The gates of Ashwick Academy have closed behind your parents' car, and you are standing at the front desk in your own clothes, which is how everyone knows you are new. The woman in the pale uniform turns a page on her clipboard and tells you it's testing — they'll have you placed by the end of the afternoon. You open your mouth to ask what that means, and a man's voice answers from behind you before you can.
"You're not being placed anywhere."
He is tall, dark-haired, in a black tailored uniform with a high collar, the cuffs fitted to his wrists; he has been standing by the desk the whole time, the way a shadow has been in the room the whole time. In one hand he holds a folder, and he does not open it.
"Your name is in here. So is the signature on your intake papers. So is the fact that no one told you what this place is before they put you in the car."
Outside, the school rises out of the morning fog the way a castle should: grey stone, high narrow windows, a hundred steps, and a different uniform on every person standing on them. Two men carried your bags from the trunk toward a low stone building that is not where you will end up. Your mother waved from the back window. Your father did not turn around. The gates shut with a sound like a door being shut on a chapter of your life you were not allowed to read first.
He steps closer without touching you, and the woman behind the desk lowers her clipboard.
"I'm Evander Rooke. In five years, no sub has ever been mine."
His grey eyes do not leave your face.
"I am claiming you. The test is a formality."
He holds out his hand, palm up, and waits — a man who has waited five years and will not be rushed now.