"Ready?" Dovik asks.

I almost jump out of my skin at his voice. A bit of coffee spills over the rim of the white mug and splashes coolly over my hand, long since gone cold. The apartment feels quieter today. The gloom of the parting night still lingers.

"I…yes," I answer, setting the mug down on the table. Outside the window, the emerald wall surrounding Faeth lights up in glittering green. The sun rises on the other side of the building, but the entirety of the wall burns with the morning light, a lamp lit to force away the dark from tired eyes.

"Did you sleep at all?" Dovik asks, coming around the sofa and looking down at me. Sitting wrapped in a blue blanket, I must look awful from the way he looks down at me. It's not surprising. I haven't slept in four days.

I shake my head. Then, I notice what he is wearing. "Robes?"

Dovik looks down at himself, picking at the cloth hanging off him. If it weren't for the sharp cut of the cerulean silk and the way he wraps it about himself, I might almost think it was a gown. "What is wrong with this?" he asks, adjusting how it lies across his chest. "Doesn't Jor wear something like this all the time?"

"It works for him," I say.

He scoffs. "And why shouldn't it work for me?"

"You don't have the shoulders for it," I tell him simply. His face falls far harder than I thought it would.

"I have shoulders," he tries to state with confidence, but it comes out as more of a complaint.

"At least loosen the wrap," I tell him, tossing aside the blanket and standing. When I tug at the fabric, I find that he has wound it incredibly tight. "The whole point of robes is to let women see your chest. Bundling yourself up like this just makes you look old."

"You're one to talk," he mutters. Despite his complaint, he stands there, lifting his arms so I can adjust the hang of the robes. It quickly becomes obvious that he purchased something at least a size too large. Has he never been to a tailor?

"What part of my appearance are you critiquing exactly?" I ask.

He opens his mouth, pauses, and wisely closes it again.

"You are a smart man."

"I just thought you would dress more to impress," he says, immediately proving me wrong.

I tut, stepping away and looking him up and down. It is better, but I like his usual look far better. "What is wrong with this?" I ask, gesturing to myself. The more I wear the clothes of Faeth, the more I like them. The fabric stretches and hugs me well enough, and it looks better than most of what I own. A dress might be nice and I do own a good number of fancier ones, but the faethians simply don't wear them. It might be a dwarven thing; I have no clue.

"It isn't bad," Dovik backpeddles. "But…how do I say it? We are powerful people, Charlene. Shouldn't we look powerful? Shouldn't we project that?"

I snort a laugh and am about to correct that illusion when I stop myself. The only times that I have ever felt powerful are in a fight, but I don't think he is wrong. Over the past weeks, I have spent an unholy amount of time and money on creating a single object, on learning an esoteric skill. The money I spent to craft just a single pair of gauntlets could have purchased my father's orchard at least once over. That is just one piece of what will be a set, and all of that is done just to make me a better fighter. I stopped worrying about the things people worry about at some point. Since gaining these abilities, I have never needed to worry about food or housing, I haven't had to feel anxious as I tuck away the smallest bit of money. I haven't had to worry about upsetting lords and ladies, haven't needed to pray that some powerful bastard won't decide one day to destroy my life for no reason other than it amuses them. That girl who worried about those things, who knew the fear of small and petty things, is she still here?

"You might be right," I say. "To be honest, you probably know more about this world than me. I'm just a farm girl who fell sideways into this life because I have a famous brother; you are the one who was raised in it."

Dovik arches a brow. "I never thought I would hear you say that."

"I am incredibly humble," I inform him. "You know this about me."

"Aren't you the girl who just the other day told me that everyone except you was weak?"

"Not everyone," I say, giving his arm a squeeze. "You're pretty strong."

That gets him to crack a smile. "You aren't humble, farm girl. You just pretend to be."

"That doesn't even make sense," I say, turning and walking back to my bedroom to find something more…more, for the day.

"Hurry up," he calls after me. "We need to be there in forty minutes. If you aren't at least half an hour early, you're late."

In the end, I only use up twenty minutes settling on my look for the day. The dress I find is subtle, very expensive, black, and accented with gold. Jor'Mari gave it to me, part of a set of four. We attended so many parties in those weeks following the destruction of the hive. If it is good enough for a gala in high society, it should be good enough for an entrance exam to a school.

The trip to the academy grounds, a campus made from an old castle in the heart of Booktown, is a smooth ride through the underground terminals. Today, unlike the last time we went to Booktown, there is far more traffic than before. The walkways for the faethian dwarves are choked with people, so many that lines begin to form at the entry points. For the first time ever, I don't envy them their special walkways.

