Chapter 1. Boiling Water
“Don’t put it there.”
“Where?”
“Exactly where you’re putting it.”
The boy with the sack of flour stopped in the middle of the kitchen and looked first at Nella, then at the sack, then at the empty corner beside the oven.
“It’s dry here.”
“It’s hot here.”
“Flour doesn’t get cold.”
“It isn’t supposed to. It’s supposed to avoid baking before we knead it.”
The boy sighed as if life had once again presented him with an unsolvable problem.
“So where?”
Nella pointed toward the storeroom.
“Where the other seven sacks are.”
“That’s far.”
“Four steps.”
“More with a sack.”
“Then six.”
He carried the flour away.
“And don’t drag it!”
The sack immediately caught on the doorframe.
Nella closed her eyes.
Her mother’s voice came from the front room.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“I heard ‘don’t drag it.’”
“That was before the nothing.”
“And now?”
A dull thump came from the storeroom.
“Now it’s slightly more nothing.”
Her mother appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron.
Eda Venn was a small woman with the kind of face that made people remember unpaid bills even when they owed her nothing.
She looked at Nella.
Then at the white trail of flour running across the kitchen.
“Did he tear the sack?”
“Not yet.”
“Why ‘yet’?”
“I’m trying to be optimistic.”
Her mother nudged her away from the table.
“Go out front. Three men from the market are waiting.”
“I saw them.”
“Then why are they sitting there without breakfast?”
“Because they arrived two minutes ago.”
“People can change their minds in two minutes.”
“And go where? To Ruda’s?”
“Which is exactly why Ruda has already bought a second oven.”
That was unfair.
Ruda did not have a second oven. Ruda had a large iron box that smoked so badly the fire watch had been called twice last winter.
But Nella had no intention of debating Ruda’s competitive advantages at eight in the morning.
She picked up a tray with three bowls of porridge and went out front.
The Venn bakery stood near the south gate of Millford. Once, it had sold nothing but bread. Then Eda had put in four tables and started making porridge for traders, and somehow the place had turned into somewhere people could eat, argue, hear the latest news, and leave behind more money than they had meant to spend.
By nine, all four tables were usually occupied.
Today one belonged to old Gab from the mill. A cup of tea sat in front of him, untouched for the last twenty minutes, because the tea was merely his legal excuse to sit by the window and watch everyone entering town.
Three carters were eating breakfast at the next table.
Near the door, a woman in a green cloak was arguing with a dwarf.
The dwarf worked at the bank. Nella could tell from the silver chain across his waistcoat, his carefully trimmed beard, and that particular expression of quiet sorrow dwarves acquired whenever someone nearby counted money incorrectly.
“I paid back twenty-seven,” the woman was saying.
“Twenty-six silver and nine copper.”
“Nine copper is practically a silver.”
“No.”
“Almost.”
“No.”
“If you round it.”
The dwarf looked at her.
“This is precisely why we do not allow people to round.”
Nella set the porridge in front of the carters.
One of them sniffed it.
“Millet again?”
“Yesterday was buckwheat.”
“I wasn’t here yesterday.”
“That isn’t our fault.”
The second man was already eating.
“Don’t listen to him. In every town he asks why it isn’t buckwheat.”
“Because buckwheat is better.”
“Yesterday you said millet was better.”
“Yesterday was a different town.”
Nella left them to settle the question of regional grain preferences.
The door opened.
A dragon walked in.
Conversation did not stop.
It merely got quieter.
That always happened with dragons. No one ordered anyone to lower their voice. People simply remembered, for some reason, that whispering was an option.
He was young, around twenty. In human form, the dragon gave himself away by his eyes—very pale, almost amber—and two dark plates of scale at his right temple. He wore a short travelling cloak bearing the crest of some House.
Nella did not recognise it.
The dragon looked around the room.
Gab immediately stood up by the window.
“Please, sir. Take my seat.”
“I’m only buying bread.”
Gab slowly sat down again.
“That works too.”
Nella went behind the counter.
“What kind?”
“Dark.”
“Yesterday’s or today’s?”
The dragon looked mildly surprised.
“Today’s.”
“Four copper, then.”
He took out a coin.
Gold.
Nella looked at it.
Then at him.
“I can’t make change for that.”
“Keep it.”
“For a loaf of bread?”
“Yes.”
Behind her, the room went completely silent.
Even the dwarf stopped explaining the nature of rounding.
Nella put the loaf on the counter.
“No.”
