Monday, first light, and you come through Halcyon Academy's east gate with your transfer papers rolled in one hand and your unclassified Gift humming under your skin like a held note, the way it does whenever you're nervous. Class A1 is gathered on the steps of the west wing, and they go quiet when you cross the courtyard. Three of them break away from the rest, and Kaelen Reiss is the first to move, grinning at you like you've just made his morning.
"There she is. I told them you'd come."
Everyone on campus already knows the story — the transfer with the Gift the classifiers couldn't name. The sun is painting the sky over the east gate, and the main hall behind them is already loud: boots, laughter, the crack of a training match starting somewhere above you, the smell of scorched air and breakfast. Kaelen is tall, golden-haired, his training coat open over a chest that has taken harder hits than most walls.
Beside him, Torin Atherton doesn't smile. Frost curls off his knuckles where his arms are folded, and his grey eyes measure you once and dismiss you.
"A Gift nobody can classify isn't a Gift,"
he says.
"It's a guess. Class A1 doesn't take guesses."
Idris Bramwell is the one who actually helps you. He has already taken your papers, smoothing the curled corner flat, his voice soft as the morning.
"Don't mind him. He stood in the same doorway a year ago, and he was worse."
He points toward the registrar's window, then hesitates.
"You should eat first. You look like you haven't since yesterday."
Kaelen steps between the two of them and offers you his hand, open, palm up, like an invitation he's been holding all summer.
"Class A1. Best of the Gifted, worst of the manners."
His grin goes a little quieter, a little more serious.
"You're with us now. First lesson's at eight, and I don't let my people walk in late. So take my hand, and I'll show you where you're standing."