It said only, OUR HONORED DEAD. The academy had been quarantined when the plague broke out. Even when it had spread through the city beyond our walls, Dr. Amicas had maintained our isolation. Our dead had been carried out of the infirmaries and dormitories and set down first in rows, and then, as their numbers increased, in stacks. I had been among the ill. I had not witnessed the mounting toll, nor seen the rats that scuttled and the carrion birds that flocked, despite the icy cold, to the feast. Dr. Amicas had been the one to order reluctantly that a great pit be dug and the bodies be tumbled in, along with layers of quicklime and earth.

Nate was down there, I knew. I tried not to think of his flesh rotting from his bones, or about the bodies tangled and clumped together in the obscene impartiality of such a grave. Nate had deserved better. They had all deserved better. I’d heard one of the new cadets refer to the grave site as “the memorial to the Battle of Pukenshit.” I’d wanted to hit him. I turned up my collar against a wind that still bit with winter’s teeth and hurried past the groomed gardens through the late afternoon light.

At the door of the infirmary I hesitated, and then gritted my teeth and stepped inside. The bare corridor smelled of lye soap and ammonia, but in my mind the miasma of sickness still clung to this place. Many of my friends and acquaintances had died in this building only a couple of months ago. I wondered that Dr. Amicas could stand to keep his offices here. Had it been left to me, I would have burned the infirmary down to scorched earth and rebuilt somewhere else.

When I tapped on the door of his private office, the doctor peremptorily ordered me to come in. Clouds of drifting pipe smoke veiled the room and flavored the air. “Cadet Burvelle, reporting as ordered, sir,” I announced myself.

He pushed his chair back from his cluttered desk and rose, taking his spectacles off as he did so. He looked me up and down, and I felt the measure of his glance. “You weren’t ordered, Cadet, and you know it. But the importance of my research is such that if you don’t choose to cooperate, I will give you such orders. Instead of coming at your convenience, you’ll come at mine, and then enjoy the pleasure of making up missed class time. Are we clear?”