Dovik is right about our attire. The whole way there, more heads turn in our direction. This isn't an oddity. I have seen only a handful of humans in the city since arriving, and we tower over most, but today, it is far more noticeable. The traffic only grows thicker as we make it into Booktown. Streamers hang between the buildings, and music constantly whispers around every corner. The campus grounds become a press, a sea of waste-high faethian dwarves broken up by scarce islands of taller folk looking about. It is no wonder that I see the stonespeaker woman so easily, glancing between a paper in her hand and the buildings around.

"Gaz," I call, getting her attention from a dozen or so feet off as Dovik and I try to navigate around a particularly dense patch of dwarves.

She looks up, recognition taking a few seconds to come to her. "Miss Devardem," she says. She smiles, the smile growing especially wide as she looks Dovik over. "That's right, you said that you were planning to join the academy."

"Are you here to join as well?" I ask.

"We are a bit lost," Dovik adds.

Gaz waves her hand in front of her face. "Luckily for you, I have come to the campus more than a few times. Jasper said that he would show me around and help me find where I need to go, but he tends to forget things like dates and promises." She makes no attempt to hide her bitterness. "I'll be joining the enchanting college today."

"I really am lucky then," I say. "That was my plan as well. The men at the gate said something about finding reception, but they were entirely unhelpful in pointing out where that is."

"The different colleges each have a different reception hall," Gaz says. She jabs a thumb over her shoulder. "The College of Enchantment is the big building on the west side of the campus. Three spires. You can't miss it. I will walk with you there if you want, since it doesn't look like my brother will be coming."

"I would like that, actually. I am feeling a bit out of place here."

She looks me up and down again. "I thought that was what you were going for."

"If you wouldn't mind pointing out the college of alchemy, I would consider it a favor," Dovik says. "Then, I can leave you ladies to enjoy your tinkering without me."

Gaz blushes. I'm still not used to seeing a stonespeaker blush, and Dovik doesn't miss it either. As the girl stammers out an explanation of how to get to the proper building, he throws a look my way, a smug one that seems to say, "Don't have the shoulders for it, huh?"

The man is flashy about taking his leave, vanishing from right in front of us, only to appear on the edge of the crowd that mills about what I am now realizing is the central square of the campus grounds. Dovik walks off, waving a hand over his shoulder back our way.

"That is incredible," Gaz comments, recovering from the gasp she took as Dovik vanished.

"It is certainly useful," I comment. There is something cute about just how obvious her growing crush on my friend is.

Then, that feeling turns a bit dark as the thought of Jess lying comatose in some bedroom comes to me. The feeling is irrational, a flash of anger that this could be going on when she is hurt so badly. Sometimes I hate my own feelings. These two aren't doing anything wrong, but still, I feel like they are. I don't let any of it show on my face and turn to face Gaz. "Shall we go?"

"Right," she says, nodding. "Are you ready? I've been studying all week for the tests."

I link my arm with hers. She is obviously surprised at that, but she does not comment on it. "I'm as ready as I can be," I say. Over the course of the next eight hours, I will come to understand just how wrong I am about that.

Dovik's comment about being either early or late proves entirely false. If there is one thing I have learned about faethian dwarves, and there are many, it is that they appreciate punctuality. With the better part of an hour left until the doors to the testing hall were made open, Gaz and I are left to linger outside with the rest of the hopefuls. It is one of the most uncomfortable half-hours of my life. Out in the city itself, the faethians are by far the majority, but there are a plethora of other people to help make me not feel like so much of an outcast. Here, on the academy campus, that is not the case.

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People stare up at me and appear to hold open conversations, wondering what kind of being I am. When one of their more worldly friends supplies the answer, the questioners seldom take finding out I am a human with much grace. People point at me, and others stare for minutes on end. Gaz is not oblivious to this. Bless the girl, she increasingly tries to distract me with conversation as the day winds on.

At long last, the door to the hall opens, and people begin to file in. The hall itself is a huge room filled with desks as big as ones you might find in a wealthy man's office. Rising platforms constitute the majority of the space, each platform just a little bit higher than the last, all positioned so that everyone has a good view of the lecture stage at the front of the room. A faethian man stands at the large desk at the front, offering a smile to each person who walks in to line up in front of him, checking each of their names against a list he holds before handing them a massive stack of incredibly blue paper. His pleasant smile only looks somewhat strained as he looks up at me, handing me the slab of papers that weighs more than ten pounds.

"Good to have you, Miss Devardem." The way he says it lets me know that he knows exactly why I am here, and that he is not happy about it.

Gaz and I take two desks in the middle rows next to each other, which still puts us more than ten feet apart. Relaxing in the quite comfortable leather chair, I look down at the stack of papers for the first time, puzzling out exactly what it is I have been handed. I needn't have bothered, as the man at the front addresses that point before I can even flip all the way through.

