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“No, I won’t,” he agreed.

She sat anyway, which told me more about her than the entire walk from the gate had.

For a few minutes, the table almost resembled something normal. Pippa explained the morning schedule. Kit corrected her only when it was funnier to do so. I ate and listened and tried not to notice how the room kept looking over, not in disgust, but with confusion.

The provisional girl had not been absorbed, exactly. But two known people had sat down near her and the world had not ended, and that was apparently worth noting.

After breakfast, Kit vanished as suddenly as he had arrived, leaving his apple core on my plate like a calling card. I carried it to the waste bin with the rest of my dishes because I refused to be the kind of person who left dishes for the staff to clean up when I could do it myself.

The day went badly after that. Sallow’s afternoon lecture contained four references I did not understand, two jokes everyone else laughed at before the punchline, and one assignment that required a textbook I had not been issued because my name had not yet “settled” in the registrar’s system. Something I only discovered upon Pippa’s guidance to the registrar’s office.

“Settled,” the clerk said, smiling. “Provisional files take a little longer.”

Of course they did.

“What am I supposed to do in the meantime? I need that book to do my homework.”

“Borrow from a friend?” The clerk said sheepishly.

There was no point in asking anything else since I knew I wouldn’t get a straight answer. By the time I reached my room, my head hurt. Every sentence here came with invisible clauses, and every rule sat inside three older rules that nobody had written down, because writing them down would admit they were rules.

So I got out my notebook and started field notes. Not a diary, because diaries were for feelings, and feelings were slippery unhelpful things. Field notes were evidence.

Æscholt: Day 2

Robe pattern matters. Cutting the hem is a visible offense. Vivienne Mallory: Founding Nine. Treats tradition like property damage.

“First-generation” - not only new money or no money. Blood and power issue.

Dining gestures - wait for server, palm above plate, two fingers to decline? High table still unknown.

Library likely useful despite Pippa saying not.

Kit Wyndham - fire, tattoos, public name, performs charm, sits across not beside. Possibly dangerous. Definitely bored.

Pippa Doncaster - knows rules, may explain if cornered kindly.

I paused, then added one more line. Do not let Kit become useful just because he is interesting. I underlined do not.

Then, because apparently I had learned nothing from underlining his name the night before, I turned the page and wrote another heading.

Questions that got reactions.

Has there been another first-gen?

What happens if they never classify me?

Why does Vivienne care like I damaged something sacred?

What does Wyndham want?

Why did fire feel less strange than everyone else thought it should?

Outside, the east range had gone quiet, and through the window the woods were an inky black stain spreading up to the sky at the edge of the grounds. A bell rang somewhere far off. I set the notebook down and rubbed both hands over my face.

My left palm prickled. Not much, barely anything, just a ghost of the cards, the banister, the flame that had opened around me. I stared at it, and nothing happened. Of course nothing happened. How was I going to survive here if I couldn’t show them what I could do? If I didn’t even know what I could do?

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