After all those trials, the exam itself was frustrating in a different way entirely.

  On Twoday I got the proctor at his home and I carefully impressed upon him the understanding of the importance of this matter for about half an hour, and his voice was shaking a little when he promised me we could get started at midmorning in the first examination room at the admin building.

  So on Thirdday I showed up wearing a fine bit of regalia that Lady Hanje had crafted, using the Harigold family colors of red and white. One of those used to match me and the other complemented me. Now it's the other way around. She had decided to highlight the shape of my neck with a high open collar that flared up out of my neckline, which I thought looked a little villainous but she assured me it was quite flattering.

  Take from that what you will, I guess.

  I stepped out of the void and into the examination room, and walked up the aisleway with a smile like there was never anything wrong between us at all.

  He gave me the instructions, blah blah three hours blah blah pencils down.

  I took the thick test notebook and sat at my desk. We waited for the central school bell to chime, and then I opened the first page.

  [ Intellect Challenge: Rating 10 ]

  The message hung over my test book, and then dissolved away. And then the page in front of me shifted. The heading at the top of the first section still said "Vector Calculus" as a title, but the questions in this section were all arithmetic and simple algebra solves. And that was patronizing because I had worked hard to learn vector calculus and now this pandering game mechanic was handing me easy single-variable solves. Whatever. I sighed, and started jotting answers in, one after another, working everything in my head. I finished the maths, and moved on to Organic Chemistry, where I had to identify the parts of a frog, such as the eye and foot. Pages flipped once every minute, and the proctor's eyes were bulging out like this was a demonstration of staggering genius. In "Classical Analysis", the ball was red and the dog was happy, and in "Natural Philosophy" I was challenged to write in that a piece of insulated copper to carry a current is called a 'wire'. I flipped that page over and got to "Hearstwhile History", where every answer was 'the Fissuring'. I don't know how challenging the original "Geography" exam was, but mine was to label the seven duchies, with the first letters already filled in for me.

  After forty-five minutes, during which I checked my answers to make sure I had not actually done anything breathtakingly stupid to miss a question, I brought it up to the proctor's desk and handed him the book and the pencil. He looked even more shaken than he had yesterday. He had sat there and watched me breeze through this test with the utmost confidence, speed, and a visible boredom. This test was condescendingly easy, and he could see it. He opened my exam book, and started comparing my multivariable calculus findings with his answer sheet. The answers were all in my handwriting, but they were supplied without showing any work, and this time it actually was vector calculus and not long division. He checked my work in organic chemistry, where I showed that I had memorized the exact measures of various tinctures and distillates. Apparently the two-page essay I wrote in Classical Analysis was breathtaking in its vision. The test he was grading was actually something that would have given me a really tough time. But because the entry exam is ruled by the game's mechanic that compares the score of my Intellect, all that was bypassed.

  He shook my hand and welcomed me as the newest freshman student of the Hearstcliff Academy.

  The answer sheets he had been using were labeled as "Postgrad - Valedictorian - Challenge - Not For Student Use".

  Let it be official, I'm enrolled at the Academy.

  A ducal princess does not get released into general population out of solitary confinement without it being a big splash. And so there is really no question about me getting through the month without hosting a party. Other girls all get to chip in together on one big debutante ball, all the baronets and dames all making a single big soiree and introducing themselves as adults to society all at the same time. You could just let your birthday swoop right by, and months later you go to one huge communal birthday party and ta-da you're officially on the market as a marriageable ingenue or at least you're recognized in social circles as a self-sufficient adult that doesn't need to be exiled to the children's table.

  But not for me, no. I meekly proposed the idea and Lady Hanje looked as if she'd been struck. There are things that are Not Done. You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't tell the emperor that he's naked in public and you don't have a ducal princess wait for the big annual debutante ball.

  I did not fully understand her reasoning here. It seemed that on the one hand it would be grossly unfair to me to dilute my single most important Public Social moment with a hundred members of minor nobility. And, it would be grossly unfair to all those girls to be overshadowed by the heir of a duke. And, in some way it would be unfair to all the attendants there?.. I'm not sure I followed her reasoning on that part. But most of all it would be unfair to Lady Hanje to deprive her the chance to make my most pivotal dress other than my wedding gown and burial shroud.

