Chapter 16
Talisa
The First-Year Student Affairs Office summoned me for an interview with the First-Year Assistant Chatelaine Julissa Corvaine as soon as Mage-Healer Arsinoe discharged me from the infirmary.
My knees trembled and my leg muscles burned as I climbed the marble staircase to the administrative wing. Even after three days of bed rest, I still felt pitifully weak.
I was grateful for Elio’s arm, but embarrassed that a single flight of stairs was defeating me.
I’d spent my entire life climbing endless flights of stairs at home from our ground-floor clinic to the third-story attic, where bundles of dried herbs hung from the rafters and my parents stored jars of tinctures, imported roots and spices, and bottles of various distilled substances used in formulating potions.
A copy of one of the vile anti-commoner flyers crinkled in my pocket. Two first-year students passed me on the stairs, their eyes widening in recognition before they hurriedly looked away, whispering to each other.
While I’d been stuck in the infirmary, I’d received a steady stream of visitors, mostly members of the Circle of the Open Hand. They’d kept me up to date on the latest news and gossip, including one awful tale that I’d deliberately sabotaged the lab equipment to promote the Circle of the Open Hand.
As if I’d ever do such a thing!
My fractured arm had healed, but my ribs still ached, a constant reminder of how close I’d come to death. The lingering pain only strengthened my resolve as I approached Assistant Chatelaine Julissa’s office.
Elio and I paused before a fancy bronze door, its molded surface tarnished to a dull brown. A polished golden brass nameplate identified this as the Student Affairs Office for First-Year Students.
“Ready?” Elio asked.
I nodded, and he pulled open the heavy door. We passed through a large chamber filled with rows of clerks’ desks, and were admitted into the assistant chatelaine’s private office.
First-Year Assistant Chatelaine Julissa sat behind an immaculate desk, pen in hand, writing in a large ledger.
Unlike the serene competence that radiated from Lady Lirelle, Julissa carried herself with a brittle precision that reminded me of the strict schoolmistress in Bernswick.
Her graying hair was pulled back so tightly it seemed to stretch her skin, giving her features a perpetually surprised appearance.
“Miss Bernswick,” she said, not bothering to look up from her writing. “I was informed you were released from the infirmary this morning. I trust you are recovering satisfactorily?”
“Yes, Assistant Chatelaine,” I replied, standing straight despite the pain in my ribs. “Thank you for asking.”
She finally stopped writing and glanced up. “Take a seat. Your friend can wait for you outside.” When Elio hesitated, she flicked her fingers at him. “Go. This won’t take long.”
He didn’t look happy, but he nodded. Then he gave me an encouraging smile and squeezed my shoulder before departing.
I lowered myself into the hard visitor’s chair in front of Julissa’s desk, trying not to wince at the twinges of pain from my still-tender ribs.
She pursed her lips and looked me up and down. “I’m preparing the report on the lab accident and I have some questions for you.”
“I don’t believe the explosion was an accident,” I blurted. “It was meant to send me a message.”
Julissa’s thin eyebrows rose as her mouth puckered further, as if she’d just bitten into a unripe green plum. “Indeed? And do you have any evidence to support your claim?”
I pulled the flyer from my pocket and placed it on her desk. “My sisters told me that these began appearing the morning after the explosion. They were slipped under doors, left in common areas, even posted on the notice board in front of the dining hall.”
Julissa picked up the folded paper between two fingers as if it might soil her. She opened it, her expression remaining carefully neutral as she read the words I‘d memorized:
At the top of the page was a large symbol: a circle of thorny branches surrounding a single drop of blood rendered in dark red ink.
STOP PRETENDING THE COMMONER QUOTA SYSTEM IS WORKING!
One lab destroyed. Dozens put at risk. Is this really “progress”?
Talisa of Bernswick. Nadia of Lutèce.
This happens when the Academy trades its traditional high standards for commoner quotas.
When traditional values and discipline are swept away by a flood of semi-illiterate rabble. When those who have not earned their place here are handed it anyway, and qualified students from noble families are turned away.
They call it fairness. We call it dangerous.
Magic does not care about intentions. It does not forgive inexperience. And it will not spare you because the administration needed to fill the imperial quota of commoners.
Who’s here that shouldn’t be here?
