I've never been so free as when I was a Scamp. Though, it must be admitted, seven years old is perhaps a bit too young for such unfettered freedom.

-Rose Argent, private letters

Rose didn't so much as blink when our driver named her price of one octavo.

"You know where the Collegium's residential circle is?"

"Of course, miss!"

Our carriage was sleek and dark, a high-class private carriage that mimicked Nurass's own sumptuous, jet-black coaches, to perhaps not quite so dark nor so luxurious as what our tyrant enjoyed. If our coachwoman was offput by Rose's request to take us to the Collegium's residential circle, she didn't show it. She nattered at her black destriers in a way they seemed to understand (most people in Floria are at least a bit magical). They eased away from the curb and into traffic without so much as a tap from our driver, clopping along into the late morning traffic with the confidence of show horses. They followed the rules of the road without prompting, requiring only gentle reminders to pass slower traffic or pursue back routes when our driver thought a more expedient route might be available.

"It's… wow, it's big!" Mailyn gushed. I nodded my vociferous agreement.

Our ride in the back was smooth as silk. The three of us monopolized the windows, pointing and jostling at anything of the slightest interest while Rose eased back on her booth with a lazy smile. "I can still remember when I first arrived in Floria," she said, but she didn't elaborate. She sighed again, as if reliving some long-lost memory wreathed in nostalgia. Rose couldn't have been much older than twenty at the time, but a dozen years in and around the Collegium can seem like a lifetime.

"It's really big," Mailyn reiterated. She continued to be impressed by the city's size.

By most estimates, the city of Floria boasts just over half a million souls… though, since nobody really knows what transpires in the Mendicant's and Canal cantons, it may well be higher than that. The city is divided into nine cantons, each administered by one Master of the Collegium - four cantons on the Largotto's western bank, four on the eastern bank, and one on the big island smack-dab in the middle of the river. This is the Captain's Canton, where the Black Swan had just pulled into port.

Some three centuries ago, Nurass, the Tyrant of Floria, had the marshy delta drained and the harbor dredged, and the result was the axehead-shaped island that splits the Largotto. I have heard it said that, were it not for the earthen enchantments that buttress the island, the whole of the Captain's Canton would sink into the sea within the year. Fortunately, that theory has yet to be tested.

We passed by the various guild houses, including the big beached freighter that served as the entryway to the sailor's hall. Dozens of streetside stores and small businesses streaked by in a blur of color and commerce. Aldo was especially excited when he spotted a group of laborers who'd set their tools aside to participate in some bare-knuckle boxing, copper tollos glittering in the sunlight as blood and money changed hands.

Rose peered out the window with a smirk. "If it's fighting you like, there'll be plenty of chance for that at the Collegium."

"I'd rather watch it," Aldo admitted without a hint of shame.

"That's… unexpectedly sensible."

While the Captain's Canton is the first impression that new arrivals have of Floria, relatively few choose to settle there. Most of the locals of the canton are sailors, laborers and functionaries at the harbor, proprietors who cater to sailors, and members of the several-dozen guild houses that make their home within the canton. While almost any good in this world can be found in the open-air markets near the port, anybody wanting to make quick (and legally-questionable) money on the sly would prefer the warrens of the Canal Canton and anybody yearning for the gilded trappings of legitimate business will be drawn to Caravan Street within the Mercantile Quarter.

My first impression of the canton was that it contained a lot of people, and a lot of them were drunk. Far more than you might expect at eleven in the morning, but sailors and guildspeople alike tend to keep odd hours. Denizens of the Shadow Canton continue their business well past midnight, and the burghers of the Mercantile Canton are up at the first feeble hint of dawn. If urbane Palas is called 'The City that Never Sleeps', Floria might well be called 'The City that Is Clearly Confused Regarding When to Go to Sleep'.

The smells of food, alcohol, human waste, and the ever-present Largotto assaulted my nose - but I repeat myself. The lower Largotto is constantly infused with all three. By the time we crossed the western bridges and into the Foreign Canton, I was already overwhelmed by my new city - and I hadn't really seen the Shadow Hall yet. Witnessing its great black immensity from afar hardly counts.

