The Summoner’s Hall was everything I had imagined, if perhaps more sparsely populated than expected. The common room was triangular in shape and stretched tall overhead, with a second level overlooking the first via wrought marble balconies. Everything was dark wood, leather accents, and bookshelves, giving the dimly lit space a feel of knowledge, wealth, and power. A large triangular table dominated the center of the room, and four robed figures were bunched around a single Neophyte, a skinny, pockmarked boy who was obviously trying very hard not to act intimidated. The robed ones obviously belonged to the Summoner Order, as each one had hair in some shade of purple. Not sure I want purple hair. They look like a field of wildflowers. No one had noticed me yet, which suited me just fine for the moment. The Hall had a lot to take in all at once.

Each corner of the triangle up on the balconied second floor was bumped out, making room for a table that provided a good view of the floor below. At one such table a boy and a girl, both purple-haired, argued softly as they conferred over a large tome lying on the table. Even up there, the walls were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. My mind warped and broke just a little bit looking at all those books. How much knowledge does this room hold? How much power? I itched to get my hands on them.

Walking quietly to one side where no one seemed to be standing, I let my fingers trail lightly over the spines of the nearest books in the shelf at eye level. Worlds Within. No Self, Powerful Self. Manifesting Aethereal Projections. Notes of Internal Changes, Acolyte Level, Merinda Truthspeaker. I stopped cold at that one. Merinda Truthspeaker was a hero of the Tower from two hundred years past about whom one of my sparring instructors had loved to tell stories – a woman who had such mastery over herself she could transform into a being of light and power before she ever reached the rank of Elder. She had held the Seventh Gate by herself for three days while waiting for reinforcements from the Tower school…and I had my hand on one of her journals. A chill of awe washed over me.

“Amazing,” I murmured.

“You haven’t seen nothing, friend,” said a cheery voice behind me. One of the students who had been clustered around the new kid had broken off and snuck up on me. He was handsome somehow despite his narrow face and a smattering of pimples. His jaw moved, and it sounded as if he were chewing gravel. When I turned around, his smile slipped off, replaced by confusion. “Why are you ugly?” he said, pointing at my face.

It wasn’t often I found myself at a loss for words, but that did it. “Excuse me?” The girls of Misfell had made no secret that they found me attractive. Even correcting for the fact that my father was an important man, I still felt confident of my looks.

“Zoaelia!” he called out. It was loud enough that everyone in the room looked. “Will you come here for a minute?”

“I’m not ugly,” I said, trying to sound reasonable.

He waved an irritable hand at me. “Don’t get huffy, kid. You’re fine for an outsider. That’s not what I’m talking about.”

I pasted on a smile, wishing it felt a little less tight on my face, and opened my mouth to ask him what exactly he was talking about when a raven-haired beauty with flawless brown skin swayed up to us. She was a good head taller than me, and when she turned her head, the room’s soft light revealed subtle purple highlights in the gorgeous mane on her head. She smiled – dazzling white – and her eyes twinkled at me, more golden than brown. Her skin and eyes had a subtle glow that marked her as Devout. My wounded mouth felt like a desert, and my heart stammered under the sheer weight of her presence.

“Galen,” she acknowledged the boy. “Something on your mind?”

He grinned at her stupidly, and I knew I wasn’t the only one charmed by her. “New kid,” he said, pointing at me again.

“I see that,” she said, extending a hand. “I’m our Head of Hall, Zoaelia. A pleasure.”

“Maphen,” I said, hoping my blistered lips didn’t look too hideous.

“Why’s he ugly, Zo?” Galen blurted.

She scrutinized me, and I could have happily killed him. “You don’t have the mantle.” She sounded almost offended.

I looked back and forth between the two of them, terribly conscious that everyone else in the room was listening too. “I…don’t know what that is.”

“The boon,” she said, snapping her fingers impatiently. “Attractiveness, charm, charisma. You get it when you choose the Summoner path.”

