Chapter 2 #2
“This”—she pushes the one with a familiar circular pattern toward me—“is called a focal. And this”—she moves the other sheet closer so I can see it—“is the incantation. You’ll place the focus at the center of the focal and trace the pattern with your finger while reading the incantation.
Upon success, you’ll have lit the candle. You have three minutes.”
I set the quartz on the desk. It’s the least important part of incanting: a crutch for those who haven’t learned to draw from the world around them. Even with how much has been drained from the Academy and its surroundings, there’s still plenty to pull from deeper underground.
Looking at the candle, I visualize the pattern my father had me memorize when I was six and go through an abridged version of the incantation in my mind; half a second later, a flame ignites on the wick.
The proctor stares at the blaze, then looks at me, the candle, and back again.
Perhaps I should have done it how she’d asked?
“Success,” she says, her voice breathier than before. She shakes her head quickly as if waking herself from a daze, then scribbles something in her folio. After blowing out the candle, she replaces it with a small, charred log.
“The second test is to ignite this wood.” She flicks through the pages in her folio, then hesitates, looking at me.
The log bursts into flames at my silent command. I can’t help the smile tugging free as the proctor jumps back, startled, almost dropping her papers.
“S-s-success!” More scribbles, then she lifts her face back to me. “The final fire test is to lift the flames off the log, then extinguish them.”
Two consecutive incantations? I can appreciate why that’s the ultimate test. You have to be quick enough to get through the second one before the first falls apart.
“Would you like the focal tracings?” she asks.
“No, thank you.”
Hand gestures are entirely unnecessary with incanting, but I find it more enjoyable to do them. I flick my wrist upward as I visualize the lifting incantation, then squeeze my fingers into a fist for the extinguishing one.
“Success.” Her voice wavers, and it takes a moment for her to remember to write the results. Despite my swelling pride at having so obviously impressed her, a twinge of apprehension itches beneath it.
How much of an advantage has my upbringing given me?
Five minutes later, I’ve completed all twelve tests, and my proctor excitedly hands me off to a young woman whose eyes widen as she reads my results.
She leads me out the doors and into a wide gray and white hallway that leads to the rest of the building.
A couple of rooms have their doors propped open, and I peek into one as we pass.
Several students lounge idly within, some speaking with each other while others stare out a window or at the decorative molding.
Alexis, mostly identifiable by her braids, has her face buried in her arms on one of the desks, asleep.
“This way,” my guide says, so I hurry after her. Up the stairs, down another hallway, to a door with Genevieve Mallory etched on a plaque next to it. She gestures me into the office and instructs me to wait there.
Two bells pass and I’ve already perused all the books on the shelves, most of which we have in our library at home, and have moved on to counting the minuscule tiles decorating the floor and ceiling.
Unless I miscounted, they’re evenly split amongst the various shades of gray, with the darkest hue having one extra due to a mistake in one corner.
My boredom has me weighing the risks of peeking through Mallory’s desk when the doorknob clicks. My guide from earlier holds it open for a young man who thanks her before plopping into the seat next to me, wincing as he hits the stiff cushions.
“It should only be a bit longer,” the woman says. As she closes the door, I take stock of my new companion.
His skin’s several shades darker than my pale, pinkish complexion, but his hair is a similar chestnut brown; long in the front but cropped in the back.
The sort of style that can only look good if you keep up its maintenance, making me painfully aware of my own messy bun that hopefully hides my split ends instead of highlighting them.
His uniform—the male version of mine with a purple waistcoat in place of a bodice—fits like it was designed with him in mind.
It hugs his body perfectly, with his high collar somehow not as stifling as on most. He smiles at me, oozing confidence in a way that makes me want to touch him, then wipe my hand on something.
I force a smile. “So… where are you in the alphabet?”
“Vero. Reid Vero.” He taps his fingers against his armrest.
“Thank Arandur. I’ve been waiting forever.”
Reid chuckles. “Just you and me, huh?”
“Did you complete all the tests, too?”
“Yep. So you’ve also incanted before?”
My fingers clench in my lap as he gets to his feet. He must not have heard my name called earlier. I take a deep breath—there’s no point in trying to hide it anymore.
