Night had settled over the Academy by the time the woman reached the end of her roster.
The lamps around the parade ground threw a yellow glow across the stone, and the air had turned cool, carrying the faint smell of damp grass from the training fields beyond the halls. Soldiers were finishing their duties around the edges of the square. From the buildings on every side came the distant sounds of footsteps and voices.
She checked the last few names, then raised her eyes from the paper.
Two candidates near the far end were still talking.
She didn’t raise her voice. She simply stopped and looked at them until they noticed, and the silence that followed was more effective than any shout.
"Thank you," she said. "I am Sergeant Lydia Shaw. I’m responsible for supervising all of you through your induction as first-year Officer Cadets."
Her face was stern and watchful, and as she spoke, her gaze moved steadily down the line, as though she were already taking note of each of them.
"Congratulations on passing the examination," she said. "Enjoy it tonight. Because tomorrow, that’s all it will be. A beginning. From now on, you follow the regulations of this Academy. You respect the chain of command. And you take responsibility for your own conduct." Her eyes paused, briefly, on a few of the more expensive coats in the line. "Your titles and your families don’t exempt you from any of that. Not here."
Nobody said anything.
"You’ll be taken to your quarters tonight. Your induction starts in the morning. That’s when you’ll be issued uniforms and equipment, and told your training schedules, and shown the facilities." She paused. "Your rooms are provided. Keeping them in order is your job. So is keeping your equipment in order. Your rooms will be inspected. Regularly. That is part of your training."
"So are they teaching us strategy," Elias murmured beside Owen, barely moving his lips, "or how to make a bed?"
Marianne, on Owen’s other side, pressed her mouth shut very hard.
Owen felt the corner of his own mouth twitch. Before he could do anything about it, Shaw’s eyes moved toward their part of the line.
Elias immediately stood up straighter and gazed into the middle distance, the picture of a young man who had never spoken in his life.
Shaw let her eyes rest on him a little longer than she needed to. Then she went on.
"Is all of that clear?"
"Yes, Sergeant," came a scattering of voices, not quite together.
"Good. Follow me."
* * *
The column wound out of the parade ground and along the main path.
For the first time, Owen could look at the Academy without a monster to think about, or a score, or a summons waiting for him. Great stone buildings rose up on either side, their windows warm with lamplight. Banners hung from their walls. Well-kept paths branched off between them toward the training facilities.
Past one of the halls, the buildings fell back and opened onto a broad practice ground. Owen saw reinforced targets set out in rows, racks of weapons along one edge, and long stretches of stone that had been scorched and cracked and chipped by years of armaments being tested against them. Farther away, larger structures loomed against the night sky, and the tops of other buildings showed above a wall.
Older cadets passed them on the paths, some carrying books, some carrying training gear, others strolling back from whatever they had been doing that evening. Their uniforms set them apart at once from the tired, dirty column following Sergeant Shaw. A few of them looked over at the newcomers with open curiosity.
"—monster in the examination, apparently. A big one. Not even supposed to be there."
"I heard the younger Ferrers boy killed it."
"Gareth’s brother?"
A little farther up the column, one of the new cadets leaned toward the girl beside him and nodded toward Owen.
She looked, and her eyes widened slightly. "That’s him? The one who fought de Clare in the capital?"
Their voices dropped the moment Owen glanced their way.
He looked ahead again and kept walking. He had been talked about enough for one day. All he wanted now was to find his room and sit down.
Elias, by contrast, was looking at everything.
"What’s that one?" he asked, pointing at a long, low hall with tall doors. "And that? Over there, with the tower?"
"I don’t know," Owen said. "I’ve seen as much of this place as you have."
"You’re a Ferrers. Your brother’s been here for years."
"And he’s told me almost nothing about it."
"You look like you’ve never seen a building before," Marianne told Elias. But Owen noticed that she was craning her neck to look up at the tower too.
Eveline was the only one of them watching where Shaw was leading them. "It’s much bigger than I imagined," she said quietly.
They walked on a little farther.
"Three years," Elias said after a while. He sounded thoughtful. "I want to get properly good. I thought I knew how to fight before today. Then something with claws came out of the trees, and I realised I don’t know anything about fighting monsters at all."
"That’s what the training is for," Owen said.
He meant it. He wanted to learn from the instructors here, to understand more about cultivation than his tutors had ever been able to teach him, and he wanted the chance to work with more weapons than just a sword.
His gaze drifted back toward the practice ground as they passed the end of it, to those rows of reinforced targets.
That would be the place.
He knew how to use a rifle. He had known before he ever summoned one. But knowing it hadn’t stopped the scope from shaking on that slope. This body was stronger than the one he’d had on Earth, but it had never once held a gun. If he wanted to be able to rely on it, he would need to put real hours into practice.
* * *
The first-year residences stood around a small courtyard of their own. There were several of them, solid stone buildings joined by covered walkways, with lamps glowing at each of their entrances. A couple of older cadets were coming out of one as the column arrived. They glanced at the newcomers and moved on.
Shaw halted the column outside the main doors.
"These buildings are divided into sections," she said. "Each section has staff responsible for its supervision and its upkeep. Remember which room is yours. If something is wrong with it, you report it through the proper staff. You do not try to fix it yourselves."
She led them inside.
The corridors were spotless. The stone floors had been polished until the lamplight gleamed in them, and plain numbered doors ran along each wall. Lamps were fixed at regular intervals all the way down. The air smelled faintly of soap and wood polish.
Shaw brought them to a reception area, where a table had been set up and several members of staff were waiting with lists.
She opened her roster.
"Harrow. Room fourteen, east corridor. Left at the end, second door on the right."
A boy stepped forward, received a slip of paper from one of the staff, and went where he was sent.
"Calder. West wing, room six."
Mira stepped up, took her slip, and walked off without a backward glance.
"Pell. East corridor. Room twenty-one."
"Twenty-one?" the boy said. "Where’s—"
"East corridor, Pell. Same as Harrow. Look at the numbers."
One by one, the line got shorter. Some of the cadets compared their slips quietly as they went, trying to work out whether they would be near anyone they knew.
"Ferrers."
Owen stepped up.
"East corridor. Room eighteen."
He took the slip from the waiting staff member and stepped aside.
Not long afterward, Shaw called Elias’s name.
"Ward. East corridor. Room twenty."
Elias looked down at his slip. Then he looked at Owen’s. Then a slow, delighted grin spread across his face.
"Two doors down," he said. "Well. You won’t ever have to worry about finding someone to walk around with now, will you?"
"I thought having my own room meant I’d get some peace and quiet," Owen said.
"You will. Some of the time."
Marianne laughed under her breath.
"Where are we?" Eveline asked, when Shaw had called her name and then Marianne’s.
"South wing," Shaw said. "Both of you. Go through the walkway on the far side of the courtyard. The dining hall and the common areas are back past the main entrance. You’ll find them easily enough."
"Thank you, Sergeant."
Eveline and Marianne went off with their slips, and Owen and Elias turned toward the east corridor.