identical bright brown eyes crinkling shut.
“Rules are only suggestions when you have enough money to pay the price,” her brother said softly.
“Rainier!” Madeline elbowed him. “Hush. They’ll hear.”
This wasn’t right. This wasn’t right at all. There were rules, there had always been rules, and Demeine lived for them.
“You were laughing.” He rubbed his sunburned cheeks. “You were certainly thinking it.”
“Still.” Madeline held out half of the pastry she had been eating to me. “For luck? Rainier already ate two.”
“I need more luck than you,” he said.
I took the pastry and knocked it against what was left of hers. “For luck.”
I turned back to the gate, took a breath, and ate the pastry in one sticky bite. The ground beyond the gate was a mosaic of gold-flecked white stone, and tulips in every shade of red lined the path. The figure walking toward us wore the pale-orange coat of a physician apprentice. A shock of red hair crowned them.
Oh no.
It was the nameless apprentice.
“Welcome to the University of Star-Blessed Wisdom!” He raised his arms in welcome, the new coat a good fit for his sturdy frame and a terrible fit for his pale complexion. “I am Charles du Ravine, vicomte des Îles Étoilées and second apprentice to Laurence du Montimer, premier prince du sang, duc des Monts Lance, Chevalier of the Noonday Arts, and Physician of the First Order.” Charles paused to take a breath. We were, it seemed, a stuffy crowd. “Physician du Montimer will select the new students to matriculate, and after that, you will begin the initial observation stage, so the masters may bid on which assistants and hacks they wish to employ in their departments.”
Laurence du Montimer had started out as a chevalier’s apprentice in Serre with a sword in hand instead of a scalpel, but it became clear he was far too skilled in the healing arts when he kept his chevalier and fellows alive during a skirmish with Kalthorne ten years ago. Now, he trained physicians in how to heal during natural and mortal-made disasters. He didn’t even use hacks.
“Physician du Montimer is a very busy person,” Charles said, fingers flexing at his side. “Do not argue with him if he rejects you. Come back tomorrow or next year.”
That did send a whisper through the dozen of us here.
“You may, of course, still be accepted in Serre to serve our esteemed chevaliers, however.” Even from a distance, Charles’s scowl was clear. “Now, please form a line. It doesn’t have to be straight, but it needs to ensure we can see you.”
They wanted hacks for the fighting arts to serve chevaliers, not for physicians. Why would Demeine need more of those? We weren’t at war. I tucked myself between Madeline and a lanky giant more long limbs than anything else, and Madeline shoved Rainier between us, muttering about quotas and appearances. A nervous energy twitched down my legs. The giant next to me tapped his toes. Mother would have killed me.
I tapped mine too.
Damn the expectations.
A figure crested the hill in the field behind Charles; he glanced back at it and clapped his hands together.
“We will start here.” Charles gestured to the end of the line farthest from me. “If you have any questions, direct them to me and not Physician du Montimer.”
Laurence du Montimer was reedier than I had envisioned the boy who had trained as a chevalier before becoming a physician, towering over Charles, and thin as the spikes of the gate. His spiral-tight black curls were unbound and tumbling over his shoulders as he walked.
“Once I get to you, hold out your hands.” Laurence did not look up from the book he was reading until he was at the gate. He handed the book to Charles. “I will inspect your magical capabilities. If necessary, I will question you about your education in the arts.”
That was it? Hands?
“You mean the noonday arts?” a person down the line asked.
“Did I ask if there were questions?” Laurence, weary, looked to them. “Yes, the arts. Noonday, midnight—the arts are the arts are the arts.”
I wiped my hands against my skirt again. My nails were trimmed and cleaned, wholly unlike the hands of the giant next to me or Rainier’s ink-stained, scalpel-scarred palms. Ladies of Demeine didn’t have scars.
I had always had to hide my practicing on an arm or thigh. I could have paid one of the village kids to help, but the very thought of it left me nauseous. Some physicians did that, I knew; they