Bang! Bang! Bang!

Someone was pounding on the door of Tenthé’s room. Even though it was quite thick, he could hear hollering coming from the other side. It didn’t take magic to figure out who it might be. He got up and opened the door.

“There you are! You have to get ready for Testing this morning! Yecch! Are you still wearing the same stuff as yesterday?”

Apparently, an answer wasn’t necessary since Elishua continued on as she pushed into his room, “I know you can’t read the information about how to use the facilities. Throw your dirty things in here,” she showed him a drawer in the bathroom counter. “Then, this is how the shower works: running your hand around this glyph starts the water, and this one controls how hot it gets, then put on a new uniform from your wardrobe.”

She pointed to the cabinet in the corner.

“And meet me outside in the hallway. Be quick. Wait, what are you doing? Keep your clothes on ‘til I’ve left; this isn’t the public baths! Now hurry up!”

With this, she rushed out and slammed the door behind her.

Tenthé looked in the drawer she’d indicated and discovered a small magical link. Not enough to take the clothes away; it simply alerted someone that there were things to be cleaned. After sticking his head into the drawer, he found it could be accessed from the other side of the wall. There had to be a service corridor back there somewhere. Something to investigate later. For safety, he’d put a ward here and check to see if there were any other ways into his room that he might have overlooked.

Dumping his dirty clothes in the drawer, except for the cloak, he approached the shower. Running his hand around one of the glyphs, water sprayed from the shower-head, causing him to scream and leap away. It had been a little on the cold side.

After a few tries, he managed to achieve a decent temperature and stood in the stream, enjoying the luxury, noting that the sound of the falling water helped mask the occasional yell from Elishua. After he felt she’d been irritated enough, he started washing, although he was immediately distracted by the squirter thing that dispensed soap. Tenthé made himself a bubble crown.

Finally finishing, he found towels in another drawer, dried himself, and picked new clothes from the few sets of identical outfits in the wardrobe.

He wasn’t sure why he had to change each day, but he’d been in enough places to understand that rules were rules. Even if you didn’t follow them, it was good to know what you were disobeying.

Once dressed, he took his time to strap his knives on; it was important to be prepared. After some fiddling, he decided he was good to go. Opening the door, he stepped through Elishua’s tirade and continued on, heading for the dining room.

Realizing he wasn’t properly cowed, she chased after his receding form.

“Where are you going?” she demanded as she caught up.

“Breakfast.”

“Uh, yeah, okay… but after that, we need to get to Testing!”

Tenthé had memorized the route to the dining room. He didn’t want to carry the map since it had a tracking spell woven into its basic magic. And honestly, so what if he got lost?

“What’s Testing?”

“Oh, nothing much. They have to know what you can do so you are assigned appropriately.”

“Okay. Do I have to take what they say?”

“Well, no. But you don’t have anyone to back you up, or have trained you already, so they’ll probably give you some introductory classes until you’re caught up. The first few terms are to ensure you have a solid theoretical foundation before we actually get into spell casting.”

Tenthé wasn’t so sure of that decision. He had gone through a fair amount of training over the years, but mostly no-one in the City knew or remembered.

He shuddered. The beings in the Pools… well, he didn’t like to think about it. There were a lot of nasty things he’d picked up along the way that he kept locked in boxes in the back of his mind. Almost literally.

They entered the little dining room. For whatever reason, there were very few other people present, and all of them were a good deal older than he was. Everyone stared until Elishua glared around the room, then they turned away.

“Why are they avoiding looking at you?” he asked.

“Um… no idea. I suppose it’s because I’m senior.”

Tenthé was sure it was more than that. He had a finely tuned sense for detecting authority, and she was setting off the alarm. It would have been smarter to use an ordinary student to spy on him, but this was one more thing that fell in line with the impression he was forming about the College.

“We have time to eat, if you don’t dawdle too much,” Elishua stated.

Which, of course, tempted him to do exactly that. But he was also interested in finding out what Testing was. He compromised and decided to do things just a little slower than he had to.

They joined the meal line, where Tenthé found an even more impressive selection than the day before. He took a lot of everything, as well as stashing some in his cloak. Elishua looked at him as he carried his overloaded tray to the table she had staked out, but made no comment. She had taken a fair amount, herself.

Tenthé sat down to undertake the serious business of eating. In spite of the disparity in size, he matched Elishua’s rate, and felt nearly full as he polished off the last morsel.