I felt immediately chagrined and wished I hadn’t been such a stubborn cuss about my choice at the Scrying Pool. I wanted this woman to smile at me, to like me, to be impressed by me, and instead I was a problem. “I…um, I haven’t chosen a path yet.”

That made a stir in the room, and not a good one.

“What are they doing letting you into our Hall?” Galen asked shrilly. “This is for Summoners only, gormek! Head back out the way you came.”

Zoaelia flicked a hand at him and he subsided into a hostile stare. “He couldn’t have gotten past the mirror if he weren’t meant to be here.” She looked around the room. “I’ll handle this. Give the boy some space.”

She shooed Galen away, and everyone else went back to their conversations, but there was nary a friendly face in the room. I hadn’t thought about how it would look to everyone else when I went hopping from one Order to the other.

“Tell me,” she said shortly, all business. Even stern and focused, she was still the loveliest woman I’d ever seen.

In as few words as possible I gave her the details of my bargain with the Elders and the Summoner’s invitation to stay in the Hall until my choice was made. I felt a right fool as I did so. All the other new students would have received some mantle of their own and I was starting out a long step behind them. It would be hard to impress anyone this way, and even harder to progress. Should I just declare for the Summoners now? No, that’ll just make you look weak. You had the right idea, but now you’re paying for it.

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She shook her head and chuckled ruefully. “You’ve got some stones on you, I’ll give you that. I’m just not sure if they’re in your pants or your skull. If I’d have tried to stand up to four Elders at once on my first day, I’d have wet myself.”

“It was a near thing,” I admitted.

She put a hand on my shoulder, and my stomach did a flip inside me. “Listen, new boy.”

“Maphen,” I supplied.

“Join our Order and you’ll be my comrade, but until then, you’re New Boy. I’m in charge of this Hall, and if you cause problems, I’ll take you someplace where the Healers can’t find you and freeze your feet ‘til they shatter. Got me?”

A stab of cold jolted my shoulder directly under her hand, and I realized she must be an elementalist. She could probably do exactly what she was threatening, and those tawny eyes were deadly serious.

“No trouble,” I promised her. “I want to be here as bad as anybody; I just want to make sure I’m in the right Order.”

“Well, you’ve got a smooth tongue, at least,” she said, relenting. “Not that it means you’ll belong to the Summoners, of course, but at least you’re not horribly misfit with the rest of us wheelers and dealers.”

“Dealers?” I said.

“Summoning is all about persuasion, New Boy,” she said. “Getting your way, convincing others. The fact that you were invited means our Heirophant saw at least some of that in you during the Threshing.”

I thought back on our testing with a frown. “I picked the word of power during the test and said it. I figured that was why.” I gestured at my burnt and blistered mouth. “Still paying for it.”

She pursed her perfect lips and quirked an eyebrow. “They wouldn’t bring you into the Summoners for speaking a Word. It’s impressive for a gormek, sure, but we all learn to do it. We’re dealmakers, New Boy. We convince others to do our bidding so well they think it’s their own idea, and eventually we do it so well that we control them completely and even possess them. Did you convince one of the other kid-lings to fight for you? Do something dangerous for you?”

I thought of Sett stepping in front of me and dying for it. It wasn’t like she thought; I hadn’t asked him to do it, and I certainly hadn’t controlled him…but I could see how the watching Elders might have thought I did. Offered entrance on a misunderstanding, I thought, my spirits sinking even lower. This isn’t the Order for me, no matter how much knowledge they have at their fingertips.

“Something like that,” I managed weakly, not meeting her eye.

“Learn to hone it and you’ll find your place with us,” she said, leading me to the main table where some of the others were chatting with the other new boy. “No matter which path you take in our Order, knowing how to use people is what makes a Summoner.” She laid a hand on one of the older boys taking his ease in a chair. “Be a dear, Darik, and run up to my suite for me, will you? I need the quill box on my bed.”

