Rem came downstairs before the street had decided what kind of morning it wanted to be. He had washed the sleep out of his eyes, and laced the same scuffed boots he wore to work.
Livesey intercepted him at the door with the accuracy of a trap. "Hey, you rascal. Eat that on your way." He tossed a neat parcel wrapped in paper and twine.
"Thanks, old man," Rem said, catching it.
Livesey squinted at him and made a face that suggested crimes had been committed. "You are not going out dressed like that. You look like a beggar."
"What is wrong with my outfit," Rem asked, looking down at his shirt that had survived more lives than most cats.
"You look like a porter, not like a hunter," Livesey said, and tipped his chin toward a cloth sack on the chair. "Try this on." His mouth spread into a grin wide enough to be suspicious. "Stop looking at me like that and hurry."
"You sly, senile man," Rem said, but he was already taking the sack to the back room.
The new clothes felt like a plan. A sleeveless compression top that did not bite under the arms because Livesey had cut the sleeves off himself. Trousers with a little give in the seat and knee so movement did not turn into argument. Shoes with hunter soles that gripped and released with the confidence of a handshake. He came out and the kitchen light made the fabric look like it took his shape seriously.
"It fits," Livesey said, pretending to be unimpressed and failing. "Good. One more thing."
He set something on the counter with both hands. A long dagger, wide and thick, black metal that caught the light with a violet sheen like oil on deep water.
Rem leaned in. "That is not a kitchen knife."
"It was mine," Livesey said. "Once. The blade is cast from a special alloy fused with a dark violet plant. Gives it that color and a temper that will not argue with anything. It is so hard you cannot sharpen it the usual way. It sharpens you."
"So I am just walking around with a piece of heavy metal," Rem said.
Livesey flicked his knuckles, not gently. "Idiot. This blade is precious to me. If you put determination and conviction into your cut, this blade will bite through anything that can be bitten. The learning is in you, not the edge. Also, yes, it is heavy."
"Heavy for an old man like you, not for m...."
He picked the dagger up by the grip and his whole body tipped forward as if a prankster had pushed him from behind. The weight dragged his arm down. He lost the polite fight with gravity, and the blade slipped, dropped point-first, and punched through the shop's wood floor with a sound like a declaration. The dagger buried itself in the subfloor and sang a low, ugly note of victory.
Livesey laughed so hard his shoulders shook. "You fool. I am not your average doctor. Put some respect on my name when you speak to me. I am old, not obsolete. This dagger weighs half a ton on purpose. I can take it because I infuse aura into my body. See."
He rolled his sleeve. His forearm looked like it had been designed to lift history. Mana veins lay under the skin like green cables, faintly luminous, a living lattice that pulsed with each breath.
"You cannot use your mana yet," he said. "But you are naturally strong. Manageable for you if you learn fast. Get used to walking with it. And moving in a fight. This thing is useful if you can carry the truth of it."
"What kind of crazy doctor were you in your hunter days," Rem muttered, hauling the blade free with both hands and the kind of care you reserve for sleeping beasts.
"Stories for later," Livesey said. He handed over a sheath with a clever catch and thick leather bindings. "Wear it horizontal at the small of your back. The weight will ride your hips, not your spine."
Rem fixed the sheath at his belt, slid the blade home, and felt his legs make new promises to his balance. "Heavy like hell. Good training, then. I will not pass on free training."
Livesey's hand came down on his shoulder, steady and warm. "I am proud of you," he said, voice gone quiet in the way that meant he meant it. "You had better pass."
Rem smiled, and the smile chose to stay. "I will."
They hugged, a short, awkward press of bone and intent, then stepped apart before sentiment decided to say anything embarrassing. Rem lifted the parcel of breakfast, saluted with it, and stepped out. Livesey raised a hand in reply and watched him to the end of the street the way men watch ships they have built take their first weather.
The city had put on its day. Carts talked to cobbles. Steam curled out of a bun stall and made the air smell like sugar and patience. Rem ate one-handed as he walked, the other hand unconsciously checking the sit of the dagger. The weight changed how his feet chose the street. After a block, they chose better.
He caught sight of himself in a bakery window. The new clothes cleaned the lines of him. People moved aside the way they move aside for intent. It was not the clothes. It was the way the clothes let the body tell the truth.
The Association hall received him with the same storm-in-a-jar energy as yesterday. Bulletin boards bristled. Voices overlapped. Hunters in coats and hunters in crisp training gear flowed around each other like currents. The receptionist from yesterday looked up from a ledger and startled into a smile that widened all the way to honest.
"Rem," she said. "Look at you. The gear suits you. You look like a real hunter." Her gaze flicked over his shoulders, the lines of the top, the calm weight of the blade. She fussed a stray lock of hair behind her ear, then, as if courage had bumped into her from behind, added, "After your exam, do you want to take a drink with me."
"Hum. Yes. Why not," he said, entirely mortal, entirely literal.
Color rose in her cheeks like a sunrise that had been asked to speed up. She coughed into a smile and found a pen that had not needed finding. "Candidate check-in is down the left hall. Room B. You are number fifteen. Here." She pressed a wooden token into his palm with 15 etched deep.
