Yenni answered his questions and they continued on, with Devon interrupting again and again to ask questions about runelore, until finally Yenni realized she would get very little help from him.

She rose. “I’m sorry, Professor, but I have to be going.”

“Oh, so soon?”

She shuffled toward the exit, claiming she had some assignment to complete, then slipped out the door, escaping his office.

“Come back anytime!” Devon called after her.

In the weeks that followed, Yenni spent all her free time studying and practicing, gritting her teeth through frustration and futility. The evening before first quarter exams she met Zui and Harth in the library, though Weysh was nowhere in sight. She hadn’t seen him in over a moonturn, since his outburst when they’d studied together, and she was grateful. True, it would have been useful to have him as a tutor, but not at the price of his harassment.

At the moment she was focusing her attention on Harth’s quill, a bird feather that the Creshens used to write, of all things.

“Here to me by source compelled,” she said as she pulled ach’e. The quill wobbled, but didn’t move.

“No, no,” said Harth. “Uhad’s Retrieving is There to me by source compelled. You’re mixing it up with Meyor’s Repulsion: Here from me by source repelled.”

She looked at Harth helplessly.

“She’s not getting this at all, en?” Harth said to Zui. “You know, when I was in first year, I remember there was a book that was great at giving tips for distinguishing the spells that are similar to each other. What was it . . . oho! Perry’s Spell Compass.”

“I think you mean Perrone’s Incantation Compendium?” asked Zui.

“No, no, I’m sure it was Perry’s Spell Compass. I’ll go find it.” He stood.

“Then it was definitely Perrone’s Incantation Compendium. I’m going with you,” said Zui. The two of them disappeared into the stacks, arguing in whispers.

Yenni would have laughed at them if she wasn’t so frazzled. Her exams were tomorrow. She needed to have simple spells like this mastered.

The two of them came back with a dark-covered book. Perrone’s Incantation Compendium gleamed in gold writing on the front and Zui threw Harth a smug grin. Harth and Zui went over the spells with her as Yenni’s head ached and ached, until at last she stopped them.

“I cannot even read the words on the page anymore,” she admitted. “They’re swimming before my eyes.”

“Then we should call it a night,” Harth said. “All the studying in the world won’t do any good if you’re too tired to recall what you’ve learned. Do you think you’ll be ready for tomorrow?”

“I must be,” she said. “I must pass.”

Zui squeezed her hand. “I believe in you, Yenni Ajani. You can do this.”