"Took you long enough, pushup boy."
Alex lay with his nose in the grass and a cane round his neck. He had never been so happy to be insulted.
"Professor! You're..."
"Quieter."
"...you're okay," he whispered. "You're faking!"
"I am sitting in a wet field with my eyes shut, opening my mouth for a ladle like a goldfish. I would not call it okay." The cane lifted off his neck. "Do not get up. Lie there like the dimwit you are, and report."
Alex reported. It all came out in one breath: the worms, the west, the Guild, Selina on the ridge, and the star that was going to touch the hill.
Professor Long listened without lifting his head.
"I ate the soup," he said, when Alex ran out of air. "The same as everyone. I was sick behind the armoury for an hour, and when I came back my class was walking out of the gate. So I walked with them."
"For two days?"
