“And here we all thought I was the most interesting,” Coline said to me. “Isabelle, I will pay you however much you want to help me out of this dress so long as you save me from drowning in wool.”
Isabelle laughed again, and I stood to inspect the trunk at the foot of the middle bed. It had to be Emilie’s. The wood was carved with delicate little sea stars and distant ships on ocean waves that must’ve been her home in Côte Verte. Coline let out a loud, unnecessary sigh.
“Thank the Lord.” She gestured for Isabelle to help her. “I was trying to be nice, but we must get you into a dress and—” She eyed me, fingers picking at the seams of her dress. “That actually fits?”
“I don’t really like wearing things like this, so most of the measurements were old.” I flushed. “Is it that bad?”
“Yes,” Coline said. “It is.”
Isabelle grabbed the collar of Coline’s dress. “I don’t think you can tell a comtesse that.”
“She doesn’t care, do you?” Coline smiled. “The des Marais family hasn’t been to court in ages. I quite like that about them, and now I’m curious. Emilie, what is it you want?”
Country girls from Vaser weren’t supposed to want. Country girls from Vaser who were so bad at simply being that even their parents didn’t like them anymore definitely weren’t supposed to want. We were supposed to give.
“I want to study the midnight arts—divination and scrying and illusions. I want to be like Estrel Charron. I want to be the best.”
“What’s stopping you?” Coline asked.
She didn’t understand. No one but people with money had time to be scholars and geniuses. They didn’t have to do anything but what they wanted and pay people to do the rest.
“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing is going to stop me.”
Five
Emilie
The road to university was spotted with merchants. Robin-red packs wobbled atop shoulders and horses, the pungent taste of alchemistry ingredients burning every time a bit of sunlight slipped through the cloth and struck the brown jars. All schools started during the same two-week stretch, allowing those who weren’t handpicked to prove their worth with exams and demonstrations. Fresh-faced priests returning to their churches and young apprentices returning to the chevaliers they trained under walked the road. The first king of Demeine had combined each noble family’s soldiers into a singular military when he took over decades ago—it was how he had been strong enough to become king—and over time, the noble artists who led had adopted the title chevalier. They studied the noonday arts at university before training with the soldiers in Serre.
The university trained a number of people in a multitude of subjects, but it was the medical school, the department that combined the physical knowledge—surgery—with the ethereal magic—physicianry—of the noonday arts, that employed the most applicants. Those without the appropriate family or connections could be assistants for surgeons or hacks for physicians. As artist Emilie Boucher, Annette’s surname would do well enough and using her first would be confusing. I could only be a hack.
“Women can’t do the noonday arts. It’s too dangerous. Their bodies will wear out, and Demeine will die out,” the old masters of magic in Demeine said, refusing to train women in the noonday arts and acting shocked when women died attempting to study them. “See? It killed her. It’s not natural and can’t be done.”
I didn’t need to be a diviner to solve that prophecy.
The head physician, Physician Pièrre du Guay, had to need a hack, and if I proved my worth to him, he would have to realize he was wrong. I would become a physician. They would have no choice but to accept me.
“Clear the road!”
The shout startled me out of my thoughts. Hoofbeats thundered behind me, bearing down, and I sidestepped left. Annette’s skirts tangled around my legs, their thick presence an unfamiliar nuisance, and a chestnut-brown horse cantered past me. The rider was a long-legged slump of a white boy with a smear of inky hair tangled in a half braid. The road before him was crowded with carts and travelers, the people unable to move aside due to the bridge ahead. At least the noble had the decency to stop instead of demanding passage first.
“My apologies.”
Something blew hot air down the back of my neck.
I spun, and a horse nipped at the shoulder of my pack. I clucked, no stranger to nosy rides, and nudged the horse away from my arm. It was a lovely seal-brown flecked with white, and the golden gear gracing its elegant head only made it prettier.
“Salt, stop it.” The rider was clearly noble as well, and he patted Salt’s neck till the horse let out a low-pitched nicker. “He’s a terrible glutton who doesn’t understand everything isn’t for him.”
I swept my skirts back and curtsied. The people of Marais never talked to me unless I spoke first, so I stayed quiet.
“I am sorry about him and my companion,” he said, bowing his head slightly. “Salt didn’t bite you, did he?”
“No, Monsieur. I shall make it to university intact.” I stayed low, legs already bored of the position, and ran through all the noble families my mother had taught me. “Thank you for your concern.”
I let the sound of the last letter hang in the air, so he knew I was waiting for his name and title and not being rude, and he raised the fingers of his right hand. A quick dismissal of propriety.
“University? My second year of medical school begins today.” The boy nudged Salt into a walk and motioned for me to continue as well. He had a long nose and small mouth, and his red hair was loose, curling where the ends brushed the bottom of his shadowed jaw. Freckles peppered his pale skin. “If I may be bold, what are you studying?”
I glanced around. I was the only girl in this crowd, but with so many people around, little could happen to me or be done to me. The thought shuddered through me.
There were far more dangerous things a member of the court could ask a country girl.
