My heart sinks like a stone in deep water. Part of me wonders if this will be my last time seeing the academy—if I'll die out here in these murky depths.

We walk with the other water offerings in our best attempt at "swimwear." Since they don't provide us with anything except uniforms and underwear, most of us have simply stripped down to nearly nothing. Some of the guys have just removed their tops and wear the long white slacks we’re given for bottoms.

Weeks of hard training and being fed well is already shaping us into something new. Muscles ripple where they didn't before and stores of fat have melted away, long since burned for energy or survival.

"I look like shit? Thanks," I mutter, stifling another yawn. After Raith's warning, sleep had been impossible. I'd spent half the night trying to decode more of the unbound book, searching for anything that might help me survive whatever waited in the lake. I'd even foolishly crept out of the room and looked for him at the wall, but I haven't seen him again since that first night. When I finally did lie down to sleep, the nightmares came more vividly than ever before.

Worse, when I did finally drift to sleep, Mireen’s “pets” managed to wake me several times. Her single rat has either multiplied or told friends about easy access to food. Our room is now shared by several chittering, scurrying little rats who sometimes climb my bed to sniff my face in my sleep.

Mireen calls it cute. I call it difficult to sleep through.

The eastern sky is just beginning to lighten as we reach the lakeshore, where Primal Sestra waits with several other instructors and groups of older students in black uniforms, either trimmed in aspirant silver or the silver and gold marking them as legacies. Behind them, the lake stretches like black glass, mist curling across its surface in ghostly patterns.

The remaining first-year water offerings gather in nervous clusters, their breath fogging in the cold air. Malakai and his people cluster together, eyes hard and violent as they look at us. Shirtless, I can see just how terrifyingly racked with muscle and power his body is. He looks like he could punch a hole straight through stone, and I know he’s no slouch when it comes to channeling, either.

A ball of worry and anger forms in my chest at his attention. Half of me wants to lift my middle finger and the other half wants to shrink away in fear.

"Waters," Sestra's voice carries across the shore without effort. "Today you face the element that calls to you. Those who pass will continue their journey toward Confluence Day. Those who fail..." She leaves the sentence unfinished, but we all know what failure means here.