Chapter 1155: The List Belongs to Everyone

The first ranking column began to load.

That accomplished what the Academy’s explanations had failed to do all morning.

The corridor moved.

Students who had been leaning against walls straightened. Those farther back pressed forward, while those already near the panel discovered they could apparently stand another half-step closer.

Someone brushed Elara’s shoulder from behind.

"Could you move a little?"

"There is nowhere to move unless you want me to climb the pillar."

A third student solved the disagreement by squeezing between them anyway.

Beside Elara, Mireilla had somehow abandoned the support pillar she had occupied all morning and now stood almost level with the front row.

Elara glanced at her.

"I can complain and still want to see," Mireilla said.

Fair enough.

Even Elayne had drifted closer without comment.

Pale lines divided the projection.

RANK.

STUDENT.

PRIMARY BLOCK.

The first number appeared.

1.

A letter began forming beside it.

Then vanished.

The projection twitched.

Another 1 appeared directly beneath the first.

The heading stretched sideways until half of PRIMARY BLOCK disappeared beyond the edge of the panel.

The corridor went quiet.

The entire projection flashed white.

Several students recoiled as the ranking table collapsed into overlapping lines.

"What did you do?"

"I didn’t do anything!"

"You were touching it."

"I was touching the wall."

"The display is in the wall!"

Accusations spread considerably faster than the rankings had.

Then every rune went dark.

The collective groan that followed carried through the residence entrance.

A nearby door opened.

"What now?"

An older woman in the dark robes of residential staff stepped into the corridor, one sleeve already pushed halfway up her arm. Gray threaded her hair at the temples. A younger attendant followed close behind her, looking considerably less pleased to see the dead projection.

"It wasn’t doing that when I initialized it," the attendant said.

The older woman stopped before the panel. "No. It waited until you finished."

"I followed the sequence."

"You tangled the outer feed with the residence register."

The attendant stared at her.

The older woman pointed toward a rune glowing faintly red along the lower frame.

The attendant looked at it.

Then very deliberately looked elsewhere.

A few students laughed.

"Move."

She moved.

Mireilla leaned slightly toward Elara. "Does this happen often?"

"How would I know?"

"Every year," the older woman answered without turning around.

That drew another round of laughter.

She pressed two fingers against the frame. Several runes brightened, one sputtered, and the projection returned long enough to display half of the Academy Credit notice sideways.

Then it died again.

The woman regarded the wall for a moment.

"Wonderful."

The younger attendant reached for the lower rune.

"Don’t."

Her hand stopped.

"I was going to stabilize it."

"You were going to make me start again."

The hand withdrew.

Another residence worker arrived carrying a stack of folded correspondence and slowed at the sight of nearly the entire corridor standing around a dead wall.

"You do know your Academy cards are being delivered this morning?"

A few students turned toward her.

Most remained exactly where they were.

"Your rank will be on them," she continued. "Credits, Primary Block, residence assignment, remedial requirements. Everything."

"When?"

"Before noon."

A dissatisfied murmur answered her.

The woman looked toward the morning light beyond the walkway. "It isn’t even nine."

Nobody moved.

"We want the list," someone near the front said.

The staff member stared at them.

"The list?"

Several people nodded.

Elara understood.

A private Academy record told a student what they had accomplished: scores, requirements, Credits, placement. It answered the practical question of how well they had performed.

The public ranking served another purpose entirely.

It told them how everyone else had performed.

After days of sitting the same examinations, hearing rumors and comparing performances they had only partly witnessed, nobody wanted a number without knowing what stood above or below it. The public list turned individual results into standing.

A card belonged to one student.

The list belonged to everyone.

Apparently that distinction was enough to keep an entire residence gathered around a malfunctioning wall.

Selphine glanced toward Elayne. "You’ve moved."

Elayne looked at her. "No."

Mireilla pointed toward the pillar several steps behind them. "You were there."

Elayne followed her finger, considered the evidence, then returned her attention to the panel.

She offered no defense.

The older woman finally pulled a narrow metal stylus from her robe.

"All right."

She cut through one glowing connection and tapped three others.

The Academy crest returned.

Groans immediately followed.

"Oh, come on."

"Please don’t start from the beginning."

The woman looked over her shoulder. "I can."

Silence descended with remarkable efficiency.

Satisfied, she touched the stylus to the projection.

EXAMINATION PERIOD — FINAL RECORD CONSOLIDATION

Swipe.

Gone.

PRIMARY BLOCK ASSIGNMENT PROCEDURES

Gone.

ACADEMY CREDIT ALLOCATION AND REGISTRATION

Gone.

The next notice barely managed to display REMEDIAL REQUIRE— before she removed that one too.

Mireilla watched with increasing approval. "I like her."

Selphine glanced over. "Do you know her name?"

"No."

The final notice disappeared.

The runes settled.

Then a new heading formed.

FINAL FIRST-YEAR EXAMINATION RANKINGS

Nobody complained.

The older woman tapped the last rune.

Columns unfolded across the panel.

RANK — STUDENT — PRIMARY BLOCK

A second heading appeared above them.

