Soul energy cannot exist in a material frame. It yearns for a container anyway…even if the container screams.

  -A Guide to Currents and the Planes

  (1 night before the murders)

  Arlen Whitestreak noticed what others missed; that’s why the blood stared back; that’s why she couldn’t look away when it blinked or crawled back into the wounds it had come from.

  The night wind gently tickled the thick hair along Arlen’s arms as it passed the tree she sat against. I’d put this tree against any in the woods, she thought, flicking a peanut shell into the water and hearing its splash thirty feet down. The tree overlooked Doberos’ beaches, the pale contrast of the sand against the night sky another point in the win column. The water—black and glassy—shimmered from the waves’ crests, its salty scent soothing. Could the night get any better? Arlen reckoned it couldn’t.

  A bush-stinger squirrel ran along a branch above her, its chitin and pincer clanking with each step. Arlen would have no trouble from it, so long as she didn’t climb the tree and try to take its hard-earned nuts. She had her own, and besides, the beast at her side could tear the squirrel to crunchy and furry pieces.

  Halfsies snored lightly against the tree. He loved the forest as much as Arlen, often staying out on Sevensday nights and flying back in the early morning. If Halfsies stood up, his wolfen ears would poke just a few inches above Arlen’s head. His dusky, black front melded into the night while his silver back matched the moon, useless camouflage for hunting in the day. Great crow wings lay folded above his front legs, and a clustering of long, bony spines hung in a necklace-like band around his neck.

  Arlen stroked a figure eight between his ears. “Do you want to stay here tonight?”

  He opened one eye, pulling Arlen into the endless ruby fractal of his iris. “Do you?” he asked into her mind. “It is supposed to snow.”

  Arlen scoffed. “Since when has snow bothered us?” Within a week of their bond three years ago, her body had grown white hairs that rebuked all but the most vigilant shaving, and Arlen had abandoned the practice altogether, save for around her face.

  “Ok,” Halfsies said before closing his eyes. Arlen traced her hand through the constellations breaking up the black veil above her—wolf, dragon, bear, the twin corvids, the deep squid, and the warrior—until another wolvenquill broke up her vision.

  The quill—glassy, dishwater blond hair with a white top layer—was one she knew well, as was the tanned rider with a side-parted, blonde crew cut. “Bennet, what are you and Whitecap doing here?”

  “Beating the snow,” the boy said. “Ride in with me?”

  Arlen patted Halfsies. “No, I have all the warmth I need right here.”

  Bennet shrugged. “Alright, just make sure you’re to muster on time,” he said before flying off.

  “No need to remind me,” Arlen muttered before she pushed lightly against Halfsies’ side. Without a word, he lifted one of his wings, and Arlen snuggled beside him.

  A flutter woke Arlen sometime later, but whether it was a passing quill or the wind, she didn’t know. What she did know, however, was that her peanuts demanded exit. Pushing open the cover of wings, Arlen grabbed a roll of paper from the bags along Halfsies’ saddle and moved deeper into the forest to do her dirty business. As she found Halfsies again, the fluttering sound came again. The leaves were still. Not the wind, Arlen reasoned before she sniffed the air.

  There was the earthen, salty, and slightly wet scent of the ocean, and the woody, almost nutty scent of the forest. There was also her shit, jabbing her nose from 100 feet. That’s not it, Arlen reasoned before looking to the sky. A blobby, black dot cut through the sky, with small wings trailing behind it. That must be one fat quill, Arlen thought as she watched it approach a sea-stack, stopping in the air before hovering slowly to the ground like a spider on a web. Either a fat quill or one of the second years severely behind on landing techniques, she thought, snuggling against Halfsies again. Why worry today when tomorrow will come anyway?

  As if woken by a certain number of Halfsies’ heartbeats, Arlen pushed herself from the furry sanctuary. Another five star performance from Halfsies! Beside her, Halfsies’ snout quivered in the thin dusting of snow. Gently, Arlen dusted the snow away, ceasing her companion’s twitching immediately.

  Through the clouds, Arlen found the still rising sun and determined it was 5:20. “Get up Halfsies,” Arlen said, patting his head to no avail.

  “You go, I sleep,” Halfsies said. “This was your idea!”

  Arlen would have grasped pearls if she could afford a pair. “It was your idea to come out last night,” Arlen explained as she pushed into him. “You know I can’t get back that fast on my own.”