After watching him inhale almost more than his body weight, she asked, “Where do you put it all?”

“It’s good,” he mumbled, still chewing.

Tenthé had made sure she finished first so he could make her wait, but not obviously. Elishua was starting to look a little stressed by the time he was done. She got up, went over to the end of the breakfast line, and grabbed something.

“Quick, use these, we’re nearly late!”

She shoved two towels into his hands. One was dry, and the other slightly damp. He watched how she used hers, then washed, dried, then followed her out the door. She rushed toward the main foyer. Even so, it took them a while to reach their destination.

From the foyer, Elishua led him up a staircase, but Tenthé was almost certain they were actually going down to a basement level. At the end of the stairs, they went through a fancy door displaying a plaque covered with glyphs and symbols.

Inside was much like Admissions. Elishua walked him past a couple of students seated in a waiting area and had him stand in front of a desk. A stern looking elderly lady sat on the other side, with another door behind her.

The lady was wearing very expensive clothing and looked at Tenthé as if a rat had wandered in. Even though he had the same grey and purple uniform as everyone else, his shirt was already untucked, his hair had never been combed, and his cloak hung funny with all the stuff crammed into its pockets.

Elishua introduced them.

“Miss Josepha, this is Tenthé. Just Tenthé. He is the one that the Headmaster mentioned was coming in today. I am sure there’s a note.

“Tenthé, this is Miss Josepha. Explain your… problems, and she’ll help set you up and put you on the schedule. Please do what she says! I’ll be busy all day, but we’ll get together tomorrow and you can tell me how things went. Once you’re done here, have lunch and make your own way back to your room. It’ll be good experience.”

With that, she left. Tenthé turned to face Miss Josepha’s frown.

“Well, what do we have here? Let me look at your documents.”

She rummaged around for a long while and eventually picked up some sheets of parchment that had been on the top of the pile all along. Tenthé was debating casting a spell that would conjure the hyper-energetic rat he used to set off traps. In his opinion, Miss Josepha was definitely a trap that needed setting off. In the end, though, he decided to leave the option open, for now.

“Well. Give me a moment… uh-huh, no family.”

She sniffed, then looked over the top of the parchment at Tenthé.

“I see. You’re a charity case. I hope you realize what a privilege it is for you to be here. We don’t hand out scholarships to just anyone, let alone a commoner.”

Tenthé decided to ham it up.

“Gar darn it, ma’am. I dunno what ta think. They’s too much for me to get. I’d really ‘preciate you to helpen’ me do what’s right. Who knows, they might blame ya if I mess up!”

The lady thought over what Tenthé had said. It was a tough call. Had he laid it on too thick?

After a moment, prejudice won. She sniffed and stated, “Well, okay, young man. We’ll set you up and if you have a hard time of it, then at least you tried your best.”

Obviously, she was certain he was going to fail whatever there was to fail, but was trying to be nice about it.

She continued, “Magister Lang will be in shortly to start the evaluations. Get moving! I’m sure it’ll take you a while to fill out the forms.”

“Thank ye, ma’am. Tomas’ll like ta hear me sayin’ that ya was helpen’ me.”

One of the students in the waiting room let out a small laugh.

Miss Josepha gathered up a bunch of parchments.

“Here boy. I mean, Tenthé. This is everything you’ll need. Your answers will tell us what training you’ve had, who taught you, and so on. Do the best you can and I’ll check them when you’re finished.”

She handed him the stack and a stylo. It was a good thing Tenthé learned how to write when he was in Admissions, because there was no way he’d admit any weaknesses to Miss Josepha. He knew an enemy when he met one. Just in case, he better wake Bear and see if he was doing things how he should.

First, he decided to talk with the student who’d laughed. She was sitting beside a boy, and both of them were older than him. Bigger, anyway. Neither was wearing the College uniform, probably because classes hadn’t started yet. Their clothing was nice, but definitely worn. More like what regular folk wore. Maybe they had scholarships too? Whatever scholarships were.

He approached them.

The girl whispered, “I thought for sure she would clue into what you were doing.”

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

“My name’s Isabell and this is Anders. He’s my cousin.”

He and Isabell were both big, solid people, obviously used to hard work.

Tenthé looked at them. Each had a good amount of magic, but it was jumbled and not well organized. Isabell was definitely a fighter, and Anders leaned toward healing. Tenthé could tell both of them had a long way to go to reach their potential.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“I’m fifteen. Anders is sixteen.”