The dragon did not take it.
“What?”
“I can’t take a gold coin for a loaf of bread.”
“Why?”
“Because it costs four copper.”
“I heard you.”
“Good. We’re making excellent progress.”
Someone at a table coughed into his fist.
The dragon looked down at the gold coin as though he had only just discovered its economic properties.
“I don’t have anything smaller.”
“There’s a bank across the street.”
The dwarf by the door raised one finger.
“We open at nine.”
Nella looked at the clock.
Ten to nine.
The dragon looked too.
“I’m in a hurry.”
“Then pay tomorrow.”
Now the dwarf looked surprised.
“Without collateral?”
“For four copper?”
“Principle does not depend on amount.”
“Which is why you work in a bank and I sell bread.”
The dragon smiled suddenly.
Not much. Just one corner of his mouth.
He took the loaf.
“Tomorrow.”
“Four copper.”
“I’ll remember.”
“So will I.”
He left.
The room stayed silent for a few seconds.
Then Gab said, “You just sold a dragon bread on credit.”
“Four copper.”
“Still.”
“He’ll come back.”
The dwarf shook his head.
“Naivety is not a financial model.”
“Come back at nine. I’ll write that on the front of your bank.”
Her mother leaned out of the kitchen.
“Nella!”
“Coming.”
“And bring the apple brew. It’s ready.”
The brew was in a large copper cauldron.
Nella hated that cauldron.
It weighed as if it had been cast for the specific purpose of testing the structural integrity of the human spine.
Every autumn, Eda simmered apples and spices in it, then poured the hot drink into clay jugs. Traders loved it. Nella suspected that traders simply never had to carry the cauldron.
She picked up a thick cloth.
“Let me help,” her mother said.
“I’ve got it.”
“You said that yesterday.”
“I didn’t drop it yesterday.”
“You spilled it all over the floor.”
“The floor survived.”
Eda took the other handle.
Together they lifted the cauldron off the stove and set it on a low stand beside the table.
“Leave it alone for ten minutes,” her mother said. “Let it cool a little.”
“I know.”
“You knew last time too.”
“Mum.”
“What?”
“I’ve worked here for eleven years.”
“Exactly. I have statistics.”
Nella was about to answer when Finn came running in.
Finn was about nine. He lived two houses away, had red hair, knobbly knees, and a talent for appearing wherever something was going to fall in the next minute.
“Mrs Venn!”
“Don’t run!”
“Mum wants to know if you have—”
He tripped over a sack.
The sack.
Nella had just enough time to realise the flour boy had, in fact, left one in the kitchen.
Then Finn grabbed the edge of the table.
The table rocked.
A wooden spoon lay on top of it.
The spoon fell.
Finn tried to catch it.
His shoulder struck the stand.
The cauldron tipped.
Nella was closer than her mother.
She did not think.
She grabbed Finn by the collar and yanked him toward her.
The boy went down at her feet.
The cauldron overturned.
Hot liquid splashed over Nella’s right arm from her fingers almost to her elbow.
The pain should have come at once.
She knew that very well.
Everyone in a bakery did.
First your skin seemed to explode.
Then it burned worse.
Then you spent the next few days smeared in salve and cursing everything hot.
Nella screamed.
Mostly because she had already understood what was about to hit her.
Finn screamed too.
Her mother lunged toward her.
“Water! Cool water!”
Nella already had her arm under the tap.
The stream struck her skin.
She waited.
Her mother held her wrist.
“Does it hurt?”
Nella blinked.
“In a second.”
“What do you mean, in a second?”
“It’ll hurt in a second.”
Eda looked at her arm.
The skin was pink.
Only pink.
No blisters.
No white patches.
None of that terrible glossy redness that came with a bad scald.
Finn was sitting on the floor.
“Am I going to die?”
“You didn’t even get splashed,” Nella said.
“I fell.”
“You won’t die from that either.”
“My knee hurts.”
“That’s a good sign.”
Her mother let go of Nella’s wrist.
“Don’t dry it.”
“Mum, it doesn’t hurt.”
“Keep it under the water.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
Nella did.
Gab appeared in the kitchen doorway.
Two of the carters were behind him.
Then the dwarf.
“What happened?” Gab asked.
“The cauldron,” Eda said.
Gab saw the puddle.
Then Nella’s arm.
“That was boiling.”
“It wasn’t,” Eda said quickly.
Nella turned to her.
“It was.”
“It had started cooling.”
“We’d just taken it off.”
