As Dwayne bit his lips and watched the time-glass, Horn paced back and forth, her eyes flicking from the ascending sand to the door and back. They both lacked mentors, hers was grading and his was upstairs making her appeal, but while Dwayne was used to erratic mentors, Horn looked like she needed a morale boost, but apparently that was a privilege only Werner would receive.

  When the last bit of sand completed its ascent, a bell chimed and a livid Baron Thadden burst out of the examination hall, followed at a more sedate pace by Sage Smith.

  “Examinees,” said the Sage, “we’re ready for you.”

  After restoring his facade of pleasant expectation, Dwayne headed in, his long legs getting him to the door before Werner and Horn.

  Since the Written, the examination hall had been reconfigured, the desks replaced with podiums for the examinees, rows of benches for the audience, and between these, a long table with five sets of graded papers for the examiners. There Tor Jensen and Maestra Lucchesi sat - stiffly in his case, languidly in hers - to the right and left of the empty chair meant for Sage Smith while Dean Laurence and Professor Corn occupied the ends. Like the desks had been, the podiums were labeled, placing Dwayne in the center, a bored Werner on the right, and a harried Horn on the left.

  “Examinees,” Sage Smith sat down as Dean Bruce and the rest of the audience filled the benches, “it is time to test your knowledge of Canon, thaumaturgical theory, and magical application. Examiners, are you ready?”

  “Yes,” they said as one.

  “Then we shall begin. Professor Corn?”

  “Yes, Sage.” Professor Corn stood up. “Young Kalan,” wow, no obvious sarcasm, “for Question One on the written, you were asked to name the three most important spells for each class of Qe magic.” An easy question that left room for the grader’s own interpretation, Corn’s favorite. “For the wind Qe spells, please list the author and date of their inscription.”

  Dwayne’s head jerked back. “Excuse me?”

  Pleasure filled the hollows in Corn’s face. “Do you need time to consider your answer?”

  “No, Professor. It’s just…” Too easy. “One of the earliest spells ‘milo,” leaving off the first syllable “prevented” Dwayne from casting it, “was inscribed in Queen Rhea’s fifth year by Silvia de Adhua. ‘Issploikerolia was a joint inscription by the first windsongs Constanza de Lara and Elena Lee and was completed in the tenth year of Queen Tania. Finally, then Wind Sage Benneit Sarto inscribed ‘misuumutem only a generation ago during the eighteenth year of Queen Madhila.”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “Oh.” Professor Corn gulped. “That is correct.”

  “You don’t have any additional questions for young Kalan, Professor?” asked Sage Smith.

  “I, uh… No. No, I don’t.” Corn moved on to Werner and Horn, asking both of them similar, if somehow even easier, questions, which did nothing to calm Horn’s nerves.

  When the professor finished, Sage Smith next called on Dean Laurence, who asked the examinees much harder questions that were focused on their respective specialties. After answering hers easily, Horn began to settle down, which might have been Laurence’s goal.

  With a “I defer to the experts,” the maestra passed.

  That left Tor Jensen.

  “Thank you, Sage.” His Royal Highness got to his feet. “Young Kalan, my question to you is this: what so called minor Earth Qe spell is essential to the farmers of the western estates?”

  Oh, right, Jensen had spent a lot of time out there. Dwayne knew the major Earth Qe spells for cutting irrigation canals and boring wells, but minor implied easy, and those spells weren’t taught at the Academy, but at home. “Huh.”

  “Young Kalan,” said Sage Smith, “you may pass.”

  “No, not yet.”

  An easy spell useful to farmers. It was too bad Dwayne hadn’t thought to ask Nicole about her aunt’s work helping on their family farm. However, Jensen had given away a clue: the western estates, where the soil was hard and full of clay. Getting anything to grow out there was difficult unless one prepared it.

  “Is it ‘uieryit?” Dwayne asked.

  “It is.” Jensen smiled. “Please explain why?”

  “Casting ‘uieryit onto the ground can break it apart and make it easier to plow and to plant seeds.”

  “That’s exactly correct. Now, Miss Werner, my question to you is about fertilization.”

  Werner answered her question quicker than Dwayne did, but Horn took a long time to say, “I don’t know” when asked about dousing.

  “It is time for us to move on to Theory,” said Sage Smith as a disappointed Jensen sat back down. “As before, we shall start with-”

  “Excuse me, Sage,” said Maestra Lucchesi, “but it turns out I do have a question for Miss Horn.”

  Sage Smith glowered at her, but said, “Very well.”

  Lucchesi leaned forward. “Miss Horn, out in the real world, what would you do if asked that question?”

  Horn looked ready to hide. “What do you mean, maestra?”

  “You know what I mean. Answer the question.”

  Horn’s hands crushed her velvet skirts. Unlike Dwayne who’d endured such scrutiny since the moment he’d arrived in Bradford or Werner who’d been coached, Horn lacked experience dealing with the elite. She was only ordinary.

  Finally, she straightened up, looked Maestra Lucchesi straight in the eye, and said, “I’d go find someone like Young Kalan or Miss Werner and ask them.”

  Lucchesi tilted her head. “You’d take that hit to your pride?”

  “Yes. Those farmers need water, not pride.”

  “I see.” A smile flickered on Lucchesi’s lips. “That was all. Sage, you may continue.”

  Still annoyed, Sage Smith moved on to Theory.