Adeline Graham sat in the initiation room.

The initiation room was just at the Mergifari's entrance, an enormous round room where the novice mages trying to get accepted at the Mergifari put themselves up for being selected.

Similar to an auditorium, the seats were at different levels, in a circular fashion. The seating positions of all the selectors were based on their political strength and continent.

Official mages didn’t need to be close to someone to guess their strength, therefore, the lower seats were for the weakest selectors, the ones that could only afford one apprentice. Some of them were empty, since the official opening was more than two weeks later.

Still, there was a way to enter the Mergifari as an apprentice sooner than the others.

If you were a prince, or a mage with great capabilities, you could receive an official invitation, letting you skip the lines.

Those mages were usually selected by royal families, so there wasn’t much reason for the non senders to be here.

Except there were some. Political reasons. And Adeline Graham needed to maintain some political connections.

The middle seats were for the families that could afford three to five apprentices. Those were a bit fuller, some mages talking to others about their lives.

Adeline was at the upper part of the middle seats. She would have loved to talk to the mages next to her, but the letter she had on her hands made her do otherwise.

The sender was Irsen Kartal. It was about the acts that occurred on the train.

She had sensed the death of a blood related member a day ago. And now she had the reasons. She read the letter again, repeating the sequence of the acts, and filling the blanks with what she knew.

First, Cornelius had targeted Iren before boarding the train, due to the inner power struggle inside the family.

That was because the current knowledge mage working for them was giving signals of losing control, so there was a debate of who would replace her. Both Cornelius and his brother had different preferences, deciding to support their choice in different ways.

Cornelius wanted Iren's familiar to increase the strength of his faction, so he hired Siberina, specialized on assassination, to deal with him.

It worked nicely, the assassination completed seamlessly. Now, they only had to wait until arriving at Wishbell, where the knowledge mage could get Iren's familiar.

Here was where the original plans went different.

Another mage, also of the Knowledge Paradigm, boarded the train.

Adeline sighed; if his son had ignored the wandering mage and waited for HIS mage, everything would’ve been fine.

But he didn’t. She understood why. They didn’t know if the Doyles had a way to sense the death of a member, intervening before arriving at Wishbell and ruining the plan, so the introduction of a new variable was a blessing and a curse at the same time.

Cornelius tricked her easily, which was obvious. He could’ve won here and there, but then, another variable happened.

Siberina. Adeline had always been wary of her family. Gamblers were a chance she didn’t want to take, ever. But it seemed that Cornelius had a different opinion, taking the chance.

And proceeding to lose the gamble.

Adeline looked to her lower left. Someone was staring unblinkingly at her.

Siberiald Ropertti. The head of the Ropertti family.

When their gazes meet, he let out a mocking laugh. Dressed like a clown… or a harlequin, a pair of mismatched eyes and some makeup, his torso stretched and contracted while he laughed, like an accordion.

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Adeline had to use all her willpower to not rip the letter into pieces, and the clown with it.

Cornelius, why? Didn’t I raise you to be smarter? Even if Siberina seemed well adjusted, you just can’t trust a Ropertti.

She returned her attention to the letter, still feeling Siberiald’s gaze on her.

Apparently, he didn’t know anything about her daughter being part of Chariot. And he found it amusing when Irsen Kartal told him, laughing like a madman.

Why can’t Kartal deal with the Ropertti’s? He cares more about human lives than mages' lives.

Chariot… That name rang a few bells, but she always had taken them as a group of wandering mages that wasn’t harmful. Until now.

Irsen Kartal didn’t say anything else about them. She looked down at him. He had arrived a bit earlier, flying on his familiar, and now was seated on the middle seats, drinking and talking to the mage sitting next to him.

She looked at the last part of the letter.

‘The mage your son tried to get rid off, Velvet, seems like an interesting kid. She didn’t murder or take revenge on the humans your son mind controlled to kill her. I’ll be watching her career with interest.’

That was both a threat and a warning. He indirectly told her that he would be taking notice of Velvet’s status, and so, if Adeline or the Graham’s were to take revenge on her, Kartal would take action.

As the leader of the Scales of Poine, he was responsible for the eradication of the few mage families that took too many human lives.

The Grahams had their share of illegal dealings. One just had to see how Cornelius decided to take action against Iren, so making Kartal notice them even more was not a smart choice.

Therefore, she had to leave that kid alone. She was sure some families that were against her family, or just wanted a satisfactory nod from Kartal would select her, since word of the incident had run through everyone already.

Irsen Kartal was not doing that for Velvet’s sake either. He used the families that wanted to be in his good books to raise the mages that caught his interest, so that he could recruit them to the Scales of Poine once they graduated.

Everyone won something that way. Kartal had a new member raised for free, and the family that selected them had a member on the Scales that was sympathetic towards them.

So, there was quite an interest now. Of course, it wasn’t all Irsen Kartal’s work.

It had been just a few hours after Kartal returned from the trip, and the news had propagated like wildfire, all courtesy of the Doyles.

Carion Doyle, the head of the Doyle family. A corpulent man, dressed in scholar robes and wearing round glasses. Sitting in the lower seats, he was chatting with the mages around him, all of them drinking and eating.

He turned his head to look at Adeline when he felt her gaze, but turned around at the moment their eyes met.

He is good at playing scaredy rat, but better at making friends.

The Doyle family was in decline until he took over, making connections and growing enough for them to become part of the selectors.

On the contrary, the Grahams had been losing influence, making enemies and losing allies.

Cornelius was supposed to go to Idir and make some connections there, but now even that plan was messed up.

She could still send Ethra, Cornelius' younger brother, and try to mend things.

Just when she put down the letter, the Director cleared her throat.

She was seated at the highest seat, the absolute authority over the Mergifari. Her word was law.

Everyone stopped talking, going back to their seats. The food and drinks disappeared, and the Initiation Room got shrouded in shadows, the only illuminated thing being the stage.

The door opened, and the mages that received an invitation entered in order of arrival.

The first one was the Second Prince of Idir. Dressed in noble Idirian clothes, long black hair that he kept tied up low, and dark skin, he entered in silence.

Normally, novice mages did a demonstration of their abilities to get the attention of potential selectors, but, invitation carriers didn’t need to.

“Syon Idrees, Second Prince of Idir.” The Director introduced.

Her voice was soft, she didn’t need to raise it for everyone to understand.

The mages in the stage could pick up the name and title that the Director would call out, as long as it was true. Some could even go anonymous, as long as they weren’t invited.

“Invitation or Selection?”

The mages invited could choose to go with the sender of the invitation, or set themselves up for selection. It was strange for someone with an invitation to pick the latter option, but the choice existed.

“Invitation. Irsen Kartal.” The one named nodded, not saying anything. Syon walked to the exit at the back, which would take him to the Mergifari.

The second invited entered.

“Dianthus Cecht Luachra, the Chosen One.”

Adeline, and everyone else paid attention. They knew the one that invited him was the Queen of Arhontissa, who also raised him and taught him the basics of magic, so it was unanimously known that he would go with her.

“I want Selection.” He had answered before the Director could ask, making almost every mage gasp.