Tenthé didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded older than him. Both words were longer than ten.

She continued, “We’re new. Our families are merchants, and dad has been hiring tutors to train us. This is the first year we could afford to go to the College. I’m very excited!”

Anders gave Tenthé a bit of a roll of his eyes. Isabell did seem to like to talk.

“So, you’re Tenthé. We overheard the secretary. You have a scholarship? Those are rare! I realize it’s kind of rude, but what are you good at?”

Last night Tenthé had thought over what he would let people know. It would have been better if didn’t have to tell them anything at all, but it was too late for that. They already had found out that he could eat magic and see it. That was enough. From what he overheard in the meeting, those abilities were rare. They’d find out about the forgetting stuff pretty soon too, since it wasn’t something he could control.

For now, though, he’d keep it simple.

“Uh, I can cancel magic, make it weaker. Tomas told me that not too many people could do that.”

“Wow, really? There are spells that work like that, but I’ve never heard of anyone who had it as an ability. No wonder you’re here! Who helped you get ready for Testing?”

“What?” Tenthé responded dully.

“As I said, Anders and I have been studying for years. Everyone wants to receive as high a placement as possible. We learn all we can about the College, the Magisters, and the subjects we want to take.”

“Oh, that… uh, Tomas, I guess.”

Tenthé mentally slapped himself. Once again, his mouth had run off without any guidance from his brain.

“You mentioned him before. Who is he?”

“Um, he works here. Has a big office and everything. Tells people to do stuff.”

“Headmaster Tomas?”

“I dunno. I ‘spose.”

Isabell was giving him a look, not unfriendly, but definitely evaluating. Anders was more distant. He might be someone to get to know better, but he was being quiet. Tenthé had learned to watch the quiet ones.

“Anyway, I have to do these forms. Maybe we can talk later?”

“Yeah, sure,” Isabell responded.

“Okay.”

Tenthé walked to the corner furthest from the desk and the other students. He pulled out Bear.

“Wake up!” he whispered as he bashed the head against a chair arm. It took a while. Bear was far away, but eventually stirred.

“Wha, wha…. My gawds! What is this? It’s not right! I see things! What did you do to me? Something’s wrong!”

“Bear! Remember! You’re going to help me read! Keep your voice down!”

“Oh, Tenthé. Is that you? Wait! Where are my arms! Ahhhh! I’m crippled! Where are my legs? Hey! I don’t have a body? How am I even alive?”

Same as always.

“Ok, listen! You are a magical stuffed toy. Trust me, you’re alive. Um… sort of. Things look different because I sewed one of your eyes on my collar so you could read to me. Now shut up before someone hears!”

“Are you stupid? Nobody can hear me, except you, unless I let them, or I forget. You never figured that out? You really must be stupid… Oh wait! I am talking out loud! We should be able to talk without words. Hmmm, why isn’t that working? Maybe I’m on drugs. Hey, that sounds good! Do you have any?”

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Bear seemed to be tracking a bit better, now. Tenthé had to keep him focused.

“Help me. Like you said. If I look at a parchment, can you tell me what it says?”

“Yeah, no problem, but make it fast. Weren’t you going to get me a body? I can’t stay awake for too long the way I am. Maybe that’s why we need to talk. I don’t know. Show me what you’ve got.”

Tenthé took the top parchment from the pile and held it so the button on his collar could see it. This whole way of doing things was awkward.

“Whoa, that is weird. Let me close my eye.” Bear muttered.

Tenthé watched. Nothing changed, but after a moment, Bear said, “Okay. That’s better. What the heck, forms? Where are you, some sort of hell? Why do you need to fill in forms?”

“Doesn’t matter. What do I do?”

“Well, this asks for your name and date of birth. And then… they want to list what schools you went to and what training you’ve had.”

“What do I do?”

“Uh, you don’t really know when you were born, so leave that blank. Put your name in the first space.”

Tenthé took the stylo and held it over the page. “What’s the first space?”

“See where the stylo is?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Not there. Move it up to the top of the page. Okay, now over to your left. No, the other left. Good, yeah, that one.”

Tenthé scribbled.

“What is that?

“I can write!” Tenthé said, proudly.

“That’s not writing. It’s to writing like vomit is to speaking. Let me do it.”

“What?”

“Let me have your arm! I’ll do it.”

