Several queues formed under the branches, making Liska wonder what they could be up to. Her curiosity was answered when platforms began to descend from the branches above. As soon as they touched the ground, mages swarmed into them, filling them to bursting, before they were winched back up into the clouds of leaves. Up, down, up, down, the lifts began to work non-stop, the sound of creaking ropes even louder than the chattering of the mages.

How ridiculous, Liska thought. I could fly up there in a few heartbeats. And they think us shapewalkers are backward.

She watched several younger mages arrive with their parents, waving them goodbye before heading into the school building. Her new classmates. Most likely her new enemies.

A wave of dread washed over her at the sight but she fought it back, hopping down from the root and shifting shape as she landed. Time for school, she thought to herself and headed in.

*

Once inside the building, she found the class was being held in a wooden hall full of thick beams and pillars, carved all over with leaves and vines. Peering through the doorway, she could see that desks filled the floorspace, arranged in rows, and there were windows along each side that let in streaks of dust-filled sunlight.

To Liska, used to mountain tops and rooms built from age-old slabs of stone, it seemed stuffy and small. The smell of wood was overpowering, mixed with chalk, varnish and parchment.

At the front was a blackboard with a diagram of the Undrentree drawn in green. Labels and bits of writing were scrawled all around it, but Liska had never been very good at reading. She knew her letters and could struggle through a simple book, but the words had a habit of jumping around on her that made her head hurt and her patience fray. She was much better at fighting and being disobedient.

An old sapsmith was standing at the front of the class, introducing himself. Apparently his name was Master Ambrose and he was to be their teacher. He had a bald head, straggly white beard and robes of gold and yellow. At least three necklaces of amber fragments hung around his neck, clinking and rattling as he walked. His eyes were watery and weak, and his voice trembly. The kind of voice Liska could very quickly fall asleep listening to.

She had another peep around the classroom.

There were twenty or so students wearing mage robes of all the different circles. Like the city itself, there seemed to be an order of where they sat.

The arbomancers had taken the front seats, closest to the teacher. Silver-robed stormsingers were behind them, then the barkmages and so on . . . all the way to the mossherders in their robes of green.