The bathroom also contained an area with three vanities for dressing their hair in the mornings. The girls would share a study. In it sat four desks, three large leather armchairs, and matching sofa. All were well worn but clean and comfy. There was even a small fireplace to keep the chill out of the air on winter nights.
The girl’s dorm looked like a three story building on the outside, but when you stepped inside you realized it was much larger. The entire first floor was nothing but kitchens and dining areas. The stained glass from the skylight was so high that you couldn’t even see what the design was from the top of the triple stairway. Mia quickly decided that the red, yellow, and blue glass moved itself around at will.
The dining areas were curious. Some of the tables were giant affairs built for sixty or more, and some of them were tiny single person sitting arrangements meant for sipping a delicate cup of tea while reading a lady-sized book. But most of them were oval or square, mismatched and comfortable, seating four to eight in wooden chairs worn smooth by generations of loving polishing and student derrières.
Once Emma left, Mia fought off her sense of loss by arranging her wardrobe. It shouldn’t have held all the dresses, uniforms, alchemy supplies, and newly acquired books, but she didn’t run out of room. Each time she unpacked an item there was a spot for it ready and waiting. She was beginning to truly understand the appeal of being wanded.
The shiny new professional-grade alchemy cauldron took pride of place on a shelf. She would have the pleasure of transferring it to the classroom tomorrow, but for now she flicked an imaginary bit of fluff off of it. It had an adjustable flame that automatically heated or cooled potions to the proper temperature and a set of matching spoons and ladles. Emma had a gift for flames. Mia didn’t. If she wanted her potions to turn out she needed this cauldron. At least that’s what she’d told Emma in the store begging to be allowed to buy it. Her guardian hadn’t been fooled, but as she had two pounds of leviathan scales in her own basket (at fifteen gold a pound!) she didn’t argue as much as she might have.
Mia hadn’t quite finished unpacking when a girl walked in. She had long, curling brown hair that fell down her back and bright green eyes. She was carrying one bag while a veritable flotilla levitated behind her. She smiled in a friendly sort of way, and walked over to the bed closest to the bathroom. “Has anyone picked this one yet?” Mia shook her head and the girl dumped a large trunk, two small bags and a hard sided case onto the bed with an audible thunk. “I’m Vivian, from Southrun.” Mia introduced herself and didn’t get another word in edgewise for a quarter of an hour. Vivian’s hands were quite as fast as her mouth, which was saying something. She pulled a neat box out of the trunk and stored it on one of the vanities. The hard sided case was placed carefully in wardrobe, for, Mia was informed, it contained all of Vivian’s art supplies. Mia obligingly perused a thick sketchbook while Vivian stowed frock after colorful frock away. Mia quickly realized that either the dresses or case were spelled to prevent wrinkles, because there was no way you could pack clothing that tightly and have it come out that neat unless there was magic involved. Vivian was still unpacking (and still talking) when Sarah, the pale girl from the village home, walked in.
Mia gave her a warm smile as she quickly took possession of the bed closest to the study. Sarah returned it as she quietly deflected Vivian’s probing questions. She carried a single ivory case to the bed. She unpacked quickly, pulling far too many pale dresses and shoes out of the tiny case. That was an expensive piece of wanded magic. Her supplies were removed and stowed with the same efficiency in the wardrobe. Finally, a large, apparently heavy, box was deposited on one of the vanities in the bathroom. She nodded politely to them and headed for the study with a pile of books.
Sarah’s polite rebuffs didn’t cool Vivian’s curiosity in the least. “So the two of you grew up together?” Mia shook her head. “No, she was in the home near my village…but village children and home children…don’t mix often.” Vivian seemed to note the distinction and then continued. Mia was answering a seemingly endless list questions (with honest admissions of ignorance in most cases) when two new girls walked in. They were identical from their matching shiny black shoes to the bright blue ribbons in their hair. They had two pretty smiles on their faces and quickly claimed the beds between Mia and Sarah, since they were the only two side by side. They each dumped an old fashioned suitcase on the bed as the first said “Hello, I’m Lizzy.” And they other dimpled. “I’m Beth.” In unison they exclaimed “not that anyone can tell the difference.” The girls settled in for a nice chat as the twins unpacked, comparing class schedules and life stories. Lizzy had a wicked sense of humor that had all of them laughing within a few minutes. They were still giggling when the last girl walked in.
Her hair was an eye-popping shade of ruby red that cascaded down her back in perfect ringlets. Her skin was that clear creamy color that truly lucky red-headed women are sometimes born with. She entered hesitantly, as if worried that the group might have been laughing at her. Her dark blue eyes were cautious.
Emboldened by the warm reception she’d had from the others, Mia offered a quick introduction. “Hello, I’m Mia, and the brown-headed girl over there is Vivian. The twins are Lizzy and Beth, though I couldn’t tell you which is which at the moment. Sarah’s sleeping in the far bed over there; she’s already in the study.” The redhead smiled tentatively. “I’m Ella.”
She looked around for an empty bed. “Oh, you’re over here between me and Vivian” Mia said helpfully. She pointed to the remaining bed and Ella levitated an old, battered trunk onto the floor beside it.
