Chapter 19: The False Paper

The Dean took the news standing up, and for the first time since James had met her she sat down heavily.

"A second envelope," she said.

"Sealed with a fan," said Felix.

"You can prove this?"

"The oak told me."

"The oak." The Dean pinched the bridge of her nose. "I cannot take an oak before the Crown steward."

She went to the paper room herself.

She came back twenty minutes later with her mouth in a thin line.

"The steward's men have put the Crown's lock on the room," she said.

"By the charter, the Mid-year paper belongs to the Crown, not the academy. I may not touch it."

"So the real paper is locked away, and the fake one is the exam," said James.

"I did not say that."

"You didn't have to."

"Sit it anyway," the Dean said wearily. "Answer it. Write what you know, and let them find what they will."

James looked at her.

"Do I get my rest hour?"

"Clause nine stands," she said. "It always did."

The hall was full again.

Two hundred desks, two hundred papers.

A new board of five examiners in dark gowns sat on the dais under the Crown's black lion.

Beside the five sat the Crown steward, a long gray man with a ring on every finger.

In the gallery, Bella's fan moved slowly back and forth.

James took his seat and turned over the paper.

The first question read: Name the seventeen ceremonial colors of the Griffin court.

The second read: Recite the twelve toasts of the Mermaid wedding feast.

The third asked for the dates of every Serpent harvest festival since the Ashfall Winter.

None of it was on the syllabus.

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