindrops.

Gathering her courage, she gripped the iron door knocker, banging it against the wood. The sound reverberated through the hallway, shaking the foundations of the treehouse. When it went unanswered, she sighed, resting her head against the door. The lemur at the front desk in the registration office had given her directions to Corax’s study, but he hadn’t known when the headmaster was most likely to be in. He’d informed Ember that she might have better luck calling on him unannounced than waiting for an appointment—a statement that she was now questioning.

“Come in,” a gravelly voice ordered, and Ember leaped a foot into the air, whipping her head to the side and jarring the wound from her missing tooth. When she realized that Corax was not, in fact, leaning over her shoulder, she inspected the doorframe more closely, finding a horn-shaped instrument fitted into its surface. A thin metal pipe attached to one end and disappeared into the ceiling. How curious; it’s like a more advanced version of the ‘two paper cups and a string’ contraption that children use in their games. 

Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door and stepped into the lowest story of the study. 

At first glance, she almost believed that she was inside the office of a madman. There was no discernable order to the multitude of oddities strewn about the first floor. Skulls—both animal and human—sat in glass display cases, glass weights propped open scrolls atop wooden tables, half-finished maps clung to the walls, and telescopes pointed out of open windows. Artifacts, some precious and others seemingly worthless, perched on every surface. 

Pain forgotten, Ember looked at them hungrily, itching to dissect them. Knowing Corax, not a single item is without use. 

In the middle of the room, a wide, velvet-lined staircase led up to the second story. A shadow danced over the stairs, hinting at Corax’s presence. “Professor?” Ember called.

“Come up, come up,” he encouraged, and Ember gripped the banister, taking the stairs at a measured pace.

Unlike the lower story, the room was relatively open. A sturdy, rectangular table sat in its center, atop which was an elaborate, three-dimensional map of Mendel and the mainland. Ember scanned it quickly, unable to contain her curiosity. She spotted entire cities, including Ciradyl, represented by miniature wooden buildings surrounded by black circles. Tiny trees marked the great woods, which she noted extended much further than she had imagined, almost spilling off of the southern edge of the table. To the west of the mainland was the sea, a wall of rolling waves that dwarfed the model ships. 

The table’s organizer—presumably Corax—had placed tall, red markers at various, seemingly unconnected locations on the map: in the deep forest, in the middle of the sea, in the blazing central desert, and in the icy mountains of the north. Even as she committed them to memory, uneasiness spread through her chest, prompted by the sense that she was seeing something she had no right to see. 

Corax cleared his throat. “Ms. Whitlock?” She turned her head away from the table. The headmaster was looking up from a microscope, his quill poised mid-notation. He wore a white lab coat that hung nearly to the floor, covering his feathered legs. 

“I’m sorry,” Ember said. “I’ve interrupted your work.”

He shook his head, gesturing toward himself with a spindly hand. “Come. I wish to show you this.”

She walked to his side, already silenced by his brusque manner. He stood up from his chair, allowing space for both of them to lean over the small desk. Next to the microscope was a detailed diagram of a double-helix structure—a strand of DNA. 

With a taloned finger, he pointed to a segment of the structure. “Do you know what this is?”

Ember ran her tongue over her dry lips, trying to recall what she had studied. “It’s a gene, the basic unit of heredity.”

Corax nodded, seemingly pleased. “Not just any gene, child. This is the root of all of our struggles and gifts, the reason we take on the characteristics of our source species: the Linnaean gene.”

Ember looked at it carefully, her brow furrowing. “But Professor, the scientists at the biology lab said that our mutations are due to an error during DNA replication; that when polymerase synthesizes DNA, it inserts the wrong order of nucleotides. Like the pattern for a fur coat instead of hair.”

“That’s correct. But why would a polymerase go haywire? There must be a trigger.”

Ember began to catch on. “This gene controls the polymerase enzyme, doesn’t it?”

The headmaster smiled. “Yes. This is the key. I believe that Linnaean DNA must be distinct from that of humans; it carries this gene, which is capable of modifying polymerase.” He looked down, tracing the segment gently. “This is the source of our power. Whether it was given to us by some god or the devil himself, I know not.”

Ember gazed at the diagram, lost in thought. If the Linnaean affliction is not the result not of an error, but of a gene, it means that we are fundamentally different from our human counterparts. A shiver ran through her body, and she clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking. It was a dangerous idea, one that could be used to argue that one race was indeed superior to the other. 

Corax wiped his mouth, breaking out of some sort of trance. “Surely you did not come to hear me ramble on.”

“Y-yes,” Ember stuttered, gathering herself. “I came because I recently had an encounter with Roland, the second-ranked student in the freshman class. He’s a black hawk-eagle, and we share a connection, but not for the better.” She resisted the urge to touch her purpling jaw. “Last time we met, I experienced petrification, but  he was also wary of me.”

The headmaster looked down at her, dissecting her with his dark eyes. “Shall I assume that this ‘encounter’ is responsible for your missing tooth?”

Ember’s tongue inadvertently flew to the gap between her teeth. “Perhaps.”

To her surprise, he pushed no further. “Why do you need my help?”

“I have the sense that something unusual is afoot, and I fear that if I do not know my species soon, the situation will worsen.”

Corax considered her. “Fine. I can see that your mutations have progressed sufficiently since we last talked, and I see no reason to deny one of the university’s best students. Follow me; I’ll tell you what you wish to know.”