“No,” I tell him.
“Can I help you?”
I glance around blankly. “I need to find the Lodging Mistress.”
“You’re just across the street from her.” He points to a squat building festooned with Gardnerian flags. “It’s over there.”
Relief floods through me as I dodge pedestrian and horse traffic to get to the office of Mage Sylvia Abernathy, the woman in charge of the scholar housing.
She’s a fellow Gardnerian. She’ll understand the gravity of the situation, and I’m sure she’ll help me.
*
A short while later I’m in a stuffy office sitting opposite Mage Abernathy, a pinch-faced woman, our flag prominently displayed behind her long desk. Like the Urisk cleaning woman, she’s oddly unsurprised by my appearance or by my story, and regards me with cold, calm eyes.
“You’ll help me, won’t you?” I plead, thrown by her composure.
For a moment she holds her pen in suspended animation over the stack of papers in front of her. “Why, that’s entirely up to you, Mage Gardner,” she says as she resumes her writing.
“I don’t understand.” I struggle to remain composed.
“Well, Mage Gardner,” she replies absently, “your aunt has been in touch with me about your lodging arrangements. She sent a runehawk with instructions yesterday morn. Of course it would be possible to move you into a room with...more amiable roommates.”
More amiable roommates?
Why isn’t she outraged? I’ve been placed in a room with Icarals! And they tried to kill me!
I force myself to take a deep breath. I need to stay calm, even if all of the people here are completely unhinged.
“How soon can I move?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady and even.
She stops writing, sets down her pen, folds her hands and meets my gaze. “Why, as soon as you’re wandfasted, Mage Gardner.”
Oh, Holy Ancient One. My heart begins to hammer against my chest. Aunt Vyvian...
Everyone has a breaking point, Elloren. Don’t force me to find yours.
“I can’t wandfast yet,” I say, my resolve wavering.
“Well, then,” she responds unsympathetically, “I suppose you’ll just have to find a way to deal with your situation.”
Desperation rises inside me. “I’m going to send word to my uncle.”
She eyes me shrewdly. “Your aunt also instructed me to inform you that your uncle has fallen ill. Weak heart, she said.”
Shock blasts through me. “What?” I can barely get the words out. How could Aunt Vyvian have kept this from me? “Is he all right? How long has he been sick?”
“Oh, it seems he’ll recover in time,” she says dismissively. “He has a local physician tending to him, but she feels it would be quite stressful for him to get involved in all of this.” Her eyes are steady on me, giving her words time to sink in.
I stare back at her as my misery slowly coalesces into a white-hot ball of anger.
“Then I’m going to speak to the High Chancellor,” I say, my voice hardening.
She makes a sound of derision. “The High Chancellor doesn’t concern himself with petty problems such as these. Besides, your aunt has already spoken to the Vice Chancellor regarding your lodging arrangements. I think you will find that everyone is in complete agreement as to how things stand.”
So that’s it.
I can’t leave Verpax University because I’m at risk of being killed by a demonic, monstrous, wingless Icaral, and I have no alternative but to live with two demonic, monstrous winged Icarals and work in a place where people want to break my arms and legs.
Or I can pressure my sick uncle to let me wandfast, against his wishes, to a man I barely know.
I stand unsteadily, so angry I’m trembling. “Thank you for meeting with me. Everything is clear to me now.”
“You’re quite welcome,” she says, not bothering to get up. “Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.”
My legs unstable, I turn to leave.
“Oh, Mage Gardner,” she says mildly, stopping me in my tracks. “What should I tell your aunt if she asks how you are? She can relay your answer to your sick uncle.”
I turn to face her again, swallowing back my angry tears. I square my shoulders and look her straight in the eye. “Tell her,” I say, my voice gone cold, “that I’m fine, and to tell my uncle not to worry—that sending me to University was the best thing he ever did.”
She meets my gaze steadily for a moment then turns her attention back to the lodging book and resumes writing.
*
I have no idea where to go next, so I begin aimlessly wandering down the University streets, not caring about my disheveled state and numb to the shocked stares of the passing scholars and professors, following the flow of the festive tournament crowd.
I’m soon outside the central grounds, past the buildings, and finally come to a crowded series of tournament fields, a variety of flags flapping in the cool breeze. An archery competition is visible up ahead, a line of Elfin archers frozen in place with arrows set, their field densely rimmed with spectators. Perfectly in sync, their arrows shoot forth toward oval targets placed on thin poles. They hit the targets with a loud thwap.
“Cael Eirllyn!” the Match Master calls, a young Elf on a white steed riding forward to claim his prize.
Desperate for my brothers, I turn away from the match, weaving through the boisterous crowds, looking everywhere for a familiar face. And then I find one, but not the one I would have ever wanted to find.
Gardnerian military apprentices are competing in a wandwork contest the next field over. A female in the middle of the line of contestants catches my eye. She’s the sole apprentice, the other eight Mages clad in soldier black, Level Five silver stripes on all of their arms.
Fallon Bane.
She’s the only female in their group, everyone’s wands in hand to take aim at the circular wooden bull’s-eye targets that face them across the small field.
I jolt back as fire surges forth from a Mage’s wand, the flames streaking toward the target, exploding into the bull’s-eye in a small, churning ball of fire.
Applause and cheers rise from the mostly Gardnerian spectators. A grouping of Kelts watch the contest, arms crossed in front of their chests, unsettled looks in their eyes.
The rest of the male Mages take turns sending out fire with similar results.
Fallon is last. She raises her arm and waits for the crowd to quiet to a hush. Then she whips her arm forward and sends a white spear of ice coursing toward the target.
I flinch as her spear knifes into the target with an earsplitting crack, and the target explodes into a giant ball of white, smaller side spears impaling every other target in the row, shattering them to the ground.
There’s silence as a cloud of icy snow settles over the destroyed line of targets.
“Called!” the Match Master booms. “For Mage Fallon Bane!”
The Gardnerians erupt into cheers, some military apprentices launching into our national song with boisterous, off-key voices.
The last of my courage seeps out of me. I pull away from the jostling crowd and stumble toward a distant, sheltering tree. I plop down on the damp, shadowed grass, let my sleep-deprived head fall into my hands and cry.
*
“Elloren.”
I startle as a hand makes contact with my shoulder. I look up to find Aislinn and Echo crouched by me, their faces shocked and full of concern.
I don’t know what to say. It’s just so awful.
“What happened?” Aislinn says. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. When you didn’t show up for breakfast, we got worried.” She reaches up to gently touch my face, her brow tightly knotted. “Heavens, Elloren. You’re bruised. Did someone hit you?”
Sobbing pathetically, I tell them about the Icarals and the kitchen workers as they sit down on the damp grass beside me.
Aislinn shakes her head from side to side. “I can’t believe your aunt could be so cruel.”
“It’s a test, Elloren,” Echo informs me gravely.