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The next morning, I wake up to the sound of hurried footsteps rapping back and forth against the floor in the common room. Curious, I peek out of my room and find myself face to face with Yaling brushing the pink tips of her hair on her way to the front door.

"What's going on?" I ask, signing. I've practiced a little in front of the mirror, but I'm still not sure if I'm asking it right.

But Yaling seems to understand me. "We've got an exam to pass at the end of every week," she signs. "And I'm late. You're coming?"

Her question wrings the last of my sleepiness out of my mind, arousing alarm instead. Is there an exam I'm supposed to pass? Already? Even if I omit the fact that I'm a schemer pretending to have abilities, isn't it too soon? Loretto said nothing about exams. But in my experience, ditching tests at school was always a bad idea; teachers grow angry and give you a task twice as difficult when you finally arrive--and you've to arrive sooner or later.

So I nod, quickly wash my face, and follow Yaling through Tik'al.

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We come to a workshop in a corner wing of the Grand Temple, the air is cool and comfortable here, but its window faces nothing but the blank wall of some small neighboring building, which makes it feel like you're standing in a tomb. And every table here is cluttered with ceramic pots, old reliefs, and bottles of power dyes.

Jaya and Valto are already here, frowning at some ceramic jars and dishes displayed on the table before them. "Didn't know you were coming, Elisey." Jaya blinks, saying and signing at the same time, noticing Yaling and me in the doorway. The gold in her hair glints brightly even in this shadowy room. "Are you good at the affinity with minerals?"

"No."

"Why am I not surprised?" Valto chuckles without even looking at me as he takes one of the pots and draws it closer to his eyes to examine the whitish streaks on its surface.

"What exactly are you doing?" I ask, ignoring him.

"We need to clean these," Yaling explains.

"That's your exam? It's..." Disappointing. I expected something like turning water into fire or glass into paper, but cleaning pottery, really? Astronomylessons at school had more magic to them than this.

The girls only shrug in response.

The next couple of hours is even more disappointing as I sit in the corner, watching the others trying to magically heat up some water to clean the white streaks off the ceramics, or summon a wind strong enough to dust it off, as Jaya suggests. Valto even tries to turn the green color of one of the dishes into white, to make the streaks less visible, but all he manages is dull bluish green--I've no idea how, he just stares at the dish for a long minute without blinking until his eyes water.

I myself don't even try. What can I do, right? No mentors seem to come here to check the process, so at least that's good. I can keep simply watching.

Two hours later, everyone gives up, and I end up rolling a thin bamboo stick, that was probably used to mix dyes once, between my fingers just to occupy my hands, and talking to Yaling, whose quick hands explain to me the difference between declarative and interrogative sentences in sign language.

From the corner of my eye, I can see Valto and Jaya still trying to succeed with the task, though now it rather looks like Valto hitting on Jaya.

"For a thousandth time, Valto, piss off!" Jaya says in reply to something Valto attempts to whisper in her ear. "I told you I've a girlfriend."

"You just haven't tried me yet," Valto says, grinning like an idiot.

She gives him a nauseated smile. "Are you a shoe to try you? Then piss off twice, I'm vegan. I don't wear leather."

When Valto gets turned down for the third time, his attention suddenly shifts to me. But there's nothing flirty about him now, only grumpiness. "You could at least pretend to help with the pots, Elisey," he says. "Did Loretto teach you nothing?"

I give him an equally grumpy look in return. "Nothing."

"Maybe we could try some old-fashioned soap, no magic," Jaya says, studying yet another pot.

As I look at the white streaks on the ceramic surface again, I suddenly realize I've seen something like that before. "Is it limescale? The streaks?"

Jaya shrugs.

Oh. Ma once left a box of buttons in the basement, and rainwater trickling down the wall left the streaks that looked the same. She cleaned the buttons with lemon juice then. Simply chemistry reaction, she said, limescale is alkaline, and lemon is acid, and one can't stand another. Didn't your school chemistry teacher teach you, Eli? "Do you have any lemons?"

As everyone shakes their heads, I jump to my feet, inspired. It takes a while to run down the halls of the temple, to the cafeteria to snatch a few lemons. Nobody notices me taking food out, which is good as it's considered bad manners among shamans, so much I've already figured.

Returning to the workshop, I squeeze the lemon juice into a glass of water, and then pour the water over one of the pots. A minute bleeds away, everyone staring at me like at a madman, but then the streaks begin to dissolve, turning into tiny bubbles on the ceramic surface, making the water look like champagne.

"Is it alchemy?" Jaya asks, amazed.

"Kinda." If only. Alchemy is creative, it allows changing the properties of materials with aura, with a power of thought, and this is simple and predictable science, the outcome of which anyone can learn and memorize. No creativity.

"I see now why Loretto agreed to tutor you," Yaling signs. "You're inventive."

"No, he is not." Valtolooks even grumpier now, when my idea worked out, the corners of his lips downcast, the eyebrows drawn low. "He's not even a purebred, his parents aren't shamans. Perhaps his great-great-grandma slept with a shaman once, and now Elisey has inherited magic by some miraculous mistake. He can't be talented, no matter how much he tries and whatever gossip claims, because," leaning over the table with a cynical smirk, he stares me right in the eye, "just like his parents, he's born to serve, not do wonders."

