Neither Autumn or Keane were in Cassandra’s group for the final test, but due to the downsizing Caleb was. When she looked around a bit more, she saw Lily too. Unlike the first two tests, they had been given no details about this one, so Cassandra wasn’t sure what to expect.
The group was led out of the Scholar Wing to a more central area called the Social Wing. Once there, they were directed to a repurposed ballroom. The vast space was broken up by magic walls similar to the privacy walls in the first test. However, these walls were tall and wide enough to create a series of small rooms. As they approached and naturally formed a line, the front of the line was systematically split between those rooms.
That was how the already small group of twenty or so became even smaller groups of three or four. Cassandra was directed to a room in the far left corner where she was told to wait for further instructions with the two others already inside. Unfortunately, Cassandra did not know either of them.
The first was a haughty looking ginger with long curly hair. Cassandra guessed she was a girl, but Autumn’s case made her hesitant. The second was most likely a boy with blonde hair and blue eyes. He seemed a bit skittish but had somehow managed to fold the paper he was holding into a near replica of the castle.
A minute or two passed with each of them sizing each other up when the make-shift door was opened and a palace maid came in with a cart laden with a varied selection of refreshments. There was, of course, lemon water and other classic beverages, but there was also a wide range of desserts to munch on. There was a smooth cheesecake drizzled in chocolate, muffins topped with orange zest, cake slices with pineapple embedded in a light green frosting, and most importantly, cookies.
“Would you like something to eat or drink while you wait?” the maid asked, turning to the blonde boy first.
“No thank you,” he answered quickly.
“Are you sure? The test is taking a while to prepare and if you have to leave while you are waiting you might miss it,” she warned.
The boy hesitated at this, but still shook his head. Instead, the girl chimed in demanding the finest tea and the most luxurious looking chocolate pastry.
“And you?” the maid asked Cassandra.
Cassandra hesitated. Something didn’t feel right. “May I ask what flavors of cookies there are?”
“Of course,” the maid assured, “There are celery cookies with lemon zest, beet thumbprint cookies topped with cherry jam, and peanut butter cookies with candied pumpkin.”
The ginger froze, about to take a bite of her pastry. “And this?” she asked, her voice far more hesitant than before.
“That would be a jalapeno chocolate eclair, miss,” the maid replied.
The girl dropped the eclair as if it had burned her, and jerked back. “Are you trying to poison us?! What is with these awful options!”
“You do not have to partake,” she told them.
“Can you tell me what flavors the other things are?” Cassandra asked with interest. Curiosity had gotten the better of her, and she wanted to try those odd cookies. The beet ones almost looked like red velvet with cherry jam instead of beet.
The maid explained the cart to Cassandra from the zucchini cranberry donuts, to the maple bacon tarte, then the orange and carrot muffins. The cake was pineapple with verde frosting, and the chocolate was actually cinnamon carob. The taffies were buttered biscuit flavor, and the sugar flowers were coconut lavender. At the end of the list, she finally made it to the cheesecake. It was clearly the star of the collection, placed in a spot of honor higher than the rest. After all of those weird flavors, Cassandra was waiting for it to be the most bizarre of the bunch.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“...and this is chocolate swirl cheesecake,” the maid finished.
“That’s it?” Cassandra asked. That was far too suspicious. Not only was it given a spot of prominence, it was a seemingly normal flavor.
“It is,” the maid confirmed.
“Thank goodness, something normal! Give me that,” the ginger demanded.
“Wait,” Cassandra interjected, surprised she had yet to notice, “Don’t you find this a bit too suspicious? We aren’t here waiting for the test. It has already begun.”
This caused both of the others to freeze in what they were doing. The boy frantically looked around while trying to stash his paper project somewhere out of sight. The girl, on the other hand, looked at Cassandra with eyes full of doubt. It seemed she would have to explain further.
“Think about it. Every single dessert on this cart has an odd flavor except for that cheesecake,” Cassandra explained, “Right now, we are in the castle, in the capital of Tethia. This isn’t the kind of place where things like that would be served to guests on accident. The cheesecake is clearly a trap. Whoever eats it might fail, or it could be laced with a mild poison.”
“Poison?! You mean they really are trying to poison us?!” the girl demanded, shooting to her feet, “I don’t want to go to Nobility bad enough to die for it.”
Was she always this dramatic. At first she had disliked the boy’s skittishness, but his nervous silence was far easier to deal with than this. “Calm down,” she told her, “It is only the cheesecake that has been poisoned, if anything. Besides, we don’t have to partake of any of it.”
The ginger slowly sat back down, but eyed both cart and made with distaste. “Fine. Then I won’t have anything either.”
“I would like to try those cookies, please,” Cassandra said, “The lemon celery sounds interesting, and I am also curious about the beet thumbprint.”
The maid began to put Cassandra together a plate of odd flavored delicacies that began with cookies, with a few other desserts added on at the end. Even if nothing turned out to be delicious, Cassandra was certain this would be an experience she would never forget. She started with the cookie she was the most curious about, the beet thumbprint.
The shimmering dark red jelly filling the indentation oozed into her mouth as she took the first bite. The beet flavor was rather light, and the cookie had a nice hint of vanilla. The cherry jelly was tart and strong, but it paired well with the vanilla and overpowered the remaining beet flavor. It was better than she expected, but the cookie was soft, in a consistency more like cake. It could hardly be called a cookie at all.
The second treat she tried was the maple bacon tart. This one had a smooth maple cream filling, though the inner crust was lined with bacon, and candied bacon pieces decorated the whipped cream. This was also both better than she expected and oddly disappointing. It was an odd sense of not being able to tell if she liked it or hated it.
Cassandra was only two desserts in and she was already regretting her decision to try all of the wild flavors. Still, she couldn’t falter now. Who knows who might be watching?
==========
In a special hidden room near the center of the ballroom, the headmaster and his apprentice had the special privilege of being able to watch everything that was going on in the six surrounding test rooms. This final psychological phase of the entrance exam was the headmaster’s playground and a personal favorite. He started off with a waiting game to test their patience and determination.
During the waiting game he would send an assistant disguised as a maid or butler to each room with a cart full of special refreshments of his choosing. He eagerly watched everyone’s reactions to his gift, and made a special note of those who caught on and those who lost to anger and impatience.
“Cassandra?” his apprentice muttered, looking to the room in the far left corner.
There a girl with amber hair was taste testing most of his special menu, with the major exception of the one item that was actually dangerous. It was certainly an impressive sight, but his apprentice had very little interest in others and had been complaining about being dragged into helping with the entrance exam mere moments before.
“Do you know her, Alois?” the headmaster asked.
Alois flinched, and quickly spun up a lie. “Of course. She is a promising future Tear.”
“Is that so? But she has yet to choose her course of Nobility. Why are you so certain she will be a Tear?” the headmaster questioned.
“Didn’t she already declare her interest in the role of queen?” Alois asked.
There was surely more to it than that, but the headmaster let it drop. Everyone had their secrets, and most were best left that way. Instead, he changed to a different thought to see if his apprentice was still properly paying attention.
“Has anyone else caught your eye?” he asked.
His apprentice looked between the rooms and looked at another girl with a flower still blooming in her ivory hair. “She is interesting. She used magic to purify your little trick so she could enjoy the cheesecake anyway,” he noted, then looked to another room on the right with a boy actively ignoring everything to read a book. “That one brought a book to the exam. He can’t have expected to be left waiting, unless he was confident he would finish early.”
Those two certainly are interesting, the headmaster agreed. All three of the testees Alois had mentioned had already caught the headmaster’s eye, “I suppose it is time to proceed to the next step.”