  Halfsies yawned. “Better start running Arly.”

  Arlen threw up her hands. “Fine. But when I get back, I’m asking Drayla if she’ll let me trade you,” she explained. “I know Augusta from sixth squad has been looking to ride you.”

  Halfsies shot to his feet, just like Arlen wanted. “You wouldn’t.”

  “I would and I will,” Arlen lied, hopping onto his back, “and letting me walk would give me an awful lot of time to decide.”

  “Fine. I’ll leave you at breakfast and we’ll see if I still want you afterwards,” he said before taking off, his long wings needing only one flap to lift them both.

  When Halfsies leveled some 3000 feet in the sky, Arlen drew in a deep breath. Should have brought my jacket, she lamented, wind clawing at her exposed hairs.

  The tall stone towers that crowned Ravenshroud Academy from atop its sea-spire greeted Arlen from thirty miles out, along with the thick, smoothed stone walls that ran between them. They were not smiling at their ever-tardy daughter, and the bright sun joined their scowling admonition. Thirty minutes for little Arlen Whitestreak, they said. The cicadas below joined in the scolding, chirping like clock hands.

  Between the main castle and the walls were several warehouses and dorms, and thatched buildings that served as kennel spaces and obstacle courses. Halfsies flew Arlen to her squad’s dorm, itself a stone outcropping off a smaller tower with seven small rooms and a shared common area. To the western side of the sea-stack, a small neighborhood had been set aside for the faculty and patrols stationed out of Ravenshroud. Arlen laid a kiss onto his snout before she hopped through her window. “See you after breakfast!” she said, grabbing clothes with one hand and throwing them on with the other.

  Her uniform was thin wicking pants and a tunic shirt—both a tan-cream—under brown leather pants and a double-breasted jacket. Arlen had always liked how the gold buttons looked—even with the gilding chipped to expose wood below—but, had no time to admire them in her room’s full-length mirror. Reaching into the jacket pocket, she found the small brush she kept for just such occasions and combed her chin-length white hair as she jogged.

  Arlen’s heart felt drawn, as if on a fishing line, to Halfsies and part of her wanted to stop her jog and let it carry her to her companion. Each beat of his wings was a small poke to her heart, a gentle reminder that he was still there, until they stopped. “I am at the kennel.”

  “I know,” Arlen thought back to him. “I’ll see you after breakfast, If you will have me.”

  “Perhaps if you come to me with some of that ham they serve in your hall, maybe then I will think about the continuation of our little partnership.”

  Continuation? Partnership? Since when does he use those words? Arlen wondered. “Have you been spending time around Regalia?” she asked, since apparently the white-blonde wolvenquill was the best spoken of all the dogs in the kennel.

  “I can talk to whom I please, when I please,” Halfsies said, chin no doubt upturned defensively.

  Arlen laughed. “You know you’ve never needed to justify that to me.”

  “I know. She has been”—Halfsies paused—“touch-hungry?”

  “Horny?” Arlen asked nervously. Talking to other wolvenquills was one thing, but fucking was another, especially if that wolvenquill was bonded to a human, on Arlen’s squad, no less. She understood that he was—in his words—an unparalleled dog of a dog when it came to burying the bone. That didn’t mean she wanted to hear the play by play or the pillow talk.

  “Think nothing of it. I know how much you loathe her companion.”

  “I don’t loathe Esme,” Arlen transmitted as she arrived in the academy’s main dining hall. “She’s just a bit much.”

  Several long tables took up the hall’s back half, while the students stood in rows of seven at the front half. Along the sprawling, arched stone rafters, several shades of ravens, crows, pigeons and other birds—let in through slats in the ceiling— curiously watched the gossiping students below.

  Their uniforms were largely more complete than Arlen’s own, the leather less worn, the buttons more gilded. Several wore perfumes or cologne or had their ontolomancers back home—trained alchemists who could tap into hidden quantum states of elements—enchant their jackets or other garments to perpetually smell like pine, cedar, sandalwood, or—bafflingly—musk. The aromas swirled together in the air, congealing into a clenched fist that barreled toward Arlen’s nose. How the rest of the student body didn’t drop dead from wearing the scents so close to them was still a mystery to Arlen. Some had the right idea of adding lead dust into the enchantment oils to prolong and temper the effects, but a few of them had decided to add mercury to do the opposite. Were they in that much of a hurry to announce that they were back?