To serve? I grit my teeth, strangling the urge to punch him in that smirk. My ancestors ruled in Cabracan for centuries before the shaman empress pulled off a coup and seized the throne. So who's here to serve? But I won't buy his provocation. The last time I snapped, I ended up in cuffs--and here.

So I just bore my glare into Valto's, standing still like a rock.

But Valto doesn't give up. "Young shamans like the three of us from different enclaves all over the world train from birth to be good enough to impress the empress's council with our talent and get a chance to learn from the best, and you plainblood with a drop of powers get a free ticket? For what? They probably pitied you, or made a bet on you for fun. Wagered they could take you from the streets, clean you up, and make you look sufferable."

Yaling and Jaya have forgotten about the pots and are now watching our quarrel with Valto as well, worried.

Myhand balling into a fist around the bamboo stick, I take a deep breath of the cool workshop air, but my anger only rises closer to the surface. "But nobody cleaned you up apparently. Because you're insufferable! You think you're the chosen one? A divine magician born to do wonders? Magic only ruins whatever and whoever you want without any self-control."

"I think we've got enough of self-control. Shamans and witches have been hunted for generations." On purpose or not, Valto annoys me even further as he keeps fixing his hair as he speaks, and a blond lock over his forehead looks greasy because of his fingers. "And even in Cabracan, a place once founded by shamans, my people couldn't use magic without getting permission until our old kings and queens were overthrown. We were the property of the crown, forced to do the bidding of the plainbloods like your family, murdering and torturing for the dreams of vicious tyrants."

I want to laugh. That's what he believes in? I know this tale, the lies shamans spread to justify their arrogance. Because we were hurt once, we'll now hurt in return. But Empress Ixchel has never called shamans anything but invincible, and she is three hundred years old, the oldest shaman known, who remembers the times when my people were vicious tyrants.

Not a single history book says a bad word about my kings and queens. Because everyone loved them! Even shamans. Empress Ixchel wasn't hunted; she was an adviser of the last Cabracan king who trusted her like a family until she decided to take the power. They say he got sick of an unknown disease and died too quickly even for shamans to treat him, bequeathing his crown to Ixchel, his loyal friend, instead of his own children. Surely, his dear adviser couldn't simply poison him and take the throne, right? Shamanic gods would have punished her for that, of course.

But why would her rightful ascension end in a civil war that lasted years, then? Why would the children of the perished king flee in fear and hide?

"You're not one of us," Valto continues, his voice frosty, crossing his arm on his chest as he round the table to stand before me. "You're born a servant, that's how you know how to clean damn pots. Because that's your job. What else is your job? Mopping floors? Cooking? Sucking up? You must be good at something for such a perfectionist as Loretto Tayen to notice you."

I wish I knew the answer to that. I myself wonder why Loretto agreed to train me. Maybe that's it, maybe the council sent Valto to help Loretto to crack me open and prove I've no shaman? To make me admit I'm the descendant of the poisoned king and poison me, too.

"Tayen has no friend around here, and no way would someone start their list of buddies with you." I can literally see Valto's gaze lighten up with the next thought, which he obviously finds brilliant. "Tayen has no lovers as well. Did fae find you in a brothel?" He chuckles darkly. "But you're not even handsome enough for a whore," Valto muses darkly. "Besides, another pound, and you can be called fat."

"Hey!" Jaya glowers.

Valto looks at her, his expression actually warming for a second. "You ain't fat, darling. Curves suit you." But as he turns back to me, his face is cold and cruel again, and it makes me wanna punch him. "But not him. Tell me, Elisey, I'm an amateur when it comes to brothels, but do they value other things, apart from one's looks? Like skills? Some say you visited Loretto's apartments the night you just arrived in Tik'al. What were you doing there? Fu--"

I slap Valto's mouth with the stick before he can finish the word. He stumbles backward, rather surprised than hurt, knocking pots and jars off when his back hits the table. But before I can manage another slap, rage sparks in his eyes.

That's it. I tried to stay calm, I swear. But as though watching a movie tape prerecorded in my mind, I realize what I'm doing only when we both tumble to the floor in a fight, our legs tangling, more jars and bottles jingling around us, dyes spilling.

Valto is bigger than me--reminding me of Cale, though I've never fought my brother--and I only manage to grab Valto's wrist to prevent him from smashing my eyebrow as we roll across the chaos. Jaya screams, trying to tear us apart, but we only push her away, our fists aiming at each other.

"I was right, huh?" says Valto, kicking me in my ribs. "You plainbloods only know the physical language of pain and pleasure, brains and magic ain't for you!"

"And all you aurabloods can do is talk and cheat nature!" My knuckles meet his jaw. Then I pin him to the floor with my elbow to his throat, but he throws me off a second later.

"Because whores and servants ain't good enough for that!"

"I'll kill you!"