Her mother looked at her.
Not angrily.
Not in surprise.
Nella had never seen that expression on her face before.
The dwarf stepped closer.
“May I?”
Nella did not understand.
“What?”
He nodded toward her arm.
“Take a look.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“My sister works at the hospital. I’ve seen enough burns to know what an arm should not look like after a cauldron.”
Gab said slowly, “A Gift.”
The kitchen went very quiet.
Nella laughed.
Not because it was funny.
The word was simply so absurd in that kitchen that she had no other response ready.
“What Gift?”
No one laughed with her.
The dwarf leaned closer to her arm without touching it.
“On an ordinary human, the top layer of skin would already be coming away.”
“Very reassuring.”
“I’m trying to be precise.”
“You’re succeeding.”
Her mother turned off the tap.
“That’s enough looking. Everyone out front.”
“Eda,” Gab said.
“Out front.”
“This has to be registered.”
“I know.”
“Within three days.”
“I know the law, Gab.”
“I was only—”
“Then only go finish your porridge.”
“I have tea.”
“Even better.”
He left.
The carters followed.
The dwarf lingered.
“If you need a witness…”
Eda turned toward him.
“We won’t.”
“There were five of us.”
“Then we definitely won’t.”
The dwarf nodded.
“Logical.”
And left.
Finn was still sitting on the floor.
“I’m a witness too.”
“You’re a child,” Eda said.
“But I saw it.”
“Go home.”
“But Mum wanted—”
“What?”
Finn thought for a moment.
“I forgot.”
“Excellent. Remember on the way.”
He got to his feet.
“Nella?”
“What?”
“Are you a mage now?”
“No.”
“Then what are you?”
“Someone who wants to mop the floor.”
Finn nodded, apparently satisfied, and ran for the door.
“Don’t run!” Nella and Eda shouted together.
The door slammed.
Nella looked at her mother.
“Mum.”
Eda was already reaching for the cloths.
“Floor first.”
“No.”
“The syrup will dry.”
“Do I have a Gift?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just threw everyone out of the kitchen as if I’d grown a second nose.”
“A second nose would be easier.”
Nella looked down at her arm.
The pinkness was already fading.
She ran her fingers over the skin.
Nothing.
It did not even sting.
“Maybe the brew wasn’t that hot.”
Her mother said nothing.
“Maybe?”
“Nella.”
“What?”
“It was hot.”
That was bad.
Not her arm.
Her mother’s voice.
Nella leaned her hip against the table.
“All right.”
“All right?”
“No. I just said a word.”
Eda started wiping the floor.
“You’ll have to see the registrar.”
“I know.”
“He’ll ask questions.”
“That’s his job.”
“About family too.”
Nella looked at her.
Things made a little more sense now.
“Oh.”
Eda stopped.
“What does ‘oh’ mean?”
“That’s why you’re acting like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like I didn’t get a Gift. Like I found a body in the storeroom.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then who?”
“Who what?”
“Who in the family wasn’t human?”
Eda went back to the floor.
“I don’t know.”
“Mum.”
“What?”
“You know every relative back to the aunt who died forty years before you were born and left someone two spoons. Don’t tell me you don’t know.”
“They were good spoons.”
“Mum.”
“Your father may not have told me everything.”
“Dad?”
“Why not?”
“Because for ten years he told me the same story about his grandfather dropping a goat down a well. You think he’d have kept a dragon secret?”
Eda sat on a low stool.
“I didn’t say dragon.”
“I didn’t get burned.”
“There are other heat-resistant peoples.”
“Such as?”
Her mother opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Nella folded her arms.
“I’m listening.”
“Salamanders.”
“We don’t have salamanders in the family.”
“There are salamanders in the south.”
“We’ve never been south.”
“Your father might have.”
“He was afraid of boats.”
“You can get there overland.”
“Through three kingdoms.”
“People travel.”
“Dad spent two years planning a trip to the next town and never went.”
Her mother rubbed her forehead.
Nella smiled suddenly.
“I like the dragon.”
“What?”
“The theory. A dragon in the family tree.”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Why?”
“Because in an hour all of Millford will decide I spent twenty years hiding a dragon under the bed.”
Nella glanced toward the front room.
“An hour?”
Gab’s voice carried through the doorway.
“I’m only telling people what I saw with my own eyes!”
Eda closed hers.
“Fine. Ten minutes.”
Ruda arrived nine minutes later.
Nella knew because she was watching the clock.
Ruda came in pretending she wanted buns.
