Chapter 30: The Schorlaship Examination

Evelyn’s POV

The glass globe of my kerosene lamp was coated in a thick layer of black soot, choking the tiny flame down to a dying amber thread.

I leaned closer, the tip of my nose nearly touching the rough parchment. My breath bloomed in faint white clouds in the damp, unheated air of the hall. Around me, two hundred desks creaked in unison under the weight of desperate bodies. The air smelled of wet wool, sweat, and cheap fuel—the bitter stench of two hundred poor souls trying to claw their way out of the mud.

My right hand was so numb I could barely feel the thin iron nib of my pen. Every few minutes, I had to press my trembling fingers against the hot glass of the lamp just to thaw the joints enough to keep writing.

Question 42: Calculate the tax yield ratio of the northern trade routes under seasonal tariff hikes.

My mind raced through the numbers, multiplying fractions in my head while my eyes strained against the dimming light. I knew this formula. I had memorized it over six months of sleepless nights, huddled under a blanket in my family's leaky kitchen, reading stolen textbooks by the glow of dried fat candles.

My mother had sold her silver wedding band to pay the entrance f*e for this room. My father had worked double shifts in the coal yards until his cough turned red, just so I could afford the train ticket from the outer districts into the city center.

If I failed this exam, there was no second chance. No inheritance. No family connections. Just a life spent breaking my back in the factories until my body gave out.

I dipped my nib into the inkwell, careful not to take too much. The ink was cheap and thin, liable to bleed through the page if I pressed too hard.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

The proctor’s heavy leather boots echoed down the center aisle. Mr. Garrow. A broad-shouldered man with a severe gray beard and a coat tailored from heavy navy wool—the kind of cloth that cost more than my family made in three years. His sharp eyes scanned the rows of shivering youths like a hawk hunting field mice.

Whenever he passed a desk where the light was fading, he didn't adjust the lamp. He just stared, watching the student struggle in the shadows with cold, unbothered indifference.

The academies didn't want us here. The elite city schools were built for the children of merchants, lords, and high-ranking officials. The National Scholarship Act was a formality—a token gesture of charity passed by the Ministry to keep the lower districts from rioting. They gave us seats in the back of the hall, broken desks, and dying lamps, hoping we would fail quietly.

I scratched out the final calculation, my handwriting tight and precise.

Section Three Complete.

A sudden, sharp pop made me flinch. A tiny spit of blue flame flickered inside my lamp, and the wick dropped another millimeter. The circle of light on my desk shrank to the size of a saucer.

Panic hit my chest like a bucket of ice water.

I looked up frantically. The heavy iron clock at the front of the hall read 11:35 AM. Twenty-five minutes remaining. And I still had the essay section—the highest-weighted portion of the entire paper—left to complete.

"Keep your eyes on your own paper," Garrow’s raspy voice boomed from three rows over. A young boy two seats ahead of me was trembling violently, his eyes brimming with tears as his lamp gave a final puff of gray smoke and went dark. The boy sat in total blackness, staring at his blank essay sheet, his chest heaving with silent, choked sobs.

Garrow didn't even stop walking. He didn't offer a spare lamp. He simply pulled a pocket watch from his vest, glanced at it, and kept pacing.

I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth and turned the page of my exam booklet.

My knuckles were raw, the skin split near the nail from the cold. I wiped a stray smear of soot off the border of the paper and gripped my pen tighter, leaning down until my chin was inches from the desk, desperate to catch every faint ray of light my dying wick could give.

Section Four: Advanced Political Theory & Governance.

I read the prompt once. Then twice.

My blood ran cold.

This wasn't a standard policy question. It wasn't about crop distribution or municipal budgets.

Analyze the structural vulnerabilities of the Royal Arcane Reserve, and detail the tactical steps required to disable the central vault's warding grid during a civilian uprising.

I stared at the black ink on the page. My heart gave a heavy, irregular thud against my ribs.

This question had nothing to do with academy curriculum. It was a blueprint for treason.

I glanced sideways. To my left, a girl in a faded yellow dress was scratching away furiously, her face illuminated by a bright, steady flame. To my right, a boy was chewing on his thumb, staring at his paper with glassy, exhausted eyes.

Did they have the same prompt? Or had I been handed something else entirely?

I leaned over slightly, trying to glimpse the top header of the boy's paper.

"Candidate 184."

Garrow's voice slammed down right behind my shoulder. The smell of tobacco and damp wool hit me instantly.

I snapped my head back to my desk, my pulse hammering in my throat. "I—I wasn't looking at his answers, sir. My lamp is dying."

"Eyes on your parchment," Garrow murmured, his hand resting heavily on the wooden edge of my desk. His thick thumb brushed against the top corner of my exam booklet—right over the official red wax seal bearing my candidate registration number.

He didn't move away. He stood there, his shadow completely blotting out what little light I had left.

"Sir, please," I whispered, my voice trembling with an agonizing mix of anger and fear. "I can't see to write."

Garrow bent down slightly, his mouth inches from my ear. "A girl from the gutter shouldn't worry so much about political theory, Evelyn. You should be worrying about getting back home before dark."

How did he know my name?

The candidates were only identified by numbers. My name wasn't written on the front of the test booklet—only my registry number, stamped in black ink at the door.

Before I could speak, Garrow tapped the edge of my paper twice with his index finger, leaned back, and walked away down the aisle without another word.

My whole body was shaking. I lowered my head back toward the faint embers of my wick, my hands clammy despite the biting cold.

I looked down at the spot he had tapped.

Where his thumb had rested over the red wax seal, the wax had been cracked open. Beneath the dried shell, a thin piece of folded, oiled paper had been tucked into the seam of the booklet pages.

My thumb hovered over it. Every alarm bell in my head was screaming at me to ignore it, to throw my head down and write whatever I could remember about trade law before the timer expired.

Instead, my trembling fingers slid the folded scrap out from under the cracked wax.

I unfolded it beneath the shadow of my hand.

It wasn't a note from a proctor. It was a handwritten message on fine parchment, written in fresh, midnight-blue ink that hadn't even fully dried.

Your father didn't die of a lung infection in the coal yards, Evelyn. He was murdered because he found the vault key.

Look under your wooden seat. You have twelve minutes before the gas valves in this room are opened.