1

Clover blinked back the sun. The Spire ahead was more beautiful than ever, its brown and beige parts changed to bronze and gold in the yellow sunset. Its chugging smoke merged with the clouds themselves.

She leaned forward on the railing, the corners of her white coat’s hem hanging almost to the toes of her muddy boots. She had no business wearing this coat outside of class, and she had no business being here at all, slacking off. If she stayed here today, tomorrow Clover might fail a test for the first time, ever.

But she couldn’t help it. The Spire in sunset was just an excuse. Next to her, arms looped around the same railing, was the real reason. Light played on the edge of the red headband nestled in her dark, dense, whirling hair. Carmina looked studiously up at the Spire, as if she had no idea.

That was when Clover asked her a corny question. This year, she was happy to embrace corniness. Clover wanted to know whether this was just fascination or true love, or if they were one and the same.

***

The wand was fashioned out of the upper leg of a bear. It had been smoothed to an almost luminous finish, the shape of the bone only just visible in elegant waves along its form. The mundane whites and grays of the bone were interwoven with veins of purplish red. It lay in the gift box and wrapping paper still sitting on her desk.

Dearest Niece,

I will never forget that show you put on for your public exams last year. To have such command without an actual wand is extraordinary. Now, with this and my blessing, you can be the mage you were always meant to be.

Enclosed is a wand, never used. It is yours. You will also find a certificate (and all the receipts) guaranteeing an Academy scholarship. Don’t let anyone take them away from you.

—your Uncle Addison

Clover stared at the gift, at the letter in her hand. She never thought she’d have a rich benefactor, but here he was, and he’d been here all along—well, in between years-long safaris half a globe away, apparently. But she wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Though she never had the urge to squeal, let alone with glee, Clover decided to try it, just to see how it felt.

“Eee!”

After five days so fast they could’ve been moments, she was standing on the platform waiting for the Academy train. It was crowded, but not because so many students were leaving. Whatever goods weren’t so heavy they’d break through the wood were up here, heaped in sacks next to sweating porters. Lumps of ore from the mine; fresh gym uniforms, since the Academy students were always wearing them out so fast; feathers from a type of grouse that only had one breeding ground.

And besides the towering bags, Clover also had to navigate the gawkers who, even years after the station had been built, loved to throng on the platform and look out at the train. On a weekend like this, they were endless. They were continually stepping up to the edge, looking out, and saying “it’s coming!” at the sight of any old speck on the horizon. Then, disappointed, they would march back.

Clover hated any crowd, especially a noisy one always bumping into you. Except today. Instead of frustration, or elation, she simply felt light all over, wondering about what was to come and puzzling over a question. As one hand hefted a suitcase and the people said “there it is!” Clover’s free hand caressed the amulet around her neck. The train, now real, barreled into view like a huge black bullet. It hammered in her ears, but she stared past it, thinking only of a future as bright as this gold chain.

Of a place where nobody knew her name. No bullies and no history.

The smokestack of the train was nothing compared to the constant trail billowing from the Spire. It stood head, shoulders, and then some over the town of Littleburo, looking exactly like an overbuilt water tower, with a roof-shaped top, a gaping vent, and slender, branching limbs. No building in the town even came up to one-fifth of its height.

The Spire was attached to the power plant, and the power plant was the property of Melo Academy, which not only owned Littleburo but was fast becoming the only reason for its existence. The town gave its everything to the school, and the school was paying back with sprawl. Fresh brick buildings greeted the train as it pulled into Melo Station.

The platform was reinforced with iron, the wall of the depot painted in a mural of human progress. In the mural, mages stepped out from the doors of the school into all walks of life: as doctors, teachers, soldiers, explorers. In the tide of passengers leaving, Clover stopped before the image of a warrior cloaked in a vortex of light and holding twin clubs of bone.

Her first mage was easy to spot: a young man at a ticket window inside. A ragged cape streamed down his back, an off-white mace holstered at his side. It amazed Clover how he’d carry such a valuable weapon out in the open like that. She figured he must be an outlier—but outside she saw more, many more.

Their clothes were loud: some sleek, some wild. Velvet hats flopped over their heads, and feathers jutted from their shirtsleeves to hang below their hands. Leaving the station, Clover nearly bumped into someone suited in what must have been hundreds of patches of animal hide. Of course, a few wore nothing but a slightly vibrant hat and robe, but most didn’t, and all were clearly armed. Clover had left her wand in her bag.

The new look she’d been manicuring for the past several months wouldn’t do here. Now her dress looked sad, like a stretched-out doily.

She put the worry aside and threw herself into the bustling town, weaving through tight alleys on rambling, hilly stone streets. The closer she got to the town’s center, the older the shops and homes got and the more they crowded together—until the Academy, which presented itself with a magnificent archway of marble and steel. Then the buildings were less dense than the people, but everything was louder. Places would have gears the size of waterwheels poking out, gently churning. As she walked past, she realized each geartech house must have not only its own water and heating, but its own lab.

Signs pointed the way to the new students’ dorms, and then to the one for last names A through K...

“You don’t have a dorm.”

When the lady at the desk deadpanned at her, she deadpanned right back. On the brick wall behind her was a wall filled with keys, taunting her. Clover’s luggage-holding arm was ready to fall off by now, and she considered making a show of it, to play up the guilt factor.

Instead, she went intimidating. Her hair buns said “cute,” but when she narrowed the eyes behind her glasses and straightened her tall back, she was fearsome. “Why not?” she said.

The lady thumbed through her file folders again. “We just don’t have you on file.”