“Two poppy-seed buns.”
Nella put two on the counter.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
Ruda looked at her arm.
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Doesn’t hurt?”
“No.”
“What doesn’t hurt?”
“The thing you came to ask about.”
Ruda looked mildly offended.
“I came for buns.”
“Of course.”
“I could buy them at my own place.”
“You could.”
“But yours have more poppy seeds.”
“I know.”
Ruda put down the coins.
“They’re saying dragon blood.”
“Already?”
“I’m not saying I believe it.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m only asking.”
“What?”
“Who?”
Nella leaned on the counter.
“That is exactly what Mum and I are currently trying to establish. If we find a dragon among our relatives, we’ll let you know.”
Ruda thought about it.
“Your grandmother was very beautiful.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing.”
“Ruda.”
“I’m going.”
She took the buns.
At the door, she turned back.
“Does the Academy take everyone with a confirmed Gift?”
“For selection.”
“Humans too?”
“Same law for everyone.”
Ruda nodded.
This time there was no curiosity in it.
She was almost serious.
“Then you’re lucky.”
The door closed.
Nella remained behind the counter.
That word struck harder than Gift had.
The Academy.
She had not thought about it in five years.
At twelve, she had.
Every human child did.
At school they even had a game: what would you be if your Gift awakened?
Most of the boys wanted to be dragons.
Which made no sense, because a Gift could not turn you into another race, but logic had never held a strong position at twelve.
Nella had wanted to enter the Academy and study healing magic.
Then she turned thirteen.
Fourteen.
Fifteen.
Nothing happened.
At sixteen, she stopped reading the admission notices.
She would turn eighteen in a month.
She had already made an arrangement with the owner of a large inn on the eastern road. Starting in spring, she was supposed to run the kitchen there.
A normal job.
Good money.
A room over the inn.
Three days off a month.
Eda had even said it was an excellent position.
Nella had thought so too.
Yesterday.
Her mother came up behind her.
“Don’t start.”
“What?”
“I know that face.”
“I’m just standing here.”
“You’ve already enrolled, graduated, and become rector.”
Nella turned around.
“I don’t want to be rector.”
“Thank the gods.”
“The staff quarters are terrible.”
Eda did not smile.
“Nella, selection is not admission.”
“I know.”
“And if the Gift is weak—”
“I know.”
“It’s harder there for humans.”
“Mum.”
“What?”
“I know.”
They looked at each other.
Eda looked away first.
“The Gift Registrar sees people after lunch.”
“I’ll go.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to.”
“I’m seventeen.”
“Exactly.”
Nella snorted.
“At seventeen, I can visit an official by myself.”
“You can. Then he’ll ask a stupid question, you’ll give a clever answer, and within five minutes you’ll be arguing.”
“That is slander.”
Gab called from the front room.
“Nella! That dragon already came by today!”
Nella turned her head.
“Which dragon?”
“The young one!”
Her mother slowly looked at her.
Nella raised both hands.
“Don’t even start.”
The Gift Registrar occupied two rooms above the post office.
An old metal plaque hung on the door, bearing the district emblem: a black point in the centre with nine short lines around it.
Nella had seen the symbol a thousand times—on tax notices, official seals, the gates of the old town hall. At school they had been told the nine lines represented the nine peoples who had founded the kingdom.
Admittedly, their history teacher had never managed to name the same nine twice.
Two people were waiting in the corridor.
A boy of about thirteen sat with his mother, and an elderly man had a chicken in a cage on his lap.
Nella sat opposite them.
Eda sat beside her.
The chicken looked at Nella.
Nella looked at the chicken.
“Don’t ask,” the old man said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Everyone asks.”
“Now I’m interested.”
“She glows.”
Nella looked more closely.
The chicken was not glowing.
“When?”
“At night.”
“I see.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I sold bread to a dragon on credit this morning. I’m prepared to believe quite a lot today.”
The office door opened.
A girl came out with very long ears.
Not decorated ones.
Real ones.
The boy’s mother gasped.
The girl touched one ear and blushed.
“Temporary,” she said.
A man’s voice came from inside the office.
“We hope.”
The girl hurried away.
The boy went pale.
“I don’t want to.”
His mother took his hand.
“You only have sparks.”
“Maybe she only had sparks too.”
The registrar leaned into the corridor.
“Next.”
The boy pretended not to exist.
His mother pulled him inside.
Nella watched them go.
“I’m already enjoying the official procedure.”
