Mal woke up, the only thing to greet him being a cold, brown, wooden roof and a bed that felt like hard rock.

  He pushed himself up to a sitting position and rubbed his forehead. His head was pounding, and every one of his limbs hurt.

  Something fell off of his shoulder. A piece of cotton with some kind of strange green liquid soaking it. He looked at the tape on the other side of the cotton and realized that it had been attached to his shoulder.

  He looked down at the area that it’d been attached to to see a small white scar.

  He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Instead, his bare, flabby body was exposed to the world, save for the bandages and cotton balls.

  It clicked in his head.

  He was currently in the medical wing of the school and had been patched up, presumably by a nurse or doctor of some sort.

  The only thing in the room was bed after bed after bed, with a chest at the end of the long room and a shelf full of what looked to be various potions and herbs.

  “They didn’t even have the decency to keep someone here to explain things to me,” he muttered. “Talk about laziness.”

  …had he failed?

  They hadn’t woken him up, could he have somehow lost his chance at admission?

  He needed to get to Central Hall—that was where the results were posted from what he remembered.

  He stepped off of the bed and stumbled forward, barely catching himself.

  His knees were shaking. He reached out a hand toward the other bed to steady himself. After a minute, his legs stopped wobbling, and he felt confident enough to stand up to his full height. He rubbed his arm against his forehead. The sweat was so thick it was almost as if he’d been out in the rain.

  On the other bed, someone had left a set of wizard’s robes. Not only that, but a dress shirt underneath it and pants.

  Mal was fairly certain this belonged to another patient. The bed was unruffled, the clothes were tossed randomly, and based off of the way the center of the bed was depressed, someone had been sleeping there just recently.

  Mal picked up the robe and spread it out in front of himself. It was ragged, low-quality thread with holes and scratches in random places. Not enough to the point where it was unusable, but enough that somebody would assume whoever was wearing it probably only ate lentils for their meals.

  There was a small chance that the person who had been wearing those robes had come down with some sort of sickly disease and that Mal was risking his life by taking it, but he was pretty sure that the doctor or whoever was here would’ve thrown away the shirt if that were the case.

  Mal slid the clothes onto himself one by one. There was no mirror, so he could only hope that he looked at least moderately fashionable.

  He went over to the door and exited out, being greeted by the afternoon sun.

  The first thing he noticed was the central hall building. Dozens of students, some young and some old, were entering in through the grand doors in the front.

  He glanced back at the sun. It was well past noon, so they weren’t coming for lunch.

  His eyes widened. They were coming to see the exam results. That had to be it.

  Mal drew his hood up instinctively and walked as discreetly as he could to the central hall. When he came to the entrance, he was greeted by two imposing double doors. Lined with iron and nearly three times his height, they certainly set a mood.

  To the uninitiated, they were imposing. To those who had been coming here for a long time, they were comforting. Familiar.

  In the first timeline, Mal had entered into the central hall three times a day at a bare minimum. Often more, since this was considered something of a common area at the school.

  To Mal, it was almost devastatingly familiar.

  Students passed by him on the left and right. He realized he’d been standing there for too long.

  He entered in and passed underneath the stone archway. He came out the other side and was greeted by the interior of the building.

  Stained-glass windows allowed in light through the north and the south, both of them marked with a picture of the first hero and Eternus, respectively.

  Instinctively, his hackles raised. Was the heroine among the ones who’d passed the exam? If so, where was she?

  On the ground, three long tables ran perpendicular to the stained-glass windows. They stretched across the entire hall for what felt like a mile, though Mal knew that it was much shorter than that, obviously. Students had already filled a good half of the seats.

  At the end of the hall, a raised section with a long table going horizontally rather than lengthwise like the rest of the tables stood.

  The professor’s table. Underneath that, on the raised section of the platform, there was something of a wall. On that wall, Mal could see various pieces of paper and information attached to a corkboard that had been glued onto the wall.

  The school noticeboard.

  Mal blended in with the other students and took a seat at the far end of one of the tables. A few students took a glance at him in confusion before they shrugged and went back to their own conversations.

  The people who sat here regularly would recognize an outsider like him. But it was fine. This sort of thing happened occasionally. As long as Mal didn’t push it or act weird, he would be fine.

  In the next ten minutes, the hall continued to fill up one after another. Mal licked his lips nervously. What if he wasn’t supposed to be here? Maybe he’d failed so badly that they’d taken him out early.

  Mal cursed his poor memory. He remembered the major players in events, but the fine details of the entrance examination had long since faded away from his mind.

  The stained-glass windows dimmed, and a few of the students gasped dramatically. Mal could tell that they were joking based off of the smiles on their faces.

  With a flash of light, three people appeared at the end of the long hall, atop the raised section of the room. Igna, Vigil…

  Headmaster Puck.

  Mal tensed unconsciously. Even the mere presence of the man was enough to send a shiver down his spine.

  The headmaster’s eyes turned slowly across the room.

  And for just the briefest of seconds, the headmaster’s eyes locked onto Mal’s own.