  The far wall was a large mosaic of a white wolvenquill—Alabaster, lord of all wolvenquills—descending from a winter sky to meet his rider—Artem Dawnarm—in a field of snow, arm outstretched. A crown of gold, silver, and iron rested nobly on Artem’s silky and straight black hair, as if they had been made for each other. Gold represented fortune and possibility, silver, knowledge, and iron—master of all—represented the strength of Ravenshroud, Doberos, and Paknest.

  As beautiful as it was, it illuminated a far uglier sight much closer to Arlen, Carlotta Fargazer and her perfect white waves of hair. Her jacket shined with oil, and her lapel bore the silver bow and arrow pin of Isaac Trueeye, her ancestor. The arrowhead was curved into an eye, and only after four years of being tormented by this bitch did Arlen make the connection, not that it made her want to sock Carlotta any less

  In addition to her perfect fucking waves and chest-accentuating jacket, Carlotta wore her usual goons behind her like large, circular shadows. Herbert and Heinrich Tectari hailed from the first rider Hugo Titanborn, something Arlen thought would make the dead giant very sad. Hugo—if the legends were true—had been eight and a half feet tall, and his twinned progeny both scraped six and a half feet themselves, brought two inches higher with the black mohawks on their doughy heads.

  “Arlen!” Carlotta exclaimed, closer to the shriek of a bat than anything a schoolgirl could make. “It’s so good to see you!”

  “Hi Carlotta,” Arlen said nervously.

  “Well, how was your summer? Did you go anywhere fun?”

  Arlen nodded. “I went to the forest every day and the beach a few times.”

  Carlotta’s fake smile—all lips, no eyes—fell an inch. “I see. I suppose I should have smelled it on you. You did bathe at some point?” she asked, drawing a synchronized chuckle from her goons.

  “Yea, I tried using some new shampoos to get my hair to shine like yours, but couldn’t figure out a good mixture,” Arlen said. “I think I’m missing acidity, something light though, maybe uric?”

  Carlotta pulled up her smile as if on strings. She and Arlen knew well the dance of disses and jabs, that one was never allowed to stop smiling. Based on the stifled chuckles from Herbert and Heinrich, Arlen knew she had scored a point. “I can assure you it’s not that,” Carlotta said calmly. “I can loan you what I use—”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  And let you tell everybody I can’t bathe without you? Not a chance, Arlen thought dismally.

  “And I can maybe even lend you one of my jackets,” Carlotta continued. “I know a tailor back home”—she bounced her hand off her brow—“even better, why don’t you tell me your tailor and I can cover the bill? We can’t have a fourth year wearing something more worn than what the new students will be getting today after the bridge trial.”

  Arlen didn’t have a tailor, and that was the point. “As lovely of an idea as that is, I’m sure your parents have enough on their hands now that we’re going to be graduating next year.” Arlen looked to the clock and made her eyes widen. “Well, I’ll leave you to it, see you in the skies!” Arlen said before bolting into the hall.

  “Crisis averted,” Arlen transmitted as she fell into line with her squad, sixth of seventh.

  “Arlen White-streak, keeping up the streak,” Julia Whippinggale—first lower-wing—said, breaking Arlen’s name in two and saying the first part with a V. Her features were tight, hawkish, and symmetric, her blonde braid perfectly centered on her spine. The scent of cinnamon clung to her from her shampoo, much more tolerable than the perfumes the other students wore.

  Julia was a legacy student, both her parents being riders, and theirs before them back to Dorian the first. She certainly looked the part. Her jacket bore none of the white scars from use that Arlen’s did and instead bore her family crest on her shoulder in silver, three strands of wind extended outward as if whipped by an angry god. The gilding along her buttons was solid and unbroken, having been painted with enchanted oil to prevent rusting. It was a common enchantment, but one Arlen had long since stopped spending her limited allowance on. With her high marks and connections, if she kept looking good and kept her laces tight, she’d be set for a job in Proudhowl. Politics, likely, since the military council was staffed almost entirely of riders. Or she’d go into business, off the other students she had mingled with over three—soon to be four—years.

  Arlen found that she didn’t mind that her home was a halfway house for the growing noblespawn. Their parent’s donations to ensure their little teenage club kept going were why she had a home, why she had been plucked from the forest at all. A girl like Julia could afford a lot of books for herself, and Arlen was glad that—through Ravenshroud—she got to read the same material.