“I’m a registered student, I have the papers to prove it, and you have an unlabelled key over there.” Clover pointed past her. “Do you think you would be able to hand it over, just for a day while I straighten this out?”

“No can do.”

Clover was this close to pointing a sigh right in her face.

But as she marched out—and allowed the line of foot-tapping new students to move forward—she figured this would be for the best. She’d rather not share a room with a total stranger at all, but if she had to, she’d at least prefer a few hours to feel them out first before leaving them with her lockless, easy-pickings suitcase. Clover was nothing if not a strategist…and maybe an overthinker.

The Student Services Plaza was so much more barren than the part of campus she’d just left that she feared she was the only one with this sort of a problem, that she’d fallen behind as soon as she got here and ruined her fresh start. But then she entered the echoing hall and saw that within the winding, velvet-roped line of a too-huge lobby, there were, well, five other students. Not zero. She laughed—it really did make her feel better—and joined the queue.

This front desk rerouted her to the financial aid office, which was not too huge, but too small. People were buzzing about in all directions, upstairs, downstairs, reaching across banisters to hand off paperwork. The walls were lined with drawers, but no amount of wall space seemed to be enough, their papers filling additional cabinets or sitting on top. Reaching the second floor, looking through the dust and chaos, Clover could see banners, pennants, and other school spirit bric-a-brac tacked to the wall competing for dominance. The head of an incredibly huge, incredibly not-from-this-region moose mounted right beneath the ceiling threatened to fall at any moment.

She tiptoed through the mess to reach the office of Mr. Brent. According to the signs, he was her advisor.

A man in an office barely larger than a locker picked through the crate of files on his desk. “Let’s see…last name?”

“Faber.”

“Ah, here we go.” As he pulled out a chunky folder to do even more picking-through, Clover’s gaze drifted around the dungeon-like office. At least a fish in a bowl added color and the window behind him let in a small square of light. By the time she looked at Mr. Brent again, he was wincing. “Hmm. You’re on the books, but we don’t have you cleared to attend class yet.”

Hot indignance rose in her face. She kept her voice steady. “How can that be?” she said, in her most official voice. “I have paperwork, it’s stamped, it’s official.”

Mr. Brent laughed all of her urgency off. “Don’t worry, we’ll get this all sorted out.” He reached out for a string, which rang a bell, which summoned one of the mages scrambling around, who received instructions to check a certain cabinet. Several minutes of sitting in Mr. Brent’s office later, Clover could only assume that mage needed help from another mage or yet another cabinet.

“…How long will this take?”

Mr. Brent had a sip of water. “I have no idea. Take a load off.”

Clover suddenly noticed the fishbowl was empty even of fish. She also noticed the lower water level…and a nozzle.

To compete among wizards who derived their power from flesh and bone, she would probably need to get more carnivorous.

When the destined file folder and a long-winded, out-of-breath explanation finally arrived, Mr. Brent whooped with relief. “Ms. Faber, they just cleared you,” he said as the mage intern left.

“Just now?”

“Mr. Brent, you’re a lifesaver,” she said. If she sounded ticked off, that was because she changed her words last-second from “this school must be astoundingly incompetent.”

He gave her an outpouring of financial info and scrawled notes for what she needed to do next in the coming days. Apparently, “cleared” did not mean “cleared.” She did learn Uncle Addison had included some extra spending money for her in his gift scholarship. Not quite enough to live on, but that was what part-time jobs were for, she supposed.

It felt like ever since she’d come to campus, her time here had been a jumble of useless travel and useless information. Surely other students had to do this, but…how many? That insidious feeling that she didn’t belong came back to her, but she shooed it off as briskly as she left the office.

And bumped into a mage dressed in modest slate blue.

“Excuse me,” she said, ready to go on walking, but his response stopped her.

“Hey…are you a freshman?”

Her shoulders stiffened. “Yes, why?”

She melted as she realized his question wouldn’t lead to an insult. This was another new student like her, but timid, his hands closed around a bottle of milk.

“Busy campus, right?” he said shakily.

Clover laughed. It set him at ease. “My name’s Clover. What’s yours?”

“Tango.”

“I like it! So I guess I’ll be seeing you around?” Instantly she kicked herself for that line—the way to make friends was not to imply that you needed to leave.

“Ha, yeah. It would be great to know anyone here.” A gold chain caught his eye. “You’re spiritual?”

She grabbed her amulet protectively, but assured herself that no, this wasn’t a leading question either. “Mmhm. A little.”

“My cousin’s a monk. Not for Amanda, but...”

For a moment, Clover’s perspective went outside herself. Here she was in a chance encounter with a boy who shared some common ground with her. She thought of kissing Amanda’s chain, but settled instead for devotion in her head, sending the goddess of love her fervent thanks.

***

In the evening, the Spire had all the dullest colors of the coming fall: beige, brown, mustard, and a sad red merged together into a single stew. Its constant plume of smoke didn’t even slow down with the end of the day. It could have been a creature in itself, standing over its brood.

The girl who staggered out of the forest could always hear its hum. Whether she was gathering berries, waking up from a long sleep, roaming at the very outer limits of the woods—she could hear it. It never seemed to have any effect on her or her world before. Like a volcano that would never blow, or maybe more like a nonthreatening geyser, it was simply present.

But now she was starving. She had lost so much of her strength and coordination that she could barely hunt. The gash in her leg made it worse, but that wasn’t the main issue. Raw instinct was no longer enough for the woods; it was failing her.

Carmina’s only hope was skill, so she limped toward the academy to do as the normal humans did.