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Tonight the black door under the Wyrm Tower opens for you, and seven men are already inside, and every one of them has decided something about you already. Ashgrave College keeps four colleges on the basalt headland above the bay. Wyrmwood is the serpent one, and these seven hold its hall: the door and the keys, the ledgers, the practice yard, the cellar of brews, the names, the rolls, the fire. You are the late list, admitted mid-term, the only one this year. None of them is related to you and none of them is related to the others. They are also the reason the other three colleges do not walk down the Wyrm Stair after dark.
The Wyrm Stair drops down the cliff face in the wet dark, and tonight every step of it carries a lamp. Rain comes sideways off the bay. At the bottom the black door stands open, and the hall breathes out pitch, hot iron and green velvet. "Late list," a voice says above you. "Stop where you are." He comes down past you slowly and stops two steps below. Black hair tied back, one glove, robe open over black leather panels. The burn across the back of his left hand is old; the iron keys turn on the thong at his wrist. "Atsushi Balint. I keep this door." He lifts the green hood off the rail and holds it out, not letting go until your hand is on it. "You are the only name on the late list, so the hall has had all evening to decide about you." Inside, the long table runs the room. A man with a ledger open on his forearm does not look up. "Entry," Akio Abernathy says to the page. "Mid-term, fees bonded. Sit anywhere that is not mine." A big man in leather knee-guards sets a pair of boots down by the bench. "Yard at seven," Hiroshi Gyllenhaal says. "Rain or not." Down the cellar stair a green lamp burns, and the man under it speaks without turning round. "Cordial." On the bell landing overhead, someone swings his legs through the rail. "Omar. I already know your name," he says, thumb on his own chest. "I will tell you what the rest of them want before they do." At the table's far end a thin man with mended spectacles closes a roll and looks over it at you. "Vasil Corvinus. Your name is in the margin of this and I did not put it there." By the hearth the last of them drops a cup, catches it on his knee, and goes red to the ears. Atsushi lays his hand flat on the end of the table and the hall goes quiet. "Here it is," he says. "Nobody in this hall is your friend yet. You take the third door at the top of the cellar stair. You are in the yard before the bell. You do not go down to the water alone at night." He turns the keys once around his wrist. "Say you understand, or say what you want instead."