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the entrance hall. They went down the hallway on the left and came to a door that Ebon thought was familiar. Sure enough, when she opened it he recognized the room where the instructor Credell had taught beginning alchemy. But the room was empty, and neither Credell nor his students were anywhere to be seen.
    “This is your classroom,” said Jia. “Your instructor is a man named Credell. His students are dismissed, but they will soon return. In the beginning, your days of learning will be divided into two periods of three hours—one before the midday meal, and the other after. This is where you will study your first period.”
    Ebon remembered with some despair the classroom full of young children, but nodded at Jia’s words. “And my second period?”
    “That is general study, and it takes place in the library. There, I shall be your instructor. Come, and I shall show you.”
    She led him away, and Ebon thrilled at the thought that she would be teaching him. He had not liked the look of Credell, nor the way he seemed to flinch away from any word above a whisper. Though Jia was a weremage, perhaps she could help him fill in the gaps in his alchemy, for he strongly suspected Credell would not.
    The gaps in my transmutation, I mean, he thought to himself, and smiled.
    Jia turned this way and that, until soon Ebon was utterly lost again within the halls. When she saw him looking around, desperate for a landmark, she said, “You will often get lost in your first days, and I doubt I could do much to prevent that. Therefore I shall not waste time teaching you where to find your classrooms, but rather how to recognize them. You can ask your fellow students if you have trouble locating yourself.”
    “Thank you,” Ebon mumbled, and abandoned trying to find any sort of marker.
    “There are some things you may try to keep in mind,” Jia continued. “For example, the beginner’s classes are located near the front of the citadel, while advanced classes are towards the rear. Therefore you will move ever deeper as your learning advances—except for your general studies, which are always in the library, and therefore never leave the citadel’s rear.”  
    “All right,” he mumbled.
    Jia pursed her lips, looking as though she was barring a smile. “Perhaps that is not as helpful to a student nearly arrived as I think. But here we are now!”
    They had reached double doors of white wood, the same kind that Cyrus had led them through to the training grounds. But as Jia opened them, Ebon saw they were still within the Academy’s walls—and yet, as with the training grounds, he froze to gaze in wonder.
    Never had Ebon beheld a sight like the Academy’s library, nor imagined that so many books existed in all the world. He stepped just over the threshold to look up, for he could immediately see that there was a second floor—yet, looking up, he noticed that there were in fact four, each reached by a narrow wooden staircase with no railing. Far, far above, the library’s roof ended in a great yellow dome, worked of some substance like glass and casting a golden glow upon the place. The glow was strengthened by glass lanterns set in many fixtures on the walls—no open flames were permitted, Ebon guessed, for the safety of the books.
    And books there were; he thought that there must be tens of thousands. The bottom floor where he stood had many tables laid out, and at each one sat one or more students with volumes laid open before them. He could see more tables set against the railings above, with more students reading additional tomes. And yet the shelves seemed full to bursting with still more, and Ebon could not spy a single empty space.
    “Where…” he stopped, trying to gather his thoughts. “Where did they all come from?”
    “All across the nine lands, and throughout the long centuries of history,” said Jia, and he heard the reverence in her voice.  
    “What knowledge do they hold?”
    “All of it, I should