The bus wasn’t really a bus.

  It was more of a shuttle van, white with the school crest on the side in tasteful hunter green, seats for maybe fifteen if everyone breathed in. The driver checked my name off a clipboard without much interest and waved me in.

  There were already five kids inside. None of them looked old enough to spell “high school,” let alone survive it. Two little girls in navy jumpers argued about whose turn it was to sit by the window; a boy with a missing front tooth clutched a Pokémon lunchbox like a life raft. Someone’s backpack had a unicorn horn sewn onto it. They all had that elementary school looseness, like their joints hadn’t realized yet that society expected them to sit still.

  “I told you, Ms. Patel said we’re doing clay today,” one of the girls was saying. “You have to wear the art smock.”

  “You wear the art smock,” another shot back. “I hate how it smells.”

  Their chatter was a soft buzz. None of them paid much attention to the tall, awkward fourteen-year-old trying to fold herself into the back row like she was part of the upholstery. Which was fine by me.

  I slid into the rear bench, backpack tucked against my knees, and stared out the window. The city rolled by in reverse: rowhouses, corner stores, the park where I’d picked up trash last week. My reflection in the glass looked wrong in the blazer, like I was wearing someone else’s skin.

  At the next stop, two more kids climbed on—both maybe eight, hair still damp from rushed showers, talking about a spelling test. Again, no one over nine. I suddenly felt like the world’s oldest first grader.

  Maybe this is what being “ahead” looks like, I thought. It felt less like advanced placement and more like a scheduling error.

  As we turned into Northbridge’s long, tree-lined drive, the van got quieter. Even the littles seemed to sense we were crossing an invisible line. The main building loomed up ahead, cupola and all, looking exactly like it had Friday and somehow more real.

  The driver dropped us at a side loop. A Lower School teacher in a cardigan with tiny embroidered apples swept the younger kids away in a flock, leaving me standing with my backpack strap in a death grip.

  “Upper School office is through there,” the driver said, jerking his chin toward a set of glass doors.

  “Thanks,” I managed.

  Inside, the Upper School admin wing smelled like citrus and copy paper and…money. Not in a gross way. In the way of new carpet and good coffee and air conditioning that had its life together.

  A receptionist with perfect eyeliner and a Northbridge lanyard looked up. “You must be Diana,” she said, like we were old friends. “Administration’s placement day. Right on time. Come with me.”

  She led me down a short hall to an office that could have been on a magazine cover under the heading “Understated Success.” The desk was antique wood, polished to a warm glow, with a leather chair behind it that looked like it had majored in posture. On one side, a small reading nook: two armchairs, a floor lamp, a low shelf with neatly stacked books. In the corner, a mini-fridge hummed quietly next to a coffee/tea setup—kettle, pods, real mugs with matching Northbridge logos.

  On the desk: a short stack of test booklets and answer sheets, a couple of sharpened pencils, and a folded schedule.

  A man in his thirties with rolled-up sleeves and a loosened tie looked up from a folder as I hovered in the doorway. “Diana?” he asked. When I nodded, he smiled. “I’m Mr. Adler. I’ll be proctoring your placement exams this morning. Come on in.”

  I stepped inside, resisting the urge to wipe my palms on my navy pants. The door clicked shut behind me.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, like he’d seen this a hundred times. “We’re not trying to trick you. These just help us see where you are so we don’t drop you into the wrong math class or bore you to death in English.” He gestured to the chair behind the desk. “Have a seat.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I sat. The chair was as comfortable as it looked.

  He slid the first booklet toward me. “We’ll start with math,” he said. “Then reading comprehension and writing. After that, science. Nothing you haven’t seen flavors of before. Take your time, but keep an eye on the clock.” He pointed to a neat little analog on the wall. “You want some water? Juice? We’ve got tea, hot chocolate, coffee if your mom lets you.”

  “Water’s fine,” I said.