  Arlen waved a finger. “But I’m not late,” she said. While Headmistress Drayla may have called for muster at 6, she usually began at 6:05, something Arlen exploited frequently.

  Julia nodded. “No, you’re not,” she said curtly before turning to the second attendant, Tris Melbourne. “Hand it over. You bet against Arlen, and she has left you thoroughly thrashed.”

  Tris’ shorn black hair loomed over the rest of the group by at least half a head, itself a shade lighter than her cool, mulchy skin. Between her broad shoulders, Tris could fit two of the girls below her, but only one-and-a-quarter of Bennet. Not a legacy, but her bulk granted immense strength. Becoming a rider was simply the most lucrative nail to drop that bulging hammer on. Tris wore nail polish in warm colors, save for one finger on each hand that she painted with a black, licorice scented polish. “Maybe think about sleeping in next time, Arlen,” Tris mumbled as she handed Julia two coins.

  “And miss the first muster of the new school year? Drayla would flog me!”

  “Not so fast, Tris,” tutted their leader, Esme Bondblood. Licorice black waves cascaded elegantly to her chest, contrasted by her snowy skin and the comparatively darker white scarf tied tight around her neck. As captain, her jacket was more regal than the rest of her crew, with golden epaulettes along the shoulders, golden trim along the collar, and a crest of a golden teardrop with a paw at the center on the back. A legacy, if you couldn’t fucking tell. Arlen was convinced their leader would wear a cape if it didn’t interfere with her ability to fly. Some days she wished Esme would, if only to be sucked into a jet stream.

  Marcella Brontes—third lower-wing—pointed at the clock above the mosaic. “She’s not late.” Like Arlen, Marcella had white hair, albeit much thinner and in a shoulder-length ponytail that mirrored her body’s general lankiness and frailty. She smelled of birch, from her time in the forest rather than an enchantment. She wasn’t a legacy, and nobody would have guessed it. She was good with beasts though—see, raised by wolves—and being a rider was a mutated steak more profitable than being a hunter or cager.

  Bennet—the other high wing beside Arlen—clicked his tongue and ran a hand over his scarf. “She’s missing this.”

  Arlen’s hands shot to her throat, confirming he was right. Looking down the line, Arlen saw Esme smiling at her, scarf folded neatly in hand. “As is, Arlen’s uniform is not up to regulation and she is accordingly late, regardless of the habits of our headmistress. Julia, give Tris her money.”

  “Hey! That’s my scarf!” Arlen exclaimed. “Did you snatch it from my room?”

  Esme arched an eyebrow and passed the scarf down the line. “Your room? I didn’t see anybody in your bed, and I decided to keep it until it could be returned to its owner.”

  Arlen tied her scarf tight around her neck. “You know I spend my nights outside on Sevensday, right?”

  Esme nodded. “Regardless, you are to be here at 6, not 6:05, 6, in full uniform no less. As a fourth year, I will tolerate your truancy and general half-assery no further,” she said, boring her gaze into Arlen and dragging her into the darkness of her onyx eyes. Arlen hated when she did that, as if Esme was a lord and she an undeserving peasant, lucky to have been assigned a squad at all. “If you are further late or not up to my standards, I will inquire with the headmistress as to your chore duty. I hear she has been displeased with the kennel’s current shit-shoveler.”

  “And maybe inquire about getting some galva-gone for her as well?” Julia suggested.

  “Hey!” Arlen exclaimed. “My uniform is kept in suitable condition for flying, and the state of my buttons has never been brought up on any of Professor Albia’s evaluations.”

  “Until we have to fly in parades and everyone wonders—”

  Esme held up her hand. “I will ask Headmistress Drayla about getting a provision for the seven of us.”

  Arlen rolled her eyes. “Great, so then everyone stops talking about how I can’t afford it and instead about how I need my captain to buy it for me.”

  “For a week,” Julia shot back, “until they forget you and move onto someone’s bad haircut or who’s trying to bury the bone in who. Ravenshroud has a remarkably short memory.”

  “Trust me, they don’t,” Arlen muttered. “Once you’re on their tongue, you’re on their tongue.”

  “What was that?” Julia shot back.

  Arlen shook her head, hoping that sword practice was on the schedule so she could give the princess a few lumps. “I know you can hear me; we have the same ears.”

  “Julia,” Bennet cut in, “stop antagonizing Arlen.”