Watch who you work with. Choose your lab partners carefully. And when the next “accident” happens because of lowered admission standards… remember that we warned you.
“This is distasteful, but not evidence of sabotage.” Julissa crumpled the flyer into a ball and tossed it into the wastebasket next to her desk.
“It proves that there are many here who resent and hate people like me,” I said.
“I believe the crystals in our channeling exercise were tampered with. They weren’t behaving normally.
Instead of focusing the power Nadia and I channeled, they created a feedback loop to make our magic spiral out of control. ”
“Tampering is an extremely serious accusation,” Julissa said, her voice cooling several degrees. “Did Mage-Instructor Zaurus tell you that the crystals were tampered with, or is this just a theory of yours?”
I hesitated. “I’m sure his investigation will uncover proof—”
“Thus far, he has found nothing wrong with either the equipment or the materials,” she interrupted. “Miss Bernswick, you are making unfounded accusations against the staff and your fellow students.”
“I’m not accusing anyone specifically,” I argued, though Lukhan’s face flashed in my mind. “But someone must have—”
“Enough!” Julissa snapped. “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and attribute your wild accusations to stress from your recent accident. That flyer contained no direct threats. It isn’t proof of anything, merely an expression of opinion, however objectionable.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “Someone nearly killed me and my lab partner, and suddenly a bunch of flyers appear, suggesting we deserved it for being commoners? How is that not evidence?”
Lady Julissa’s gaze hardened. “While I understand you are under strain, your tone verges on insolence. Please remember that you’re speaking to an academy official.
” She stood abruptly and walked to a tall cabinet filled with leather-bound ledgers.
“Now, since you’ve raised the topic of academic misconduct, there is another matter I wished to address with you. ”
My heart sank at her words.
After a moment’s search, she withdrew a thick volume and returned to her desk. She opened the ledger to a page marked with a ribbon.
Her next words shocked me. “At Chatelaine Lirelle’s request, I reviewed our enrollment records after the Registrar’s Office mentioned your mother wore this academy’s mage badge.”
“Yes, she graduated from here as a mage-healer.” I’d been proud of Mama’s prestigious background my entire life. It was one reason I’d been so excited to come here and study, even if it meant leaving home.
“Not according to our records,” Julissa continued.
She didn’t look up at me. Instead, she ran her finger down a list of names.
“No mage student named Isabeau from the Western Isles Province attended the Imperial Academy during any of the years your mother could have studied here. In fact, this institution has no record of any student named Isabeau from anywhere in the Dominion, nor anyone by that name certifying as a mage-healer in the past thirty years.”
The room seemed to tilt around me. “That’s impossible,” I protested. “I know Mama is a certified mage-healer. And she’s an excellent one, too. Back home, people even travel from other islands to see her.”
“Skilled or not, she clearly obtained her Imperial Academy mage badge through fraudulent means,” Lady Julissa said coldly. “Falsely claiming an academy certification is a serious offense under imperial law. Only your mother’s recent death has spared her from a formal inquest.”
Her words landed like punches to my stomach, driving the air from my lungs. Mama, a fraud? The woman who had taught me everything I knew about magic and healing, and who’d worn her enameled gold mage badge with such pride?
It can’t be true!
“There must be some mistake,” I insisted, my voice strained. “Perhaps she studied here when she was very young, or—”
“There is no mistake.” Julissa closed the ledger with finality. “I researched this most thoroughly. Your mother never attended this academy. She probably graduated from some provincial academy, then stole or bought one of our Imperial Academy badges to inflate her credentials.”
“She would never do that!” I felt sick.
Mama had rarely spoken of her time here at the academy, but she’d answered my questions when I’d asked, describing the mage-instructors she’d studied under and classes she’d taken with what had seemed like genuine knowledge.
And she’d known her way around the capital and the campus.
Could it really all be lies?
“Now,” Julissa continued, “I suggest you focus on your recovery and your studies, rather than spreading baseless accusations or dwelling on your mother’s… indiscretions. We will summon you and Miss Montoro to a formal hearing once we have completed our investigation. You may go.”
I rose and stood on shaky legs. The accusations against Mama swirled in my mind like a storm. I turned and left her office, my movements mechanical.
Outside in the corridor, I slumped against the wall, closing my eyes against the tears that blurred my vision.
“Talisa?”