The door creaks open revealing a grand, open room, with vaulted ceilings and a beautiful crystal ttice at the tre, emitting a refreshing white glow. Directly to the right of the door is a lightly raised dais with a short podium and a wide bckboard.

  Emily notices the dais is empty and assumes the teacher must not be here yet, so she turtention to her left. Stretg out to fill the room are five rows of raised desks, with ay el through the tre. Occupying these desks are four other people, sitting across the front three rows.

  Emily’s attention is quickly drawn to the loud chatter ing from the only two sitting together. Sat in the middle of the front row on the right-hand side of the room are two short scruffy kids with messy ginger hair and matg bronze crests. The boy is talking without stopping for breath to the girl sitting to his right, who Emily presumes is his sister.

  Pullitention away from the noise, she looks at the boy sitting close to the door in the sed row. He’s a shloomy-looking boy with a bronze crest, staring at the book open in front of him without gng up at all. Sitting in the row behind him, closer to the tre of the room, is a tall girl with a stern look on her face, calmly watg Emily as she walks in front of the desks. On her chest, proudly presented by her upright posture, is a silver crest.

  As Emily reaches the aisle in the middle of the room, the loud scruffy boy looks over and calls out to her.

  “Hey! e sit with us!”

  Emily raises an eyebrow in amusement and g the girl o him. Seeing her pleading gaze, Emily asks a question.

  “You gonna talk through the lesson as well?”

  “No, don’t worry!” the boy responds with a toothy grin.

  Well, I do o talk to some other oo work out if they were brainwashed too…

  With a light nod, Emily walks down the row and takes the seat o the still-silent girl, who nods in appreciation with a relieved smile.

  “I’m Tom Valentine of house Dahlia and this is my sister Hester Valentine, also of house Dahlia. o meet you,” Tom says while extending his hand towards her.

  “I’m Emily Coldstone of house Mandrago, o meet you too,” Emily smiles, pg her notebook and quill on the desk and shaking the small, cmmy hand she is offered.

  “How long have you been here? We got here two weeks ago but this is the first time I’ve seen you in magic theory lessons. We’ve goo ts, mana manipution and formation courses already too and you weren’t there, so I guess you probably only came i week, right? I'm right, aren’t I?”

  Emily is slightly taken aback by the wall of words preseo her, and before she gets a ce to respond, Hester speaks for the first time.

  “Calm down dumbass, you’ll scare her off.” Hester's strong words and fierce gre surprise Emily even more than Tom.

  “Is he always like this?” she asks Hester with a chuckle.

  “Kind of, he just won’t shut up sometimes. He’s talked non-stop since we were selected,” Hester turns bad answers with a tired sigh.

  “No wonder you looked so desperate; I would have thought you’d be used to it though?”

  “I used to be able to avoid him most of the time. But now I’m kind of stuck with him since we o go to the same csses.”

  “Hey I’m not tha-“ Tom starts to pin but instantly shrinks back when his sister aims anre at him.

  “What did you do before beied?” Emily asks while holding back a ugh at the siblings’ antics.

  “We helped Dad with running his museum mostly. Tom did tours and I worked the reception, so he talked at the ers, not me. What about you?”

  “I helped make a few clocks for my Dad’s shop, but mostly I just made stuff for myself,” Emily responds with a sad tone.

  Hester notices and pauses for a sed. Tom, however, doesn’t aedly asks a follow-up question.

  “Your dad’s a aker? Cool! Do you have any siblings, do they make clocks too?”

  Emily notices a quient uhe desk, and Tom squeals out in pain, doubling over and reag for his shins.

  “Sorry,” Hester says apologetically, ign her brother.

  “It’s fine,” Emily says before answering Tom with a slight edge to her voice. “He was a aker, and I have a sister called Anna. She wants to bee a seamstress so no; she doesn’t make clocks.”

  Tom’s eyes widen as the point finally nds, and he frantically apologises. “Oh sorry, my mouth kind of moves faster than my brain.”

  Before Emily respond, the door to the room creaks open and she turns to look. A tall, young-looking woman with short, wavy golden hair steps into the room wearing silver crestless robes.

  “What’s with the robes?” Emily asks quietly.

  “Mages w as staff aren’t allowed to show their family affiliation to show their impartiality,” Tom answers her eagerly.

  The teacher walks up to the dais and grabs the chalk o the bckboard. The room settles into plete sileill the rhythmic tapping of the chalk begins. Emily watches with bated breath as a rge diagram is drawn on the bnk ste. She quickly reises the diagram as a twisted version of the basic elements she knows.

  The teacher draws a set of three tric circles. The tre is split in two, with ‘Light’ written on one side and ‘Dark’ written oher. The sed circle is split into four: ‘Earth’, ‘Wind’, ‘Fire’, and ‘Water’. And the final circle is in four matg segments with the st: ‘Metal’, ‘Space’, ‘Lightning’, and ‘Ice’. Outside the circles, ‘Mental’ and ‘Sand’ are written.

  “Basic elemental theory!” she decres, levitating the chalk up to write the words across the top of the board as she says them.

  “I’m a third circle mage, Jenny Forsythia, and this is the topic I specialise in.” She turns to face the desks and slowly looks over their inhabitants. “I see all five of you are new, so what you tell me about elemental theory?”

  The hand of the tall girl sitting alone instantly shoots up, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. After a light nod from Jenny, the girl begins speaking.

