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Father stands, dropping his napkin with a decisive motion. “Do what you want. Don’t die.”

He leaves, and I find Akilah waiting for me in the courtyard. She’s sitting on a windowsill, gazing at the stars. I join her, pulling her into a hug. She looks at me with a wobbly smile.

I tug her hair gently. “There’s no way I’ll get into the palace.”

“You want to.”

I’m quiet. I clear my throat. “I’ll become a travelling mage. You can assist me. We’ll see the world.”

“Stop.”

I perch next to her on the sill.

She points to a shooting star. “Make a wish with me.”

Quietly, we offer up our silent wishes to the heavens, and then she meets my eyes with a wobbly smile. “Mine better come true tomorrow.”

I tug her into a hug. “Why didn’t you wish something for yourself?”

She laughs and swings her legs down to tuck our arms together. “Your dream is my dream.”

* * *

Outside the gates of the scholar prefecture the next morning, I bump into Florentius and, despite the seriousness of the moment, tug his sleeve playfully. “Good luck today.”

He gives me a sidelong glance. “I don’t need luck.”

I horrify him by tugging his sleeve again as he tries to sashay off. I let go, grinning. “I’ll give you a run for it.”

“This is a number trickier than the exams before. The best of the best are often defeated by this.”

“Are you callingmeone of the best?”

A scoff.

“You’ve learned from your father your whole life,” I say as he casts his frown towards the row of small buildings where the final exam will take place. “I want a chance to learn from him.”

We’re each assigned a room, and given the rules: the patient’s spelled ailment is a genuine threat to life, and the red vial is a default cure and a last resort. If I use it to cure or to copy, I’ll be disqualified.

As the gold door opens, I brace myself. The stakes are high.

I set a pot of water to boil and prepare various teas, hoping to cover all possible ailments. My patient enters, and—

Tea sprays out of my mouth in an impressive arc over the room. “What are you doing here?”

The mist of tea dissipates and Quin stamps his cane across the space through gloomy shadows. His boots are cut from cloth of gold, and the same garnet cloak that cushioned us on the rooftops is draped over his shoulders. Undeniably aristocratic at a glance. No commoner actor-patient as for the first examinations.

He slows to a stop before me and stares down his nose. “You’ve become an official mage. You’ve proven yourself. Now quit.”

“Excuse me?”

His lips part, but before he can reply, his face contorts, eyes slamming shut. He doubles over with a gasp of pain, clutching his right side. He hisses against it.

I steer him into a seat. “This is an examination—the spell you took to weasel your way in here is causing real symptoms. What did you do with my original patient?”

“Bribe,” he says through clenched teeth.

I drop to my knees and take his pulse, sliding fingers under his sleeve, feeling the ripple of muscle in his very cold arm. His pulse is slowing, growing sludgy like... like he’s been submerged in ice. His liver is damaged, blood vessels burst. The spell he consumed is mimicking a stab wound, leaking a poison that’s freezing him.