MAGICIANS’ BLOCK

That caused almost as much confusion as the malfunction.

"They’re separated?"

"I thought there was one freshman ranking."

"What about the Martial Arts Block?"

Questions traveled through the corridor as students reconsidered two days of predictions built around a single Academy-wide list.

Mireilla frowned. "That would have been useful to know before the weekend."

Selphine’s attention remained on the projection. "They may have assumed we knew."

Mireilla looked personally offended by the suggestion.

Elara found the separation reasonable enough.

The examinations had shared a common structure, but Primary Blocks emphasized different competencies. A mage’s theoretical and structural evaluations could not be cleanly compared against a swordsman’s Weaponship performance and reduced into one useful institutional order. The Academy ranked students against those pursuing the same primary curriculum.

The first row completed itself.

1 — THALOR DRAYCOTT

Recognition moved through the corridor almost immediately.

The South’s Warden. House Draycott. The Golden Prodigy of the Magic Tower.

Mireilla studied the reactions. "Nobody seems surprised."

They weren’t given much time to discuss it.

2 — LUCIEN LYSANDRA

That produced a louder response.

"The Crown Prince is second?"

"To Draycott?"

Apparently some people found that result considerably more entertaining than others.

The next two placements passed before the fifth row formed.

5 — ISOLDE VALORIA

Elara’s attention stopped.

Fifth.

The number sat beside Isolde’s name without ceremony.

Around her, whispers shifted toward the Lorian delegation and House Valoria. Someone remarked that fifth was extraordinarily high for an exchange student.

Elara kept her eyes on the board.

Two more names passed.

Then—

8 — ELOWYN CAERLIN

Seeing the borrowed name written across the Academy projection felt strangely different from hearing it spoken.

Eighth.

Mireilla turned toward her. "You don’t look surprised."

Elara kept reading. "Would looking surprised improve the ranking?"

Mireilla considered that. "Probably not."

Behind them, the Caerlin name had begun attracting quieter questions. Some students recognized her from the examinations; others followed pointed fingers until they found Elara standing near the front.

She ignored them.

The board continued.

12 — ADRIAN LORIAN

The prince’s placement drew another murmur before ranks thirteen and fourteen passed.

Then—

15 — SELPHINE ELOWEN

Mireilla immediately looked at Selphine.

Selphine studied the number. "Fifteenth."

"You can read."

"I was confirming it."

"For that long?"

"Thoroughly."

Elara’s lips curved.

Selphine caught it. "You are eighth. I recommend restraint."

"I haven’t said anything."

"That is making it worse."

The projection continued before Mireilla could contribute.

18 — AURELIAN MARROWIND

Someone near the back predicted that Aurelian would complain.

Selphine finally looked amused. "He will."

"About eighteenth?"

"About the Academy placing seventeen people above him."

That sounded entirely possible.

Past the first twenty, the board began moving faster. Names Elara barely knew flowed through the projection, interrupted by scattered cheers, disappointed muttering, and friends calling placements toward those who could not see.

Then the twenty-seventh row appeared.

27 — PRISCILLA LYSANDRA

The corridor hesitated.

"The Princess?"

"Twenty-seventh?"

The number attracted more discussion than several higher placements combined.

Expectation had a peculiar effect on rankings. A position could be respectable until someone’s name made everyone decide it ought to have been higher.

Priscilla’s title did most of that work by itself.

The board continued without concern for imperial dignity.

At thirty-four came another familiar name.

34 — MARIAN CAELIS

Then the numbers moved downward until Mireilla gradually stopped commenting.

Elara noticed before the fortieth row appeared.

40 — MIREILLA DANE

Mireilla stared at it.

"Fortieth."

Selphine looked toward her. "You can read."

Mireilla turned very slowly.

Elara looked away before she laughed.

"That was unnecessary."

"I was confirming it."

"You are both terrible."

Elayne’s mouth shifted faintly.

Mireilla caught that too. "You as well?"

"I said nothing."

Which was true enough.

The board carried on.

When 49 — TOVEN VINTRELL appeared, Mireilla’s irritation gave way to recognition.

"Toven."

Elara knew him as well. Another of the Special Admission students, the lightning mage whose output had already forced the Academy to accommodate specialized equipment.

Forty-ninth.

The remaining names passed quickly.

By then the corridor had changed completely. Students who had originally waited only for their own placements were searching for friends, rivals, famous names, and anyone whose result contradicted the confident predictions made over the weekend.

The ranking board had become what the private records never could.

Public comparison.

Mireilla folded her arms. "So we spent two days predicting one ranking that never existed."

"That appears to be the case," Selphine said.

"And the Academy thought everyone knew."

"They probably did."

"That is worse."

Elara barely heard them.

Her gaze had returned toward the fixed portion at the top of the projection.

Thalor Draycott.

Lucien Lysandra.

Farther beneath them—

Isolde Valoria.

Fifth.

Then her own name.

Eighth.

Three places.

The number lingered longer than she wanted it to.

Before she could examine why, the Magicians’ Block list reached its end and cleared from the projection.

Runes shifted.

A new heading began to form.