SMASH or PASS

Results were posted three days later. Academy notice board. Behind glass. Two hundred names in ranked order.

A crowd of applicants pressed against the glass, scanning for their names. Some cheered. Some sagged. One woman burst into tears and was comforted by three friends who all looked relieved that they’d passed and guilty that she hadn’t.

I found my name near the bottom. Third from last. Above someone named "Rinelle Voss" who’d scored lower on the written exam by two points and whose practical was marginally better than mine because her crystal flicker had lasted two seconds instead of one and a half.

Written score: 97th percentile.

Practical score: 1st percentile from the bottom.

Combined score: passing. With an asterisk. The asterisk indicated "sponsored admission (political recommendation)."

Everyone could see the asterisk. It was printed beside my name in smaller font, a typographical footnote that shouted louder than the name itself. Every student who checked the board would know. The professors who reviewed the list would know. The administrative staff who processed enrollment would know.

The baron’s ward. Lowest mana output in history. Highest written score. Political admission. Asterisk.

I stood at the board reading the numbers while other applicants milled around me. Two women nearby were comparing rankings.

"Where are you? I’m 143rd."

"89th! I can’t believe it. My practical was terrible."

"Better than the commoner guy. Did you see his score? Bottom 1%."

"How did he even get in?"

"A fucking asterisk. Baron Vellmont."

"Oh. THAT explains it." They exchanged a look that combined sympathy and judgment in equal proportion.

I took the acceptance packet from the registrar’s office. Class schedule. Orientation date. Dormitory assignment (declined, I was keeping my apartment). A note about uniform fitting Tuesday at 9 AM.

Fenra was outside the gate. She couldn’t enter the campus grounds. She was sitting by the gatepost, ears forward, watching every person who came through. She’d been sitting there for an hour, patient, motionless, the way a wolfkin waited. Totally still until the thing she was waiting for appeared, then completely focused.

When she saw me with the acceptance packet, her tail wagged. Once. Twice. She caught herself and stopped. But she stood up. She walked toward me. She pressed her nose against the hand holding the packet. Warm breath against my knuckles.

"I got in."

She looked at the packet. She looked at me. Her ears softened for a quarter of a second. Then she caught herself on that too.

Two wags. Soft ears. The acceptance packet.

Progress measured in involuntary wolfkin responses.

Pixia read the results from my collar. "97th percentile written. 1st percentile practical. You’re simultaneously the smartest and weakest student in the incoming class. This is going to be extraordinary. For me."

I picked up my uniforms the following afternoon. Two sets. Dark fabric. Brass buttons. Academy crest on the left chest: an open book with a mana crystal above it. The tailor had adjusted the cut as promised. They fit better than anything I’d worn since arriving in Solvraeth, which wasn’t saying much because everything I’d worn since arriving in Solvraeth had been purchased for utility, not appearance.

"You look like a student," Pixia said, examining the uniform from my collar.

"I am a student."

"You look like a student who doesn’t know he’s about to walk into a room with two hundred women who’ve been told that one of the three men in their class is a commoner with no family protection and no political shield." She kicked her legs. "The other two have intelligence services and notarized proposals. You have a cloudy crystal and a recommendation letter with an asterisk. This is going to be a slaughter."

"Thanks for the encouragement."

"Encouragement is for people who can change their circumstances. Your circumstances are fixed. The 99:1 ratio doesn’t bend because you’re uncomfortable with the attention it generates." She dimmed slightly. "You could always withdraw."

"I can’t. I spent fifteen gold on the entrance fee. That’s Helena’s gold. Withdrawing would mean I did what I did for nothing."

"Then you can’t withdraw. Stop thinking about it and start planning for it." She brightened again. "Think of the academy as an environment. Every environment has rules, patterns, and people who operate within them. The farm had rules. The Patchwork had rules. The academy has rules too. Learn them. Map the patterns. File every person you meet."

"And the two hundred women who want to fuck me?"

"File them too. Everything is data. Even the uncomfortable things."

The morning of the first day, I put on the uniform, checked the schedule (Mana Theory first period, Combat Fundamentals second, History of the Covenant third), packed my bag with the textbooks and the cloudy crystal, and walked to the academy.

The route from my apartment to the campus took forty-two minutes on foot. Through the market district, past the guild hall where Yenna would be processing contracts at window three (she saw me through the window in my academy uniform and her tail did a visible double-tap), along the merchant quarter’s main road where the shopkeepers were opening their stalls, and up Academy Hill.