“No.”

“Do you want to fill this out?”

Tenthé looked at Miss Josepha. No way. He sighed.

“Okay, what do I have to do?”

“Just relax your arm and let me move it.”

“How does that work?”

“I don’t know.”

“Great.”

Tenthé relaxed. He couldn’t see anything different, but it felt like there was a person in his head and standing behind him at the same time. That person held his arm and drew some glyphs on the form.

“This is hard; I won’t last very long. We better go fast! Use your other arm to bring up pages when I say.

“So, schooling: at the Mission, anything else?”

Well, I took Mawn-king training plus the Flowing Path, Dread, Choppers, and the Wild Way arts. And then there’re the Pools. The Bodies, Mentals, and Assassins. Maybe more, it’s fuzzy.”

“Really? I don’t remember much of that.”

“You were asleep for most of it.”

“Man, I sleep a lot.”

“Yep.”

“Putting down all that sounds as if you’re making up stuff. Just choose one.”

“Okay, the, uh… the Wild Way. I liked that. Oh yeah, the dead Gods also trained me in lots of things, but they didn’t have names, or not anything that doesn’t sound like a dog barfing and hurts to say.”

“Well then, we’ll put down that you got some magic training from a temple. Pick one.”

“All right. How about the Turtle God? He gave me a tattoo.”

Tenthé rolled up his sleeve.

“My Gods! Cover that up, you idiot!” Bear hissed.

“What, why?”

“That’s an avatar mark! Oh, donkey crap! What did you get into when I was asleep? Take the stylo and turn the little squiggly part at the bottom of your tattoo into a circle.”

Tenthé had control of his arm again and did what Bear asked.

“Hopefully nobody got a good look. If they did, it’ll be trouble!”

“How do you know? No-one here does.”

“I don’t know, I just do.”

Tenthé thought about everything else he’d been through.

“What about the Pools? That’s more than all the other stuff put together.”

“Yeah… no. Let’s not mention them at all. All that’ll do is confuse the issue.”

Bear took back control of his arm and they filled out the forms with as little real information as possible.

Tenthé felt Bear’s presence fade as they finished the last page. Hopefully this was all he’d have to do or he might be in trouble.

Just as he was piling the sheets up, a very large person wearing magister’s robes entered the waiting room. He was enormously fat, bald and not too old. He stopped at Miss Josepha’s desk, where they had a whispered discussion. Then the Magister scanned the few students, pausing briefly on each one. After he’d done everyone, he turned and after more whispers, disappeared into the back room, shutting the door behind him.

Tenthé brought his forms up to Miss Josepha. She snatched them from his hands and looked through the pages while pursing her lips in disapproval.

“Well, this is quite sparse, but… what would one expect?” she muttered loudly enough that everyone could hear. She read some more, then paused.

“What’s this? The Wild Way.” she exclaimed. “Is that some kind of fighting?”

“Yeah, it’s a school in the City.”

“Magister Lang does that.”

“Does what? He knows the Wild Way?”

“Oh, I have no idea what he studies, but it’s one of those. Styles, I think they’re called.”

Now that she mentioned it, Tenthé had noticed the Magister walked smoothly for such a big man. That might be a bit of a problem. He found out first-hand that there was a lot of of competition between the schools. So much so that when he tried a new Style, he had to pretend he hadn’t learned any others. Every so often he’d slip up and the Teacher would become suspicious. It made for some good fights, but, in the long run, this was one case where the forgetting came in handy.

He thought for a moment, then asked, “Can I change what I wrote?”

“I don’t care, they’re your forms. But whatever you put, the Magister will check.”

“Yeah, okay. Wait a sec, I’ll be right back.”

Tenthé got down from the chair and hurried over to Isabell and Anders.

“Do you guys know anything about the Magister?”

“Yeah, sure,” Isabell answered.

“What Style does he know?”

“Oh, that. The Flowing Path. He makes it no secret. Why?”

“I need to pick one. Thanks,” he blurted out before running back to the front, unaware of Isabell whispering “Pick… one?” to Anders.

At the desk, he told Miss Josepha, “Can you change the Wild Way to the Flowing Path?”

If disbelief had a face, it was what Miss Josepha wore.

“Are you sure? I don’t know much about the Styles, but they take years to learn. He’ll definitely check.”

“No problem, I took it ages ago.”

“Well, okay. It’s your funeral.”

