The dining hall was grand and there were far too many guests for it to ever be considered a small dinner party. Willum led Alleria to sit at the high table and made sure she had a glass of juice in her hand. These rich people, for all their fine clothes and manners seemed awfully rude to Alleria. The way their vulture gazes followed her, the way they whispered among themselves behind their fancy gloves was nothing if not low behaviour.

But she ought to become accustomed to this. From the moment money had been placed upon her head, she had been bought. She had stopped being a person and had become a thing. It wasn't considered gossip if what one talked about was a very expensive ceramic vase.

She almost had to remind herself that it was her choice to be here. Zalee had reminded her what she had wanted for herself but it was only her decision to come here, to challenge herself, to expand her little world and learn more and more. She had broken the glass roof of her village life to face discomfort, uncertainty and fear, just to see how far she could go in her hunt after new knowledge.

A lady in a bright green evening dress and with a head of golden locks took the seat on Alleria's left and placed her hand on her shoulder. "Nice to meet you, Alleria. I'm Selma Malluri," she whispered softly. "You're doing well. Be ready, Aresso is going to present you to them, and then they'll talk to you."

No sooner did she finish the sentence than Malluri tapped his wineglass with his fork. "My dear friends and colleagues, I present to you today a very special guest. She came all the way from the rural Hegdery Prefecture, this young lady is about to become the youngest scholar to study in the High Academy in all the history of our fine empire. Please meet Miss Alleria Bellencreek."

"- Oh, how adorable."

"-She really does look young."

"- I imagined a prodigy to look brighter."

"-From the countryside, how quaint!"

"Nice to meet you Miss Bellencreek," said a woman wearing a long hot-pink evening dress decorated with a plume of black feathers and showing off the entirety of her back. "I'm Simola Luvaric."

"Nice to meet you, Simola Luvaric," Alleria answered mechanically.

"How old are you, dear girl?" asked a middle-aged man next to Simola Luvaric.

"I'm fifteen and one half, sir."

"So, you like studying?" asked an elderly woman with snowy locks.

"Yes ma'am."

"What sort of things do you study, my dear?" Simola Luvaric stole the conversation back her way.

"Currently I'm studying the subjects required for the High Academy Attendance Exams."

"I heard it takes years to study for and is very nearly impossible to get in."

"Only one in a million get in, is what I hear."

"And it's all the finest minds in the empire too."

"But how do the Exams work?" asked a bosomy woman in a pink frock standing next to a very short auburn-haired man. "What's it like?"

"There are five Exam days and in each day, there is one question asked," Alleria explained. "Depending on the question, examinees are required to a present a coherent thesis. Though any claims that are made must be supported using previous studies and all material that is quoted or cited must be done from memory alone."

"You mean to say," said an elderly, pot-bellied gentleman in a tailored suit, "that you're required to commit everything you study to memory so you could blindly use it for your thesis or what-not during the exam?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you have to do this five times?"

"Five different essays, sir."

"My God."

"And what subjects are required to enter, Miss Alleria?"

Alleria drew in a deep breath. "The five sciences; alchemy, astronomy, mathematics, electronics and biology. The four humanities; philosophy, philology, the arts and music. And the two studies of society, law and economics."

Alleria's audience for a moment was shocked into silence. Finally, someone whistled, an unexpectedly crude sound in the midst of polite frocks.

"Well, that's... isn't that every single subject in existence?"

"No," Alleria replied, "that doesn't include artisan studies like carpentry and pottery, or education, or studies of the occult, the arcane and the demon world."

"What a frightening child..." someone Alleria couldn't see whispered loud enough for her to hear. It was followed by an orchestra of cricket-like whispers that she wished only to ignore.

"...This is what the Bureaucracy has come to..."

"...Seems like some kind of sick joke..."

"...No wonder the Calendrical Algorithm always fails..."

Alleria lowered her eyes and looked at the white tablecloth. When she lifted them again, her mind was wandering elsewhere and even she couldn't follow her own fluttering thoughts. Maybe she was in Granny Na's cottage. Maybe by the pond. Maybe in the village square. Maybe at the house of one of her friends. Maybe in her room, with her books, reading to the light of her desk lamp into the night. It wasn't that she disliked people, or that she found them difficult - that's what everyone thought but it wasn't the truth.

It was people who found her difficult, and because of that, they all became the same, one creature with many heads. Every single one of them eternally boring to her with their flat homogeneity and their repetitive conversation. Every question that was asked met an appropriate answer that evening, several courses of food were served and eaten, or at least nibbled upon. For dessert, everyone was moved into the lounge, to sip sherry and eat apple pies.

"How bored are you from one to ten?" a voice whispered in her ear.

"Approximately ten thousand, one hundred and ten, squared," Alleria answered automatically without noticing who she was talking with.

"Behind that tapestry there's a hidden door, in three minutes I'm going to leave it open. Make sure no one is watching you and slip outside."

Alleria angled her head to look behind her but no one was there. She couldn't see Willum anywhere and wondered if it had been him who had spoken. It may have sounded like him, although she couldn't be sure because he had been whispering. She waited where she was for a moment longer. Leaving the party in this way couldn't be wise, but just the thought of being away from all this scrutiny was relieving.

Therefore, the decision cemented in her mind.

Everyone had had their share of talking with her - now they contented themselves with talking about her. Whether she was in the room or not was of no importance. She began edging towards the tapestry, marvelling over how invisible she was. Like air, non-existent, so unimportant now that the entertainment had been exhausted.

She quickly slipped behind the tapestry and plunged into a small dark opening in the wall. A door was shut when she was inside by an invisible hand in the darkness. "Who's there?" she breathed.