The hill was intentional. The academy sat above the city. You had to climb to reach it. Some asshole, centuries ago, had decided that education should require physical effort to access. The climb took seven minutes at a normal pace. By the top, I was aware of the altitude difference. Brannock stretched below: the market district’s colorful stalls, the guild hall’s stone facade, the Patchwork’s narrow streets visible in the northeast, and beyond everything, the Outer Rampart’s dark line against the horizon.

Fenra walked beside me. She couldn’t enter the campus grounds. Companion animals weren’t permitted in the academic zone. But she walked me to the gate every morning and waited at the gatepost until I came out. This was her version of compromise. She was still cold. Still maintaining distance on the bed. Still not cuddling. But she walked me to school. Every morning. Without being asked. Without being told.

It was the wolfkin equivalent of "I’m angry with you but I’m still here."

At the gate, she pressed her nose against my hand. Brief. One second of warm breath against my knuckles. Then she sat down by the gatepost, ears forward, and watched me walk through.

I didn’t look back. She didn’t need me to. She knew I knew she was gonna stay there.

◇◇◇

First day.

I entered the main lecture hall.

The main lecture hall was a semicircular amphitheater. Two hundred seats in tiered rows rising from a central podium. High windows. Morning light. A building designed to make you feel small and educated simultaneously.

One hundred and ninety-seven of the seats were occupied by women.

Three were occupied by men.

There were only three men. In the entire incoming class.

"..."

The other two were already seated. They must have found each other by instinct. Like the last two people at a party who don’t know anyone always end up in the same corner.

Both were doing the thing where you pretend to read your class schedule while actually monitoring every entrance.

One was shy and nervous, fiddling with a pen. The other was stocky and calm, with a face that said he’d been through this shit before.

He looked at me. His expression performed a rapid evaluation: clothing (standard, unaltered), posture (not noble), crystal (visible in my bag, cloudy), overall presentation (commoner). The evaluation took two seconds. The result raised his chin half an inch.

"You must be the third one." His fucking voice was tailored too, apparently. "The commoner."

"That’s me." Yay!

"Dorian. House Lysander. Fourth-generation academy legacy. My great-grandmother sat in this hall. My grandmother sat in this hall. My mother sat in this hall." He adjusted his cuffs. The adjustment was habitual, precise, performed without looking. "I expected the third male to be from a minor house at minimum. A ward is... unusual."

"Ward of House Vellmont."

"Vellmont." He processed the name. "Minor nobility. Shipping interests. Baron Vellmont’s political weight is adequate for admission but insufficient for actual standing. Your recommendation letter will open the door. It will not furnish the room." He looked me up and down one final time. "The women here will come for you because you have no family to negotiate through. A noble’s daughter approaches me through formal channels. Her mother contacts my mother. Terms are discussed. Boundaries are set. You have none of that."

Wow. That’s news for me.

"Thanks for the warning." I said sarcastically.

"It isn’t a warning. It’s a description. What you do with the description is your concern." He returned to his schedule.

The other man leaned across the empty seat between them. He had dark hair. His uniform fit badly because his shoulders were wider than the standard cut and he hadn’t bothered to get it adjusted. His face was open, mobile, currently displaying something between sympathy and the look you’d give a person walking toward a cliff.

"I’m Cassius. House Merival. Third son. Nobody cares about the third son." He offered a handshake. I took it. Firm grip. Callused palms. Not a desk-sitter. "Dorian’s not wrong, unfortunately. Everything he said about the approaches is accurate. The noble families position their daughters at the academy to ’establish connections’ with male students. For Dorian and me, that means formal proposals with notarized terms and chaperoned introductions. Our families handle the politics."

"And for me?"

"No family. No protocols. No shield." He rubbed the back of his neck. "They’ll skip formality and come at you direct. No chaperone. No terms. No negotiation. Just a woman in a hallway asking if you want to study together in a room with a lock."

"Has that happened to you?"

"I transferred from Ashenmere Academy last year. We had two male students there. One of them quit. QUIT. Because a group of third-year students figured out his class schedule and waited for him outside every door." He shook his head. "He couldn’t walk between lectures without being intercepted. The faculty didn’t intervene because technically nobody was threatening him. They were just... persistently present... Untill they gangraped him."