With that resounding encouragement, she scratched out a line and wrote something else over top of it. Then she shuffled through the rest of the papers, tsk-ed a few times and told him, “Good enough. I suppose. Take a seat and I’ll call you when it’s time for you to go in.”

With that, she got back to busily doing nothing, as far as Tenthé could tell. He went over and sat beside Isabell.

Before they could say anything, Miss Joseph announced in a voice that was much louder than necessary, “Master Anders Alne! Please come forward for testing.”

As Anders walked up, Miss Josepha grabbed a pile of parchment, escorted him through the door behind her desk, and returned shortly. She sat down and resumed her busy non-tasks.

“So, where do you live?” asked Isabell.

“Oh, here in the City.”

“How did you get in here? I mean, into the College? Really, do you know someone?”

“No, Tomas ran me over with his carriage.”

“What? How? Didn’t the avoidance system push you away?”

“No, those things don’t work on me, I guess.”

“Sounds like your ability is a mixed blessing. Maybe the Magisters here can help?”

“Maybe. I’m not too impressed.”

“What do you mean! This is the best college around!”

“Isn’t it the only college?”

“Well, I suppose. But it’s supposed to be a good one!”

“Yeah, we’ll see. The food’s okay. The clothes are nice. I like the shower.”

They talked for a while. Isabell and Anders were part of House Gledhill, and Gledhill was Isabell’s family name. Even Tenthé had heard of it, since a lot of people around the Mission worked for them. Driving, loading wagons, and other such things.

She told him she’d been brought up in the traditional way, starting with menial tasks, and being given more responsibility as she got older.

Tenthé liked her. She was very down-to-earth, even though she and Anders had been taught by private tutors. Tenthé had a hard time imagining what her life was like. She complained about her father pushing her to study topics she wasn’t interested in, how bad some of the tutors were, and how the maids would make things tough for her if they felt she was getting too snotty.

He’d imagined that living with a family in a house would be much better than being on the street, but it sounded as if it was just different. Better in some ways, but worse in others. It was something to think about.

As they talked, a few other students came in and received their documents from Miss Josepha. For the most part, she was more polite to them than she had been to Tenthé, but not much more. Tenthé figured that down deep, she was just a crabby old lady.

Isabell was telling him about the time she’d let frogs go in the maid’s quarters when three teenage boys entered the room. They were dressed very stylishly, in tight brown pants, high leather boots, white shirts, and capes. Two of them had brown capes, but the third was wearing a bright blue one. Blue dye was very expensive. Tenthé had never seen it used on something as large as a cape before.

Isabell stopped her story when she saw the trio.

“Crap!” she said, hunching down in her chair. “Don’t look!”

The boys strode over to the desk. Miss Josepha actually stood up when they neared and did a surprisingly graceful curtsy.

“Master LePoiterice! How surprising! We didn’t expect you until tomorrow.”

“Think nothing of it,” the boy in the blue cape replied grandly, “We found ourselves with the opportunity to arrive today and took it. I’m sure someone as capable as yourself can deal with the minor issues this causes.”

He glanced at the plaque on her desk, “Miss… Blake.”

“Oh, no, no. Use my first name, Miss Josepha. Everyone does.”

“All right, Miss Josepha. I wonder if you would be so kind as to let me in to see himself. I would appreciate anything you could do.”

“No problem, sir!” She twittered, “Certainly, I can do it. He’s finishing up with a student now, and you’re next. May I get you anything? Anything at all? A drink? Something to eat?”

“Yes, a pot of tea would be wonderful. No need to call me sir. I don’t have that title, yet.”

“Of course, sir… I mean Master LePoiterice. Let me just check on Magister Lang, then I’ll see about your tea. Please seat yourself. It will be but a moment.”

She scurried to the door behind her desk and peered in. A wave of power came out, and Tenthé saw a series of lights flashing on the walls of the inner room. Miss Josepha said something, then closed the door and ran off.

One of the boys turned to blue cape.

“You had her eating out of your hand almost immediately. That’s a record, even for you.”

The three laughed. Blue Cape replied, “Yes, but remember it always helps to be polite. They eat it up.”

He then did a quick scan of the room, and when he spied Isabell, strode over with the other boys trailing. Tenthé got the impression that is what he did. He strode.

“Ah, Isabell. What a pleasant surprise, I didn’t expect you to be here.”

“Yes. Leo. I’m surprised to see you, as well. And you too, Johan, Philip.” She nodded to each of the other boys as she said their names.

