The Great Awakening Rite had been running for six hours, and Alan Frost had developed a theory about it: the louder a person celebrated, the smaller and fluffier their spirit beast turned out to be.

So far the theory held up beautifully. A girl two spots ahead of him had shrieked so hard that three windows rattled, and her partner for life was a Rank D cloud rabbit that sneezed sparkles. A broad-shouldered boy had punched the air and roared his victory, and his companion was a Rank C fire lizard the size of a loaf of bread. Everyone cheered anyway. That was the part Alan had never understood about celebrations. They worked even when the results were ridiculous.

He stood fourth from the end of the line in the Grand Rotunda of Lumina Academy of High Magic, hands folded neatly in front of him, uniform collar pressed flat, expression carefully arranged into polite blankness. The rotunda was an absurdly beautiful place for an exercise in public nerves. A dome of stained glass climbed overhead, throwing slabs of amber and violet light across the marble. In the center of the floor lay the summoning circle, a wide ring of silver inlay as old as the academy itself, and around it stood a ring of instructors in grey robes who held clipboards the way knights held shields.

-- Fourth from the end, -- Tobias whispered beside him. -- You know what that means? It means the leftovers. All the good spirits were handed out hours ago.

-- That is the most comforting thing anyone has said to me today, -- Alan whispered back.

Tobias blinked, round-faced and freckled, a pastry crumb clinging to the corner of his mouth. He had already been through the circle. His partner was a Rank E ember mouse the size of a thumb, currently asleep in his breast pocket, and Tobias had cried for a full minute after the bond settled. He had never looked happier. Alan envied him in a distant, scientific way, the way one envies a person who can whistle.

-- You do not want a good one? -- Tobias asked.

-- I want a quiet one, -- Alan said. -- Something that does not ask for much. Something that does not get noticed.

-- That is a very sad wish for a first year.

-- It is a very practical wish.

That was the plan, and Alan had refined it over eighteen years into something close to a philosophy. Four years at the academy. A middling rank, safely inside the broad forgettable middle of the class. A respectable degree. Then a small office somewhere, maybe the Royal Surveyors' Bureau, with a window facing a wall and a desk nobody ever looked at twice. In Alan's experience, remarkable people ended up in cells or in the ground. The ordinary ones went home for dinner.

His right hand drifted up on its own and pressed against the left side of his chest, over the place where, for as long as he could remember, there had been a faint warmth like a coal wrapped in cloth. He caught himself and lowered the hand, then smoothed his cuff, then straightened the line of his sleeve until it sat perfectly even with the other.

Ahead of them, a boy with sharp cheekbones and a sharper smile stepped out of the circle with a Rank B silverfang wolf cub nestled in his arms. The hall applauded. Cassian, top scorer of the entrance exams, lifted his chin and let the applause wash over him like a cat accepting tribute.

-- Showoff, -- Tobias muttered.

-- He has earned it, -- Alan said, and meant it. Cassian worked relentlessly. That, too, was a kind of noise Alan wanted nothing to do with.

The instructors called the next name, and the next. The line shuffled. The afternoon light slid from amber toward rose. Alan began to feel almost hopeful. Maybe nothing would happen to him at all. Maybe he would receive a Rank F pebble-sprite, the kind that mostly sat on a shelf and glowed, and the whole matter would be settled before supper.

Then the floor began to hum.

It began so softly that Alan thought it was the vibration of a hundred nervous feet. But the hum deepened, rolling up through the marble into his shoes and his shins, a long low note like a cathedral organ played by something enormous and very far away. The chandeliers shivered. A few students laughed uncertainly. At the center of the circle, an instructor with a clipboard frowned and said, in the tone of a person who had said it many times before, -- A ley surge. Again. Somebody notify Maintenance.

-- Does this happen often? -- Tobias whispered.

-- Apparently it does, -- Alan said.

But under the silver circle, deep beneath the polished stone where no student had ever looked, something else was waking up. A single ancient rune, one that nobody had bothered to catalog because it had been dormant for a thousand years, flared a dull and furious red. The ley lines beneath the academy had been strained all week by the crowded ceremonies, and now they overflowed into the oldest channel they could find. Nobody in the hall saw it. Nobody could have. But Alan felt, very distinctly, the warm coal in his chest give a single hard throb.

-- Alan Frost, -- the instructor called. -- Step forward, please.

For a moment he considered pretending he had not heard. Then he considered how conspicuous that would be. He walked forward at an even pace, back straight, hands at his sides, a perfectly ordinary young man doing a perfectly ordinary thing, and stepped into the circle.

The silver inlay felt warm under his shoes. The instructor, a tired woman with ink on her fingers, gave him the standard instruction in the standard bored voice. -- Place your palm on the central sigil. Open your soul. Let it call to whatever answers. Do not resist and do not panic. If your beast is large, step back so the circle does not crush it.

-- Yes, Instructor.

Alan knelt, laid his palm against the sigil, and tried very hard to open his soul to nothing in particular.