"Good morning, potential students," he says, his sing-song voice carrying through the lecture hall. All at once, the various conversations throughout the room quiet, more than two hundred voices stilling. "My name is Professor Morningkempt, and if you are deemed adequate and meet the high standards of this collegiate institution, then I will be seeing all of you again in a week. Today, I have the privilege of proctoring the first three of your four practical exams. These exams are intended to measure your fitness as a student at this academy and to give the faculty an idea of where you stand in your understanding of the field. I have handed each of you a test consisting of four hundred questions. Answer the questions to the best of your abilities in the allotted three hours. Higher marks are, of course, better. Begin."

Without any ceremony at all, Professor Morningkempt picks up the first of a set of hourglasses from atop his desk and turns it over. For a beat, there is only silence through the lecture hall, but as we all realize that the exam has just begun, that silence turns to a flurry of activity. Three people in the lecture hall swear at the abruptness of the test's start, while the vast majority scramble to find an ink pen or any other writing utensil on or inside the desk. I find a silver fountain pen set out on a corner of the desk and snatch it up, not forgetting to write my name on the first page where indicated. Setting the first page aside, I begin.

Having never taken a test like this before, I am not exactly familiar with how they are supposed to work, but the cacophonous noise of hundreds of people flipping paper at their desks clashes somewhat with the somber atmosphere.

The first three pages of the test fly past without too much effort. The questions pertain to basic enchanting, asking questions pertaining directly to the manipulation of mana found in natural treasures, how to transfer mana from one vessel to another, and simple interactions pertaining to different and common kinds of mana. They are marked in that way as well, the label "enchantment" scrawled in a circle at the end of each question. The effort put into someone sitting down to write out all these questions hundreds of times strikes me as a bit astounding. Whoever it was, they have incredible penmanship, the letters more uniform than any I have seen before.

The twenty-sixth question is the first to make me pause. It is a question labeled "Mathematics."

"If two men compete in the business of selling apples, the first selling their fruit for sixteen reds and the second selling for fourteen reds, how long would it take the first man to outdo the second, assuming the second man begins with an advantage of sixteen hundred reds and that they sell apples at the same rate?" I mutter to myself, so perplexed by the question that I can't help but read it aloud. Somewhere off in the room, a girl shushes me.

There are so many things wrong with the question itself that it is difficult to know where to start. Firstly, the second man would outcompete the first, since people would buy from him. Secondly, it wouldn't be a matter of time for the first man to make more money; it would be about how many more apples he sold. Thirdly, this question assumed both were selling apples at the same rate, and anyone who has done the least bit of work in farming knows how impossible that is. Lastly, after coming to a quick answer, I find that the answer to how many apples need to be sold is in the tens of thousands, which no orchard I know of would produce in a year.

I sigh, pushing away the bafflement, and circle the correct answer on the page. Continuing the test, I am stopped again, only three pages later, this time by a question marked "chemistry." I am not completely ignorant; I know what chemistry is, but it has never occurred to me to study it in the weeks leading up to this test. For the most part, there simply isn't a need as far as enchanting is concerned. I try my best to mark all the metals in the list that the question provides before moving on, but the nagging feeling that I am missing something crucial keeps pulling at me. In the very next question, one marked as "physics," I am asked to calculate the force of a falling object. I have no clue how to do it. I write something, and move on.

The hours begin to grind on in this way. It isn't until the second hour is almost through that the first person collapses three rows ahead of me. After that, the test takers begin to drop like flies. Some break down crying into their hands, others storm out of the lecture hall, while still others take what they have finished and hand the incomplete test to the proctor. I feel worst for those who simply pass out at their desks, which happens more than once.

As I continue on, the physics and chemistry questions continue to baffle me utterly, and they only grow more numerous and esoteric. The mathematics questions only grow more difficult, entering realms of mathematical symbolism that I can't even begin to parse. Worst of all, those questions keep up the story of the two apple sellers throughout, growing more ignorant about agriculture the further through the test I go.

My only saving grace is the questions pertaining to enchantment, the subject that I thought I was here to test in the first place. Those questions, even the more specialized ones, I usually can figure out the answer to in just a few seconds, but those questions also grow fewer and fewer as the test progresses. I find myself sympathising more and more with the students who marched out of the test. To come here, expecting to be asked questions about enchantment, just to be asked if tin is a metal or not is asinine. Of course it is, isn't it?

With a sigh, I turn the last sheet over, finally placing my pen down. If my body didn't recover so quickly, I'm sure my wrist would be cramping right now. I look around the room, finding only two other people who look to have actually completed the test, and no one is looking like they are in good shape. It takes another twenty minutes for the last hourglass to run dry. Only seventeen people even manage to answer all four hundred questions. Professor Morningkempt takes every test handed to him with a smile, setting them into a large metal receptacle covered with magical runes of a purpose I can only begin to puzzle out.

