15th of Last Bloom, 3527

Juniper turned the page of her exam to check her answers one last time when a loose note flitted away. It sailed languidly through the air and with each turn, Juniper’s face went one shade whiter, until the note eventually came to rest next to her foot.

She immediately stamped down on the note, and her mind whirled as she tried to figure out where it had come from. The last thing she needed right now was for the infamous Professor Reid to think she had a cheat sheet on her.

Tentatively lifting her foot, Juniper sneaked a glance at the offending paper. The note was folded and blank on the outside. This all but confirmed she hadn’t been that careless as to accidentally bring her notes with her–she loathed to waste good paper, and her study notes were always written front and back in her characteristic tight script.

Had someone slipped it in her papers to try to get her into trouble? Juniper wasn't the most well-liked among her peers, that was true, but she didn’t think anyone disliked her enough to frame her for an academic infraction. Even Varis and his posse had only ever snubbed her.

She risked a look around the room, but among the class of second-year students, none seemed to be paying any attention to her. A given, considering this particular midterm was worth a quarter of their grade for Thermodynamics, and getting a good grade was crucial if they wanted to continue into the next year. Or if they wanted to lob fireballs with any real power behind them. Juniper was pretty sure that was the primary motivation for at least half the class.

The question of who’d planted the note aside, she needed to be rid of it before it put her on the spot. Making sure the Professor was not looking in her direction, Juniper pushed her pencil off the desk, which tumbled noisily to the floor. Pretending to tsk in annoyance, she bent over, lifting the pencil and palming the note with the grace of a practiced pickpocket.

Which, of course, she was. Not that anyone at the Academy knew about her checkered past.

Another glance around the room assured her that she'd aroused no suspicion. Juniper smiled inwardly, pocketing the note as she finally let out a breath of relief. With the mystery note out of the way, she could finally double-check her answers again and turn in her exam.

Five minutes later, Juniper was walking down to the Professor’s desk, trying to project more confidence than she truly felt.

“Already done?” he asked quietly, glancing at her over his eyeglasses.

“Yes, sir,” Juniper replied, regaining a bit of her courage. She was, as usual, the first to finish. It was something she took pride in.

“Hm.” Professor Reid looked over the papers for a fraction of a second. “Very well. You may go.”

As soon as she’d left the classroom, Juniper immediately rested her head against the wall, sliding down to the floor, relieved. She received a few amused glances from a pack of older students passing by, but nothing judgemental. The midterms were known to bring out the weirdness out of people.

At least now she could see what the note was all about. It unfolded neatly, revealing…

Nothing.

“Wait, really?” Juniper muttered to herself. “All that for a blank fucking note?”

She couldn’t help it. Juniper laughed.

She looked closer, giving the note a sniff as if trying to uncover its secrets. “Someone must be getting one hell of a kick out of making fun of the charity case. And wait… is that a dot?”

And indeed it was. What she’d originally thought to be a defect in the paper was, in fact, a single dot of ink.

“Well, that was stupid.”

“What, sitting down in the middle of the hallway? Because, yeah, that does make you look pretty stupid,” a girlish voice said, causing Juniper to jump to her feet in surprise.

The surprise was short-lived as Juniper’s brain caught up to her and she recognized her roommate and best friend at the academy, Evangeline Hale, or Evie, as she was known to her friends.

“Oh, it’s just you.”

“Just me,” the girl echoed. “Gotta say, June, you really know how to make a friend feel wanted.”

“Sorry,” Juniper said, “just caught me at a bad moment. Hey, can you take a look at this?”

Evie flipped the note over, raising an eyebrow. “A blank note?”

“There’s a dot on it.”

Evie squinted. “So there is. Is there anything special about this note?”

“I was hoping you might know. Someone slipped it in with my papers.”

Evie’s eyebrows rose even further. “Why would anyone slip you a blank note?”

“A dotted note,” Juniper corrected.

“A dotted note,” Evie repeated. She motioned with her head, and the two young women began walking towards their room. “Still, why?”