Vivian announced that she was starving and intended to go down to the kitchen for a snack. Lizzy and Beth murmured to each other for a second and mentioned that they were going to walk around campus a bit to get the lay of the land so they wouldn’t get lost the next morning. Ella began unpacking a few uniforms out of the trunk. Mia could tell that they were secondhand, as were the shabby books that she unpacked afterward. Mia was checking out a map of campus, so she didn’t notice Ella trying to smooth the wrinkles from her shirtwaists at first. When she did, she tossed the other girl a bottle of potion with a nozzle on top. “Try this. My guardian makes it; it takes out wrinkles in a couple of seconds.” Ella carefully sprayed the mixture on one skirt first, and her politely blank face turned to delight while she sprayed the rest of her garments. “Thank you! I would have hated to have shown up all mussed the first day.” Mia grinned; she was pleased that Emma’s potion-making was appreciated even here in the City. “I know what you mean, it’s a bit much isn’t it?” Ella nodded as she finished unpacking.
Mia dumped her heavy book bag off the bed and into the floor. “What subjects are you taking?” Ella looked positively terrified at the idea of class. “I’m taking Healing, Transfiguration, Animal Husbandry, Alchemy, Botany, Music, Astronomy, Charms, History, and Creation this semester.” She said the whole thing in a single breath. Mia tried not to grin and held out her hand. “I’m in all of those as well. If you hand me your schedule we can see if we have them together.” Ella willingly gave Mia the parchment and she compared them. “We’ll be together in all of your classes.” She looked at the other girl a bit shyly “It’ll be nice to have a friend going in.” Ella nodded fervently.
Mia watched quietly while Ella packed her books into an embroidered bag. “Where are you from?” Ella answered in her soft, drawling accent. “My village is south and east, with over a week’s travel by river and then by carriage. It’s a tiny place called Lonely Hold. I live on a farmstead about twenty miles away from the village, or I did until three weeks ago. Basically it’s as far east as you can go and still be inside the City bounds. The college arranged for me to travel up the river on one of the trade freighters.” She brightened as she remembered something about the trip. “They use huge paddles at the back of the boats to move them up the river against the current. A boy who works on the boat told me that a Greatlord had to set the sp
ell on the wheels.”
A total of two hundred and eighty-nine wanded students were beginning college. Mia was one of eighty-three girls. After three years of study, they would take their exit exams and apply for apprenticeships. Only the most talented wand wielders would receive them. The others would find positions as their talents and connections warranted. Roughly seventy percent of the students were male during this portion of their education. But the numbers evened out somewhat during the apprenticeships, with boys taking roughly sixty percent of them and girls snagging a disproportionate forty percent. The percentage of Greatlords and Ladies remained around ten percent of the wanded population, (depending on how many potentials managed to get themselves killed during training).
The life of the average wand wielder was less regulated than that of the Greatlords and Ladies. Positions were offered in a variety of fields, and the wand wielder chose the position that best suited their tastes and skills. If an ordinary wand wielder had a comfortable private income, there was no rule explicitly stating that they had to take any position at all beyond managing whatever estate or investments that provided their income. If a Greatlord and a Greatlady married, the EFC (Expected Family Contribution) rules applied. They basically regulated the number of years that a couple had to work, allowing the partner with the more valuable skill set to take the place of their husband/wife during the years of childrearing.
The subject came up after dinner, while the girls were having a nice chat by the cozy fire in the study. Vivian was expounding on how much more civilized their facilities were in the girls’ dorms. “The boys are sleeping fifteen to a room, with community showers and toilets. They all have to eat at the same time, on long tables in a single dining room, nothing like the lovely little groups we have here. They have a single brightly lit study for each dorm, and they’re required to be there after dinner for two hours! They have six hall monitors on every floor, and three dorm supervisors.”
Mia, who hadn’t seen a single hall monitor in the girl’s dorm looked around. “Do we have hall monitors?” Vivian shook her head. “No, we have laundry pick up and you pull that rope if the room needs to be cleaned, and the curfew charms of course…but all that’s done by old spells integrated into the dorm. The older students are here if we need help, there’s a talking directory on the bottom floor, and of course, we have a dorm mother who organizes all the meals, but we don’t have the supervision the boys do.” Lizzy murmured “Thank goodness.”
Vivian nodded. “I expect they have to keep a sharp eye on the boys, to keep them out of trouble.” Mia privately thought that she could get into just a much trouble as the next person, but she didn’t share that tidbit with her new friends. The entire group was here, sipping tea from a pot they’d brought up after dinner, and nibbling cookies courtesy of Lizzy and Beth’s grandmother. Even Sarah had put down her book long enough to join in.
The talk remained on the subject of boys for another half hour. Mia tried to change the subject once or twice, but the other girls brought it back up. Not having any tact to speak of, Mia asked outright “Why are we talking about them again?”
