“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 notthathard 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 bethatheavily 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?”