  He grabbed a bottle from the mini-fridge and set it within easy reach. “If anything doesn’t make sense, ask,” he said. “I can’t give you answers, but I can clarify wording.”

  He settled into one of the armchairs with a book, not a stack of papers, as if to prove he wasn’t hovering. “Whenever you’re ready, you can begin.”

  The first few questions felt like being dropped into a river I recognized. Fractions, algebra, the kind of word problems that tried too hard to be about real life. My nerves made my grip too tight on the pencil, but after a page or two, the rhythm kicked in. Read, think, fill in bubbles.

  Every so often, I looked up. Mr. Adler was genuinely reading, not staring at me, foot tapping absently. The hum of the mini-fridge and the soft scratch of my pencil filled the room.

  After what felt like both ten minutes and four hours, he said, “Okay, pause there.” He checked his watch. “Stretch, use the restroom, raid the fridge if you want. Just be back in twenty for the next section.”

  I stood, legs a little wobbly, and wandered to the window. The quad spread out below, kids moving between classes in their blazers and skirts, the world looking very far removed from my old homeroom’s hum and flicker. I sipped water and tried not to think about how every answer might be a vote for where I’d spend the next three and a half years.

  The next test was reading—passages about ecosystems and history and some short story about a kid who wanted to be an astronaut. Comprehension questions, inference, tone. Then a writing prompt where I had to argue for or against year-round school. I tamped down the urge to write “depends on whether your school trains you to fight monsters” and stuck to pros and cons like a normal person.

  Two hours in, my brain fuzzed at the edges. I dropped my pencil after the science section and flexed my fingers.

  “Good work,” Mr. Adler said, standing and collecting the finished booklets. “We’ll have a better sense of placement once these are scored. You’ve held up well.”

  “Feels like my brain ran a marathon,” I said.

  “That’s about right.” He smiled. His phone buzzed on the desk. He picked it up, listened, then nodded. “Okay. I’ll send her out in a bit.” He hung up and turned back to me. “I’m needed in the dean’s office. Someone else is going to sit in for the last bit—just a short logic puzzle set. You’ll like this one.”

  “Define ‘like,’” I said weakly.

  He chuckled. “He should be here any second. Same rules. Break when you need it.” He gathered his folder and gave me a nod. “You’re doing fine, Diana.”

  The door opened as he left. Standing in the doorway was a boy who looked more polished than I ever would.

  Sixteen, maybe. Black hair cut short and neat, dark angular eyes that took in the room and me in one sweep. His blazer fit like it had been tailored yesterday; his tie was type-A straight. He had a serious expression that didn’t quite cross into unfriendly, more like he’d been assigned to supervise a bomb he expected not to go off but was prepared for anyway.

  “Sinclair?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, trying not to sound like I was answering roll call.

  “I’m Vinh,” he said. His voice was level, unhurried. “Ms. Cho asked me to cover the last segment. It helps them see how you think.”

  “Dangerously,” I said before I could stop myself.

  One corner of his mouth twitched, almost a smile. “We’ll see,” he said.

  He stepped fully into the room, and that’s when I noticed the thing at his side.

  It looked like a knife. Not big—no Rambo cosplay—just a sheathed blade at his hip, clipped to his belt. The sheath was dark, matte, no metal glint. It could have been a weird fashion accessory, I guessed, if your fashion sense ran “extra.”

  Is that even allowed here? I thought. Is this that kind of prep school? Blazers and blades?

  He caught me looking for half a second, then his gaze moved past me to the remaining test.

  Up close he looked even more…finished than most sixteen-year-olds. Everything about him was tidy: hair, blazer, even the way he stood—weight balanced, like he could move in any direction without thinking about it. The sheathed knife at his side didn’t look like it was for show.

  “We’ll get to the last packet after lunch,” he added. “You’ll think better fed.”

  “Lunch?” I echoed. My stomach answered for me with a low, traitorous growl.

  “Do you like pizza?” he asked, as if that were a genuine question and not a universal constant.

  “Yes,” I said. “Obviously.”