noonday arts, and what every physician’s hack needs to know. Your teachers will vary but the outcome will ideally be the same—you will be selected to work with one of us.” Laurence glided down the stone path, long legs doubling his stride, and Charles motioned for us to follow. “Those of you not interested in being medical hacks, I’ll hand over once we’re inside. I don’t know what they do with you these days. Any questions?”
If anyone had one, they didn’t ask it.
We crested the hill in the middle of the field, the university towers becoming clearer and clearer as we neared, and my heart stopped as the full sprawl of the school came into view. A second gate loomed over us—great and gold and gaping, students fluttering behind them from building to building with arms full of vials and glass etchings. Magic bubbled around me, swimming through the air and gathering in the palms of students with the heirloom rings of lesser children from noble families of robe and bell, and my foot crossed through this second border with a shuffle. Power coursed over my skin, warm and wanting.
There was so much to learn, to do.
Let me prove myself. Let me prove them wrong. I am home.
And it hurt, burrowing deep in my bones till my teeth ached.
Six
Annette
Breakfast the first morning was a disaster. There were three long tables full of girls, each one prettier and more poised than the last. The walls were papered white with flakes of silver, tapestries depicting the cycles of the moon and stars decorating the walls, and silver mirrors were spaced so that every girl in the room could see herself in one from where she sat. The midnight arts burned in every corner of the room too, stores of Mistress Moon’s power leaking from threads of silver running through the walls. Silver held the midnight arts well and could be used to save power for later. This was too much, though.
Too much money. Too much magic.
The excess made my head ache.
“Sit where you please, everyone.” Vivienne stood behind her seat at the head of the center table. “Those of you who are joining us for the first time, please try to sit next to an older student. Our meals are, suffice it to say, unusual.”
Isabelle picked a seat, and I grabbed the one next to her. Coline pinched me as she passed and took a seat across from me. It was easy to spot us, the new girls. We all shifted awkwardly and stared at the settings as if they were likely to bite us.
“I was new once. What fun times!” A tall girl with short black hair brushed back in flowing waves and a soft purple dress that looked divine against her dark brown skin touched my arm. She took the place setting to my left and nodded to another student wearing the same shade of periwinkle but their clothes were a fashionable pair of breeches beneath a long robe. “I’m Germaine and that’s Gisèle. We arrived here the year Vivienne decided to sort everyone into rooms based on their first name, but it worked out all right in the end. She’s not an artist either.”
She winked at Gisèle and smiled, nose scrunching up in delight.
I opened my mouth and had to pause to get my name right. “I’m Emilie. It’s nice to meet you.”
We took our seats. I tried to sit as straight-backed and proper as the other girls. Germaine was gorgeous and smart, talking to Coline about politics I didn’t know or understand, and Gisèle carried on a conversation with Isabelle about some sort of merchant route. Germaine sipped water from her glass without so much as making a sound. When I picked mine up, it clinked against the plate. I didn’t belong here at all.
Couldn’t even take a sip without being blinded by magic. It burned in the back of my eyes, so bright my vision was spotty long after I’d looked away from the water. A headache took hold.
Coline muttered something under her breath, fingers moving along the tabletop as if she were gathering wool, and Germaine made a motion as if snipping thread.
“This room is designed to bombard you with visions,” Germaine said. “Vivienne wants you to learn to avoid revealing that you’re using the midnight arts, and silver is so popular in most places, you can’t avoid it. If you get used to the visions here, you’ll be used to them elsewhere.”