“I have. Eloise Detura. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Reid pauses halfway around Mallory’s desk. “Detura? As in High Marshal Detura?”
“That’s the one.”
“Huh.” He lowers himself into Mallory’s chair. “Guess I’m in good company.”
Judging me by my father, of course.
My fingers press into the armrest, a coil winding within me as he opens a random desk drawer and peeks inside. I glance at the door—there’s no sign of anyone approaching. “Maybe you should get back over here before Mallory arrives? There can’t be that many people after ‘V.’”
Reid pushes himself up and wanders to the bookshelf instead. He traces his finger along some of the spines, though he doesn’t seem to be reading what they say.
“Did your father teach you incanting without speaking?”
“More like expected me to have done it by the time he returned from his border visit.” Wait a second. “How’d you know I could do that?”
“Because I can, and I assume that’s why we’re here. If it was just for completing all the tests, there’d probably be a few more of us. It’s not that hard to do two incantations in a row.”
“We can’t be the only ones able to. It simply takes practice.
” With two of the three people I’ve met so far having secretly dabbled in incanting, it’s clear that plenty of people have before coming here.
Its legality can’t be that heavily enforced, which makes some sense.
It’d only be a problem if everyone did it all the time.
Reid laughs. “It’s hard to practice that much without getting caught. I only managed because everything around here’s already dead. Not that the faculty cares—it’s just frowned upon. It doesn’t matter to them how much grass you’ve killed.”
“So how’d you learn?”
“Frowns don’t stop me,” he says, shooting me a grin as he finally returns to the chair beside mine. “And I’m from Haven, just down the road. Plenty of ways to access Academy materials, if you’re determined enough.”
Before I can ask what those ways entail, the door opens and Professor Mallory strolls in. We both shoot respectfully to our feet, but she waves us to our seats as she crosses the room.
“Sit, sit. I’ve been standing for bells.” Her shoulders sag as she sits, then she pulls some papers out of the folio she carries, quickly skimming through them. When she finishes, she looks us over.
“Eloise Detura,” she says, perking up. “Nice to finally meet you.” Her gaze shifts. “And Reid Vero.” My fingers fidget under her scrutinizing gaze, but Reid looks completely unbothered.
“Not just one, but two of you? How pleasantly unexpected.” She pushes her spectacles up the bridge of her nose.
“As I’m sure you’ve surmised, you’re both here because you completed the entire examination sans verbalization.
That is the ultimate goal for our students to reach before graduation, so it’s quite unheard of for incoming first-years to be so accomplished.
“One might think we could simply advance you straight to third year. However, I suspect that would lead to gaps in your knowledge that would be a detriment to your training.” She taps her finger against her cheek as she takes a moment to think.
“I can assure you, my father provided me with a well-rounded education,” I say, as he’d expect me to.
“Did he? Tell me, for your final fire test—did you visualize the two focals sequentially or combine them into one?”
They can be combined? I glance at Reid, and he shrugs.
“Uh, sequentially.”
Professor Mallory raises her brow, then turns to Reid. He nods, confirming he did it that way, too.
“As I said. Gaps in your knowledge.”
She proceeds to ask us several other questions about our experiences, tapping her chin as she ponders each of our answers.
“The fact is, I cannot advance you to either the second or third year, because while you are adept in some areas, you lack a strong foundation in others. But if I keep you with the other first-years, you’ll waste away without stimulating challenges.
” She paces around the room as we watch in unspoken agreement that it would be unwise to interrupt her.
My ribs constrict with every passing second. There has to be a place for us.
Finally, she sits back down. “Here’s what we’ll do.
You will attend the foundational classes—History, Geography, Strategy, and Writing—with your fellows.
For your elementals, each department will develop an advanced curriculum for you.
It will, unfortunately, have to be mostly self-study, as our professors all have a full class load, but based on where you two are at, I’m sure that’s familiar territory. At least now, you’ll have a partner.”
I sink into my seat. All I wanted was to escape self-study, to be around other people for once. Not just one person, even if he is nice to look at.
As far as I’m concerned, this is the worst possible outcome.