Eda pressed her lips together.
Ten minutes later, the boy came out.
His ears were still normal.
He looked delighted.
“Heat Gift,” his mother announced to the entire corridor.
“Congratulations,” said the man with the chicken.
Nella was next.
The office was far less magical than she had imagined as a child.
A desk.
Three chairs.
A cupboard.
A sink.
A shelf of boxes.
The registrar was a thin man in his forties with a streak of grey in dark hair.
Nella looked at his ears first.
Normal.
He noticed.
“No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Everyone’s looking today.”
“What happened to that girl?”
“First attempt at partial transformation. No training.”
“Into what?”
“Her grandmother was a hare.”
Nella fell silent.
The registrar smiled.
“Joke.”
Eda sat down.
“Very professional.”
“Eighteen years in the job. Without humour I’d have started biting applicants.”
He opened a ledger.
“Name.”
“Nella Venn.”
“Age?”
“Seventeen. Eighteen next month.”
“Race?”
“Human.”
The pen stopped.
For a moment.
A very short one.
Then it moved again.
“Manifestation?”
Nella explained.
The registrar asked about the temperature.
“I don’t know.”
“Had it been boiling?”
“Before that, yes.”
“How long had it been off the heat?”
“Maybe a minute.”
“Less,” Eda said.
Nella looked at her.
So did the registrar.
“Witnesses?”
“Five adults.”
“And a child,” Nella added. “Though he was more concerned about his knee.”
“Names of the adults?”
They gave them.
The registrar wrote everything down.
“Good. Now we’ll find out what actually happened.”
He stood.
Nella looked at the boxes.
“There isn’t boiling water in there, is there?”
“No.”
“Shame. I was getting used to it.”
He took out a small metal plate.
“This will get warm.”
“How warm?”
“Hot enough that an ordinary person would pull their hand away.”
“And if I’m ordinary?”
“You’ll pull your hand away.”
“Logical.”
He placed the plate on the desk and touched a small ring at the side.
The metal began to heat.
Nella held out her hand.
“Palm down?”
“One finger first.”
She touched it.
Warm.
Warmer.
Hot.
The registrar watched her hand.
“Pain?”
“No.”
The temperature kept rising.
Nella could feel the heat through her whole palm now, but it never crossed that line where the body pulled away on its own.
“Now?”
“Hot.”
“Pain?”
“No.”
He switched the plate off.
“That’s enough.”
“And?”
“Heat resistance confirmed.”
Nella smiled.
Her mother did not.
The registrar took out a thin candle.
He lit it.
“Create a flame.”
“How?”
“However feels natural.”
“Nothing feels natural.”
“Try.”
Nella stared at the flame.
Raised a hand.
Moved her fingers.
Nothing.
“Am I supposed to say something?”
“If you like.”
“What?”
“It’s your Gift.”
Nella thought.
“Burn?”
The flame did not change.
“Please?”
Nothing.
“I apologise for everything I’ve ever said about candles?”
The registrar snuffed it out.
“No fire control.”
“We’ve fallen out.”
He reached for another box.
Eda leaned forward.
“How many tests are there?”
“Until I have enough to make an assessment.”
“Of what?”
“Whether there is a Gift and which group it most closely fits.”
From the next box he took an ordinary stone.
Nella glanced at her mother.
“If that starts talking, I’m leaving.”
The registrar laughed.
“No. Just pick it up.”
Nella did.
“Heavy.”
“Put it down.”
He asked her to move it without using her hands.
Nothing.
Then he gave her a glass of water.
The water remained water.
A thin dry twig refused to turn green.
Nella refused the healing test on her own finger before the registrar had even taken out the needle.
“No.”
“It’s a standard test.”
“I believe you.”
“You’ll barely feel the prick.”
“Wonderful. Prick your own finger.”
The registrar looked at Eda.
“You were right.”
“I know.”
Eventually he returned to his desk.
There were a lot of marks in the ledger.
Almost all of them negative.
“Very narrow manifestation,” he said.
Nella’s smile faded a little.
“Is that bad?”
“Not necessarily. Gifts sometimes unfold gradually. Especially in humans with a small trace of another line.”
“Which line?”
“Most likely a fire line.”
“Dragon?”
“No,” Eda said at once.
The registrar raised his eyebrows.
“I didn’t say dragon.”
Nella turned toward her mother.
“That’s twice today.”
“There are other possibilities.”
“Such as?”
The registrar began counting on his fingers.