"Shhh..." replied her mysterious companion. She vaguely saw a silhouette motioning for her to follow.

Was it Willum? She still couldn't tell. "Where are we going?" Alleria asked.

"To the garden," he replied just as they came out of the passage and into a dimly lit corridor where she stopped abruptly when she saw that she had left the party with a complete stranger.

He looked to be around Willum's age, but wasn't as tall and his hair was blond - that was all she could tell in the poor lighting.

Taking a step back, Alleria felt helplessly stupid. "Who're you?" she asked, trying not to betray the fact that she was nervous.

"Relax, I'm Cassel. Mr. Malluri's step-son."

"Mr. Malluri doesn't have a step-son." Alleria was quite certain she would have known such a thing about her benefactor.

He snickered. "Not one that he talks about, no." He took a step away from her, purposefully putting his hands in his pockets as if to show her he would do her no harm. "You just looked like you needed rescuing and I was the only one who noticed."

It was nice to be out of the party and although Cassel was a strange boy, she could tell right away he would be easier to deal with than a bunch of rich people with inflated egos. Alleria didn't know what drove her to trust him, but it was almost as if she had met him somewhere before.

"Alright," she said. "Where's this garden?"

He grinned and indicated with his head towards a passage on their left, leading the way. He was quiet when he moved and following him, Alleria tried to make as little noise as she could with her clicking heels.

They passed through a maze of narrow corridors that at some point led them by the busy kitchen and finally came out into a small walled garden with an artificial stream that flowed into a square pool. "There's a bigger garden down there, but they don't bother to light it up in the winter so you'll just fall and ruin your pretty dress if we go there."

She looked down at the silk garment. It looked like an adult-sized doll's dress. "'Pretty' isn't a word I'd use to describe this dress."

He chortled and took out a packet of cigarettes, taking one for himself and then offering it to Alleria.

"I don't smoke," she replied.

"It's good for you, soothing. You've probably never tried it."

"Do you think in the countryside people don't smoke?"

"Well, they're backwards technology-wise, aren't they?"

She rolled her eyes at his comment. "I tried it once and it made me vomit."

"Ouch." He lit his cigarette and began making smoke rings into the night air. She went and sat on a stone bench that was, thankfully, not downwind from the foul smell of smoke. She took the opportunity to examine him while he stared off towards the distance. He had an upturned nose and wide eyes that looked large in his boyish face. His features were pleasant, handsome even, but when she looked at him, he didn't seem quite right. It was as if something about him was empty, in a lonely and sad kind of way.

They stayed like this for several moments. Unlike many people, Alleria wasn't afraid of silence and didn't have the urge to fill it with words. When he finished his cigarette, he joined her on the bench. She noticed him eying her curiously when he thought she wasn't looking. "So, how are you Mr. Malluri's step-son?" she finally inquired.

"I'm Malluri's second wife's son from her previous marriage. Rich people never settle with just one marriage for a lifetime, it's out of fashion."

"But why weren't you at the party?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "It makes no difference. No one notices whether I'm there or not."

Alleria turned her head to examine him in earnest. He didn't sound sad, but she wondered if his face was perhaps forcefully indifferent. "What about your mother?"

A part of her knew she was overstepping her bounds but Cassel made no sign that this was bothering him. "It's too much work just to get a small morsel of her attention now that she's married to Malluri. I pretty much just gave up on that." He smiled at her. "She seems happy with her new life and I can see the bright side in this situation. That party really wasn't my thing anyway."

"Aye," Alleria agreed, "it was particularly boring."

"Exactly," he said, his face brightening. "And I got to steal the guest of honour. That means I'm the winner of the party without having to put up with all the bullocks."

"Well then... thank you for stealing me away," Alleria said, smiling genuinely for the first time all day. "Out of all the things I'll have to learn, I think fitting in with that lot will be the hardest."

"You'll never fit in, Alleria," he said, still smiling.

"What?" She wasn't sure she heard him correctly.

"You're not going to fit in with them, ever. Not in a million years."

She knew better than to put stock in someone else's words and she strongly suspected he was just teasing her to keep her on her toes. Still, she tilted her head to the side, regarding him with a bemused expression before asking, "How would you know that?"

"I can just tell."

Why was she feeling irritated all of a sudden? Was it because she suspected the same thing? She couldn't regret her decision to come here - not yet. "I have to learn to play their game. Saying that I can't... that's a cruel thing to assume." She shifted on the bench.

"Who said anything about assumptions?" He blinked at her, his smile narrowing to an almost poisonous grin. "Shall I tell you a secret, Alleria?" He leaned in close to whisper in her ear. She stiffened, she could feel his breath on her cheek. "When I look into your eyes, I know where you've been, I know what you saw that night in the forest. I know what you are now."

Alleria's eyes widened as cold dread crept through her. He knew she had been spirited away?

She bodily pushed him from her, rising off the bench. "What do you mean, you know what I am now?" she demanded.

He grinned and put his finger to his lips. "It's a secret. But maybe I'll consider telling you if you... If you just give me the honour of your presence."

She narrowed her eyes, her heart beating so fast it felt like it would burst from her chest. Nobody here knew and she refused to believe that he did - why would he? He was probably just toying with her. "Stop trying to scare me," she hissed and turned to leave.

He sniggered, whispering, "Demon-bait."

"Alleria, what're you doing out here?" Willum was standing right in front of her, when had he come here? Did he hear their conversation? She stole a glance at the bench. Cassel had already made a run for it, probably into the bigger, unlit garden.

She mumbled something about needing fresh air, the rest of the evening passed in a daze. Finally, near midnight, Willum led her back into the sleek black car that glided through the sleeping city streets and took her back home.