“Fifty-nine!” Master Barclae announced over the evening meal. “We are now sixty-three less than when we started! I am pleased to announce that the masters and I have met our goal and disposed of half the waste that was taking up our valuable resources!”
That many? I glanced at my friends. They exchanged looks. None of us had realized how many had left. Or that we had already completed that much time. We’d been conscious of the truth, but we had not yet acknowledged it.
“In celebration of reaching our goal,” the Master of the Academy continued, “the masters and I have decided to include you in our annual winter solstice ball the day before your weeklong reprieve begins. This festivity will be done in conjunction with our apprenticing mages who depart for field training the following day.
“As such, this will be your one and only opportunity to participate in activities with those you would not have the pleasure of speaking to otherwise. Do not waste it.” Barclae raised his goblet and roared: “To fifty-nine!”
To fifty-nine indeed.
“Can you believe it, Ry?” Ella asked me when I returned from the library, much later that night.
“You’re still up?” I asked incredulously. The bell had just sounded for the second hour into early morning.
She watched me put away my books. “I Can’t sleep.”
“I wish I suffered from your affliction,” I told her. “I am pretty sure I drifted off for half my study tonight.”
She tilted her head. “Well, it’s good to see you back at it.”
I shrugged. “I don’t have much of a choice.”
She looked at me earnestly, “Are you feeling alright, Ryiah? You didn’t seem too excited by Master Barclae’s news today—”
“I guess I’m just ready for this year to end.”
“Don’t tell me you are thinking of walking away!”
I smiled, somewhat bitterly. “I’ve made it this far. I’m going to stick it out.” I paused. “It’s funny. I arrived here knowing full well there was a good chance I would not succeed… I guess I just forgot that.”
I looked to my friend and forced a smile. A real one. “It’s okay, though, because I remember now, and I don’t plan on forgetting it again anytime soon.”
Ella shook her head vehemently. “You are too serious, Ry. You never forgot that. You just gained confidence and lost it when Priscilla knocked you down in front of our entire class.”
She began to remake the sheets on her bed as she added, “You just need some good weeks to wash away your bad one… and I, for one, think the ball will be perfect for it. We’ll have a whole night off to celebrate and feel mortal for once. And then a week to rest up! It’s just what you need to get your conviction back.”
I crawled into bed, not sharing my friend’s enthusiasm. “I hope you’re right.”
The next three weeks passed by in a sea of endless commotion, thanks in large part to the Master of the Academy’s announcement. Everyone was looking forward to a break after the grueling progress we had been making the past six months. Spirits were lifted, and despite the increasingly difficult sessions in class, the count remained at fifty-nine for better or for worse.
I had to admit that some of the cheer was contagious. As frost began to cover the field and every inch of the Academy’s campus, I started to feel better than I had in weeks. That day with Priscilla had faded away into a distant memory, and as my stamina continued to climb while others’ faltered, I grew more and more hopeful that the pattern would continue on into the new year.
In no time at all, the evening of festivities had arrived.
Ella and I had just exited our barracks, having changed out of our dirty training clothes into more presentable dress, when we caught sight of Alex running down the snowy path to greet us. It was noticeably dark, but the moon was full and gave enough light for us to cringe at the snow he was kicking up in his tracks.
“You two are never going to believe it!” he declared.
“Alex,” Ella scolded, “you just got snow all over us—”
“Just you wait!” He snatched both our arms to drag us over to the Academy doors.
“You big oaf…” Ella paused as she noticed our surroundings.
I stumbled as I took in the same, feeling as dazed and out of place as a girl from the country could.
“I told you,” Alex boasted. “I told you that you had to see it!”
All across the dark gray slabs of the Academy walls were hundreds of tiny sparkling lights twinkling down upon us.
Every inch of the school was covered in the tiny glass orbs, and they shone brilliantly across the white velvet landscape. Even the roof and rafters glowed. It was as if the entire world had been shrouded in the crystalline blue of a flame’s inner core, and then speckled in violet magenta.
It was the most breathtaking thing I had ever seen in my life.
“How did they.?”
“Alchemy,” Ruth answered from behind us.
The three of us jumped, having not noticed our study friend’s soft-footed approach.
“Master Ascillia taught us how to make the liquid glow last week. We brewed a whole batch of the stuff and handed it off to the constable’s team to bottle and string.”
Alex chuckled. “No wonder the servants were in such a foul mood.”