The circle lit up green, as it had for everyone before him. A bright, ordinary, cheerful green. For half a heartbeat Alan thought, with real relief, that it was going to be a pebble-sprite after all.

Then the green curdled to silver-white, brighter than the stained glass, so bright that the whole rotunda flinched. The silver ring sang a note that was not any note an instrument could play. Cracks of white fire raced along the inlay like lightning spreading under ice. The hum in the floor rose to a howl. Alan felt his palm sink into the sigil as if it had turned to water, and the world dropped out from under him.

For one impossible moment he was not in the Rotunda at all. He stood at the threshold of an endless hall, its ceiling lost in cold gold light, banners older than any kingdom hanging in the still air. At the far end, small with distance, five silhouettes stood in a loose arc with their faces turned toward him. They did not look like statues. They looked like people who had been waiting a very long time and had just heard someone knock.

One of them lifted a hand.

Then the white fire went out, and Alan was on his knees on a cold marble floor with his palm still pressed to a sigil that had gone dark and dull.

Silence filled the Rotunda. Dust drifted in the amber light. A few seats away, someone coughed.

The instructor looked at the circle, then at her clipboard, then at Alan. Her eyebrows drew together. -- Hm, -- she said. -- Any sensation of contact?

Alan's mouth opened. His mind raced through a dozen answers, all of them dangerous, and arrived at the one that had kept him safe his whole life. He closed his mouth, smoothed his cuff, and shook his head.

-- No, Instructor. Nothing.

-- No bond. No beast. No reaction at all. -- She made a mark on her clipboard. -- Well. That happens sometimes. Unresponsive soul. We will log you as Rank F, no spirit assigned. You may retry at the winter session if you wish. Next.

A ripple of laughter went through the hall, soft and not exactly cruel. Cassian let out a short amused breath through his nose. Alan stood, nodded respectfully, and walked out of the circle with the straight back of a person whose heart was trying to climb out through his ribs.

Rank F. No spirit. A forgotten middle. It was almost perfect. It was nearly the best possible outcome.

Except that the warm coal in his chest was no longer warm. It was hot. It pulsed in slow heavy beats, once, twice, three times, and on the third beat something spoke.

-- Is this the one?

Alan stopped walking.

It was not a sound, exactly. It was a voice inside his skull, as clear as if someone had leaned in and murmured against his ear. A woman's voice, low and brisk, accustomed to being obeyed.

-- Do not stand there like a scarecrow, boy. Straighten your spine. It is a disgrace.

His spine, which had been straight, went straighter on its own.

-- Hm. Reflexes, at least, -- said a second voice, lazy and amused, with an edge of excitement under it like a spark under ash. -- Fascinating. The skull is surprisingly spacious. Is that normal? Does everyone have this much room in there?

-- Be quiet, both of you, -- said a third voice, soft as warm milk. -- You will frighten him. Dear, are you hurt? Please do not be afraid. You are perfectly safe. I am here.

-- Oh, he is very afraid, -- said a fourth voice, throaty and delighted. -- Look at his ears. Look at them! They are going red. Can I call him Red?

-- Does anyone know where the forge is? -- said a fifth voice, gruff and increasingly annoyed. -- There is no forge. Why is it so quiet in here? Who stole my hammer? SOMEBODY ANSWER ME.

Alan walked. He did it very carefully, one foot after the other, with the fixed polite expression of a man who is absolutely not hearing five women argue inside his head. He passed the other students. He passed Tobias, who gave him a sympathetic wince. He passed two instructors who did not look up. His hand came up and pressed against his chest.

-- Hey, -- said the lazy voice, very close now. -- Hey. Did he just press his chest? He pressed his chest. That is where the pain is coming from.

-- It is not pain, it is the contract anchor, -- said the brisk voice. -- Listen to me, all of you. I do not know how, but we have been bound. I can feel a binding line. Whoever this boy is, our life force has been tied to his.

-- Bound? To a child? -- said the throaty one.

-- To a first year, -- said the soft voice, with something that sounded alarmingly like fondness. -- He looks so tired.

Alan reached the great doors of the Rotunda and pushed through them into the cooler air of the corridor. He took six more steps, turned the corner, found an empty alcove beneath a window, and stopped.

He stood still for a long moment. Then he said, very quietly, to the empty alcove, -- Excuse me. Is anyone there?

Five voices answered at once.

-- WE CAN HEAR YOU, -- said the brisk one.

-- Obviously we can hear you, we are inside you, -- said the lazy one.

-- Please do not panic, -- said the soft one.

-- He is panicking, -- said the throaty one, with enormous satisfaction.

-- WHERE IS MY HAMMER?

Alan slid down the wall until he was sitting on the cold floor. He put his forehead on his knees. This was a problem. It was a dignified, orderly sort of problem, he told himself, and problems of that kind could be solved with enough calm.

-- I think, -- he said carefully, -- that I have lost my mind.

