One #2
Moyna’s small amount of personal space shrank back to nothing.
The grey-haired person’s bracelet got tangled in her satchel again.
She ran through the diagnostic history that would be needed if someone presented with a trembling lip, and reminded herself how the veil tremor felt when magic pressed up against it: like the second hand of a clock ticking away beneath layers of felt blankets; like the scent of tea leaves gone stale.
Her own clock kept ticking, too. She was cutting it very fine. It was a quick run from the tram stop, but even then . . .
Everyone seemed to exhale at once when the buildings gave way to the trees and green spaces of the park, swiftly followed by the deep blue of the old city wall.
And then they were in the old city proper and Moyna edged up to the door, ready to tug the cord for the Academie stop.
This particular tram line kept going and going, all the way east, crossing the river on the Duke’s Bridge and passing through the construction-ridden eastern docklands.
“Mathé’s luck,” a young man muttered to her as she stepped off the tram. He made it sound like a curse.
She made it with almost no time to spare.
The huge bronze statue of the First Healer gazed down at Moyna as she ran panting up the wide, worn path to the arch leading into the main quadrangle.
Someone had adorned Mathé’s head with a lopsided crown of parfunda flowers.
Beneath it their expression was solemn and imposing, their arms open in welcome, with the five half-scale figures of their apprentices ringed behind them.
Moyna slowed as she passed into the arch, and a handful of yellow petals hit her directly in the face.
She sneezed violently, which the fourth-years lining the arch found hilarious. Their laughter was full of relief and excitement both. Next year it would be them with the purple edge to their robes, sitting the Grand Exam. For now they threw flowers.
The yellow petals were late butter-blossoms, easy to scoop up by the handful at the edges of the Academie’s main quadrangle.
Moyna crossed quickly. The white gravel path underfoot quartered the green lawn, and in each quarter an enormous parfunda tree bent and craned like a melody twisting back upon itself.
Parfunda blossoms, vivid purple like Matorran shell-dye, sprang into being just as summer began.
The trees were planted all over Sieuxerr, but were especially plentiful on the grounds of the Academie. These four were the oldest and largest.
If you hadn’t learned your year’s curriculum by the time you could smell parfunda on the breeze, the saying went, you were doomed.
Moyna emerged on the other side of the quad and swung an immediate left. Pinned up on the fifth-year corkboard was an alphabetical list of names. She had to elbow through a cluster of fellow scholars and rise onto her toes to see the A section at the highest corner of the board.
Apprice, Moyna. Chamber Two. And the first time slot, of the possible six. Good thing she’d run. At least she’d be able to get each exam out of the way early in the day, rather than spend the mornings fretting and poring over material.
It also meant she didn’t have time to stand there and run through the whole long list of names, picking out the other members of her exam group. Plenty of the others assigned to later time slots were doing that already.
“I’ve got Ysabel Caudotte.” One of the Pasquier twins, with a hiss of relief. “Mathé be praised. I won’t get a word in edgeways, but at least there’s no way we’ll fail.”
“We can’t all have a genius in our exam group,” said his brother sourly. Moyna had never known either of them well enough to be able to tell them apart. “At least I’ve another two hours to study. I’m sure Brodier was dropping hints when she told us to concentrate on . . .”
The voices faded behind Moyna as she dashed down the enclosed spiral steps heading toward the Rondelle.
Her footfalls echoed. On the staircase, parfunda perfume was replaced with the more familiar scents of stone and wood, dust and paper, the ghostly tang of antiseptic swabs and the itch of magic. Then she emerged into the sun again.
The circular Rondelle was set apart from the huge main tower and the old three-storied buildings that enclosed the quad, and like them was made of Sieuxerran bluestone.
Artificer-mages would have been hard at work over the past few days shifting its internal layout to produce a series of exam galleries, densely spelled for secrecy and security.
The Academie’s proctor geas—guaranteeing that no exam group would be able to discuss the exam’s events with a person outside that group, until the end of the last time slot of the fifth and final day—was more than a little absurd.
But according to Moyna’s parents, every university should be allowed its absurd remnants of history.
Moyna ran a palm over her two braids, which coalesced as a twisted knot at the nape of her neck. She winced as she came around the side of the Rondelle, seeking the correct door, and the sun struck her in the eyes.
There. Door two. And outside it, mostly standing with their backs to the sun and therefore facing her, were a trio of other fifth-years.
Moyna’s thoughts ran instantly toward whether each one would be an asset or a burden.
That was one of the unshakable rules of the Grand Exam.
You’d be graded on individual performance, and it would be combined with the grades from the previous week’s written exams to determine your rank in the year.
But your group passed together, or you failed together.