Grades clutched in one hand, I knocked with the other on the imposing oak door barring the way to Vespasian’s study. The door wasn’t as impressive as his door at Auvergne House, which with an unlearned eye looked plain enough, but with a sorcerer’s knowledge, every inch of wood was covered in curses for unwary burglars. The study inside likewise paled in comparison.

But the door itself needn’t be imposing, not while Vespasian lurked inside. No curse frightened me more than the man, not even the curse on his desk drawers that melted thieves’ flesh, and I’d experienced that one first hand.

I glanced down at my feet, as if such a meek look could bolster my courage, but that proved to be a mistake. Upon arriving at the townhouse, I had sponged the travel dirt away and changed into fresh civilian’s clothes — a charcoal frock coat and trousers, a starched white cravat, and patent leather shoes. The outfit Vespasian favoured himself — old-fashioned, lacking ostentation, but intimidating and clean. The epitome of manliness.

Except for the scuff on the side of my otherwise gleaming shoe. I cursed under my breath. When had I managed that? It had only been two dozen steps up from my bedroom to the study.

“Enter.”

I stared at the door as if it might bite me, then glanced to the stairs, judging the distance and time to fetch another pair of shoes. But Vespasian had summoned me, and whatever he felt about mussed appearances, he felt doubly about having to wait.

Taking a deep breath and wishing my outfit had transformed me as promised into a man, I entered and closed the door softly as possible.

Like any sorcerer’s abode, the walls of the study were lined with books, some with matching covers sealed with the Travere crest acquired over the centuries by our ancestors, but more were a hodgepodge of different colours of leather and lettering and seals from their former owners.

The maroon velvet curtains were drawn tight against the spring daylight. Sitting squarely in the middle was Vespasian’s enormous ivy-carved desk, the surface bare except for a gold astrolabe with more dials and concentric circles than I’d ever know how to read, and a blank book.

The blank book over which Vespasian bent himself as he filled line after line with methodical and tight script detailing his latest theoretical break-through. Even though we were in the privacy of his study, he wore his cobalt master’s robes.

When the scratching of the pen failed to cease, I asked, “You asked to see me, Father?”

Then immediately I bit my lip. Big mistake. Vespasian didn’t countenance interruptions, especially when he was working. Even if he’d told me to enter, even though he bid me to come see him as soon as seemly.

Vespasian stabbed his pen to make a period, the only sign he’d heard me at all. He continued to write until the end of the page. Only then did he set his pen into the holder, stopper his inkwell and push away the tome. Leaning back in his leather wing-tip chair, he crossed his hands in his lap and looked up at me. Ten rings glittered on his fingers, each housing a unique and powerful spell of Vespasian’s own creation.

I held up my makeshift folded report card in front of me like Le Chasseur’s shield, only Vespasian was no vampire, and the card was only likely to anger him, not defeat him.

Vespasian did not so much as twitch an eyebrow. The last time anyone had claimed we looked like father and son had been while we had still lived in Tutelle. I had only been a lad of five and no one could yet predict the disappointment I would turn into. We had the same brown eyes, similar brown hair, perhaps even the same unassuming straight nose, but my features all came together as soft and bready, while his sharpened him like a knife, looking more the hawk to my hare.

His head twitched, and I took that as a sign he didn’t care to go through the effort of gesturing to me what he wanted, so I crossed the floor to stand before his desk, unfolded the report card and spread it in front of him.

Vespasian glanced down, his eye swiftly taking in my performance. He exhaled, and if he had not been so reserved, I would have said he huffed. No matter how much he claimed me hopeless, he still cared a little. Whether that was a good or bad thing remained to be seen. “So you will at least make it to your last semester.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I suppose that’s as much as I can expect. Actually gaining a grade beyond passing is a bit too much, I understand now.”

“My literature score—”

“Do you honestly expect me to care about something so trifling as your literature score?” Vespasian sighed again, then rubbed the bridge of his nose with both thumbs. “Any ape can write literature, or the barbarians wouldn’t excel at it.”

And we were Fallion, following the footsteps of our gods, none of whom had any care for literature or art or poetry. If we needed any at all, we simply imported it through our vassal city state Venezia.

“But you passed, which is more than I expected,” he continued. “You haven’t completely destroyed all hope for my plan.”

“Master Roux says I have a very good chance at succeeding—”

“Are you finished babbling?” I mashed my lips together. “No, answer me, are you finished?”

I wrung my hands behind my back, glancing down at my scuffed shoe. “Yes, Father.”

“If only you could make a career out of disappointing me.”

The scuff mark seemed illuminated against the leather. How had Vespasian not noticed?

“What do you know about your classmates?” he asked.

My classmates? I glanced up. “Er…” I swallowed, as if that would make my ‘er’ disappear.

Vespasian hurled his pen, striking me square on the cheek with the nib. The pen clattered on the carpet, and covering the sting with my hand, I bent to fetch it and return it to its holder. “I should have been more specific, I suppose. What do you know about Valere Braud?”