“Some southern shifter lines. Fire lizards. Several old faerie families. Very rarely, magical families with no visible nonhuman traits.”
“And dragon?”
“That too.”
Nella looked at her mother.
Eda was staring out the window.
The registrar looked from one to the other and, fortunately, did not ask.
He took out a clean sheet of paper.
“Gift confirmed.”
Nella forgot about dragons.
“So…”
“You are eligible for the Academy entrance selection.”
He said it casually.
Almost boringly.
As if he had just told her she qualified for a new flour-trading permit.
Nella stared at the paper.
The same symbol was printed at the top.
A black point.
Nine lines.
“When?”
“Regional selection begins in twelve days.”
“Twelve?”
“Yes.”
“I thought it was in autumn.”
“Term starts in autumn. Selection is earlier.”
“Twelve days.”
“I did say that.”
Eda took the paper.
“She hasn’t prepared.”
“Most people don’t prepare for a first manifestation.”
“I mean for the Academy.”
“Ah.”
The registrar looked at Nella.
“Can you read?”
“No. I guessed what the sign on the door said.”
“Arithmetic?”
“I can definitely count to four copper.”
“Completed basic schooling?”
“Yes.”
“Then you should manage the main section. Your practical score will probably be low.”
“You’re very encouraging.”
“I’m not the admissions board. I can lie if you want, but it won’t help.”
He stamped the paper.
“Humans with Gifts are rare. Humans with late manifestations are rarer. You have the right to try. Nothing more.”
Nella took the document.
The paper was slightly rough.
Ordinary.
She did not know why she had expected anything else.
“And if I pass?”
“You get a place.”
“That’s it?”
“No. Then the Academy begins.”
“I meant—”
“I know.”
He smiled.
“But that’s the best way to think about it.”
They were quiet for most of the walk home.
Nella carried the document in her bag and checked every few minutes that it was still there.
The dwarves had opened the bank by the time they reached the square.
The dragon from that morning was standing outside.
He had four copper coins in his hand.
He saw Nella.
He came over.
“Debt.”
She held out her palm automatically.
The coins clinked into it.
“Thank you.”
He looked at the paper sticking out of her bag.
At the seal.
“Manifestation?”
Nella nodded.
“Today.”
“What kind?”
“So far, I can avoid being boiled.”
He looked at her for several seconds.
Then said, “Useful.”
“Finally, someone with the correct reaction.”
“I’m not human.”
“It was a figure of speech.”
“Oh.”
Nella suspected dragons were not the ideal audience for figures of speech.
He started to leave, then stopped.
“Going to selection?”
“If I can spend the next twelve days learning what they actually do there.”
“Nothing difficult.”
“Do you study at the Academy?”
“I do.”
Nella slowly looked at his cloak.
The crest.
The amber eyes.
“Oh.”
Now it was his turn.
“What does ‘oh’ mean?”
“Nothing.”
“You said it as if you understood something.”
“I understood why you don’t know what bread costs.”
He frowned.
Then seemed to decide it was not an insult.
“Arden.”
“What?”
“My name. Arden Varr.”
Nella gave him hers.
Arden nodded.
“I’ll see you at the start of term.”
“You’re very sure I’ll get in.”
“No.”
“Thank you.”
“But if you don’t, we won’t see each other.”
“That is impressively logical.”
He nodded again.
And left.
Nella watched him go.
Her mother stood beside her.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“About what?”
“I gave birth to you.”
Nella turned her head.
Eda went pale.
Only a little.
But Nella saw it.
A second passed between them.
Then her mother added, “Raised you. I meant I raised you.”
Nella said nothing.
Eda adjusted the strap of her bag.
“Come on. We have lunch to serve.”
And walked ahead.
Nella remained in the middle of the square.
For a moment.
Not long.
Then she caught up.
She decided her mother had simply misspoken.
Nella had just manifested a Gift, Academy selection was twelve days away, and the entire town was already hunting for a dragon somewhere in their family tree.
People slip up.
It meant nothing.
That was much more convenient.
At home, Eda went to the storeroom first.
She waited until Nella returned to the front room, closed the door, and pulled a small wooden box from beneath the lowest shelf.
She had not opened it in seventeen years.
Inside lay a thin black shard, smoother than glass.
There was no writing on it.
Only a point.
And nine short lines.
Eda stared at it for a long time.
Then put it back in the box.
This time, she did not hide it under the shelf.
She hid it deeper.
Behind a brick in the wall.
her mama knows, and won't tell her...💜