“I was sorry you had to leave the party,” Leo added. “I thought we were getting along ever so well. Why don’t we meet for lunch or dinner? Hopefully, the food here isn’t too pedestrian.”

“Um, perhaps. It is likely we’ll be on different tracks, but I’ll keep it in mind.”

Not being an idiot, Tenthé knew that Blue Cape, or rather, Leo, wouldn’t let it go so easily. He examined the trio. Leo had a good deal of magic, well maintained, with much tighter control than he’d seen here, except for the Magisters. One of the others, probably Johan, had no magic, but Philip’s was fairly powerful, although disorganized.

Tenthé ate some of it. Philip let out a cry, crashed into Johan, and fell back, ending up sprawled on a seat.

Leo turned quickly.

“What’s wrong?” he asked with concern.

“I, uh… just feel weak, all of a sudden.”

Leo grabbed his hand. There was a pulse of magic and he ran a quick scan over Philip. Tenthé thought it was rather well done.

“I don’t see anything terribly amiss. Your power is down a bit. If you rest for a while, you should be okay.”

Isabell shot a look at Tenthé. Tenthé feigned innocence.

At that moment the door to the back room opened and Anders, looking a little worn, stepped out. He paused when he saw Leo, ran a hand through his hair, and then walked over to the group.

“Leo,” he said with a nod.

“Anders.”

Just then, Miss Josepha returned.

“I have sent for tea, and it should… Oh my! What’s going on here?”

“My man Philip had a fainting spell, but he seems ok. A bit of that tea will do him wonders,” Leo replied.

“Are you sure?”

At that point, Magister Lang stepped out of the back office, ignored the byplay in the waiting room, and addressed Miss Josepha.

“All right, who’s next?”

“Oh, that would be Master LePoiterice, sir.”

She turned to Leo. “If you wouldn’t mind… this way, s… uh, Leo.”

Before going, Leo took a quick look at Philip.

“As far as I can tell, whatever happened isn’t anything serious,” he said, reassuringly.

Rising to face Miss Josepha, he smiled.

“And, I appreciate the effort you have made to push my evaluation ahead.”

Magister Lang didn’t act surprised as he muttered, “It doesn’t hurt to be filthy rich too.”

To Tenthé’s surprise, Leo responded.

“No, it doesn’t, but remember, it’s my family that’s wealthy. Not me.”

“Sure.”

“Yes, but I’m here to make it on my own, so let’s see what Testing tells us.”

He and the Magister disappeared into the back room. Tenthé thought Leo came off okay. A bit snooty, but he showed that he cared and had an awareness of what was happening. He might have made a decent gang leader.

Anders was watching, with some concern. “Philip, you alright? Can I do anything?”

“Nah, I’m fine. Just a little weak. Don’t know why. I’m feeling better now, though.”

After a pause, probably trying to decide if Philip telling the truth, Anders turned to Johan.

“Hey, how’re things?”

“Fine,” then silence. Johan didn’t seem to be the talkative type.

Once he figured that was all he was going to get, Anders went on, “So what’s it like, hanging out with Leo? You guys don’t mind being his men?”

Philip responded with some heat.

“It’s not how it used to be! Leo’s good. Sure, he likes to take charge, but he isn’t the kid we played with! His dad’s training him to command, since he’s the youngest. And his magic is a lot stronger now. If the College lives up to its reputation, I think he’ll do well!”

“Can you get him to leave Isabell alone?”

“We’ll try… but you know him.”

“Yeah. I know Isabell too,” he said. “If she kills him, then our family will be annihilated by House LePoiterice. If that happens, I’m coming for you.”

Tenthé watched as this played out. He was used to the cold hard facts of life on the streets, so he wasn’t ready to commit to any one side, yet. This was more of a shout-down than a real fight and, most likely, the College wards and Guardians would step in before anything much happened. No reason to get involved. Rather, more involved. Best to just sit and watch. He took out a piece of fruit and started munching.

Insults were tossed back and forth until the tea arrived. Johan and Philip moved to a separate set of chairs and sipped while they waited for Leo.

Isabell turned to Tenthé.

“What did you do?” she angry-whispered at him.

Tenthé ignored the question. “How do you know those guys?” he asked.