  Esme nodded and clapped Julia on the shoulder. “Bennet’s right, Julia, drop it. I’ll inquire about getting a provision for us while I’m talking to the headmistress about other things.”

  The fourth attendant—Daephina Demora—chuckled, earning her a scowl from Arlen. Her chocolate hair—usually wavy—had been thrown into a tight bun, something that Arlen thought went well with her pale, egg-like head. She had the good graces to not wear something pungent, smelling instead like nothing all. A legacy, though from a clan of alchemists and witch doctors instead of Esme’s and Julia’s pedigree. The mystic arts could be passed down, but the bleeding edge ontolomancers operated out of the academies or the mountain colleges. Something about getting a pawn to the other side, as she had put it. “Inquire, please Esme, we all know you practically live on her shoulder,” she said. “I’d get a cheap pair of pants if I were you, Arlen.”

  Before Arlen could respond, Esme’s stance somehow became more rigid. Seeing this, the rest of the crew clasped their hands behind their back and watched as Headmistress Drayla sauntered to the hall’s main platform at the front along with her quill, Goldmask. Unlike her companion whose golden hair was contained to the upper half of his face, Drayla sported a thin, finely groomed blond beard and flowing blonde waves. When Drayla finally stopped, Goldmask sat beside her and flared his wings, perfectly symmetric

  “Welcome, students of Claw and Coat, to another year!” Drayla said, drawing cheers from all. “The winter ahead looks like it will be quite cold”—a groan rippled through the students—“but I’m sure we will still learn quite a bit and have fun nonetheless. Our spirits, after all, are only as high as we take them.”

  “And it seems like we’re not going to be taking them that high,” Daephina muttered, earning a nod from Arlen and a glare from Esme.

  “Lessons or no, I can assure all of you that you will be busy. While fall is still with us, you will be flying everyday. Furthermore patrol duty will be extended from fourth and fifth years down to the third year, with second year students joining them on a patrol once a week. Finally, first years student will bond with their wolvenquills at the end of winter”—gasps and whispers bubbled up from the students—“and complete their first patrol during the week of finals.”

  “Winter? They can’t bond that soon!”

  “Is she crazy?”

  “They’re adding second and third years to patrol? Are the dracosine that bad?”

  “Your questions do not fall on deaf ears,” Drayla began again. “The dracosine of Hoarden have been flying further south this past year and as one of our nation’s proud rider academies, we must fly to meet them. To this end, we will be joined occasionally in our flights by the other schools. I expect that you will serve as shining paragons of this academy. Am I wrong in this assumption?”

  “No!” the students barked as one.

  Drayla laughed, echoing off the walls and the rows of students like terracotta soldiers before her. “As is custom, the first day always brings in our newest pledges, but I will dispense who I have chaperoning the entrance trials after breakfast. Eat up”—through the side door a group of riders carried in a long a table of food—“for the year will demand much of you.”

  Esme gave her crew a single nod, releasing them from their petrified salute. The thought of the entrance trials sent a jolt of electricity through Arlen as she made herself a plate of fruit, small meats, and a bowl of oatmeal. While any Paknesti could join the schools to become rider-warriors, it was the kin-claimed—orphans that a wolvenquill or their rider had found—that made up some 20 percent of riders, with another 60 being legacy. Arlen had been kin-claimed herself, and after living around the academy all of her life—save for a single, night in her memory filled with fireflies and the song of nightingales—it made sense she try to join.

  Theodora will be old enough this year, Arlen realized between bites before she rose from her seat.

  “Where are you going, Arlen?” Esme asked.

  “Forgot something.” Rather than stop at the food table, Arlen strode past it to the faculty table on the raised platform. She could already hear Esme’s finely polished boots clacking against the ground as she ran to restrain her errant high-wing. Sorry, about that headmistress, you know how she is, Arlen could imagine Esme saying as she put Arlen in a full nelson. If I recall, you did say you’ve been dissatisfied with the churls on shit duty, but Arlen here is more than willing to help. And then Arlen would try futilely to elbow her captain and Drayla would nod and say, lovely idea, Bondblood! I’ll have Whitestreak put on shit shoveling until she graduates. How would you like to be headmistress once you graduate? My creaky bones can only take so much.