"Good," he calls when we are all back at our desks once again. "Now, for those of you who remain, we will be moving immediately to the second test. Inside your desks, each of you will find a blank piece of paper with one hundred blank boxes. In a moment, I will begin to remove hexmedium crystals from my own box and display them to you. I will display each crystal for twenty seconds before putting it away and retrieving the next. The task before each of you is to accurately identify the kind of mana contained within each of the crystals. The test will begin in fifteen seconds."

This time, there is no pause before a rush of people start digging through their desks. I am no different, opening three drawers before I find a blank piece of blue paper that wasn't there before. As I look up, situating myself in my seat, the professor pulls free the first crystal. If ever there was any worry about being able to see the crystal appropriately to identify the magic, that is banished as the lights in the room are drowned out by the incredible radiance of magic peeling off the medium he holds up. To my magical senses, the mana tastes of autumn and sour fruit. I have no idea what it is.

The test progresses, and it becomes apparent that my ability to recognize different manas is not nearly as good as it should be; I only know a fraction. The professor doesn't slow the pace when people ask him to; he doesn't even acknowledge them. Somehow, for the half hour that he shows medium after medium, the tension in the room only grows. There must be some purpose to how the academy is carrying out these tests, some reason that they make the tests so long while limiting time as much as they do. By the end, only a handful drop out of this second test, but a good portion sit in their seats, their writing utensils down, holding their heads in their hands.

"That was sea mana," the professor announces, putting the last medium in a case before sealing it. "Consider that a freebie." He claps, looking around the lecture hall.

Nearly five hours of difficult testing have left the room with a distinct lack of energy. That is, except for me. I almost snort a laugh coming to the realization. If these endlessly long tests were supposed to wear everyone down, they would only leave me looking all the better.

"Well then," the professor announces. "I am certain that all of you are excited to show off your enchantments to the judges, so we will move right into the third test. This last test is rather simple. Each of you will be provided with a natural treasure to transfer mana from and an assortment of mediums to transfer the mana into. It will be up to each of you to choose the best medium to use; that will be a part of the grading. After you have finished, bring your infused mediums to the front. One of my assistants will hand you a number. You will return to your seats, and you will individually be called to present your creations to the judges. The judges will grade your creations, offer critiques, and determine your aptitude based on all of the tests you have completed today." He gestures to the back of the room, where six people step forward and begin passing out cases to those who remain in the room.

Opening the case, I find the horn of some unknown monster lying inside on a bed of velvet, strapped securely in place. Lying next to the monster part is a cord of silver, a cord of gold, a rope made from silkleaf, and a clear liquid inside a vial. I have to admit, infusing liquids is something I have never tried before; it is more alchemy than enchantment. Still, I breathe a sigh of relief. This is something I can do.

Rager Horn(Uncommon)

The horn of a mesa rager. These monsters are known for their powerful ability to manipulate the earth, and their horns are prized as potent repositories of their innate magic.

A small, small part of me feels like a bit of a cheat for using my eye to determine the kind of mana housed within the horn. That feeling is easily quashed.

"Stone or earth mana," I mutter to myself. To my magical senses, the two taste remarkably similar. That is fine, as the choice of the best medium is the same for both.

The door at the front of the room slams shut, pausing me momentarily as I reach for the horn. The professor is gone. The man didn't even wait for his assistants to finish passing out the cases.

Well, if rudeness wasn't that much of a concern at this academy, I don't see any reason I should take my time just to spare the feelings of others. Crimson light snakes away from my hand, wrapping around the rager horn inside the case, enveloping it totally. There is no real need to snap, but I do so anyway, the sound echoing through the room as the object vanishes into a flash of pink mist. Not a second later, the newly created black dust from the disenchantment is spinning through the air, sinking into the cord of silver lying inside the case. Months of practice give me the confidence to snatch up the cord and start walking to the front before the infusement even finishes. The magic I trapped inside my soul index just a few seconds before floods out through the dust, pouring into the silver and lodging inside before I even make it down the last step. I pass two of the assistants on my way toward the front, and in the end am left standing in front of the professor's desk, waiting for them to meet me.

A goblin woman scurries over, rounding the desk and jumping up into a chair before looking at me. "Was there an issue with your materials?" she asks.

"No," I say, handing the infused silver cord to her. "I am done."

She takes the cord from me. "You finished or you are quitting?" she asks.

"I have finished. The professor said you would have a number for me."

"If you actually finished that number would obviously be one," she says. She holds up the cord, looking at it skeptically before shrugging. "It is your test." With a bit of resignation, she hands me a piece of wood with the number one engraved on it. "It will just be a few minutes."

"Thank you," I say, turning and beginning to make my way back up the steps to the desk I was at. Now, people are really looking at me, and for the first time today, I find I like the attention.

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