Academy life started at six in the morning.
Not metaphorically. An actual bell rang at six, loud enough to reach every corner of the dormitory wing, and if you were not up and dressed and moving toward the morning training grounds by six thirty you got marked late on your first day which apparently went on a record that followed you through your entire academy career.
I was already awake when the bell rang.
I had been awake since five, sitting at my desk with a sheet of paper in front of me, writing down everything I remembered about the first arc’s timeline. Names, dates, events, the specific order things happened in. My memory for the novel was good but good was not the same as perfect and I needed to know exactly which details I was certain about and which ones I was filling in from impression.
Seraphine was in the chair by the window exactly where she had been when I fell asleep. She had not moved. She was watching the training grounds below with the patient stillness of something that measured time in centuries and found the concept of a long night entirely relative.
"You did watch me sleep," I said without looking up from my notes.
"I watched the room," she said. "You happened to be in it."
"That is a technical distinction."
"I am a technically precise individual."
I finished the last line of notes, folded the paper, and tucked it inside the back cover of one of the textbooks from my bag where nobody would think to look for it. Then I got dressed, which was straightforward given that the academy uniform was laid out the previous night. Dark jacket, fitted, academy crest on the left chest. The Dravenmoor colors were silver and deep blue and somehow the uniform managed to incorporate both without looking cluttered.
I checked my reflection in the small mirror above the desk.
Caelum Dravenmoor looked back at me. Sharp and put together and carrying the particular resting expression of someone who finds most situations slightly beneath their full attention. I had not chosen that expression. It was apparently just the face.
I could work with it.
"Today’s schedule," I said to Seraphine as I picked up my bag. "Morning is physical training and basic summon integration exercises. Midday is academic curriculum. Afternoon is open practice in the training grounds. I need you visible but not prominent today. Present enough that people know the contract is stable and functional. Not present enough to make the morning’s instructors feel like they need to escalate anything."
"You want me threatening but manageable," she said.
"I want you professional."
She stood from the chair in one fluid motion, smoothing the front of her dark clothing with a gesture so practiced it was almost automatic. "Professional," she said, as if testing the flavor of the word. "I can do professional."
She did not sound entirely convinced of her own statement.
The morning training grounds were a wide stone courtyard behind the main academy building, divided into sections by low wooden barriers. When I arrived there were already thirty or so first year students present, along with two training instructors and one assistant who was carrying a stack of forms and looking slightly overwhelmed by the quantity of them.
The instructor running the session was a man named Brev. Built like someone who had spent decades doing exactly this job. Short grey hair, a scar running from his left ear to his jaw, the permanent slight squint of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors assessing things. In the novel he was background faculty, reliable and fair, not a significant plot figure. He was exactly the kind of instructor I wanted running my first session. No agenda beyond the work.
He looked at Seraphine when I arrived and then looked at me with the calm expression of someone who had seen a lot of things in this job and was adding this to the list without drama.
"Dravenmoor," he said. "Your summon stays at the perimeter during exercises unless I direct otherwise. She engages only if I ask for a demonstration. Understood?"
"Understood," I said.
Seraphine drifted to the perimeter without being asked twice and positioned herself against the outer wall where she had a clear view of the entire courtyard. Several students near her shifted slightly sideways without appearing to mean to.
The session started with physical conditioning. Running the perimeter, basic forms, the kind of foundational work that was the same regardless of how powerful your summon was because your summon’s strength meant nothing if your own body gave out under pressure. I had Caelum’s sixteen year old body which was already in better shape than my original one had ever been. The Dravenmoor household had apparently started physical training early.
I ran, did the forms, and paid attention.
The other students sorted themselves quickly into the way people always sort themselves in these environments. The ones who were here to be seen working hard. The ones who were genuinely competitive and tracking everyone else. The ones who were keeping their heads down and focusing on their own performance. And the ones who were already looking for the social hierarchy and calculating their position in it.
I filed observations away as I moved.
Daren from dinner last night was in the genuinely competitive category. He ran hard and kept glancing sideways to check where he stood relative to the others. The girl Tessaly was heads down and focused, her form was technically clean. The quiet one from the end of the table whose name I still did not know was present but holding back, not visibly struggling but not pushing either. Watching rather than performing.
That one I kept a corner of my attention on.
Then there was the one I had been expecting.
Maris Veldren.
Duke’s nephew, second son of a minor noble house that had spent three generations trying to climb back toward relevance. In the novel he had been Caelum’s first genuine antagonist at the academy, not because he was particularly dangerous but because he was persistent and well connected and had spent his whole life being told he was exceptional. The original Caelum had handled him badly, publicly humiliated him twice in the first month, and turned what could have been a manageable irritation into a grudge that compounded into something worse by arc two.
I was not going to do that.