“That’s the question.”

“Have you tried divining it?”

“I haven’t,” Juniper said after a pause. “It didn’t seem magicked at first glance.”

Evie covered her mouth in mock outrage. “Don’t let Professor Fye hear you say that.”

Juniper snorted. “Professor Fye probably divines her coffee cup each morning to check for mimics. I can live with her scorn. Still,” Juniper said thoughtfully, “that’s a good tip. I’ll check it out at the dorm.”

“You do that. Maybe it’s a secret admirer,” Evie said thoughtfully. “Or maybe you’ve just gotten forgetful in your old age. Yeah, that’s more likely.”

“You bat,” Juniper said playfully. “You’re only one month younger than me.”

“Yes, but you’re twenty, while I’m only nineteen. That makes you practically a hag–ow!”

Juniper grinned as she landed a lightning-quick elbow in her friend’s ribs. “Not so spry in your old age, either, hm?”

“Fine, fine! I yield. You can put those needles you call elbows away.”

Juniper humpfed triumphantly. “So, what did you think about the exam? You didn’t stay much longer after I left.”

“There wasn’t much point,” Evie said, her face turning to a scowl. “I swear, half of the questions weren’t even covered in class.”

“They weren’t,” Juniper confirmed. “They were from the supplementary material. Which you were supposed to read, you know,” she said pointedly.

Evie sighed. “Why even bother calling it supplementary, then,” she grumbled. “Oh, well. I got enough of them right. At least, I hope I did. I guess there’s no point asking how you did.” There was a hint of resentment there.

“I did alright, I think.” Actually, Juniper was rather sure of it. For all her faults, she’d been serious about studying her ass off. An opportunity to study at the Academy did not come often for someone like her, and she intended to make the most of it.

“Right,” Evie said, as she fished for the keys to their room. The conversation died after that, as Evie nested herself in her bed, producing a novel from under the pillows–the half-naked hunk on the cover told Juniper everything she needed to know about the book.

Leaving her roommate to her own devices, Juniper set herself at her desk, giving one glance to the two letters she’d left lying there. The one from Matron Amara she’d already read three times–she was sending her love, in her own frosty way, as well as some updates on the few residents Juniper was close to. Matron Amara didn’t need to do this, and Juniper loved her all the more for it.

The other letter, marked with a seal depicting a raven, was still unopened, and would remain that way for as long as possible. She was deep in their debt, yes, but it was not yet time to pay. Not while she was still in school.

Setting aside the letters, the young woman removed the note from her pocket. It was slightly crumpled now, and she could see the dark thick lines from when she’d stomped it with her boot, but there was nothing otherwise to catch her attention.

She set the note down and concentrating on bringing forth her Will. It was easier now that she’d reached the Soul Connection stage–for the entire first year, they’d been advised to stay at the Will Ignition stage, even if they felt on the brink of advancement. It had been uncomfortable at the time, but Juniper couldn’t disagree with the results. The level of control she’d gotten over her Will would have been much more difficult to achieve with the extra oomph given by the Soul.

The thrill of doing magic had never really gone away, not even two years after she’d ignited her Will. Juniper still couldn’t believe her luck. For most of her life, she’d thought of magic as something belonging exclusively to the upper class. Sure, everyone was allowed to test for the aptitude when they turned eighteen–even the dregs of society, as she had been. But that almost never amounted to anything–the test only created an environment suitable to trigger the Ignition, but it was up to the supplicant to actually Ignite. Without proper instruction and resources, it was an exercise in futility.

Except she’d beaten the odds and succeeded where millions of others had failed.

There were many ways to divine information about something, each more complicated than the other, but right now, all Juniper needed to know was if something had been cast on the note. Once she had that tidbit down, she could choose the appropriate method to delve further.

Juniper Willed her eyes to see beyond that which was visible, the unseen behind the seen. The effort made her soul twitch just the tiniest bit, and the world around her was cast into a pinkish haze. Her arms glowed the brightest to her enhanced vision, as did the pouch of soulstones at the edge of her desk. The air itself shimmered, the Academy’s protective wards painting the whole area in a thin pink mist.