  Oh I had Questions About That but I did not get the chance to ask them. She's kind of a lot.

  Anyway, our moves were in place. She started work on my dress, and the invitations were sent out. Only four weeks until the party was short notice, but you know, under the circumstances! ha ha!

  And on her advice, I needed to pick a theme. She said it should be something very personal and very uniquely my own, if possible, but only in a way that did not call immediate attention to my criminal dealings, long incarceration, family history, the people I'd lost, anything revolving around fire, any mention of my twin brother, or any of the themes that I've used for a previous party. She told me that I could have a couple of weeks to think about it while the invitations came back- instead I pitched her an idea right there on the spot.

  She was very skeptical of it at first, she did that pinched-face withdrawal of someone confronted by a terrible smell, but as I spoke it out, I could see her wheels turning. I needed a hook, something to set me aside from all the galas, parties, feasts, soirees, dances, masquerades, flings, things, galas, mixers, dos, get-togethers and blowouts. So, in a moment of inspiration, I said, "What if we do something fun?"

  And now four weeks later we're throwing open the doors, and the reception room began to trickle into the ball room. Our invitations left the dress code rather vague, and I was told that under these conditions that was reasonable and expected; with only four weeks to prepare, most of our guests could not get a full formal put together without shortchanging some other event garb that they had more forewarning for. In formal society terms, this is the equivalent of "hey we're getting together on Saturday bring a bottle, okay?"

  So some of our guests happened to have Society garb that was appropriate a ducal princess debut, but some of them were more dressed for a weekend festivity. Some of them, definitely as a deliberate snub, were dressed for nothing more refined than a nice dinner out at a restaurant. That's fine, I'd be taking down names and planning my moves. I don't want to care about this stuff, but small snubs pave the way to petty gossip, and if you don't push back against bad behavior you won't even know why the whole world seems to be against you until it's too late to fix it.

  As usual, the entrances and introductions started with the lowest-ranked among the gentry. Then building up to the highest-stationed, and as an afterthought the hoi polloi were allowed to filter in. There's a whole system for it.

  So the doors opened and our first guest was waved through with his invitation in hand. The look on his face... "Preeesenting! The mayor of Mojmoraku, from the south-southwest division of Hearster's Invitational League! Coming in hot off a four-time winning streak, a veteran of the sport with an untarnished record! Put! Your! Haaands together for Ualter Caining!"

  He was stunned as he walked down the steps, and our lead MC approached with microphone in hand. It was a comfortably-sized wand with a few sigils on it, and a neat little cable that joined it to the inscribed sound system we had built into the rented event hall. I got the idea from the sound-repeating glyphs at the courtroom- but rather than have the pickup come from one designated position I attached it to a wand that was linked in by a physical cord. So, a wired microphone.

  "Sir Caining! We are happy to have you here with us today and we're sure you're confident about your chances here at today's competition! You're noted as one of the pioneering practitioners of the south-glove grip, do you think that will affect your performance here at this all-styles free-for-all?"

  I picked a presenter who could think fast, memorize the lingo effectively, and had enough bombast for what we had planned. And like any half-decent presenter, he had a knack for feeding people the right answer even while asking the question.

  "Um, no?"

  "And That is exactly the sort of triumphant confidence we have come to expect from the south-southwest division! NNNnnnnnext up is a hot new contender allll the way from Elud, Bismoque! Af-ter a shocking turn of the Shell-Shock Tournament of Stars, she's been un-stoppable and she is still Ray-diating with confidence! The one-and-only, the very-well-knownly, the in-the-zonely Dame Isne Burrrrrrrrnhast! How -do- you feel tonight?"

  "Um, I feel good?"