"Thank you," he said. "For the directions. And the drink."
"You are welcome," she said, and then remembered to breathe.
The candidate room felt like a held breath. People of every age and shape occupied benches and wall space with the intent focus of animals before weather. Friends buzzed in clusters, trading bravado in low voices. Strangers introduced themselves with surnames first, a habit that always made Rem think of dogs circling before they sleep. Staff walked a slow circuit, checking tokens, shooing spells out of nervous hands.
Rem found the back wall, set his shoulder to it, crossed his arms, and rested. The dagger's weight pulled his hips into a more honest stance. He let it teach him.
On the far side, three boys in gray training coats with the same fashionable cut had attached themselves to a fourth boy like burrs. They nudged him, made quiet comments that did not want to be quiet, enjoyed their own courage in a room where the rules did not allow anyone to answer with magic.
Rem watched for ten seconds the way you watch a pot to see if it intends to boil. Then he walked over the way a solution walks over to a problem, slow and unhurried.
"Enough," he said. "Shut up and leave him alone."
Three faces turned. The taller one in the middle carried himself with the borrowed confidence of someone whose father was a larger problem than he would ever need to be. "Hey, big guy," he said. "Why step into other people's business. Go elsewhere."
"How about not," Rem said, voice flat as a board.
The boy stepped into Rem's space on the assumption that space belonged to him. "Do you know who my father is. I am not the one you want to mess with..."
He planted both hands on Rem's chest and shoved. The push traveled into Rem, looked for places to live, found none, and went back into the world. The boy fell on his backside with the comic inevitability of a dropped apple, all indignation and no injuries.
Laughter started somewhere and then smothered itself when people remembered where they were. The boy's ears went red. He scrambled up, the way shame makes people fast, and snapped, "You meathead. Just wait."
He raised a hand, fingers shaping the start of a glyph. A palm closed around his wrist and turned the spell into air.
"Mana and aura are not allowed here," said a calm voice at his shoulder. "Do you want to cause trouble for yourself, or do you want to proceed."
The woman who had moved stood where no one had seen her walking. Short dark hair. Eyes that weighed and measured without being unkind. A small silver badge at her collar: Instructor.
She released the boy's wrist with just enough pressure to teach and not enough to bruise. He swallowed, gathered the other two with a jerk of his chin, and left dignity behind like a coat he had outgrown.
The instructor looked at Rem, then at the boy he had stepped in for. "It is nice to help," she said. "Be careful who you make angry. I am the instructor for today. Instructor Leila." She lifted her voice so the room had no excuse to misunderstand. "Be prepared. We start soon."
"Thanks for the advice," Rem said. "I will keep it in mind."
Leila stepped away without turning her back on the room. Rem felt a light tap at his side and turned. The boy the trio had been worrying stood there, unsure what to do with his hands and trying to decide whether to be grateful or embarrassed.
"Thank you," the boy said. "Those guys are from the Royal Academy with me. They bully people because their families are bigger."
"Do not worry," Rem said. "I am an orphan. Status does not matter to me."
The boy blinked, then smiled with a kind of gentleness that belonged to people who read more than they fought. He stuck out his hand. "I am Harry Surean, from the Surean family. I am seventeen. I study at the Royal Academy."
"Rem," he said, taking the hand. "Seventeen. Porter."
"You are seventeen," Harry said, startled into honesty. "You look older. I mean, more mature. Also you look… strong."
"I do what I can," Rem said.
Harry glanced at the dagger hilt peeking from Rem's lower back as if it might introduce itself. "Is that allowed."
"It is," Rem said.
Harry laughed in a small, bright way that made two nearby candidates relax by accidental contagion. Before he could say more, Leila crossed to the front and lifted her hand.
"Listen," she said, and the room obeyed. "Examination begins now. You will proceed to the next hall in order. Physicals first. Then basic mobility and endurance. Mana and aura assessment after. Lastly, individual duels with an instructor. No mana or aura until told otherwise. If you use magic without permission, you will be dismissed and banned for a season. Do not test me. I am very bored of people testing me."
A murmur like a tide answered and then calmed. Staff opened a side door. Numbers were called in sequence. People straightened shirts and finished swallowing nerves. Rem felt his breath settle into the box pattern Livesey had drilled into him. Four in. Four hold. Four out. Four hold. It was not magic. It was better.
Harry bumped his shoulder lightly. "It is our time to shine. Good luck, Rem."
"You too," Rem said, and meant it.
"Numbers one through ten," called a clerk. "Line up on the blue markers."
Rem rolled his shoulders, felt the dagger's weight pull him into honesty again, and waited for his number.
He did not think about the clipboard. He did not think about what he could not do. He thought about a chalk line in a back yard and an old man's hand on his shoulder. He thought about a door that would open because he decided to walk through it.
"Eleven through fifteen," the clerk called. "Blue markers."
Rem stepped forward. The hall smelled like oil and chalk and a hundred decisions made before breakfast. He took his place on the line andwait for is turn to come.