“Small wonder they don’t want me here,” she muttered to herself. Perhaps she should give up, as Professor Mainard suggested. Perhaps this was the work of the Sha—their way of punishing her for her arrogance. With her affinity for runes, she had been sure she’d master Creshen magic, too, but this was beyond anything she could have predicted.

Perhaps she should give up, but . . . she opened her palms, staring at the twin runes painted there. “I can’t,” she whispered and gritted her teeth against her tears. “I can’t,” she ground out again.

Yenni jumped to her feet. She could stay there all day, wasting her second last day at the academy, and still never find Captain Augustin. She hated this feeling, this waiting around. She needed to do something. Where was it Weysh said she might find Captain Augustin? Ah, in town at the pubs.

What was a “pubs”?

Yenni snatched her spear up from the sand. She was about to find out, because she was going into the city to locate Captain Augustin.

15

First, Yenni went back to her suite and studied for a few hours, as according to Weysh she wouldn’t find Captain Augustin at the pubs until nightfall. Besides, she must be fully prepared to start her next semester’s classes, as start them she would.

The sun made its descent and one of the residence maids came and used some Creshen spell to fill her bathtub with warm water. Yenni took a quick bath and changed into her lecture uniform. Not only were the leggings and mage’s coat her best defense against the chill in the air, she’d learned that students often wore their uniforms into town as a sign of prestige. Her stomach rumbled as she slid on her long mage’s coat, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten all day. She grabbed her back-satchel, where she kept all her remaining Creshen money, and slid it on. She might as well buy something to eat while she was out.

She was nervous about using up her stock of runepaint, but under her uniform she’d painted some small runes for speed, strength, and even pain ward, though she didn’t anticipate needing them—it was more a precaution than anything. She eyed her spear leaning against the wall beside her bed. Once, in her Basics of Battle Strategy class, General Sol had told them to avoid carrying weapons into town, or to do so discreetly if they did. It wasn’t illegal, but it was frowned upon, as it tended to make people nervous. Yenni could think of no way to carry her spear into town discreetly, so her knife would have to do. She strapped it to her thigh rather than her arm in order to hide it under the flaps of her mage’s coat.