  "Thank you for that insight! Dame Burnhast, we see that you've gone with unconventionally high heels for this event, please do see the ringside judges for your handicap tallies, while we bring in the next contestant! Rrrrrrecently nominated as cultural attache to the Mytygi people of-"

  Nobody expected the hype man. They're stunned, shocked, surprised.. but they're getting into it. Bombast, personality, bluster and pomposity are fun if you take it over the top and never look back. They've never seen a sports commentator, a wrestling announcer, or even a Westminster dog show voice-over. By the time the guests recover from the florid purple prose of the mike-wielding introducer, they're wide-eyed and coming down the stairs, where they see stations decorated with house colors, regional pennants, heraldic crests and a small crowd of "cheering fans" being held at a discreet distance by velvet ropes. And on the far wall, huge and imposing, a massive white board arranged in a tournament bracket diagram with decorated nameplates ready to be advanced or set aside by the agile young men with the tall ladders.

  WELCOME GUESTS AND COMPETITORS TO THE FIRST EVER ALL-POINTS ANNUAL HEARSTCLIFF EGG-VITATIONAL SPOON RACE TOURNAMENT

  -was printed on a giant banner above the brackets. We had tuxedo-wearing judges that would measure skirt lengths and heels, as well as age and physical disability, to assign handicap scores that were laughably arbitrary and usually just amounted to 'whatever the guest suggested". We had race lanes marked out, green and checkered flags, and Lady Hanje knew a scrivener that could give us the equivalent of a microsecond stopwatch.

  At my first party ever, I introduced the Hearstwhile social scene to egg-spoon races. It spread about, mostly as a children's game but it did not take long for others to realize that inebriated adults have roughly the same coordination as toddlers. It was one of my first impacts on the Hearstwhile social scene, and for most people the first time they had ever heard my name. The rule about the host's handicap is still called "Natalie's Rule".

  Hanje said I should have a personalized theme that does not call attention to my recent indiscretions. So, we do this instead. Between myself, the "spectators", and the hyped-up party staff, we had the energy running at 110%. I put a glass of brandy into Ualter Caining's hand and grabbed his elbow, and soon had him cheering raucously for each new "competitor" we brought in. He had little idea what was going on, but he didn't need to- the atmosphere was fun, the colors were bright, and I had a squad of trumpeters in the back that were looping a dozen bars from "The Final Countdown".

  As more guests were brought down the stairs, plied with drink and food and music, the crowd on the floor grew and gathered, cheering louder and harder for the guests as they filed in, past the announcer, and joined their friends and cohorts to cheer even louder for the next to arrive. The introductions got more and more elaborate, the MC's depiction of triumphant competitive history grew more fancifully fictitious as we went, and the atmosphere was absolutely electric.

  Also, it was highly oxygenated. I was curving air to make everyone just a little more giddy and suggestible. I am not above using a cheap trick to help a party succeed.

  Tournament organizers came around with pamphlets of the invitational rules and got everyone's preference to play by "varsity rules" or "challenge mode", which the illustrated pamphlet explained as "using the spoon to hold the egg against your body" or "hold the spoon in hand to hold the egg" as well as the elaborate and nonsensical scoring systems translating both methods into tally-points. The fact that the tally points did not actually affect the bracket advancement was never specifically called out, we were just adding layers of nonsense and bravado to what is ultimately a very silly event.

  Some of these people came to gawk at the released murderess, or to spread their gossip, or to curry favor, or to evaluate my odds as a marriage match. Some came for the free drinks, some probably wanted to show up and make a scene or snub me to my face. Some wanted to play their House politics, either in my favor or against me. But all of that required that I give them a chance to take this seriously.

  "Welcome one and all!" I called out, brandishing my own microphone. I stepped up onto a dais stage, where I could be seen by all. Nobody from the royal family was in attendance, so nobody here outranked me. "Esteemed guests, valued judges, up-coming challengers and veteran champions! We've bought out six farms worth of eggs for this special event and I know you're all as excited as I am! For safety's sake our crack team of field-maintenance hands are standing by with mops. Please remember that per tournament rules we allow only one replacement egg per heat, and there are no chicken substitutions. Refreshments are to the south, please remember that a dry racer is a losing racer! We will now begin with a team-based relay event for warm-ups before we proceed to the main event, the single-elimination bracket tournament! Racers take your colors, judges take your flags, and remember to have a good time!"