The note, however, had not changed one bit to Juniper’s sight. She turned it on each side, but the strange piece of paper remained utterly mundane.

Frowning, Juniper let go of the spell, feeling a twinge of regret as the magic faded.

And the divination had been a bust. No secret message, not even a prank designed to blow up in her face. Someone must have just slipped it to mess with her a bit.

Sighing, she crumpled the note, throwing it towards the trash can that sat in the corner of the room. It hit the wall, ricocheting just outside the trash can.

Without looking up from her book, Evie raised her hand and gave Juniper a thumbs down.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get it later,” Juniper mouthed under her breath. That was a problem for future Juniper. Present Juniper needed to study, so she took out her weathered Applied Statistics textbook and made herself cozy.

***

A few days and one more midterm later, Juniper along with Evie and the vast majority of the Skystrall Academy were huddled together in the stands surrounding the Academy’s arena.

For the fourth years, it was time for perhaps the greatest opportunity of their lives. For their underclassmen, it was a chance to learn from their seniors and to dream of the day when their turn came in the great arena. But mostly, it was a chance for them to gawk.

“I am glad to see so many of you gathered here today,” Dean Phrygios’s deep voice boomed over the arena. He stood on a floating platform in the center of the arena, appearing larger than life despite his short stature. “As you all probably know by now, today marks the commencement of this year’s Graduation Tournament!”

Cheers and whistles went off, most centered around the lower seats where the fourth years had assembled.

“For those of you first years in the stands, know that the Graduation Tournament is more than just a simple competition. The students of year four are not simply fighting for riches, or for the glory of being the best in their cohort.” He smiled mysteriously, and Juniper couldn’t help but roll her eyes. She already knew what her upperclassmen were fighting for, of course–she’d already listened to the same speech the previous year. But the man had a flair for the dramatic, and she had to admit, he had the first years–at least, the ones who weren’t well-connected enough to already know–whipped up into a frenzy.

“Indeed! Your fellow students are fighting for something not even money can buy.” He paused, waiting for the arena to quiet down. “The semifinalists in this tournament will all receive the greatest opportunity for a young practitioner–a sponsorship to Cassia!”

The fourth years broke into cheers again, while gasps and murmurs went off in the back rows. Most wouldn’t know what the Cassia represented–last year, Juniper had been one of them. Now, it was all she longed for, and the reason she studied as hard as she did.

Cassia was a higher realm, and more importantly, the only higher realm with any connection to Esanys, where Juniper lived.

Realmatic Theory had been one of the introductory subject she had studied in her first year at Skystrall, and the one that had really opened Juniper’s eyes to how wide the Universe really was. It had been a revelation to learn how infinitely large the Universe truly was–and how Esanys, a lesser realm, stood at the bottom of the Universal pole. Small, weak, and irrelevant.

Before that, she had always thought Esanys was all there was in the world. There was little point teaching the greater population otherwise–it was only the most powerful of practitioners and the richest of the rich who could travel to another realm.

Them, and the most promising young students to graduate from Esanys’s Great Academies each year.

There were two more years left until Juniper’s chance came, and she was determined to win one of those spots by any means necessary.

“The first years are so cute,” Faro said, cupping his chin.

The lanky young man, Faro, was one of Juniper’s few real friends at the Academy–if one she’d made in rather odd circumstances. It had been sometime during the first semester of year one that an informal ranking had begun to form, and Faro, whose natural talents fell short despite his working hard, had been firmly relegated to the bottom half. As the fifth son of a minor noble, his family did not have the coin to buy him a proper tutor–so he’d settled for the next best thing: paying a classmate to help him keep up with their studies.

Juniper had been the obvious choice–she was ranked high, and, well, the only one in the top ten that would be easily swayed by gold.

“Wasn’t that long ago we were in their place,” Juniper said wistfully. “And now we’re halfway to being on that stage ourselves.”