"This whole neighborhood speaks Gionian," Rose observed as we passed Mini Gionika - and, indeed, most of the signage was printed in both Perditalog and the more-familiar Gionian.

We continued northward, toward seat of Nurass's power in the Shadow Canton. The origin of the canton's name is unclear, since the Collegium hadn't yet been founded when the Shadow Hall was erected, when Floria was still young. Some say the name comes from the great shadow the hall casts in the afternoon, when the sun hangs low and the tower's shadow stretches halfway out to the Largotto. Others say it was named later, when the first storied Shadows began to matriculate from the nascent Perdita Free Collegium, dismissively called the 'School for Shadows' by people who fail to realize the genius behind its creation. The Collegium that would become our home.

"Do you hear the carriage's wheels?" Rose asked.

"Um…" I shared a look with Mailyn before shaking my head. "Not really?"

"That means we're almost there!"

Most of the way through the Captain's and Foreign cantons had been clattery with the occasional bump! of a missing or misaligned stone, but the sound had gradually been replaced by the smooth and steady rumble of wheels upon an unbroken surface. It is said that a true child of Floria can tell which canton they're in from the sound of their carriage's wheels or the feel of the street underfoot. The Shadow Canton boasts long stretches of pale feldspar melded into huge sheets through expert cyclomancy and broken only by drainage grates and runnels. This contrasts with the Mendicant's Canton on the opposite side of the city, where it is exceedingly generous to call the detritus-strewn stretches between buildings a road at all.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I knew we were approaching our destination when the great black expanse of the Shadow Hall loomed into view, sitting upon the prominent rise called Widchu-miskwe, Black Hill in the language of the native Perditans. The violet shape of the darkstar gleamed atop the central tower, clearly visible from kilometers away, the rest of the massive structure seeming to soak up the sunlight. At the sight of it, Mailyn's hand clamped down over mine, fingernails digging into my palm and pulsing me with tiny, uncomfortable jolts of electricity.

"Stop!" I hissed, and it took me three tries to pull free from her grip.

A minute later, we rolled to a stop along the great grassy circle ringed by a gravel road and about a dozen large, unadorned structures. The five on our side of the circle resembled the red brick warehouses down by Floria Harbor, and for all I know they were designed by the same person - these were the Scamp Halls. On the opposite side of the circle were half a dozen buildings resembling small, boxy castles in the Mouldevican style, the housing for older students. Rose immediately opened the door and hopped out into the sunshine, gesticulating frenetically.

"I'm so excited!" Rose blurted, as if it was she who was about to be enrolled and not the three of us. "Excited for you," she clarified.

Mailyn had a very different reaction. "I think I'm gonna be-" She vomited right on the carriage floor.

Rose cursed in Perditalog and then pivoted to face the driver, who'd no doubt heard Mailyn's loud hurk-ing. She flashed a disturbingly fake smile. "It'll wipe right out," she stated unconvincingly. "I'll… I'll pay to get it cleaned!"

Rose looked about for a moment before spotting a pair of boys wrestling in the dry grass not too far from us. She strutted over and conversed with them in rapid-fire Perditalog, pantomiming somebody vomiting and then, with a quick scrubbing motion, assuring them that Mailyn's partially-digested breakfast wrap would wipe right out. The boys, perhaps nine years old, looked suitably impressed to be speaking with a pretty Shadow and gladly accepted three tollos for the job.

Perhaps the boys haggled Rose up from two tollos, but I suspect she offered that amount out of morbid curiosity. Few things create drama like forcing two people to split three of anything, especially money. As the boys got to work, rolling up their sleeves and shooing us out of the cabin, Rose handed our coachwoman a generous tip and started toward the largest and centermost of the large brick buildings.

"All right, let's get you three enrolled!"

As we approached the hall, uncertainty seized in my chest, and for the first time I felt some of the anxiety that had made Mailyn regurgitate her breakfast. Here I was, in a strange country with a strange language with nothing but the clothes on my back (and one Durecht bitmark) to my name. I couldn't possibly live on my own in this strange place, couldn't clothe or feed myself, and all I currently had to rely on was the kindness of strangers. What if it was all a mistake? What right did I have, little Alvie Altorelli, who until recently had slept with a stuffed magpie on a frilly bed? What right did I have to think I could become somebody like Rose Argent or Herrick the Hawk? What if they kicked me out for being a Selenite? Or what if I just wasn't good enough?