  In that moment, Mal’s stomach bottomed out. His heart stopped. In that moment, the rest of the world faded away, and there was only Mal and the headmaster’s all-seeing, all-knowing eyes.

  The headmaster’s gaze moved to the next table. The moment was gone as quickly as it had been there.

  Mal’s heart roared back to life.

  Did he know? Had that been on purpose? A warning?

  Mal raised his hand to his lips and bit on the knuckle of his thumb. Was it beyond the scope of possibility that the headmaster had detected a temporal ripple of some sort? If anybody could do it, it would be the headmaster.

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  And then all he would have to do is note that one of his students had done unusually well in the exam.

  I didn’t do that well, he thought. It was a team effort. And besides, Tungstenbirds aren’t that dangerous. All I was aiming for was doing a good job, and I think I succeeded in that. But it wasn’t unusually good.

  Despite his reassurances, the fear didn’t quite go away, and his heart continued to beat at a slightly faster pace than it had been before.

  “Thank you for coming today, students.”

  The headmaster’s voice was low. Normal. As if he were talking to a friend out in the park, not addressing the future of wizardry. Mal noted that the professor had to be using some sort of projection spell in order to get his voice to carry out so far.

  Yet despite that, it seemed to be Igna who was casting the spell, at least if the shimmer in her eyes and the way her hands were glowing were any indication.

  Of course, Mal thought. If the headmaster used too much of his power, he might burst the eardrums of everybody here. I guess the professors didn’t want to risk that. Better to have someone like Igna cast the spell.

  The headmaster smiled, his eyes crinkling. “As all of you know, today we held an examination for the next generation of Exodi Academy.”

  At that, whispers broke out in every direction.

  “Princess Savaly is attending, right?”

  “Apparently she killed a Razorsnake on her own, instantly.”

  “There’s no way she doesn’t get number one.”

  “So then the real fight is for second place. I heard there were five A-ranks this year.”

  “Yeah, one of the fourth-years told me about it.”

  “Did you hear about the Tungstenbird?”

  Mal perked up.

  “Oh yeah, someone took out a Tungstenbird! I saw the corpse myself,” a student said. “They wheeled it in for harvesting.”

  Another student scoffed. “That’s just a rumor. There’s no way some squeaky first-year managed to kill a damned Tungstenbird—”

  The headmaster coughed, and the students all fell silent.

  A flicker of unease twisted in Mal’s stomach. Why were they discussing it? Was it really that big a deal? No, surely not. It was just idle curiosity. They’d forget about it in minutes.

  “Apologies,” the headmaster said. “I seem to have come down with something.”

  Of course, Mal knew that the headmaster was being polite. The cough was clearly a calculated move to cause the students to stop speaking. The headmaster of Exodi Academy didn’t get sick. That wasn’t a thing that happened. Their magical cores were so strong—and thus their bodies—that only the absolute deadliest diseases would have an effect on them.

  The headmaster cleared his throat. “As I was saying, a few short hours ago we held the examination. Those who failed have been sent home, while the remainder are currently waiting outside. As is traditional, they will step in groups. They will then be ranked and assigned to a circle. It is your role to witness this event and welcome your newfound classmates.”

  The headmaster turned to Vigil. “Bring them in.”

  Vigil shut his eyes, and Mal suspected that he’d cast a spell of some sort.

  Three nervous teenagers with shaking knees stepped through the doors. The fourth? Hypode. He rolled his eyes at the other three.

  “Hypode Riant, Emerald Riant, Numa Zorian, and Alex Underhood,” the headmaster said. “Come here.”

  Emerald?

  Yes, he remembered the boy. Lots of potential in a rare branch of runic manipulation. Never got the chance to shine, sadly. Killed during the bombings.

  The group jolted. One by one, they more jittered than walked their way to the front.

  Mal remembered this. He hadn’t been told that he’d been accepted until he came in front of the headmaster. It was a kind of tradition. Once the headmaster had confirmed his entry, then the students had let out a cheer and welcomed him properly.

  Of course, Mal had ruined that his first time through by cussing out the headmaster..

  Mal had absolutely no idea how he hadn’t been expelled in the first timeline.

  Hypode made his way to the front, then walked up the stairs before the headmaster. The headmaster looked at him with a solemn gaze, then nodded.

  “Circle Sparrow.” He smiled and held out his hand for the student to take. “Congratulations, young student.”

  Hypode reached out and shook the headmaster’s hand. At that, the entire student body let out a roar of approval. Loud clapping and shouts of acclamation filled the room to the point where Mal wanted to stop his ears.

  A blue light flashed over their heads, and their assigned ranks and circle appeared as text floating above them. The students looked up in surprise. A split-second later, grey robes teleported onto them, the faint scent of magic following.

  The students stepped down the stairs. The headmaster repeated the process with the three other students. A few students at the front waved them over, gesturing toward empty seats.

  The students looked between the different people and wandered to the closest empty seats. The students made room, and the boy was clapped on the back by one of the older students.

  Above the professor’s table, two large blue windows flashed into existence. The one on the left was labeled “Leaderboard.” The size of the windows was such that even at his far distance, Mal was still able to make out the letters clearly. It was labeled one to forty-nine. The names of the four students occupied four different spots, all within two or three places of each other.