While Isabell glared, Anders replied, “We grew up with them. There aren’t that many families with the proper lineage, so all the kids were kind of thrown together. We got along okay, but things change. Leo kept getting stronger and the rest of us couldn’t match him, so eventually, we didn’t see each other as much. Plus, our families started pushing everyone to learn the business. Our House wanted Isabell and me to start at the bottom, and Leo’s father thought it was best to put him at the top. I think his parents and ours argued, but I don’t really know. Now, we only run into each other at parties and a few other events.”

Again, Tenthé was sort of glad he didn’t have a family. It seemed to be a lot more work than he thought. He sat back and let Isabell glare at him. He’d been glared at by more dangerous things than her, many more times than he could count. Which, to be honest, was up to one, but still, he knew what he meant.

After quite some time, Leo came out of Testing, a little less dapper than when he went in. He gathered up his friends and left without talking with Anders or Isabell. Isabell was next, and looked unhappy and very tired when she exited the back room, a while later. She wearily walked over to Anders, who was dozing and Tenthé, who was seeing how long he could hold himself in the air using the arms of the chair.

“Well, this has been interesting,” she began. “I don’t know what to think, but I’m sure we’ll see each other around. Testing was a lot harder than I expected and I need a rest. We can talk again, later.”

She grabbed Anders’ arm and hauled him out the door.

Just then Miss Josepha announced that they were going to break for lunch and to be back in an hour. Tenthé couldn’t count, but he knew how to watch the hour glyph on a clock and see when it changed. He walked out as the waiting room cleared, checked the shape of the glyph on the clock in the foyer, then went off to find something to eat.

The dining room hadn’t moved far from where it was this morning, so Tenthé entered and picked a bunch of stuff. He didn’t recognize much of what was being served, but no-one appeared to worry about waste, since he saw a number of plates left behind with food still on them. Tenthé sat by himself and noted that the crowd was larger than it had been for breakfast. His guess was that more students had arrived. He wondered if it would get so crowded that there wouldn’t be enough seating, just like the Mission.

Tenthé kept eating, although some of his selections were weird. He’d learned to eat when he could, so he ate everything. Once finished, he used the towels to clean up, then returned to Testing.

Where he sat for the rest of the afternoon as various other students went into the back room, with the slow realization of what was going on. The forgetting had kicked in, hard. It was a fickle thing, but usually followed a few rules. If he interacted closely with someone, then they would remember him for a few days, but if the other person didn’t really care, then it could be just a few hours.

It was likely that Miss Josepha had forgotten him entirely. In a true forgetting, people ignored anything they had written about him and even tossed out what they’d recorded, like it was nothing important. He’d seen them do that at the Mission.

The best way to get around it, at least for a for a while, was to become memorable. He could stab Miss Josepha, but no matter how tempting that was, it probably wouldn’t work out that well in the long run.

Tenthé sat in his seat as the waiting room emptied. Eventually, Miss Josepha and the Magister left, shut off the light, leaving Tenthé sitting by himself in the dark.

He pulled a bun from one of his Pockets and walked over to the desk as he munched. Rummaging through the drawers, he confiscated a few styli. He also found a half-full bottle of something strong in the bottom drawer which he didn’t take, but cast a small spell to make it even stronger, because, why not? It might be funny. No secret caches, this time.

He turned to the door to the back room and discovered that it was locked, although it was a pretty feeble lock. He opened it easily and suppressed the alarm. With the big eye of the Guard watching, it wasn’t like he would be able to do anything really wrong, anyway.

The other room was an expansive chamber made from stone blocks of different sizes. Everything, including the door, was heavily warded, which was good, because some serious magic had happened here. Tenthé could see scratches, gouges, and burn marks all over the walls. The stone had even melted in places, and, oddly enough, there were plants growing in a few of the cracks. Probably from some kind of nature magic.

Tenthé examined the blocks that made up the room. Like he’d seen in the Turtle God’s temple, some of them seemed to have been repurposed from other buildings. A few had well-hidden traps and hexes laid on them. Closer examination showed that one of the big blocks was hollow and had some things inside. That might come in handy

Rooting through the desk turned up nothing. It was little more than a table. He shortened a leg, just to pay the Magister back for ignoring him, then returned to the foyer, neglecting to lock either of the doors behind him. Tenthé thought he heard the Guard laughing, but it was so low that he wasn’t sure.

As he headed to his room, he nibbled on more snacks he’d pulled from one of his Pockets. He decided that for now, the College was proving to be interesting enough.