Darik jumped up like someone lit a fire under his chair. He was even darker than Zoaelia, with a wild mane of curly purple hair to his shoulders. Dammit, they’re all beautiful. He gave a fawning smile to her and dashed away to do her bidding. She looked to me with a sly smile and gestured after him as if to say, See? That’s how it’s done.

“This is Chorazin,” she said, pointing to the new lad, who was leaning against the table and surveying the room with a satisfied, possessive smirk. I disliked him immediately. “He was smart enough to vow for the Order immediately, unlike someone else in the room.” To the smug boy, she said, “Had your chat with Deceit yet?”

He nodded, looking as if he’d just stolen a massive gem and gotten away with it.

“And?” she cocked her head. “What path will the newest Summoner take?”

“Demon Control,” he announced proudly.

She sighed. “Most of the boys can’t resist the thought of harnessing some gargantuan monster and leveling cities with it. Nothing wrong with it, of course, but when you craft your contract badly and the imp you’re trying to harness eats your eyeballs, please remember that your Head of Hall recommended Elemental Control instead. It may not be as flashy, but if you stick with it you can literally control the world itself.”

The boy deflated at her words, but she clapped him on the back. “Or maybe you’ll prove me wrong. I took my first mastery in Demon Path, if I’m being honest, if only so I could understand demontongue. I wasn’t about to let any of the others gossip without me knowing it.”

She walked away and I followed, if for no other reason than I didn’t want to talk to the other new-ling. She saw me and murmured. “We lose at least one Demon Path-er in each group. It’s not just bad contracts, either – the demons are just as smart as we are, and control can go both ways.” She pointed to a gap in the bookshelves along one wall to a glassed window. Rather than looking out onto a marble hallway as logic and reality demanded, the window showed a barren landscape of dead trees, withered grass, and sullen gray skies. A cow was decaying just on the other side of the glass, yellowed bones showing through carrion-eaten holes in its rotten flesh. “Our Demoneers keep a shielded viewing portal into the Sheol beyond the Tower’s aura of safety just to remind themselves of the dangers they court.”

I gaped at the sight. I knew that the distant lands beyond Misfell were demon territory, of course, but I’d never thought to see them. I hoped a demon might amble past even though it was obviously a desolate area. On the other hand, I hoped one wouldn’t – shielded or no, having a magical opening onto such danger made the space between my shoulder blades itch.

“I much prefer my own reminders,” she said, pointing across the room. Set into the wall on the far side was another window, this one showing a pit of…something burning. I’d have said it was water if water glowed cherry red and sported runnels of fire on all sides.

“What is that?” I asked.

“The inside of a volcano on the far side of the continent,” she said. “That’s melted rock. It’s so hot that a spoonful would burn your flesh from five paces. The power of the Elements in action, right there. I stay up late sometimes just to watch.” She looked at the sight with desire bordering on lust. Then she shook her head, walked a few steps further, and opened a polished wooden door set between two bookshelves. Beyond it was a small windowless stone chamber with a narrow bed, two shelves, and a washbasin. “This will be your bunk while you muck about making your decision.” A tightening of her mouth showed what she thought of my dilettante ways. “This was Busher’s spot last year. He’s one that the demons got the better of.”

She folded her ams and leaned against the door frame. “A smart New Boy would get a good night’s sleep. You’ll be fighting in the Melee tomorrow, and any fool that hasn’t got a mantle working in their favor is going to be at a disadvantage.”

I nodded dutifully. I’d been aching for a bed for hours, and if some big fight was on the horizon, an early turn-in was exactly the right move. I took half a step forward, but she hadn’t moved. She was watching me expectantly, as if waiting for something.

“Or…?” I asked.

She grinned, a hungry, competitive look. “The rest of us will be up playing chop and testing each other’s mental fortitude for most of the night. There’s no better way to get to know us, and you can’t compete with the enemy you don’t know.” She picked idly at her nails. “Probably not very interesting for a New Boy who’s not even sure he’ll be one of us. Might be better to get your sleep.”

I squared my shoulders and pushed my pain and exhaustion to the back of my mind. “I could manage a hand or two.”