  But Drayla said no such thing and only looked up from her many, many strips of bacon. All of the teachers and quills at the long table locked eyes on Arlen, but Arlen did not flinch under their gaze. As a student, it was her right to approach faculty, even as informally as this. “Yes, Arlen?” Drayla asked with a warm smile that Arlen felt she could just curl up in for hours. “Did you like my speech so much that you came to tell me?”

  Arlen shook her head. “It was a good speech, headmistress”—it was alright—“but I was actually wondering if I could ask about the trials today.”

  “I thought I made clear I would dispense with duties—”

  Arlen waved her off. “I just wanted to ask about one of the kin claimed, is all,” Arlen said. “Theodora Junia, I’m quite close with her, but I’ve been busy and don’t know if she’ll be in the pledges this year.”

  Drayla smiled and nodded. “Little Junia, yes, I know of her. She will be in this year’s crop of bond-aspirants.”

  Arlen felt a sudden cold wave hit her back and knew immediately that Esme was standing behind her at the food table. The rigid ice queen wouldn’t dare move beyond the unspoken boundary like Arlen had and rather than shrink under her captain’s gaze, Arlen stood taller. “If it is possible, could I ask that my crew be assigned to the trials today?”

  Drayla cocked her head to the side. “I thought I told you I would dispense teams after breakfast.”

  Arlen raised a single finger. “You did, but you’d just be changing your list rather than dispensing with it.”

  Professor Aldous Fenrikan, a burly man with a scarred, bald head and scarred forearms, laughed from beside the headmistress. “She does have a point.”

  Drayla glanced at him. “I didn’t know I had you teaching rhetoric this semester,” she muttered before turning back to Arlen. “Very well, I will have the change made, if”—she let the word hang—“you promise to only watch.”

  Arlen nodded and bowed. “Of course. Thank you, headmistress.”

  Esme was on Arlen like a shadow once she had crossed beyond the food table. “So, we are on trial duty now. Is your friend capable?” she asked sternly.

  Arlen nodded. “She is more capable than I was first year, and I have the utmost confidence in her.”

  Esme’s features softened. “Alright, I look forward to meeting this Theodora,” she said as she sat down.

  “Es,” Tris began, “how fucked are we?”

  “Not at all,” Esme said before spearing a sausage patty with her fork. “Arlen was just asking if a kin-claimed she knew would be partaking, which, they are.”

  “Oooh,” Daephina said. “Getting a replacement?”

  Arlen gave Daephina a light shove. “For you maybe. Halfsies keeps saying that Dalia has been looking for a change,” Arlen shot back, earning a snicker from all but Esme, who cracked the tiniest of smiles. Bennet and Drayla’s smiles may have been inviting, but Esme’s set Arlen—and presumably everyone else—on fire.

  Daephina thrust her fork at Arlen. “You lie!”

  Arlen caught Daephina’s fork with her own. “Something about how he’s tired of carrying you for miles.”

  Daephina yanked her arm back, pulling Arlen’s fork with it. “Funny, because Dalia said she saw you almost fall off during your flight in this morning.”

  “If you fell off during a ride like that, I’d just let you hit the ground,” Halfsies said.

  “Very fair,” Arlen transmitted back, along with an image of the ham she had saved for him. The reward for this image was a panting sound in Arlen’s mind. “Must have been someone else he saw because it couldn’t be me. You really ought to get her checked before we go on patrols together.”

  Daephina rolled her eyes and handed Arlen her fork. “Whatever. Once we meet this little friend of yours, we can all make the appropriate conclusion to get a new high-wing.”

  No further hijinks followed as they finished their breakfast, with everyone passing Esme their written questions. Arlen wanted to ask if Esme or Drayla might know more about the increase in dracosine activity, but assumed she’d know the full scope of the problem soon enough. Why worry today when tomorrow will come anyway? Arlen told herself, biting into a crisp apple. Her mantra had gotten her through big exams, bad chores, and worse people, and Arlen was confident it would work this year.

  When breakfast was nearly finished, Drayla sauntered to the middle of the raised platform with a scroll in hand. She needed not shout, as the hall silenced itself as she did so, like mutts waiting to be thrown a bone. She had taught them well. “I will now dispense with the teams overseeing the trials today,” she said before clearing her throat. “The teams are, Crew 2-1 under Captain Tenor, Crew 2-7 under Captain Frekinos, Crew 3-4 under Captain Skol, and Crew 4-1 under Captain Bondblood. The rest of you will be given assignments at the kennel when you arrive there today.”