-- No, you have not, -- said the brisk voice. -- I am an excellent judge of sanity. I have commanded eleven thousand soldiers and I know what madness sounds like. It sounds quieter than this.

-- I am afraid, -- said the soft voice, -- that you have been very much chosen.

-- By what?

-- By accident, -- said the lazy voice, cheerfully. -- Which is the only way anything interesting ever happens.

Alan raised his head. The light from the window lay across the stone floor in a pale rectangle, and for no reason at all his eyes went to it and followed it along the wall, up to the carved cornice, across a row of brass wall fittings. As he looked, the voices fell strangely quiet.

-- Oh, -- said the gruff voice. -- That is cheap brass. Who installs cheap brass in a building this old? Disgusting.

-- The cornice is sixth-century Aurelian, -- said the lazy voice thoughtfully. -- Do you see the grain on the plaster? They restored it badly.

-- Those two guards by the door, -- said the brisk voice. -- Their stance is wrong. Weight on the heels. I could sweep them in two moves.

-- Do not stare at the guards, -- said the soft voice. -- You will make him nervous.

-- He is already nervous, -- said the throaty voice. -- I can feel his heartbeat. It is galloping. Oh, this is delightful. We can see through his eyes, can we not? We can feel what he feels?

Alan went very still.

They could see through his eyes. They could hear what he heard. They were not guests in his head. They were a live audience in a theater whose only seat was behind his own forehead, and he was the only performer on the stage.

-- Please, -- he said, and his own voice sounded strange to him, flat and level, the way it always went when something threatened to overwhelm it. -- Could you all stop talking for a moment? I need to think.

For three full seconds, there was silence.

It was the most complete silence Alan had heard in years, and it was not peaceful at all. It was the silence of five people holding their breath. And in that silence, quite unexpectedly, something shifted in his chest. A quiet that had lived in him for a long time, a flat, empty, sensible quiet that had settled into the house of his mind the winter his mother died and never left, cracked down the middle.

There were voices in there now. Loud, bossy, quarrelsome voices. Somebody was asking about a hammer. Somebody was thrilled by the shape of his ears. Somebody was worried about whether he had eaten.

He realized, with a feeling he could not name, that for the first time in a very long while he was not alone.

It was terrifying.

It was also, God help him, a little warm.

-- Your ears, -- said the throaty voice, softly now, almost kindly. -- They are red again. Whatever you just thought, kid, do not stop. It suits you.

Alan clapped a hand over one ear, which was ridiculous, because the voice was not coming from outside, and then lowered it again, mortified. He cleared his throat, pulled his cuffs straight, and tried to retrieve the shattered remains of his dignity.

-- Very well, -- he said. -- There seems to be a situation. Before anything else, I think we should establish the facts. You are inside my soul. You can see and hear what I do. I cannot get rid of you. Is that correct?

-- That is correct, -- said the brisk voice.

-- You are, as far as I can tell, bound to me by some kind of contract. How strong is it?

-- It is a life-sharing covenant, -- said the lazy voice, and for the first time there was a thread of genuine awe in it. -- The deepest kind. Our life force flows from yours. If you died, we would die. If we spent too much, you would drain.

-- Drain what? -- Alan asked, though he thought he already knew.

-- Mana, obviously, -- said the gruff voice. -- Magical power. Fuel. What is it with these children? How much do you have, boy? How deep is your well? We will need a lot of it, to stand up and walk around.

-- Quite a lot, I should think, -- said the soft voice, serene. -- A soul that opens a door like that must be an ocean.

Alan looked down at his hands. He thought about the standard entrance exam, in which students were measured by an instrument shaped like a brass bowl. He thought of the reading the instrument had given. He thought of his shoes, and his cuffs, and the fact that his entire life had been designed to be an unremarkable shade of beige.

He thought, with a sinking sensation, about the mana leak he could already feel, a thin steady draw in the pit of his stomach, like a tap left dripping in an empty house. It was tiny. It would be there every hour, every day, as long as these five stayed.

-- Hundred, -- he said.

-- I beg your pardon? -- said the brisk voice.

-- One hundred, -- Alan said. -- That is my reserve. A hundred mana points. Average for the first-year class. It refills overnight.

The silence this time was a different kind of silence entirely.

-- A hundred, -- said the lazy voice at last, as if tasting the word. -- A hundred what, precisely? A hundred thousand?

-- A hundred, -- Alan repeated.

-- Per hour? -- said the brisk voice.

-- Per day.

Somewhere in the depths of his skull, the gruff voice began to laugh. It began as a snort, grew into a wheeze, and swelled into a long helpless howl that rattled the inside of his head like a drum. The throaty voice joined in. The lazy voice made a sound like a scholar who had been handed a particularly fascinating mathematical joke. The soft voice said, -- Oh, dear, -- in a tone of genuine sympathy. And the brisk voice, after a long and terrible pause, said in the stern tone of a general surveying a lost war:

-- We are going to need a schedule.