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She turns toward me slowly. "Good morning."

"That sounded painful." I laugh.

"It was." Her pale hair is twisted into a loose knot, though several strands have already escaped around her face. Her blue eyes are tired enough to make the color appear almost silver.

"How much did you sleep?" I ask.

"I closed my eyes."

"That wasn't the question."

"It is the answer I have."

Rowan drops into the seat behind us and rests her forehead against the table. "If Professor Neris asks, I died during the Trial."

"You attended the Place after the Trial," Cassian corrects her. His voice comes from the other side of the aisle.

Rowan lifts one hand without raising her head. "I recovered briefly."

Professor Neris closes the doors. The sound is not loud. Every student straightens anyway. Rowan's head rises from the table with visible grief. Professor Neris surveys the room. Her gaze passes over rumpled uniforms, ink-stained fingers and the desperate concentration of students attempting not to appear exhausted.

"If you are waiting for me to ask whether you slept," she says, "I assure you that I do not care." No one speaks. "You were permitted to leave Academy grounds." Her eyes move toward Rowan. "You were not compelled to remain awake until sunrise."

Rowan looks personally attacked. Professor Neris continues. "Choice creates consequence." She turns toward the board. "Today's consequence is application." A collective sense of dread settles over the room. Professor Neris almost smiles.

The six inheritance symbols appear across the dark board. Crimson veins. Silver claws. Golden branches. Blue waves. The pale eye. Black wings edged in fire. Beneath them, a second set of symbols forms. Dozens. Some bright. Some faint. Some overlapping. "During the First Trial," Professor Neris says, "seventeen students displayed instinctive magical responses strong enough to warrant preliminary evaluation." The room changes immediately. Exhaustion does not disappear. Curiosity pushes through it.

"Six weeks of theoretical study were intended to precede formal manifestation assessment." She folds her hands behind her back. "The Trial made that timeline unnecessarily optimistic."

Several students look toward one another. Nyra's fingers tighten around her pen. I think of the roots rising through the soil around her feet when we first found one another. Of Rowan slowing her heartbeat until my vampire senses could barely register her. Of Cassian distinguishing projected fear from his own. My own magic did nothing unusual. At least, nothing I noticed.

Professor Neris walks between the first rows. "Manifestation is not the moment you become powerful." She stops. "It is the moment your power becomes specific." Her gaze sweeps across us. "Inheritance describes the range of possibilities carried by your people. Manifestation describes how that inheritance chooses to move through you."

A student near the aisle raises his hand. Professor Neris nods. "Can manifestations change?" He asks.

"They develop," she answers. "They expand. They may alter under injury, discipline, magical interference or significant emotional pressure."

"Can someone have more than one?" The students adds.

"Rarely." Professor Neris answers.

"What happens if they do?"

Professor Neris looks toward him. "They work harder." A few students laugh quietly. Her expression remains serious. "Power is not a reward." The laughter dies. "More of it rarely makes a life simpler." She gestures toward the doors behind the teaching floor. I had assumed they led to storage.

Six narrow chambers become visible as the stone wall separates along hidden seams. Each doorway is marked with one of the inheritance symbols. "Preliminary assessment does not confirm a manifestation." Professor Neris turns toward the class. "It identifies patterns. No student will force a result." Her voice sharpens. "No student will attempt to imitate another person's response. And no student will interpret silence from their magic as failure."

That last warning appears directed at everyone. Perhaps especially Nyra. She looks down at her hands. I nudge her elbow lightly. Her eyes flick toward me. I say nothing. She gives me a faint smile anyway.

The assessments begin with the students who manifested most visibly during the Trial. Rowan is called third. She walks toward the wolf-marked chamber with a confidence that would be more convincing if she did not nearly trip over the first step. The chamber seals behind her. A wide pane of enchanted glass appears across the wall, allowing us to observe. Inside, Rowan stands in a circular room lined with silver mirrors. Professor Neris remains outside. A second instructor enters through another door. A wolf woman with closely cropped hair and a scar across one hand. She says something we cannot hear. Rowan nods. Then the lights dim. A shape appears behind her. Large. Predatory. Not real. An illusion, probably. Rowan spins immediately. The shape vanishes. Another appears to her left. Then two more. Each movement becomes faster. Rowan's breathing changes. Her shoulders rise. The instinct to transform moves through her body visibly, silver flashing briefly beneath the skin along her arms. The instructor raises one hand. Rowan stops. Closes her eyes. And disappears. Not visually. She remains standing in the center of the room. But everything about her presence collapses inward. Her heartbeat slows until I can no longer hear it through the glass. Her breathing becomes too shallow to track. Even her scent, faintly carried through the chamber wards, nearly vanishes. The predatory shapes continue circling. None turn toward her. One passes close enough to brush her shoulder. It does not react. Several students lean forward. Rowan opens her eyes. The effect breaks. Sound returns. Pulse. Breath. Presence. The instructor says something. Rowan grins. Of course she does. When she returns to the classroom, everyone looks at her differently. She drops into her seat.

"Well?"

Nyra turns toward her. "That was incredible."

Rowan smiles. "I know."

"What did they call it?" Cassian asks.