Firm hands hauled me up, sending hot relief spiking through me. Below, the hovering water crashed back down, slopping noisily against the tank as though enraged.
A wooden platform had been erected against the tank, with a rickety ladder leading down to the flagstones. It was Rhama who’d pulled me out—the bald, bespectacled Instructor had also been the one to lower me in and must have been up here the whole time, watching. I collapsed at his feet, spluttering water. He picked me back up, sat me upright, and slowly, my breaths began to come a little steadier.
I waited as his deft hands worked at my bindings. I was glad it was him. He was one of the fair ones, and we shared a serious, thoughtful demeanor. I wasn’t his favorite—he had no favorites among us—but he’d always put a firm end to the needling from my classmates. Not like Instructor Caerig, who could be downright vindictive and was currently lurking at the edge of the gallery, her hawk’s gaze pinned on us from the shadows.
Rhama, I noticed, was watching me carefully. His eyes betrayed neither approval nor disappointment, but I detected a faint line etched between his brows: frustration. The clock above the gallery marked me at sixty-eight seconds. I should have done better—clearly Rhama thought so, too—and in the end, had I even succeeded at all? The water’s delayed reprieve still confounded me.
I was offered no cloak or cape to warm me as I climbed down the ladder and faced my classmates. Along the line of them, there werelifted eyebrows, quirking lips, eyes flashing with delight. I made my stare as poisonous as I could, though behind it simmered a horrible shame.
Rhama, who’d come down the ladder behind me, still watched me, and I quickly schooled my expression. We were expected to maintain strict control at all times, not just when we were communing with our element. Outbursts of feeling, aside from hampering our abilities, were a sign of weakness and punished harshly.
“Thank you, Corith,” he said dispassionately. “That concludes your final examination. You’ll be informed when a suitable placement becomes available. Until then, you’ll attend lessons with the others, as normal.”
“A suitable placement.”
My skin tightened painfully, and not from the chill of my soaking garments. Sibilant whispers started up in the line. I heard a few shuffles, a stifled laugh.
“Silence,” came Caerig’s voice from the gallery: curt, emotionless. A hush descended. “Anyone,” she continued, “who so much asclears their throatwill find themselves in the Confinement Locker from dawn until dusk tomorrow.”
Traditionally, the exhausted examinee was permitted to leave while their classmates emptied the tank and mopped water from the floor.
But Caerig’s lip lifted as her gaze met mine.
“Now,allof you: Clean up this room.”
—
With a thumping heart and trembling hands, I lagged behind my classmates as we wound through the halls, dodging a couple of whispering Sparkmouths clad in their flame-resistant wools and leathers. As keen as I was to get out of my sodden clothes, I knew if I kept up with the others, there’d be biting words and barbed jokes.
Through the corridor’s only window, I spotted Mudmouths in the grounds, practicing carving furrows in the earth, and beyond them a knot of wind-lashed Gustmouths, listening attentively to a barking Instructor. But I barely paid the sight any attention. My mind was in turmoil, turning over what had happened. Why had the water eventually listened, and how, with my emotions so out of control?Hadit even listened, or had someone intervened?
Our quarters—a full ten levels of rooms along galleries with sentries stationed at every corner—faced out into a great, cavernous chamber, the better to keep an eye on us at all times. As tenth-years, we had small, single rooms on the top floor, and I shivered as I hurried along the walkway to my own. Zennia’s room had been right next to mine, but now it was bare, the door standing open.
I stalled and lingered, staring into it.
A month ago, after Zennia’s final exam, I hurried straight here, desperate to see her. We hadn’t spoken since the previous day, since before Rhama kept her back after our last class to discuss an essay we’d handed in recently. She’d missed dinner, which was unusual for her—in spite of her short stature, she ate like a wolf—and I didn’t have a chance to speak to her before curfew. Then, at breakfast, before her exam, we were too near the Instructors’ table to exchange our usual whispers, too rushed to scrawl messages in our made-up code. But I saw how tired, how drawn, she looked, despite the fierce determination in her eyes. And I caught the fleeting looks she was giving me—looks that, for once, I found hard to interpret.
She’d impressed in her exam, as I knew she would, but I couldn’t shake the thought that something wasn’t right. And sure enough, when I reached her room afterward, Rhama stood guardlike at the open door. Inside, I spotted my friend’s compact figure. Her back was to me; she was packing clothes into a trunk.
Rhama shot me a warning look, but I decided I would take the punishment. “Zen,” I said urgently. “What’s going on?”
She whirled around, dropping a nightshift onto the floor, and an odd expression flashed across her face—a look that seemed meant to convey something important, though what, I still had no idea.
“Rhama says I’m not to talk to anyone,” she said. We both glanced at the watching Instructor.
“Sixty seconds,” he said flatly, his gaze sliding to Zennia, but he didn’t move; he wasn’t going to give us any privacy. I turned back to her. I didn’t care what he, or anyone, heard me say.
“What’s happening? Why are you packing that trunk?”
“A placement,” she replied, flitting another glance at Rhama. “Corith, listen. If we don’t see each other again—”
Rhama must have looked like he was going to interrupt. She stepped forward, gripped my arm, looked hard into my eyes: “You have to know, you’re like a sister to me. And I know you’ll be fine. You’ll get a good placement—”
“No,” I protested, clutching her tightly. I’d known, of course, that we’d be parted eventually, but I’d convinced myself we had at least a few weeks left. “Where’s the placement? Where are you going?”
Her eyes darted to the doorway, to Rhama. “Somewhere out east. One of the noble Houses. A place called Bower Island, I think.”
I was dimly aware of heavy footsteps, a hand on my shoulder, Rhama’s deep voice: “That’s enough.”