In the center of the arena, the Dean continued to explain the rules of the tournament, though most of the audience was already caught up in their own conversations.

“Two years. We’ve got plenty of time until then.”

“Feels like it’s barely enough,” Juniper said, a tinge of worry coloring her voice.

“You need to relax, June,” Faro said, rolling his eyes slightly. “Live a little. It’s not all studying and training, you know?”

“With the competition as fierce as it is? Yeah, right.”

“Why do you even worry so much? You’re basically guaranteed to graduate in the top ten. You’ll be swarmed by headhunters.”

That was the least of her worries–she already had a job lined up as soon as she graduated. Even if she didn’t graduate. But that was part of the problem.

“I can do top ten, sure. But top four?”

Faro frowned. “June, there’s ambition and then there’s delusion.”

June winced on the inside, but she didn’t show it. They’d talked about this before, and she didn’t exactly disagree with his assessment, but he’d never said it that directly. It hurt to hear it from a friend. “What, you think I’m not good enough to do it?” she snapped.

Faro put his hand on hers. “That’s not at all what I’m saying and you know it.”

“Then–”

“No, listen to me. You’re a brilliant young woman, and in a fair world, one of those sponsorships would be yours,” he said heatedly. “But the world isn’t fair–and you should know that better than anyone else. You keep pushing yourself, thinking it’ll make a difference, but it won’t–all you’ll do is burn yourself out.”

Juniper closed her eyes and sighed. “You’re not wrong. But if there’s a chance–”

“June, just think a little. Let’s say you surpass Esau. Or even Gelling. What do you think will happen next?”

“He’ll go cry to his daddy, who’ll probably pump him full of Soul treasures.” Juniper closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose in annoyance.

“So you know this–why won’t you let it go?”

Juniper said nothing, though she dearly wished she could–but she knew her friends would drop her like a hot potato if they knew the truth.

Beneath them, in the arena, the first two competitors took their positions.

***

Juniper had only stayed for the first two matches of the tournament before returning to her room. Watching the older students compete, as well as the conversation she’d had with Faro, had only ignited her desire to better herself.

Faro’s logic be damned, she still had a chance–which was more than she’d had two years before. If she was going to lose, then she’d rather lose having given her all, and not because she was afraid of some silver-spooned bastards.

Juniper was sitting on her bed, her notes on Psychotronics strewn about haphazardly. She dearly wished she could do some more practical training instead–soul strengthening exercises may have been boring, but at least they let her mind rest–but there was nothing of benefit she could do in that department.

She’d already pushed her soul as far as it could go for someone in the Soul Connection stage. Until she inscribed her Path into her Soul, the only thing of use she could do was to study.

The deeper her comprehension of the various disciplines, the better her Path would take to her Soul. Knowledge was power–literally.

It was, perhaps, for the better that the Academy did not allow its students to Inscribe a Path until it made sure their comprehension was up to par. It gave Juniper a bit of breathing room to think, since picking a Path was a crucial point in a practitioner’s development and Juniper was still woefully undecided.

You weren’t entirely stuck with a Path if you chose wrong, but it took a significant amount of effort to change it once you got going. Minor adjustments were fine, as was switching to something similar. But going from something like a metal Path to one of life? That meant throwing away years of work.

Like any other budding practitioner, Juniper was intent on choosing right the first time.

If only she could have any hint on what ‘right’ was for her.

Rubbing her eyes, Juniper began to stack her notes back together, setting them aside on her nightstand.. Her mind was wandering again, and she felt the beginning of a headache. She could afford to take a break, even if she’d spend the most of it worrying about her Path.

Juniper supposed it was ironic that Psychotronics would be the subject to do her in. It taught, among other things, of how to induce various feelings in another’s mind–but the only feeling it induced in her was intense and persistent boredom.

Juniper mentally scratched out the more social disciplines from her list.

As her head hit the pillow, she heard a slight crinkle from underneath. She frowned, reaching under her head, and pulled out a white, folded note.

Juniper flicked it open with one hand.

This time, on the inside of the note were two dots.