“You may,” I said, rising and stepping forward to keep time with the horse. “I would adore being a physician, but will settle for serving Demeine as a hack.”
“How noble of you—settling.” The wild grin he had possessed until now fell. “Good luck.”
Country girls could be hacks, but still, it wasn’t encouraged or favored. Most were shuffled off to study alchemistry or midwifery. Some were even made to study surgery, the bloody practice of healing without magic at all.
“Thank you,” I said in the sweet, soft voice Mother had taught me to use when the answer was one the listener didn’t want to hear. I was not good at talking, slow to catch on to the nuance of it, but my mother had spent years teaching me—watching me practice my smile in the mirror and correcting my inflection until it was perfect. “I appreciate it, Monsieur.”
His lips twitched back up into a smile.
To think my mother believed I possessed no manners.
“Would you like some advice?” he asked.
“It would be much appreciated,” I said, but I wasn’t even sure I believed me.
The noble didn’t look like he did either.
But still, he leaned down over Salt’s back to point to the rider who had run through the crowd. We were only a little ways off from the bridge now, and the three wagons that had been blocking the pack were almost done crossing. “That is the comte de Saillie, and he very much demands people call him ‘Monsieur des Courmers.’ All physicians and apprentices demand their titles be used, except Laurence du Montimer. Call him Physician du Montimer. Never call him monsieur, use grace if he uses it first, and only use his titles if you have to introduce him before a stuffy crowd.”
No wonder my father had hated him. Laurence was a genius, but his position as the king’s nephew could only save him from so much splitting with tradition. Grace was a Vertganan honorific.
He sat back up. “He’s the only
one who doesn’t make people babble during emergencies. It’s so tedious.”
“What about you?” I asked.
He sat back up and shrugged. “Apprentice—I earned that honor.”
“Thank you for the advice,” I said, bowing my head. “Nameless Apprentice.”
He laughed. Then, he took off and caught up with the comte—Sébastien des Courmers if the memory of my lessons served me well—ahead of us. He was reading on horseback, waiting for the bridge to clear. The apprentice who had avoided giving me his name plucked the book, one of du Montimer’s journals by the look of it, from the comte’s hands. They laughed about something and threw back their heads.
If I did convince the university I would make a good physician, would I be free to be so open and fiery like them, or would I be forced to ascribe to the expectations of other ladies in Demeine—quiet, stoic, reserved?
I kept walking. The nobles made it easily over the bridge, the crowd splitting so they could pass, and vanished into the trees surrounding the school. The dense woods were the perfect training grounds, and the town of Delest had grown up around the school in twisting roads and dead-end alleys. The squat wooden buildings of town were crowned by stone spires, and the tallest, designed to channel and store the noonday arts so that the power could be used long after the sun had set, were glittering, gold-plated glass domes. The school commanded the skyline, every eave and tower gilded. I crossed Delest without stopping.
The raised stones over packed dirt of Delest’s roads gave way to dark, damp earth sprouting a carpet of thick grass. I knew this path as well as I knew myself, the descriptions of the university front gates my bedtime stories. I let my fingers fall, feeling the scratch of the grass against my skin, the heat of noon on my face, and the quiver of power in my bones. I neared the fence, the wall of white willows rustling in the wind. The whole field was alight with sparks from their gold leaves.
The world was wild here.
The fence was impassable, the willows too close together and their golden leaves too sharp to reach through.
From beyond the trees, a clock struck noon, and the clamor of the bells rolled over the field. I moved from the side of the fence to the front of the gate.
“Lovely,” I said, fingers skimming the golden bars.
The gate was taller than me, and the thick bars were styled like swords stuck into the earth at my feet, each golden blade bearing the name of the twelve nobles of the sword who had helped the first King Henry take Demeine generations ago: Estienne du Bois, Geoffroi du Montimer, Piers du Vedette, Jehan des Courmers, Simon des Marchand, Adrien du Vale, Léandre des Morsites, Hugh des Rives, Ignace du Ferrant, Henri du Ruse, Jean d’Élan, and there, the sword of Yvain des Marais with its waves emblazoned in vivid blue against the delicately woven guard. Above the swords rested a crown of gold irises inscribed with the name of the first king of the new nation of Demeine, the rubies and garnets making up the letters more fire than stone. A sun rose from the top of the gate.
My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather Yvain from Marais, Chevalier of the Noonday Arts, had sworn an oath to Henry from Rand to serve him forever, and here I was, to serve Demeine.
“Such a gilded threat,” a dry voice next to me said. “I could buy a house for everyone from my town and then some for the amount of gold in this.”
A hand to my right touched the gate, fingers the nimble flick of someone familiar with the noonday arts.
“It was made ages ago,” I said, turning to the speaker. “They had other things on their minds and plenty of money.”
“Gold is gold, and metal can be melted down to make something new and better,” the person beside me said. “I’m Madeline.”
She was far better dressed than me and delicately put together in a way I had never mastered—umber cream lined her hooded eyes, her broad nose was pierced with a small pearl, and her pine-green dress hemmed with silver brought out the warmth of her dark-brown skin. The two-strand twists of her black hair brushed her slim shoulders as she nodded at me. Even that movement felt purposeful and controlled.
