I sensed that he was testing me. If I wanted his trust, I would have to go along and explain to Jones later. “So?” I prodded, staying at his flank.

He walked a while longer, and I hurried to keep up. He stopped abruptly in front of a dormitory. I nearly ran into his back. He turned. He looked me up and down.

“Do you know my name?” he said.

I blinked, stalling for time. “What does that matter?”

“I’ll answer anything you want, if you can tell me my name.”

His eyes seared mine, looking directly into my pupils and through them, to my ill intention. He had not been fooled, I realized. Not at all. My temper flared. “I know you’re rude and disruptive.”

His mouth tilted, humorlessly. “I figured you weren’t friends with her. Your kind never are.”

He opened the dormitory door and shut it in my face.

* * *

After a minute, I took a deep breath. I grabbed the door handle and let myself in. The Vine Keeper was taking a thick mound of cloths from his pocket. He unrolled the mound and laid it flat on his desk beside a neat pile of white gloves. The rolled cloths, I realized, were medical masks. I’d seen the nurses wearing them along with white gloves in the Schoolhouse infirmary. Ignoring me, the Vine Keeper picked up a book and sat down at his desk to read.

I marched up to him, demanding attention. “Okay, fine. I should know your name, and I don’t,” I conceded. “I was rude yesterday in the hall. And you have every right to mistrust me.”

He looked up, his face stony.

“I’m trying to apologize.”

He shrugged. “Apology accepted.”

He looked down at his book, but he didn’t order me to leave.

His room was a standard-issue single except he had several bookshelves, all packed with books. His window was larger than mine, and a dozen pots of soil sat on the sill. A few boasted tiny green seedlings.

“Are these all yours?” I said. I moved to the bookshelves. There were several thick volumes, pamphlets, treatises and anthologies.

He took a while to answer. “Yes.”

I knelt by his desk, where a tall stack wavered. “May I?”

He sighed, but nodded. I ran my hand along the spines. Basic Botany, Botanical Gardens, The Secret World of Trees, Herbs and Roots. “I don’t get it. Are these for your garden?” I nodded to his potted plants.

“You ask a lot of questions, Cobane.”

I scanned a pile by his feet. Einstein’s Physics, Human Maladies, The Complete Anatomy Reference Book, Advanced Organisms. A book at the bottom of the stack caught my attention. “Weapons of Combat?” I asked. I opened the book and flipped through the first few pages. An inscription caught my eye. Before I read it, he took the book from my hands and placed it on another pile—right on top.