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Dean Pelham requests your attendance at second bell. North tower.

“Administrative admirer,” I replied with a sigh.

There was no explanation and no please. Part of me couldn’t help but wonder if I was in trouble for discovering the meaning of the school’s name or something equally ridiculous. I was used to being in trouble. Maybe my hair had really offended them but their admin had taken this long to do something about it?

“North tower,” I said, pushing my spiraling thoughts aside.

Pippa’s mouth did the thing people here did when they were deciding how much of a rule to translate for me. “Don’t be late.”

“That bad?”

“Dean Pelham isn’t bad,” she hedged.

Kit stole my toast, read the note upside down, took a bite, and handed the toast back with a corner missing. “Pelham’s a polished floor. Looks nice. Terrible if you hit it wrong.”

“Helpful.”

“Deeply.” He grinned and my stupid stomach fluttered at the sight.

Pippa lowered her voice. “If it’s about supplemental placement, just listen. Don’t argue.”

“You say that like I’ve argued before.”

Both of them looked at me, clearly telling me that they both understood I was the arguing type. “Fine,” I said. “Unfair, but fine.”

As I waited for second bell I finished breakfast, because fear and an institutional summons did not cancel hunger, and because making important people wait while I ate their expensive eggs felt like one of the few forms of power currently available to me. I ate slowly. I even had more tea. My mother had taught me that. I had learned not to run when they wanted me to run, to make them watch me decide.

When I was done I started making my way to the north tower. It was built from stone that was somehow colder than the rest of the school, which seemed mean somehow. As far as I could see there were no doors, only stairs that wound upward in a spiral so tight that I arrived at the top annoyed and slightly dizzy. The first door I encountered in the north tower sat at the landing. It was black wood with no name on it. I knocked once right as the second bell rang.

“Enter.”

I tugged on the door, surprised by how heavy it was and eventually got it open enough that I could slip inside. The room was round and massive, much bigger than I had expected. It took up the entire tower’s width with the exception of the small landing outside. It was also entirely too clean for it to be an administrator’s office, at least in my experience. I was used to admins who looked like they were slowly being consumed by paperwork, but here there was none.

The only exception was the file folder that sat on a large desk, which had almost nothing else on it, in front of a man who looked like he was much too young to hold a position such as dean. He was younger than Professor Sallow and smoother in every way, with brown hair and careful hands and an expression tuned to a professional warmth that didn’t reach his eyes. He wore light gray instead of charcoal, which I found interesting since most of the professors had opted for black. It made me wonder how exactly the hierarchy of colors worked here.

There was a window on each side of the room, both of which showed more sky than ground. In front of one stood a woman with her back to me. She did not turn at my entrance.

“Miss Lane,” Pelham said. “Please sit.”

I sat, because refusing would be dramatic and I preferred to save drama for when it had better leverage. He opened the folder and, unsurprisingly, I saw my name sitting on the tab. I hated it immediately.

“How are you settling in?” he asked, his voice warm, but that was the only warm thing about him. His expression told me that he’d rather not have asked me that question, but that the rules of etiquette dictated otherwise.

“Fine.”

At the window, the woman made the smallest sound, not a laugh or even a breath, something that suggested me saying I was fine had been entered into evidence and found wanting.

Pelham smiled, but again it didn’t reach his eyes. “Your instructors report that you are attentive.”

There were many ways to say you ask too many questions. Æscholt seemed determined to use all of them, one at a time, in that gentle voice they kept for people they were about to inconvenience.

“That’s usually considered good in schools,” I said.

“It is. In context.” Pelham looked down at the folder. “You are here under unusual circumstances,” he said. “First-generation admissions require additional support. Students from established lines arrive with a foundation. Vocabulary. Control habits. Blood markers. Childhood instruction. You arrived with none of that.”

“Nobody mentioned that it was necessary in the letter.”

“The letter concerned opportunity.”