Chapter 12 — The Placement Test
The main hall's second floor was large, well lit, and absolutely terrible for anyone trying to be inconspicuous.
Raj figured this out approximately thirty seconds after walking in. The room was designed like an arena — circular, with tiered seating around the edges where students waited and a wide open testing floor in the center. Every person in the room had a direct sightline to every other person. There was nowhere to stand that was not visible from at least four angles. Whoever had designed this space had either never considered privacy or had considered it and rejected it on principle.
He found a seat in the upper tier and sat in it with the practiced neutrality of someone who was not thinking about anything in particular.
Sana was three seats to his left. She had her notes open on her lap and was reading them with complete focus and had not looked at him since they came in. This was either because she had forgotten about the courtyard incident or because she was very deliberately not looking at him, and Raj's instincts, calibrated by a year of reading combat situations, suggested the second one.
The fire-attribute boy from the queue was at the far end of the tier, radiating impatience and heat in roughly equal measure. The wind-attribute girl was beside him, still reading, apparently capable of reading anywhere under any conditions. The lightning student who had been apologizing to the ground was in the front row, currently apologizing to the seat beside them for sitting in it too hard.
Normal people, Raj reminded himself. Wonderfully normal.
A door opened at the floor level and the testing instructor walked in.
She was not what Raj expected.
He had imagined someone academic. Robes, grey hair, the general aesthetic of a person who had been explaining magic theory for decades and had developed a permanent expression of mild disappointment in everyone's practical application.
Instead the instructor was perhaps thirty, sharp-faced, dark-skinned, with close-cropped hair and the physical build of someone who did not spend all their time in classrooms. Her mana output was suppressed but the suppression itself had a quality to it — controlled, deliberate, the kind of flat magical signature that came from someone with significant power keeping it very carefully contained. She carried a testing crystal on a stand and set it up in the center of the floor with the efficiency of someone who had done this many times and had no patience for ceremony.
"Placement test," she said, without preamble. "You will each approach the crystal, place your hand on it, and channel your attribute at my direction. I will assess output, control, and range. Results determine your class assignment." She looked around the tier with the expression of someone conducting a census. "Questions?"
Nobody had questions.
"Good. First student."
The process was methodical and Raj used the time to observe, because observation was free and information was never wasted.
The fire boy — whose name turned out to be Kael, announced with considerable confidence when he stood up — put his hand on the crystal and produced an output that made the crystal glow deep orange and heat the surrounding air by a noticeable amount. The instructor made a note. Not impressed exactly, but not uninterested.
The wind girl was named Sera. Her output was precise and fast and the crystal responded with a clear bright blue that flickered at the edges like something alive. The instructor made a longer note.
The lightning student — Tomis, who apologized for his name taking up space when he said it — produced an output that was powerful but clearly uncontrolled, the crystal spiking bright white before he managed to pull it back. The instructor made a note with the expression of someone writing down a project.
Students went one by one. Raj watched the crystal's responses and built a picture. Most single-attribute students produced a clean single color response — depth of color indicating output strength, stability of color indicating control. Two students with dual attributes produced split responses, the crystal dividing between colors, and the instructor's interest visibly sharpened both times.
Then his name was called.
"Raj."
He stood. Walked down to the floor. Stood in front of the crystal with thirty students watching from the tiers and the instructor watching from three feet away with the focused attention of someone who had already flagged him as a variable based on nothing he had consciously done.
He placed his hand on the crystal.
"Fire attribute," the instructor said. "Channel at comfortable output."
Raj channeled fire.
The crystal glowed red. Clean, steady, mid-depth red with good stability. Perfectly adequate fire attribute output from a student with some self-study background. Nothing remarkable. Nothing worth looking at twice.
The instructor made a note. Then said, "Increase to maximum comfortable output."
He increased it. The red deepened. Still clean. Still stable. Still completely unremarkable for a fire-primary student.
The instructor looked at the crystal. Looked at him. Made another note. "Good control. Step back."
Raj stepped back.
He was three steps away from the crystal when the instructor said, without looking up from her notes — "Channel wind."
Raj stopped.
"I'm fire attribute," he said.
"I know what you registered," she said, still not looking up. "Channel wind."
The room was very quiet. Raj was aware of thirty pairs of eyes and specifically one pair three seats into the upper left tier that had been pointed at him since he stood up.
