“I can do that?” she exclaimed. “I thought places in the Artificers were only open to people who got recommendations because they were good at math and things like that!”

“You’re getting a recommendation from me, and that’s all it takes,” Stela replied. “They’ll open up a place for you. You can become good at math with practice, but it isn’t every day when someone comes along who can intuit that a bridge is about to collapse. As you yourself pointed out, it would be good to have someone out there who can tell us the points of weakness before something collapses and it would be even better to have someone who knows how to fix those points of weakness before the weaknesses become an issue.” She stood up, and the other two followed her example. “I’ll come talk to you and your parents in the next couple of days, as soon as I can make the arrangements. I’ll see you then. Meanwhile you can go join your family and be the hero of the hour.”

Abi stood up, holding the blanket around her, and clutching her mug of tea. The gray-haired Herald held open the door for all of them, and she made her way back into the Palace and the suite of rooms her family lived in feeling both excited and bemused.

But the moment she got into the corridor leading to their suite, her brother Perry charged down it and enveloped her in a hug. “Holy fire, Abi!” he exclaimed into her hair. “You’re a hero!”

She oofed, the wind knocked out of her for a second. “Is Kat back?” she asked, more concerned about her friend than anything else.

“Yes, and she made Herald Seth go with her to get the apple jelly, so the Queen has every speck of it that there was in the shop.” He hugged her again. “She got soaked, and so did he, but it was worth it, she says. Everyone’s in our great room, so come on.” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her along behind him, too impatient to put up with her sedate walk.

The suite of rooms that Mags and Amily’s family lived in was a bit peculiar, even for the Palace. It was several small rooms surrounding one big one, and the big one was where everyone gathered most of the time. The whole family and all the Royal offspring were there now, most of them clustered around Kat, who by her gestures, was describing the bridge collapse. Her mother, Amily, intercepted her before her siblings could co-opt her; she was still in the semiformal Herald’s Whites that she wore when she was serving at King Stefan’s side. She must have come straight here from the Throne Room.

“How wet are you?” Amily demanded.

“Damp,” Abi admitted. “They gave me this blanket, though, and the classroom where they took me was pretty warm.”