  We had everything. Doddering old men with canes laughing maniacally as they outpaced their own grandchildren. Blushing couples doing a cheek-to-cheek relay handoff. Splattering slip-ups, triumphant underdogs. Nail-biting neck-and-neck finishes, and commentary tables that kept a smooth patter of dialogue running over the whole event. We invented fictional history and grudge matches, and asked the guests to invent their own backstories with tournaments, league play, team relegations, and an increasingly complicated backstory for the sport and its official conference play.

  And when it came my turn for a run in the Harigold team's relay, I held the spoon in my mouth per Natalie's Rule.

  Each hour that went by, the event staff would quietly circulate out the glasses from the refreshment table to the caterers to take for washing and replace them with slightly larger glasses. The drinks started out slightly watered down but we cut that off early, and most of the hors d’oeuvres had a bit of spice to them that we gradually increased through the night. People started out silly and by the end of the night they were hammered. We sent them home in the arms of their footmen, loaded into rented carriages like casualty wagons after the battlefield.

  And slipped into their pockets and handbags, a save-the-date invitation for the Second Annual All-Points Hearstcliff Egg-Vitational Spoon Race Tournament.

  We were the talk of the town for two months after.

  I checked out of my room, and settled the tab with a signature. I had already taken all of my possessions into bags and had them mounted on a carriage. With a wave to the staff who had been kinder than they were paid to be, I left and headed out on my way.

  Tomorrow's the first day of school, after all. Move-in day. Right now, Nathan was in a carriage riding up from Meadwhite Castle, miles away still. He would not arrive at the school grounds until tomorrow morning just in time for the blink-and-you'll-miss-it orientation. A realistic school orientation would break up the rhythm of the first chapter of the game. Also, it's an ironclad tradition that the protagonist is always running late at the beginning of the story.

  While he's riding and getting ready, I take a cab up to the school grounds so I can settle in before everything gets hectic. After all, I don't need my day tomorrow to be an exciting, action-packed whirlwind of tutorials and plot hooks. We pull around the service entrance, and he loads my bags onto the service dock, and the school porters walked over to help me lug it all upstairs.

  "Oh, don't do that, you all looked comfortable," I said, chuckling. "You're going to be on your feet all day as it is, let me give you a small break while we've got the chance."

  My baggage was all leather, and not just because it's classy and sleek. It's also hard-wearing, long-lasting, and since it's all one material I can move it all with the same spell. My hand flowed out the gestures that found, hooked and tied the essence of leather, and the bags all levitated at my command. I walked up the back staircase, and the floating bags followed me in a whimsical sorcerous parade. My first impression was just noise, voices raised and doors banging, somewhere furniture was being dragged across a wooden floor. The corridors were entirely full of first-year students who were all trying to do everything all at once and were entirely in each others' way.

  I saw people stop and stare each time I moved past a landing on the stairs, open doors into hallways full of young women going about their Moving Day business. Today is the day to find out that you didn't pack a towel or toothbrush, or that your favorite coffee mug was in the drying rack back home. So everything was bustle and clutter, bodies running into each other as flustered young ladies tried to fix all of it at once. They were dressed in all fashions and manners, the most rural to the most metropolitan, and from the richest expensive materials to - well okay, the bottom of the scale was upper-most of the serf class, well above the poverty line. And all of them were colliding and rebounding and shouting.

  And yet for all that busyness, people found time to stop and stare at me.

  Maybe it's the floating luggage that bobs in the air behind me. Or the sickly-pale face with the paper-white hair. It could even be the brilliant blue-and-gold dress I was wearing, it was flashy. Not immodest, but lots of big iconic designs in it. The double-buttoned look is always a strong statement, especially when it's half-unbuttoned and folded back to display the brightly-colored lining. My dressmaker knows her business.

  And maybe some of them know my face already. I'm kind of notorious.

  I held a card with my room number on it, 614. I counted down the rooms as I walked, and occasionally flattened myself to the side to let some desperate soul sprint past. I floated my bags higher, so they were not in the way of anyone walking at ground-level. Here it is. 614. I opened the door and took one step in.