"Are you okay, Vix?" Rose asked.

"Yes," I lied, my smile every bit as fake as the one she'd offered to our driver after Mailyn's vomiting accident.

As we approached down the gravel walkway, two dozen pairs of eyes watched me - my fellow scamps, lounging in the yard, wrestling and sparring with sticks, climbing ficus trees like monkeys, and playing games I didn't recognize. As we passed, they turned to watch the three incoming students. Dozens of potential future Shadows watched us pass.

The building loomed ahead of us, its big double-doors fashioned from great oak slabs reinforced with iron. Without pausing Rose retrieved a small token from somewhere hidden on her person and held it out - night-black and inky agate, it was the Sigil of the Darkstar possessed by all Shadows. She pressed it against an artificed plate on the door and, recognizing her authority, the door clicked open and swung outward. She strode in with authority, beckoning for us to follow.

"I hope I can remember where the damn place is," Rose mumbled.

She tossed her jewel-studded braids, squared her shoulders, and proceeded down the hallway like she owned it. The wooden walls of the entryway were mounted with large blackboards upon which staff assignments, class times, student changes, and many other items of administrative interest or import had been written. Of course, I could read almost none of it - my grasp of Perditalog was still almost nonexistent… though I did remember plenty of interesting ways to insult somebody's parentage from the Mariner's Primer.

The halls were quiet and empty, dim glowglobes illuminating the corridors, the cool white plaster of the walls reflecting the blue of sky through the stairwell window. The wooden beams of the floor creaked slightly underfoot as we tread across the thin carpeting.

"Ah! Just where I remember it," Rose stated with far more than certainty than she should have.

Our destination was a large second-floor office with a placard labeled Regimestre e Nifi, or 'Scamp Administration'. The office was staffed by two older gentlemen, apparently twins, pale, bespectacled, and slightly rotund. They both looked over their silver-framed glasses as we entered, their eyes automatically turning toward Rose. When she presented her sigil, they both stood to attention with considerable alacrity and offered small bows.

"How may we help you, madam?" Leftie said.

"Are these our latest recruits?" Rightie asked.

"They are - and, seeing as how I'm personally responsible for rescuing them from lives of slavery, I'd like you to take extra good care of them…"

"We take extra good care of everybody," Leftie assured her with a jowled smile.

Rose didn't much care for that milquetoast assurance. "Then take extra extra good care of them," she said. "Orders of the Rose of Floria… and the Hawk."

"The Hawk? Oh! Of course," Rightie said.

"Should… should we ask for an autograph?" Leftie whispered.

Rightie elbowed him for the breach of decorum. "The Hawk isn't here, is he?" he whispered back before turning to Rose with a big, fake smile. "Our attention shall be top-notch, madam! Do you think the Hawk might be checking in on them?"

"… Probably," Rose said without much conviction. After a moment's pause, she crouched down to our level, giving each of us a meaningful look. "If you run into any problems at all…" She frowned, perhaps imagining the situation we'd been in when she'd rescued us. "Well… let's be honest, I'm not around here often. I'll probably be at sea. But I'll check in when I can, I promise. I'll check my messages at the Collegium right away whenever I stop in town. In the meanwhile… learn how to throw a good front kick. It comes in handy."

"Yes, Miss Rose," Mailyn said.

"You're… you're leaving?" I asked - I knew she wasn't to be our escort in perpetuity, but I didn't care for the prospect of being stranded in a strange city with nothing but two recently-made friends my own age.

She patted my shoulder. "Duty calls, Vix." Then she ruffled my hair. "You'll do great! Remember - good front kick!"

She stood and, with an elegant about-face and the clack of her hard-heeled boots, Rose Argent was off and the three of us were Scamps of the Perdita Free Collegium. Well… almost…

Leftie cleared his throat. "Why don't we take a look at your introduction letters to get you entered?"

"Um…" Aldo poked his head out and down the hallway, toward the retreating clack of boots. "I think Miss Rose has 'em."