Babel

by R.F. Kuang

A new note awaited him under the windowsill when he returned home that night. He unfolded it with shaking hands. The message scrawled within was very brief, and this time Robin managed to decode it in his head. Await further contact. His disappointment confused him. Hadn’t he spent the day wishing he’d never been ensnared in this nightmare? He could just imagine Griffin’s mocking voice – What, did you want a pat on the back? A biscuit for a job well done? He now found himself hoping for more. But he had no way of knowing when he might hear from Griffin again. Griffin had warned Robin their contact would be sporadic, that entire terms might pass before he was in touch again. Robin would be summoned when he was needed, and no sooner. He found no note at his windowsill the next evening, or the evening after that. Days passed, and then weeks. You’re still a Babel student, Griffin had told him. Act like one. It turned out this was very easy to do. As the memories of Griffin and Hermes receded into the back of his mind, into nightmares and the dark, his life at Oxford and at Babel rose to the forefront in glaring, dazzling colour.