Vivian gave her a pitying look. “You know that there are more boys here than girls, right?” Mia nodded. “Well, according to my grandmother, right now we just might drown in the attention we’ll get. But after they get out of school, quite a few of them will be heading out to the villages to find a bride. Village girls don’t have a wand, obviously: so they don’t have to give up wanded magic to have babies. They’re more likely to have two or even three children, as opposed to a wanded woman who normally can’t give up magic three times before the wand work makes the couple infertile. So my grandmother says it’s better for a wanded girl to catch someone during the first three years, while there’s not as much competition.”
Sarah nodded, though she looked somewhat taken aback by Vivian’s frank assessment. “My mother agrees. Every boy with the gift for wielding a wand comes to the college. We don’t have the option of marrying a young farmer, not if we want our children to be wanded. Fortunately, many of the young wanded men do realize that we are the most magically powerful girls in the City bounds, so a lot of the old blood boys look here first.”
Mia found herself being interested against her will. “What can you do if you don’t want to marry?” Sarah daintily chose another cookie. “It isn’t much of a life to tell you the truth. I have an aunt who never married. She works on the Magus’ staff doing research eighty hours a week, lives with my grandparents, and still has an allowance because she doesn’t make enough gold in her position to even dress like a Greatlord’s daughter when she does make a social appearance, which isn’t often.”
Mia digested this. “What about Headmistress Villanova?” After all, she was in charge of the magical education of every wanded child in the City bounds. Vivian laughed. “Well, she’s a Greatlady. I might be able to marry that rank, but I won’t score that high on the exit exams, I know I won’t. The college only produces a few students with Great status every graduation. A few test out after their apprenticeship, but there’s a reason why Greatlords and Ladies have special status. All of this doesn’t amount to a hill of beans if you have enough talent.” She looked around inquiringly. “Don’t they assign lands to anyone who tests out for Great status?”
Sarah shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. Normally these things run in families, but I suppose the lands must have been assigned at some point, so the estates must be part of it. The Greatlords are more restricted than normal wand wielders, so I suppose that the City owes them something for everything they do. My grandfather wasn’t allowed to come out to even Forestreach very often, because he’s in charge of the main aqueducts and water treatments. If those spells aren’t preformed correctly, everyone in the City could get sick and even die.”
Vivian topped off her tea cup and levitated the empty pot downstairs. “It’s much better to marry a powerful wand wielder and let them contribute, while you see to the social obligations and the children. Many of the Greatlords don’t allow wanded magic on their estates, except with shielding, and they send their children there to live, if the estates are far enough away from the City, of course.”
Ella asked shyly “How far away from the City is far enough? I saw villages two and three hours from here with children in them.” Sarah nodded. “Yes, but those were village children. Most wanded parents want to make sure their children are at least a day or two away from the City. The City walls have all sorts of spells on them to keep the magic from leaking out, but nobody really trusts that. You find a lot of plants around the walls that are different. You know what I’m talking about, odd colors and sizes. I’ve heard that most birds won’t nest within the City walls. But I think it’s because there’s so much wanded magic going on here all the time.” Mia caught the re-filled tea pot and filled her cup thoughtfully, then passed the pot to Beth.
Talk eventually turned to other things. The girls were discussing career paths when Lizzy piped in. “Our Grandmother is Greatlady Fairchild. She ran the main City Library before mum and dad died when we were three. Then she retired to her estate, took us from the home, and raised us there.” She looked wistfully at Beth. Mia was beginning to be able to tell them apart. Lizzy was more likely to talk, and Beth had a slightly breathier voice. They both had the cultured upper-upper crust accent of the wanded elite (they shared it with Martin Ainsley and Sarah) mixed with a slight hint of the clipped syllables from the northern areas.
Beth sighed. “It was really lovely. The manor house sits by a lake, so clear you can see all the way to the bottom. Grandmother stocked it with fish, so there are streaks of gold and purple...”
Mia leaned over and squeezed Beth’s hand. “I imagine after tomorrow we’ll all be too busy to be homesick.” She glanced at the clock on the mantel. “In fact, we’ll be midnight getting to bed if we don’t start getting ready.”
As the girls got ready for bed, the talk turned to shopping. Vivian’s father was head
of one of the major merchant families, so she knew her way around the marketplaces (she and her mother had spent two weeks in the City shopping before term began). She offered herself as a guide on a shopping expedition on the next rest day. Lizzy and Beth were excited. Their Grandmother had ordered all of their supplies, and so they hadn’t done their own shopping. Ella grimaced. “I wish I’d known you three days ago. I don’t think I did very well haggling for my things…” Vivian smiled and promised to help Ella in the future.
Chapter Five
The next morning the six girls, very much in favor with one another, sat down to breakfast, ate heartily, and walked to class. Botany was one of only three courses that they were all taking. The directory in front of their dorm gave crisp, precise directions, so the girls followed the well marked paths and signs with very little difficulty to greenhouse three.
The professor was unusually wrinkled for a wand wielder, brown from years in the sun with skin the consistency of withered apple. He wore a fawn-colored leather coat six decades out of date and an up to the minute waistcoat and breeches, proving that his wife chose most of his clothing. Crystal notes chimed across the room when it was time for the class to begin. Three boys skidded to a halt just as the last chime rang. The professor made a job of winding his battered pocket watch to give the boys time to catch their breath.
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