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One of his assistants stepped forward holding a quarterstaff. It was roughly six feet long, made of pale ash and capped with iron at both ends. Years of use had worn the wood smooth.

“Refusal of an exceptional assessment constitutes failure of the Proving,” Varga continued. “The subject will then be remanded immediately to Council supervision.”

Technically, I could still refuse.

I considered it for one long second.

Mr. Aske had promised me observation. Aldric had taken that promise and turned it into something else while keeping just enough of the procedure intact to make it legitimate.

If I refused the Chair of the Council in front of his own envoys, though, I would be giving them exactly what they needed. They could call me unfit, put the cuff on me, send the gray car, and close every door before I learned a single true thing about my mother.

Whatever waited for me on the sand, at least fighting gave me a chance to remain here.

So I climbed down the ladder into the Pit.

My legs shook beneath me when I reached the bottom. I accepted the staff from the assistant and wrapped both hands around it. The wood was heavy, solid, and reassuringly real, although it did very little to lessen the fear of what stood across the sand.

Above me, Tamsin had gotten to her feet and was shouting something at Varga that I was fairly sure violated several Council rules. Jax had gone completely still, his usual grin gone. At the back of the tiers, Silas rose slowly from his seat and remained standing.

At the rail directly above me, Kaelen Vance had both hands locked around the iron. His face had gone pale.

“Begin,” Varga called.

Delphine moved before he had fully finished the word.

She raised her arms, and the white shift slipped from her shoulders and fell onto the sand as her body began to change. Her frame lengthened and reshaped itself, pale feathers spreading over skin as her arms opened into wings and her neck stretched upward.

When the transformation was complete, an enormous swan stood on the black sand.

It was beautiful, which somehow made the sight of it worse.

She was far larger than any natural swan. Her half-spread wings were wider than I was tall, and her heavy orange-and-black beak ended in a hard, sharp edge. She lowered her head, curved her neck, and hissed at me with a long, rattling sound that made every hair on my arms rise.

The crowd erupted.

I knew swans.

Every vet tech did, because every spring someone brought in a dog that had decided chasing one was a good idea, and the result was usually broken bones. A swan’s wing could strike with enough force to break an arm or a jaw, and the blow often came low and from the side.

I backed away from the center of the Pit until my shoulders met the rough stone wall.

With the wall behind me, Delphine could not circle around and strike from either side. If she wanted to reach me, she would have to come in from the front.

She did.

Her first wing swept toward me from the left. I raised the staff just in time, and the impact drove through the wood into both arms, wrenching hard at my shoulder and nearly tearing the weapon from my hands.

The second strike came from the right.

I ducked beneath it and heard the wing slam into the stone directly behind my head.

The crowd screamed.

Delphine hissed and drew back. Before she could come forward again, I drove the iron-shod end of the staff toward the joint where her wing met her shoulder.

I did not strike as hard as I could have.

I struck hard enough.