  “Elemental theory is one of the core pos of ic system. The world around us be split and categorised into several elements that we focus on replig to cast magic. The two fual elements are light and dark. Also known as the elements of creation aru. The four os are fire, water, earth, and wind. And their higher forms are lightning, ice, metal, and space. Outside of the ten mais are exotic elements like mental and sand. Every mage has a natural affinity with certais and will find it easiest tress while fog on that element alone.”

  “Very good, what is your name?” Jenny asks while g lightly.

  “I’m a first circle mage, Alexia Hawthorhe girl replies while crossing her hand over her chest and bowing her head lightly.

  Jenny nods and pces her hand on the podium before her.

  “Five points to Alexia Hawthorne.” As her words fall, the podium glows for half a sed before returning to normal.

  “Gd to see the Hawthorne house’s education standard hasn’t dropped.” Jenny breaks her focus away from Alexia as she tinues. “As Alexia so kindly put it, elemental theory is one of the core pos of ic system. Along with the study of runes and ts, the study of the elements themselves is a fasating topic that I unfortunately don’t have time to go into in this lesson. All of you are here today for the purpose of realising your owal affinities, and to do that we will o gh a process some of you,” she pointedly gowards Alexia, “may already have pleted. But I would still like you to follow along with me so I see your results in full, I may have further insights that may help you. So, first-”

  Jenny is cut off as the door to the hall swings open violently. Twe, stocky boys walk in with scowls set on their faces. Emily notices two different silver crests on their chests.

  “Ah, Jeremy, Kyle, how kind of you to grace us with your presence just as I finish my introdu. I’m gd to know you two have at least learned something from my lessons.”

  Emily raises an eyebrow at the obvious venom ione and at the ck of rea from the two young nobles. A ck of rea until Tom breaks out in ughter, and they turn their gres on him, Hester, and Emily.

  Oh great, I should have sat alone.

  Emily doesn’t have long tret her decision as Jenny starts speaking again.

  “Anyway, moving on from that interruption, all of you please e down here and line up on the dais please.”

  Emily stands up and walks along the row, with Hester and Tom following her closely, then makes her way down the aisle. Still ign the uninterrupted gres of Jeremy and Kyle, she joins the f line on the dais in front of Jenny, pg herself beside Alexia.

  “To work out your affinity, we are going to use the tried-and-true method of trial and error. I’m going to get all of you to build up your owal image of each element and attempt to mahem. We will then judge, from the results, whie you should focus on. Those of you who have dohis before, ignore me and use your established image. The rest of you listen to me and I will help you build yours. Once you have a solid image, try to push mana into it to attempt the maion. First, I would like everyoo stand in a fortable, ral stah one hand in front of you, palm up.” Jenny demonstrates and waits for everyoo copy her.

  “Good, now close your eyes ay your minds.”

  As Jenny pauses, Emily closes her eyes and takes a deep breath through her nose, holding it for a few seds, then exhaling slowly through her mouth. After ten seds of silence, Jenny begins speaking again and Emily focuses on her words, shutting out the sounds of breathing around her.

  “We will start with fire. Picture a fme, big or small. Focus on its colour. Is it e? Red? her? Watch it move, watch it sway and flicker. Is it strong and deadly, ready to extinguish all life? Or is it fragile and delicate, ready to go out with a slight breeze? Feel the heat emanating from it. Does it scorch? Or simply give warmth? How br- “

  Emily listens to Jenny’s questions and starts to picture a small fme at the end of a match. With twisting hues of red and e, burning strong against the wind with a light warmth.

  Hmm, no. Matches get blown out, that’s nht.

  She clears her mind again and tunes out Jenny’s words.

  Fire. What is fire to me? A tool for warmth? Light? Cooking? Shapial? AH!

  An image fshes through her mind of a behemoth of metal, brought down from the sky by a r inferno. Fog on the idea, a small spark forms in her mind.

  The spark starts a small dark e fme, so dark it’s nearly red; burning steadily and trolled.

  A small silver piece of steel is pced in the tre of the fme, and it bends, f around the metal to swallow it whole. Slowly the fme begins to grow, lightening in shade with the metal. As the two reach a light e hue, a wind is introduced.

  The wind pushes against the fire, but the fire doesn’t yield. Instead, it es the wind and grows, slowly beginning to form a vortex around the metallic core. As the speed of the fme grows, so does its iy, until the metal in the tre glows a searing white. Piece by piece the metal is torn apart, joining the fme in its motion, and f a familiar dance e and white.

  Emily wills her mana into the vortex and opens her eyes to stare at her hand. Floating above her palm she sees a small flickering white and e fme. She smiles and moves her hand up to try to touch the fme, but the moment she moves, the fme disappears like a lie.

  Just as Emily is beginning to feel disappointed, she hears enthusiastic g and looks up. She meets the eyes of Jenny, who is staring at her with a wide grin.

  “Incredible! To think you’re already able to ma a so clearly. Yoing to be an incredible fire mage. What’s your name?”

  “Emily Coldstone of house Mandrago,” Emily responds slightly taken aback by Jenny’s passionate rea, but still remembering her formal introdu and bowing with a hand across her chest.

  She notices Jenny’s gaze darkening for a split sed at her introdu, but her expressiourns to normal almost instantly as she turns and walks back to her podium.

  What was that? Did I do something wrong?

  She looks at the other students in worry and sees a mixture of shod fusion on their faces.

  I guess not. Uhey also don’t know what I did.

  As she begins to calm down, Jenny’s words hit her like a bucket of cold water.

  “Ten points to Emily Coldstone!”