He considered his options. He could refuse — but refusing a direct instructor instruction in a placement test had obvious consequences. He could claim he didn't know how — but this woman had been testing attributes for what was clearly a long time and would know immediately if he was performing ignorance. He could channel a very small amount of wind and claim adjacent-attribute bleed.
He channeled a very small amount of wind.
The crystal split. Red and clear blue, side by side, clean division, steady.
The room made a collective sound that was not quite a gasp and not quite silence but somewhere between the two.
The instructor looked at the crystal for a long moment. Then she looked at Raj with the expression of someone whose morning had just become significantly more interesting than planned.
"Earth," she said.
He channeled earth. The crystal added green.
"Water."
Blue-green. The crystal was now showing four colors in clean separated bands.
"Lightning."
White-gold joined the others.
"Dark."
He hesitated. Dark attribute was rare and carried associations — not evil exactly, but the kind of thing that made people in a room adjust their posture slightly. He channeled it anyway. Deep purple settled into the crystal beside the others.
Six colors. Clean, stable, separated, all running simultaneously without bleeding into each other.
The instructor stared at the crystal.
The crystal stared back, doing its job with admirable thoroughness.
"All type," the instructor said. Quiet. More to herself than to him.
"I have a broad application," Raj said.
She looked at him with an expression that had moved well past interested and into something that was going to require a longer conversation. "That is not what broad application means," she said.
Raj heard a very faint sound from the upper left tier that might have been someone trying not to say I told you so out loud.
The instructor's name was Professor Maren and her office was small, organized, and contained more books than Raj had seen outside of Christine's personal collection, which had been considerable.
He sat across from her desk while she looked at his test results on paper, which she had written out by hand with the focused attention of someone processing something unexpected.
"All-type affinity," she said, without looking up. "Confirmed dual simultaneous output, confirmed six-attribute expression, confirmed independent channel control." She looked up. "You registered as fire."
"I was simplifying."
"You were hiding," she said, not unkindly. "Which is interesting. Most all-type students — and there have been perhaps four confirmed cases in the academy's history — arrive here specifically because of their affinity. It is not something people typically try to minimize."
"I'm not here because of my affinity," Raj said. "I'm here to learn. The affinity is just — what I have."
She studied him with the particular attention of someone who was very good at reading people and was currently reading him and finding the text more complex than expected. "Where did you train? Self-study was what you told registration."
"Broadly, yes."
"Broadly," she repeated. "Your channel control is post-graduate level. Your simultaneous output stability is something I have not seen outside of a senior instructor demonstration. And your suppression—" she paused, "—you walked into this room putting out the mana signature of an untrained first year. Deliberately. I did not catch it until you were at the crystal."
Raj said nothing.
"You are not going to tell me where you actually trained," she said.
"I would prefer not to," he said honestly.
Professor Maren looked at him for a long moment. Then she made a note on his file, closed it, and folded her hands on the desk with the air of someone making a professional decision.
"Advanced class," she said. "Top tier placement. Your theoretical training will determine your specific course load but your practical is already established." A pause. "I will not push on your background. Students arrive here with complicated histories and it is not my business unless it becomes a safety issue." She fixed him with a look that was very clear about what happened if it became a safety issue. "But I will tell you this — whatever you are trying to avoid by hiding what you are, it will not stay hidden long in a practical magic environment. Your control is excellent. Your instincts will give you away regardless."
"I know," Raj said. "I'm just trying to — delay the inevitable."
"How long?"
He thought about it. "A week would be nice."
Professor Maren looked at him with the expression of someone who had just been told something they found both reasonable and completely optimistic. "Three days," she said. "I give it three days before the entire advanced class knows."
She stood, which meant the meeting was over. Raj stood with her.
"One more thing," she said. "Your roommate assignment has already been processed. Room fourteen, east wing." A pause that felt very slightly deliberate. "I should mention that room fourteen already has an occupant. Transfer student, fire attribute, arrived this morning."
"Alright," Raj said.
"His name is Kael," she said.
Raj thought about the large fire-attribute boy from the queue who had been radiating impatience since before registration and whose passive mana output had been heating the surrounding air for the entire placement test.
He picked up his file.
"Three days seems optimistic for a different reason now," he said.
Professor Maren's expression did something that in a less composed person would have been a smile. "Welcome to Aldenmoor Academy, Raj," she said. "Try not to break anything in the first week."
End of Chapter 12