Izzi dismissed the servants and clicked the door closed behind them for a moment of privacy. She collapsed into the plush armchair in her reading nook, flicked her fingernails aimlessly across the fabric on the arms where her mother’s elbows had worn it thin, and tried to think clearly. Bright sunshine slanted across her face. She rested her eyes, feeling the warmth on her eyelids. They wanted to stay closed, and she wondered how many hours of sleep she’d actually got. Enough to face her assessment clear eyed? Enough to succeed?

With the summoning charm tickling at her mind like a feather, on top of the lack of sleep, would she even be able to concentrate at all?

She bit into her bottom lip, then put her head in her hands, her silver bangles sliding down her arms. In the clarity of day she told herself the summoning charm could not be real. It was just the wishful scribbling of some long-ago acolyte, with no more power than the notes the cook wrote in the margins of her recipes. She dared a glance over at the spine of the book, shelved again with the journals. Children’s fables. It was all just a stupid prank. Perhaps she had played it on herself. 

But the book seemed to stare back at her. The Waves of a Thousand Oceans. Just trickery to carry her a trap? Or was there still something to unlock there?

If the charm was real, then she certainly would not dare bring an Ifrit into her father’s house, for all that she resented how he had treated her mother. Ifrit djinn were well-known deceivers, with unending powers. It could only end in disaster. 

She looked up at her hand. The scrap of parchment with the scribbled summoning had somehow found itself there. She did not remember taking it out, but that was her hand, and that was the charm—wasn’t it? It was just the lack of sleep. 

It was decided then—she could not leave the dangerous thing unattended. She folded the charm into a long silk headscarf and wrapped it into her hair as usual, leaving only a single red-streaked lock visible. 

She completed her preparations for the day.

✨

Izzi arrived only slightly late, to see Beena with her hands shaking.

“It’s Mogh Kalu,” Beena whispered. “It feels so wrong. The assessment task is—too much.”

Nele looked even smaller than usual. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she said, her eyes still for once, staring at nothing. 

“Oh, come on,” Izzi said in exasperation, grabbed them by the shoulders, and strode forward.

The air crackled with tension. The remaining students, the most gifted, praised and prized from all the youth of Zakra, having won through the ranks from acolyte to novice against all odds, were now huddled together like spring lambs. The meagre glow from the few light shafts made their swarthy skin pale. The extent of the chamber was hidden as always, but a dark shape in carved leather stepped out from behind one of the inscribed pillars.

“Late again Izbel.” Mogh Kalu said, his tufts of white fluffy hair drifting in a manner she dare not find comical at that moment. “No one else wants to stand forward, so you’re first.”

Izzi nodded. She’d rather just get it over with. As she moved toward the others she saw their tenseness become anticipation. They were happy to see a spectacle unfold, if it was at her expense rather than their own.

“Since you are late, I’ll need to repeat: today’s assessment task requires trust and teamwork. You must choose one of your fellow noviciates and channel a water-wile. The spirit must enter and speak through your subject.”

Izzi’s heart started to thump. No wonder the others were spooked. Kalu had mentioned this kind of spirit possession early in the term, as an aside, and then dismissed it as a mere detail. Now he was including it in the assessment?

“You must have the water-wile cast a spell of plenty, replenishing the cisterns of the city. Then you must banish the spirit and safely restore your subject. Be warned, the ritual is delicate, today it is for real, and a misstep could result in dire consequences for your classmate.”

Magister Kalu held out a battered tin cup. “This vessel contains water from the king’s pool above.”

Izzi knew she could do this, at least she knew the spells and how to deal with a wile, but she balked at the idea of having the wile possess one of the class. What if something went wrong? Who would she choose?

She looked at them one by one. It was no surprise none seemed particularly keen. This was not so much about who Izzi trusted, but who trusted her.

“Choose,” said Kalu. “Otherwise, you will be the possesssed subject and I’ll choose another at random to perform the ritual.”

Izzi looked at Beena, with her wide Kythian face, perpetually happy but tiny mouth, and deep-set dark eyes. Those eyes sparked with concern and her lips were tight.

“Do it,” Beena whispered.

It was now or fail, all of her long years of struggle for naught.

Izzi nodded and bowed her head to her friend. Then she reached out and accepted the cup. She passed it to Beena.

“Drink, just a sip.”

Izzi recovered the cup and threw it with the remaining water onto the stones of the floor at their feet. Then she closed her eyes, balanced her mind on the point of a pin, and began the incantation, calling out to the plane of existence where the wiles gathered. In her mind’s eye she saw them swirling around her, ugly and misshapen creatures seemingly made of dirty bedsheets, but they were the wiles of the wind. She looked down to those writhing at her feet. They were finned and floppy, with dark bulbous eyes and the teeth of sharks. Izzi knew she should choose a minor being, but immediately the largest and boldest of them rose up and spoke. 

“Who are YOU to dare the realm of the wiles?” it boomed.