hoping you might have a moment to talk, sir?”

“Of course.”

“Well,” Henry said, fidgeting with the strap on his satchel, “I was wondering if you knew … back when I took the Knightley Exam … if you knew what was at stake?”

Sir Frederick finished with a chart and frowned at Henry. “However do you mean?”

“I was wondering if you knew what would hap- pen … if I failed.”

“What are you failing?” Sir Frederick asked, surprised.

“Nothing. I just mean, back when you fought with Headmaster Hathaway at the Midsummer School to let me come to Knightley, if it had occurred to you that I might fail, say, languages, would you have known what was at stake?”

An odd look crossed Sir Frederick’s face.

“An experiment,” the medicine master said, “always begins with a prediction of what the results might be. I predicted that you would excel.”

“But if you had predicted wrong,” Henry pressed.

“Then my hypothesis would be proven false.”

Henry sighed.

“I know,” Henry said softly, “that Headmaster Winter’s job is dependent on mine and my friends’ success.”

“How do you know that?” Sir Frederick asked, raising an eyebrow.

“The same way I know that if one of us does poorly, the exam might be closed to all common-born boys in the future.”

“That’s just speculation,” Sir Frederick said, picking up an armload of charts. “And furthermore, in life, unlike in science, whatever happens is usually for the common good.”

Henry frowned, but Sir Frederick ruffled Henry’s hair and told him not to worry.

“The common good, not the common bad, prevails. You’ll see, my boy. Now run along after your friends. I have to set up for the second years’ practical exam.”

When Henry joined his friends, the dining hall was echoing with loud, boisterous conversations that all sounded to be about the same thing, from the small bits that Henry overheard.

“—the tournament, I’ve heard.”

“—event are you going to do?”

“—defending champion in history quiz.”

“—Partisan always comes out on top in fencing.”

“What’s going on?” Henry asked, sitting down across from his friends.

“You missed the announcement,” Edmund said, sliding over to join them. “They’ve set the date for the Inter-School Tournament.”

“For the what?” Henry asked.

“The annual competition,” said Edmund, who always knew everything because of his older brother, “between Knightley and our rival school, Partisan.”

“It’s supposed to be some sort of skills contest,” Rohan put in. “History quiz teams, fencing bouts, model treaty dispute sessions. But it’s mostly for the older students, anyway.”

“So when is it?” Henry asked.

“Next weekend,” Edmund said. “We’re apparently trying to avoid the bad weather expected to hit the Nordlands in November, so they’ve moved up the date.”

“Wait, we’re going there?” Henry asked, upset that he’d missed the announcement and didn’t know any of this. “To the Nordlands?”

“Last year they held it here, this year we go there,” Edmund said. “So are you looking to participate?”

“Me?” Henry asked, surprised. “I still don’t even know what it is.”

Rohan sighed and explained in full while Henry ate his sandwich. One weekend a year, the students at Knightley had a friendly contest against the students at Partisan, their rival school in the Nordlands. The students competed in all sorts of things—fencing, oratory, composition, model treaty dispute, history quiz team, even choir. First years competed in novice rounds, while second and third years competed in expert. Fourth years were too busy serving apprenticeships in their chosen specialties to be bothered.

While he listened, Henry nodded and smiled, but couldn’t help feeling a sense of dread that they were going to the Nordlands—even if the Partisan School was just a few kilometers from the border, at the southern tip of the Great Nordlandic Lakes.

No one went to the Nordlands. The border was closed except to diplomatic parties and natural-born citizens, but then, an envoy from Knightley was certainly considered a diplomatic party. Henry thought—suddenly, unexpectedly—of the sinister newspaper clippings he and Adam had received in the post.

The Nordlands. Well, he’d find out if there was any truth to the rumors soon enough.

They had fencing next lesson, and Adam, despite his recent injury, clamored about how he intended to sign up to fence at the Inter-School Tournament as they made their way to the armory.

“Just you wait, I’m going to slaughter those Partisan students,” Adam said.

“Er, right,” said Henry, while Rohan bit his lip.

“Mr. Beckerman,” the fencing master called the moment they entered the armory, “you’ll be sitting out this lesson due to your injuries.”

Henry had to stop himself from laughing at the look on Adam’s face, which was more injured than his side. But then,