His breath hitched in his throat, but he managed to say, “Eleven, Master.”
“Liar,” she told him cheerfully. She didn’t seem to take offense.
The four of them entered the receiving room to the headmaster’s offices. The youth who sat reading there put aside his book and jumped to his feet. Cosmas beckoned to him and murmured instructions in his ear. The young man nodded and trotted out of the chamber. Cosmas ushered Master Girisunika and Master Sebo through the door to the inner office. Then the older man looked at Arram.
“Remain here until you are summoned, young Arram,” he said. “I suggest you work on a ten-page essay for me. It will be upon the virtues of maintaining one’s concentration, no matter what distractions may present themselves. In a while we shall summon you, understand?”
Arram understood. He understood that he was about to be very bored. He bowed to the head of the School for Mages. “Yes, Master Cosmas.”
“Very good.” The older man walked into his office and closed the door.
Arram hated boredom. That was the source of many of his problems. Bored, he might tinker with the spells he was taught—just tinker, not actually cast the whole thing! Then came visits to the healer, unhappy interviews with instructors, and labor or essays after that.
The head of the academy had told him to think about an essay on concentration, he reminded himself. But how could a fellow concentrate when he was so easily bored? Boredom had set his grandmother to teaching him to read when he was three. The first teacher for his Gift had come soon after, when he accidentally burned a month’s supply of firewood. He was six when his teachers gathered to tell his parents that the best—the only—place for him was the Imperial University of Carthak. No one in Tyra could teach a child whose Gift was so strong so young.
Yusaf hadn’t wanted to send him away, but Mother, Metan, and Grandmother had overruled him. Farm children apprenticed in the weaving houses at Arram’s age, they said. Embroiderers began their apprenticeships even younger. Besides, did Yusaf want to wait until Arram’s Gift burned the house down?
With soot on his hands from fighting Arram’s most recent workroom fire, Yusaf agreed. He brought Arram to Carthak himself and sat through his son’s entrance examinations. Arram was the youngest student by far. He performed a number of written and spoken tests, then demonstrated the magic he had been taught. When he and Yusaf returned in the morning, a master was there to admit Arram to the Lower Academy. Arram had cheered, and hugged his father, and danced around the room. He had thought he would never be bored again.
Now he had truly made a mess of things. Surely Master Girisunika worked out that Arram’s magic had somehow fetched water through the earth, and the tiles themselves, and the table, and the dish, without leaving a mark. He wondered if that had ever happened to Master Bladwyn, back in the old days. If it had, it wasn’t in the little book. Bladwyn never made mistakes.
While he’d been thinking these gloomy thoughts, his instructors and other masters he did not know passed through the waiting room. They entered Master Cosmas’s inner office, all demanding to know why they had been summoned. Arram put his face in his hands and wished he were on that ship with his father, bound for some far place beyond Carthak and Tyra.
He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there, listening to muffled voices and wishing more than anything he could eavesdrop, when the most beautiful girl he had ever seen walked into the room. She wore her bright golden hair in a long braid down her back. When she smiled at him, her blue eyes shone like gems. Her light blue gown was in the Northern style—coming from a family that dealt in cloth, Arram still looked at what people wore. And her smile was very, very sweet.
“Hello, there!” she said, her voice as sweet as her smile. “Is Master Cosmas in?”
Reminded of his fate, Arram fell back into the glooms. He nodded. “But he’s having a meeting with other masters.”
The beautiful girl sighed. “Well, I’ll just have to wait. The master cook told me to hand this directly to Master Cosmas.” She raised the small package she held, then flopped into the chair next to Arram, her legs splayed before her. “Cook believes that every message she sends is of utmost importance. Cook is very serious.” She pulled an overly serious face, startling a laugh out of Arram. “I’m Varice Kingsford. What dreadful crime did you commit?”
“I’m Arram Draper.” He smiled despite his gloom. “I lost control of my Gift.”
To his surprise, she laughed. “I’m sorry, you look so glum, like they’re going to take you out and shoot you at dawn. With poisoned arrows, no less. Everyone loses control around here. That’s why all the workrooms are magicked to the rafters! That’s why we’re in the Lower Academy!”
“You lose control?” He couldn’t believe it.
“Two months ago I knotted everyone’s hair in the room, including the master’s. They had to get three other masters in to figure out what I’d done,” she confided. “I was just trying to make a net to catch stray magics, but…”
“It went awry,” Arram said. He was all too familiar with that problem.
“They expect our Gifts to tangle early on,” Varice told him. “How will we learn to manage them if they don’t?” She looked him over. “Oh, come on. You look like you murdered someone. What happened?”
It took a little more encouragement and teasing from her, but soon he was telling the story of his morning. Instead of shocking her with his tale of runaway fountains, he saw her collapse into giggles. “Oh, I wish I could have seen it!” she cried.
Then and there Arram promised himself that he would marry her one day.
The door opened and Master Cosmas looked out. “Ah, Varice, I thought I heard your laughter. Another package from Master Cook?”
The girl sprang to her feet and bowed like a proper student, then presented Master Cosmas with the parcel. “I was not permitted to return unless I had given it into your hands, Headmaster,” she said with a smile.
Cosmas chuckled. “Thank you, my dear. You had best go before she thinks it went astray.”
She gave him a pretty curtsy and looked at Arram. “I’ll see you soon, Arram Draper!” Then she trotted off, her skirts flying out behind her.
Arram hung his head. Not if they send me home, he thought, glum again.
Cosmas put his arm around Arram’s shoulders. “It’s not so bad as all that, my boy. Trust me.” They stood aside as the instructors and a couple of the masters left the office. This time they looked at Arram. One or two of the instructors smiled, though not Master Girisunika. She frowned and hustled away, clearly unhappy.
Cosmas frowned. “Where are those runners of mine?”
As if they’d been summoned, a boy and a girl in Upper Academy robes came trotting into the room from outside. “It’s taken care of, Master,” the boy said, puffing.
“They’re bringing the books, Master Cosmas,” the girl announced.
“Very good, both of you,” Master Cosmas said, beaming at them. “Now, would you run down to the kitchens and ask them to send up lunch for, oh, ten masters and one very hungry boy? We shall dine here. No, Lyssy, not in my office,” he said. The girl had gone white. “In my dining room.”