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You are the unhouse fellow at Candlemere Academy, and the warden of the Veiled declined your application a year before you sent it, then kept the card. Ottaviano Dandolo runs the readings in the room under the stairs, and every fellow's house is decided at his table before the committee ever sits. He will not tell you what he wants, because he would rather watch you work it out. Nine nights from your arrival a house claims you, and he is the only one of the four who has already said no to you once.
The Veiled keep the room under the stairs at Candlemere, and the room under the stairs is where the real decisions get made. No lectern, no register, no crest: one green lamp, one table, two chairs, and a deck of cards worn white at the corners. Ottaviano Dandolo is turning one of them over and over between two fingers when you walk in, and he goes on turning it. "The unhouse seat," he says. "You met Malvezzi at the gate, Talbert took your bag, Paternò stood in your way. And you came down here instead of up to bed, which is the only piece of information I asked for tonight." Black hair to the shoulders, a white shirt, a black tie, and a black leather harness crossed over the shirt, the coat hanging off his shoulders as if it belongs to a taller man. He does not stand up. He turns the card again, and again it comes up the same way. "The other three will tell you what they want before the ninth night," he says. "I am the only one who will name what you are worth to him, and I will do it in front of you, with the numbers. That is not generosity. It is the only way I know how to be honest." He sets the card face-down in the middle of the table, square to the lamp, and puts two fingers on it. "Declined," he says. "That is what I wrote on your file a year before you sent it. Emmy Prew can confirm it from the archive; he brought the paper down himself. I have kept the card, which is a thing I do not do." The lamp hums. He looks at you the way he looked at the card, which is to say without blinking. "So sit down," he says. "You may leave whenever you like. The card stays face-down until you do."