“Emilie.” I nodded at her and smiled. She wasn’t wrong; it was unfair of me to let off the university when they could be doing so much more. “I doubt they will ever tear this down, though.”
“Of course they won’t. They couldn’t keep us out, then,” said someone else.
Madeline sighed. “My older brother, Rainier.”
“It was Physician du Guay yesterday,” Rainier said as I turned. “There’s no telling who it will be today. I hear they draw lots.”
He bent at the waist and peered through the blades of the fence. Standing, he was Madeline’s height—only slightly taller than me—but he lacked her easy style. His smile was wide and carefree, but the skin of his lips was dry and cracked, and his white skin was blistering from sunburn. The ends of his sleeves were worn from constant rubbing against a table. Dots of lampblack spotted his hands.
If I looked at Madeline, I felt she knew what she was doing.
If I looked at Rainier, I felt I should instead look to Madeline.
“You were here yesterday?” I asked. “What happened?”
“Showed up. Waited. Got rejected after I mentioned my interest in being a midwife since my mother died in childbirth.” He rolled his eyes to the sky and clucked his tongue. “Stand back a bit. The gate opens on its own, and you don’t want to get knocked out. Doesn’t bode well.”
We stepped back. Soon after, the gate opened slowly, no fanfare or hands, and a figure walked across the stone path to us.
“Two hacks were accepted to study the healing arts and work for physicians, five assistants to surgeons, and a handful to other schools.” Madeline rolled her eyes, the action a perfect mirror to Rainier’s. They shared a father, Madeline had explained while we waited, and Madeline’s mother had adopted the two-year-old Rainier after marrying their father. “I didn’t even bother once I saw it was Physician du Guay.”
“Hacks are required to be tested,” I said, doubt gnawing at my stomach. “It’s a law. The university is fined if it bypasses—”
They both laughed, their identical bright brown eyes crinkling shut.
“Rules are only suggestions when you have enough money to pay the price,” her brother said softly.
“Rainier!” Madeline elbowed him. “Hush. They’ll hear.”
This wasn’t right. This wasn’t right at all. There were rules, there had always been rules, and Demeine lived for them.
“You were laughing.” He rubbed his sunburned cheeks. “You were certainly thinking it.”
“Still.” Madeline held out half of the pastry she had been eating to me. “For luck? Rainier already ate two.”
“I need more luck than you,” he said.
I took the pastry and knocked it against what was left of hers. “For luck.”
I turned back to the gate, took a breath, and ate the pastry in one sticky bite. The ground beyond the gate was a mosaic of gold-flecked white stone, and tulips in every shade of red lined the path. The figure walking toward us wore the pale-orange coat of a physician apprentice. A shock of red hair crowned them.
Oh no.
It was the nameless apprentice.
“Welcome to the University of Star-Blessed Wisdom!” He raised his arms in welcome, the new coat a good fit for his sturdy frame and a terrible fit for his pale complexion. “I am Charles du Ravine, vicomte des Îles Étoilées and second apprentice to Laurence du Montimer, premier prince du sang, duc des Monts Lance, Chevalier of the Noonday Arts, and Physician of the First Order.” Charles paused to take a breath. We were, it seemed, a stuffy crowd. “Physician du Montimer will select the new students to matriculate, and after that, you will begin the initial observation stage, so the masters may bid on which assistants and hacks they wish to employ in their departments.”
Laurence du Montimer had started out as a chevalier’s apprentice in Serre with a sword in hand instead of a scalpel, but it became clear he was far too skilled in the healing arts when he kept his chevalier and fellows alive during a skirmish with Kalthorne ten years ago. Now, he trained physicians in how to heal during natural and mortal-made disasters. He didn’t even use hacks.
“Physician du Montimer is a very busy person,” Charles said, fingers flexing at his side. “Do not argue with him if he rejects you. Come back tomorrow or next year.”
That did send a whisper through the dozen of us here.
“You may, of course, still be accepted in Serre to serve our esteemed chevaliers, however.” Even from a distance, Charles’s scowl was clear. “Now, please form a line. It doesn’t have to be straight, but it needs to ensure we can see you.”
They wanted hacks for the fighting arts to serve chevaliers, not for physicians. Why would Demeine need more of those? We weren’t at war. I tucked myself between Madeline and a lanky giant more long limbs than anything else, and Madeline shoved Rainier between us, muttering about quotas and appearances. A nervous energy twitched down my legs. The giant next to me tapped his toes. Mother would have killed me.
I tapped mine too.
Damn the expectations.
A figure crested the hill in the field behind Charles; he glanced back at it and clapped his hands together.
“We will start here.” Charles gestured to the end of the line farthest from me. “If you have any questions, direct them to me and not Physician du Montimer.”
Laurence du Montimer was reedier than I had envisioned the boy who had trained as a chevalier before becoming a physician, towering over Charles, and thin as the spikes of the gate. His spiral-tight black curls were unbound and tumbling over his shoulders as he walked.
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