An unnaturally harsh gust rushes past us. It's not even wind, but harder and painful unlike Loretto's current, as though the air itself turned into stone dropped on my chest. Disoriented, a moment later I find myself forced away from Valto, my back hitting the table leg, Valto's hitting the opposite wall. At first, I think Jaya or Yaling used aura, but as I glance up, Jaya looks just as stunned, standing a few feet away.

"What is this?" a man's voice rumbles from the doorway.

Turning my head with alarm, I see the head councilor and the white-haired lady I saw in the temple's vestibule the day I got here. Peeking from behind their backs, Yaling gives a tight smile as though apologizing for bringing them.

The councilor enters the workshop, taking in the mess Valto and I have done, his bearded face growing outright furious--and he must be, we've started a fight, an act of violence in the sacred walls of Tik'al, that's a crime. I've started it.

"I'm innocent!" Valto jumps to his feet, glaring at me. "He attacked me!"

I glare in return, rubbing my bruised chest and climbing to my feet, too. "And he provoked me."

"Neither of you looked like stopping when we arrived. Neither looks innocent," the white-haired lady says. Her quiet, gentle tone somehow makes it sound reasonable. Interesting. Is it magic?

"You," the councilor turns to me. "You weren't even supposed to be here. You've a personal study schedule with Tayen as you've just a few months until the trials the other mentees had a year to train for."

I blink, confused, my temper fading. Maybe I would have known it if Tayen bothered showing up and telling me, instead of shoving a book in my hands and disappearing for a week.

"But...Mentor?" Jaya interjects carefully. So the head councilor is also her mentor? She must be really talented if he chose her. "Elisey have done the task you gave us."

The councilor looks puzzled for a moment, but--only for a moment. "Have he now?" His forehead furrows again. I doubt my trick with lemon juice will impress him; he doesn't look like a dilettante who can confuse chemistry for alchemy.

But before I can think of an excuse, footsteps echo in the hall. Everyone turns their heads just in time as in the doorway of the workshop appears Tayen faerself. My mentor is out of breath, just a little, but it's enough to figure fae has been in hurry. When did Yaling gather everyone? I was sure my fight with Valto lasted a minute or two, no longer.

Silence falls over the room as everyone looks at Loretto--who looks at everyone in return, unabashed and confident, although faer young face could rather be taken for another student, not a tutor.

"Is there trouble?" Loretto is dressed in a neatly laced purple robe today, the color mentors here wear. So you remember you're supposed to teach me.

"There is." The councilor nods. "Your student seems to be dealing flawlessly with the tasks given to the others, yet fails to follow ethics."

Once again, Loretto looks over the spilled dyes and the pots scattered across the floor, over other students and walls, seemingly postponing the moment to look at me. At last, faer eyes settle on me. "Why are you here? You've a personal assignment."

"No, I don't." I square my aching shoulder. I won't be the only guilty one. Let's see what the councilor says when I tell him that Loretto is a shitty teacher. "In fact, I haven't seen you in days. You gave me no assignment."

"So you finished your reading already?"

Oh. The seven-hundred-page-long history book. "I've read that before."

A sneer dances Loretto's gaze, and fae doesn't even try to hide it. "The copy I gave you is the only one that exists, so I doubt it." With another sweeping look over the room, Loretto turns to leave. "Clean it all up, Elisey. And then get your real assignment done."

"Loretto, I know Elisey is your first student," the white-haired lady says, "so if you need any help or guidance--"

"Thank you, but we're managing just fine, Zuri."

A moment before Loretto steps over the threshold, the councilor clears his throat. "And still, I suppose that, as a teacher, you might want to give an example of how things are done here," he says. At first, I don't grasp the meaning behind the words, but as Loretto stiffens, I realize the councilor expects fae to help me clean up. Not an outright order, merely a suggestion--but a humiliating one. Denoting Loretto's inferior position in the court. I haven't just ruined my reputation today, but also my mentor's. I'm fucked. Fae will definitely cut me open soon.

Valto lets out a derisive laugh, glaring at me again.

I ignore him.

As Yaling raises a hand to ask something, Zuri--her mentor?--shakes her head, saying and signing, "No, Yaling, you can't help with cleaning up. Besides, you've your own reading to do."

"Everyone else is dismissed for today," the councilor announces. With that, everyone leaves.

Loretto and I are suddenly alone in the room and in the silence, just as we were in the vestibule the first time we met.

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A short author's note is due here, I guess. As you might've noticed this is the first part of the chapter. I reeeeeally wanted to split this horribly long but wickedly naughty chapter into two, but hey! Loretto The Sassy Mentor said no...

Okay, if I'm being serious, as you can see, the chapter is titled Carrot AND Stick, but we only saw a stick in Eli's hand so far... Because carrots are on Loretto, obviously. Which means the next chapter, aka part, will be full of the same vibe (dirty jokes, sorry not sorry), and Loretto will be in practically every line. Fae is so much fun to write! And I promise this shaman will become more present in the future chapters--and in Eli's life--soon, just don't tell Eli yet, or he won't sleep at night.