  Meanwhile, on the right, it was instead sorted by circle. The list started from Circle Phoenix, going all the way down to Circle Turkey. The four students’ names were assigned to Circle Sparrow.

  I guess the theme this year is birds, Mal thought to himself.

  One by one, the students were brought in, ranked, and assigned to a circle. The process was slow-going, and Mal found himself sleeping his way through most of it.

  The next interesting one was when none other than Princess Savaly walked in.

  Everyone stopped. Not a single word was spoken, just like with the others, but this time there was a weight to the room that hadn’t been there before.

  Unlike the other students, she didn’t seem nervous in the slightest. She had an easygoing smile on her face and a cool, collected look in her eyes. She walked with purpose, going from one end of the hall all the way up to the headmaster without the slightest hitch in her step.

  She was assigned to Circle Phoenix and given first place.

  After that, a few hesitant claps came out. It seemed like that shocked people out of their stupor, and the crowd roared to life.

  As she walked over with her team to an empty spot on one of the tables, Mal found himself considering the idea of her being the heroine.

  The rest of the students were brought in, and they followed the same pattern.

  As the spots for circles continued to fill up, Mal started to feel a tinge of nervousness.

  They were already halfway through, and Nima, Rolam, and Philo had yet to be brought in. Same with Mal. Not only that, but more and more of the midpoint spots were being taken up. The odds were starting to look extremely good that not only had Mal scored extraordinarily low, perhaps even failed out, but even if he succeeded, what if he ended up being on a team with one of those three?

  Nima would be fine. The boy was fragile and awkward, but not malicious or dangerous. But being in the same circle as any of the Heralds was asking for trouble. Destiny’s threads wrapped around them like a cocoon.

  He supposed that if it came down to it, he would probably rather be put into a circle with Philo than Rolam. The draconid was calmer and easier to deal with than Rolam in all his eccentricities. Still, Mal would much rather not be on a circle with either of them.

  Mal briefly considered the idea of Rolam and Philo being put on the same circle. Whoever else was on that circle would have an absolutely miserable time. He chuckled under his breath. Luckily, he did remember that in the first timeline, they had indeed been on different circles.

  Student after student continued to come in. The slots continued to fill up, and Mal’s name still had yet to be called.

  He was beginning to suspect that he’d outright failed, despite his best efforts.

  Perhaps the older student had been wrong? Maybe they’d changed the criteria since the last exam.

  Spots continued to fill up, but to Mal’s surprise, second place on the leaderboard had yet to be filled. It was only that and a few of the bottom-most leaderboard spots that were unfilled.

  Two more circles left. Nine spots on the leaderboard.

  Mal licked his lips nervously. This was really, really not looking good.

  One of the teams ended up having five people assigned to it.

  This meant that there were only four slots left on the leaderboard with one team left.

  Right as he was about to break out into a full-on panic attack, he was broken out of his thoughts by the sound of the headmaster speaking.

  “Rolam Knilum, Philo, and Nima Blackthorne.”

  Mal swiveled his head to see the three named individuals standing at the entrance. Nima had turned a sickly pale white and seemed to be swaying on his feet. Philo kept a cool expression, but the way his knees were shivering implied to Mal that he wasn’t quite as unaffected as he wanted to seem. Rolam, on the other hand, had a bright and cheery grin stretching from one end of his face to the other.

  “Please approach,” Headmaster Puck said.

  The three walked up the hall and passed by Mal. He licked his dry lips as he watched them. He didn’t exactly see a lot of ways out right now. Either he had failed out, in which case that was an extremely negative thing that would set his plans back significantly, or he had been put onto the same circle as Rolam and Philo.

  A small part of him held out hope that there was an error in the blue windows floating above the professor’s table. Maybe there was an extra team, or perhaps the leaderboard would scroll down, and in fact there were dozens more people entering this year.

  The three students stepped up the stairs and stopped in front of Headmaster Puck.

  “Circle Turkey.” The headmaster reached out his hand for each of the students to take. “Congratulations to all of you.”

  A flash of white light appeared over their heads, and their assigned ranks and circle appeared as text.

  Clapping from the students rang out.

  Their names appeared on the leaderboard. Thirty-six, forty-eight, and forty-nine.

  That left only one spot remaining on the leaderboard. Number two.

  Mal felt a pit sink to the bottom of his stomach. There had to be a mistake. Maybe there was a fifty-first. Maybe this was just the first batch, the first half, and there would be another half of students coming in, of which Mal was supposed to be a part of. Yeah, that made sense—

  “Unfortunately, one of the examinees was unable to be with us here today due to significant strain during the exam. This individual impressed several of the professors, to the point where he received second place on the exam.”

  Mal felt his eyes tear up, and his shoulders slumped. It was over. He waited for the executioner’s axe to come down on his neck.

  “When he is well enough to wake,” Headmaster Puck said. “He will, of course, be informed as to his rank and circle. But for the sake of the sanctity of our traditions, I will inform you all of this person’s name.

  “I speak of Malfrasius Patoal. Let’s wish him well in his recovery.”