  "There you are! God it was ages! First I need you to hang these up and get some fresh linens! I never trust bedclothes unless I see - you're not the maid."

  "Nope," I said cheerily, stepping in and raising my hands like a conductor as I waved the floating baggage inside. It was unnecessary but fun.

  "But I specifically told that girl to go and get me a maid appropriate to my station!", and my roommate stamped her foot. She was taller than me, the five-foot-nine I've always dreamed of, and quite lovely in a way that was not accidental. Her topaz-purple hair was a deep, rich tone, and I was struck by envy for a moment. Her dress was at least the equal of mine, and her luggage looked like it was custom-made by brand-name designers who were friends with her father.

  I was going to need to get used to improbably attractive people. Now that I was at the school, the game rules were going to be in full effect, and all the genre tropes would be in play. So every woman in this campus is either effortlessly gorgeous, drably plain, or a one-off character model that deliberately eschews conventional beauty standards. But, mostly the effortlessly gorgeous.

  "What girl?" I asked.

  She threw up an exasperated gesture. "Some girl! I'm not even sure they all have names!"

  I grinned. Oh, she is just a treat. "Well, I think she blew you off and dealt with her own problems instead. I read in the handbook that dorms are a maid-free zone anyway. No valets, no attendants, no ladies-in-waiting, nothing. Even the school's own porters won't go any farther than a stairwell."

  "Sure, obviously not everyone can have a maid on premises," she said, "it would be chaos and crowded too! But I specifically told the admissions board that I would need a maid!" For the first time, she paid attention to me. "Wait, what are you doing?"

  "Sorting my luggage?" I said. I thought it was obvious. I lined up my bags on the second bed, and started opening clasps.

  "What is your luggage doing in my room? And- wait, is that magic?"

  She's been staring right at me for a full minute and she's just now noticed I'm casting spells. What a year this is gonna be. "Yes, it's magic. And this is our room."

  "It can't be! I can't share- what is going on?!" she seemed to actually be about to have a breakdown, so I stopped what I was doing. If my roommate has a breakdown five minutes after I walked in, I will never live that down.

  "Here, sit down," i said, whipping a chair over behind her. "Do you need a glass of water?"

  She shook her head.

  "All right, it appears that there's been some miscommunications, so I need you to listen along while I bring you up to speed," I said. "Whoever told you that you would be allowed a maid? They lied. Whoever told you that you would be issued a maid? They lied too. Whoever guaranteed you a single room-"

  "No!" she blurted out. "No, this one I know! They only issue rooms based on titles! Two baron girls together, two countesses together. Dames and commoners just go in wherever, I suppose. But I'm the only earl enrolled this year!" She paused, stamped a foot again. It didn't have the same impact when she was sitting down. "The girl next door has a single room!"

  "The girl next door over is Princess Lachel Freckentop, fifth in line to the throne," I said patiently. "Her dad's the king, she gets a single room. And I'm sorry to let you know that by title of courtesy, I'm an earl too."

  "But titles of courtesy are one step down from- wait, your parents are dukes?"

  "One duke one duchess, we're old-fashioned."

  "No that's not- shut up! You're the daughter of a duke?"

  "Hi. Natalie Harigold, first of her name," I said, and dropped a curtsey. "And you would be-?"

  "Earl Elica Dandston of the Brunbling Dandstons," she said, with a seated bow. "A pleasure I'm sure. But how? I checked! No earls!"

  I could try to string her along and avoid a confrontation. Shift blame to the paperwork. But she'd just be more mad later on. "I was a late admission. Took the scholarship exam three weeks ago, very last minute."

  She recoiled, smelling something unpleasant. "Scholarship?!"

  "Just the exam, don't worry, I paid with my own money," i assured her.

  "All- but- but you did magic!"

  "Yes. Yes I did."

  "But nobility doesn't do magic!"

  "They do if they're born to it. I'm a sorceress."

  "Oh, not even one of the good magicians," she wrinkled her nose again. That funny smell must be back.