I choked, Valere’s chiselled, marble body appearing in my mind, the water trailing down his limbs. Did Vespasian know? Had Valere skipped confronting and beating me to send disgusted words to my father? No, Vespasian couldn’t know. If he did, he wouldn’t have me standing here at parade, but bent over in the cellar to greet his cane.

I took a deep breath, and tried to keep my tone even, although it was a losing battle from the start. “W-what in particular?”

I winced, waiting for his punishment for stuttering, but none came.

“Even you should know that in two weeks the final semester begins at West Ridge. And then just three months later, the new recruits for the guild will be selected.” Vespasian paused to sneer at me. “Everyone at the guild is already gossiping about which senior students will make the cut.”

Meaning the guild had already started reminding Vespasian just how useless his heir was, like picking scabs off healing wounds, just when the newly appointed Guild Master Nix had delivered the most cutting blow. Apparently, I wasn’t even capable of ruining my own reputation correctly. I needed a whole organisation to help me. Perfect.

“I believe it’s time for me to choose an apprentice.”

My jaw dropped. Vespasian — Vespasian was choosing an apprentice? “But you’ve never had an apprentice. You said an apprentice would just slow you down.”

Vespasian grunted, and folded his hands in front of him, leaning on his elbows. But he didn’t reach for his pen to punish me for recounting the obvious. “Yet all those wafflers at the guild hall kept mooning over Nix’s two half-baked apprentices. Sure, they’re clever enough fellows, if one put aside their tastes for a master. One did come up with a rather good addendum to the Refle Law. Of course, they’d be lucky to achieve a quarter of what I have even if they both lived to the century mark, but apparently that doesn’t matter to the guild. Training the next generation of sorcerers is apparently so much more important. As if Le Savant would waste his time training dribbling apprentices.”

“He trained Oswin,” I said.

“Oswin was his constant companion.”

“He trained the first sorcerers,” I said, “and founded West Ridge.”

“And just think what knowledge we lost out on because he wasted his time thus,” Vespasian said. “But never mind that. I need to take on an apprentice, one who is so clever he outshines all of Nix’s. One that will make the guild forget Nix even has any.”

Someone who wasn’t me, he meant.

I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. “Ashley Hayworthy is top of our class.”

“Thank you for that thrilling recount of widely available information. I know Hayworthy is at the top. I am considering him, but he’s a classic overachiever. Everyone is expecting him, and already bickering about who will be his master. Braud, on the other hand, is a mystery. He has the grades, but no one knows quite what to expect from him, if they’ve noticed him at all. No one even knows who his family is. So tell me about him.”

“H-he’s quiet,” I said.

“Oh, he’s quiet? Well then, decision made!” Vespasian snorted. “Honestly, eight years at school with this boy and that’s all you can say?”

My eyes dropped. If I’d even noticed Valere before last summer break, I didn’t remember it. Since then… Vespasian certainly didn’t care for those kinds of observances. “Because he’s quiet.”

Vespasian sighed. “You do understand how important this is, don’t you?”

“I… I can be your apprentice.”

Vespasian barked — no wait, that was a shocked laugh.

“I can,” I said. “I only need to surpass the thesis project. They’ll admit me to the guild and—”

“Only?”

Well, yes, when said like that, it did seem a rather impossible word. I tightened my hands into fists to steady myself. “A thesis project that will knock all the sorcerers off their feet,” I added. “You wanted unexpected. Who would be more unexpected than I?”

“There’s a vast chasm between unexpected and completely impossible.”

“I can do it — I can make you proud—”

“No, you cannot.” Vespasian banged his hand against the table. The sound reverberated around in my head, as final as a door slamming in my face. “But what you can do is associate with this Braud and report back to me everything he does.”

“E-everything?”

“The consequential details,” he said. “You are, of course, not allowed to let him become suspicious of your motives. He must never know I asked you to do this.”

I stared at him. Associating with Valere seemed very, very dangerous.

“You will be properly compensated, of course,” he continued. “I will grant you that little farmhouse on the corner of Auvergne, if you meet my expectations.”

“Compensated?” I didn’t wish to be compensated. I wanted to make Vespasian proud — I wanted to be his apprentice.

“Yes, compensated. Do try to keep up. After you fail to get into the guild, you’ll need something.”

“I’ll get into the guild.” Hang everything else, I would do anything to get accepted. To make Vespasian proud.

His slanted look told me I overreached, but he didn’t say it aloud. Instead, he stood to dismiss me. As if I had already agreed.

“Only…” I started.

“Only what?”

“Only…” I had to think of something, some way out of this, and I couldn’t mention my earlier indiscretion. If Valere had noticed, what would he think if I suddenly tried to become friends with him? “Only if he’s right to be your apprentice, won’t he think I’m too dull to stand?”

“Yes, I have thought of that.” Of course he had. Vespasian would never think for a moment that someone clever would want anything to do with me if they didn’t have to. “I’ve made arrangements.”

“But—”

Vespasian raised his eyebrows.

“Yes, sir.”

Vespasian opened a desk drawer and withdrew a switch. “Now pull down your trousers. I think ten lashes for your miserable grades should suffice. Oh, and an extra two for the scuffed shoes.”

But at least he acknowledged me. That was something.