  "I'll change your mind," I assured her. "Now then, are we still having a crisis?"

  She sighed, and reached over to pat my shoulder. "It's all right, I don't really blame you. I'll have to speak to someone about having you moved out but it's nothing personal."

  The funny thing is, I still kind of took that personally. "Well, it probably won't be before lights-out tonight, so I'd better finish setting up to sleep here."

  I had my bags open and was sorting out what to air and what to billet when I noticed she was not moving. She had stood, and was staring at the bags on her bed, like they were going to do a trick. "Elica?" I called over, gently.

  "Lady Dandston," she corrected. It looked like a knee-jerk reflex, she was not aware of correcting me.

  "Lady Dandston?" I tried again. She blinked and looked my way, and her eyes were so lost. "Lady Dandtson, they have hook closures. You pull them over, like this, and they unfasten."

  "Myself?" she said, blinking in surprise.

  "Are you actually standing here waiting for someone else to unpack your clothes for you?"

  She considered this a moment. "Well, you're right here!" she said, finding a brilliant solution to her problem.

  "Lady Dandston, I'm not going to attend you as a maid," I said, my tone gentle. She looked like a spooked deer, if I made the wrong move she might leap through a window.

  "Well, could you find someone? Hire someone?" she looked hopeful. "Some of these girls are on scholarship, they're bound to be poor!"

  Okay, maybe I should spook her out the window. Surely nobody would miss her, right? No great loss? But I did not say anything. "All right, Lady Dandston, I'm not going to dignify that with a response, but I will be attending my own garments over here."

  I hung my clothes in the wardrobe to my side of the room, and set out my other needs. Shampoo, soap, towels, perfumes, combs, toothbrush... all that good stuff. Making myself at home. After a few minutes, Elica walked out of the room without another word to me.

  I fluffed my blankets, and found a warming pan inside. I moved it to the fireplace, but I was pretty sure I'd never need it. Sorcery is pretty great. One spell, I can warm up fabric, or air, or just about anything. I'm versatile, after all. I lined up books, and a small tin box full of small samples, various materials I'd been trying to bind for months or years now. Also some small stupid games that I could play in the night if I got bored.

  After about fifteen minutes, Elica Dandston came parading back in with her head held high, and a mousy black-haired girl walked in, glancing furtively. I tried to smile at her, but she wasn't having it. And after that was an agony of watching as Elica stood still and gave orders, pointing imperiously, as this new servant of hers dashed about and did all the easy work that Elica could have already done on her own if she cared to. Hanging, brushing, and then stripping the bed and remaking it with sheets directly from the linen closet. She packed away the earl's bags and then swept around with a straw broom.

  I held my peace until the girl finished, curtseyed, and left. She never said a word that I could hear, and her appearance was almost inseparable from a hundred girls I'd seen today. I did not want to think of her as a filler character, but the plain shoes fit.

  God. Elica The Bitch didn't want to think of people as being human because of her wealth-privilege and classism. Me, I'm judging people based on whether their hair is fantasy-colored and their faces are supermodel-pretty or just girl-next-door pretty. Fuck, this is devastating. I might not be a less shitty person than Elica Dandston of the Brunbling Dandstons. We both have different ways of making most of our fellow students into non-people.

  "Lady Dandston," I said with a formality that we both recognized immediately. "If circumstances should transpire that you and I do continue to share this space as roommates, I must insist from the start that nobody but you or I should ever enter this room without one of us present. I should not have anyone walk in here unattended, and we must keep that door locked when we are out."

  She laughed, actually. "Oh, do not worry! I know better than to allow the help into my chambers, especially with no steward or butler to keep a hand over them. We are entirely of one mind about that, I assure you!" She glanced about, then added, "they steal," in a conspiratorial whisper.

  I was actually more worried about assassination attempts against me, honestly. But if it helped Elica to sleep at night thinking that I was worried her hirelings would run off with my necklaces, then she could be allowed to believe that. She was freaked out by the fact that I took a scholarship test, what would happen to her poor fragile nerves if she found out that I might actually be a risk to her life, just by proximity?