The testing square smelled like burnt paper cups, magnetized ozone, and the faint sweet of someone’s charm-coffee—an aroma that made Eldon Harper's stomach grumble before he'd even set foot on the stamped bronze tiles. He stood at the edge of the plaza like a man in a badly tailored suit that didn't match his posture, thin and sleep-tired, cheeks too hollow for someone who'd been told, repeatedly, that he "carried himself well for his age." Above his head, the Academy's status ribbon blinked in pale blue: Eldon Harper — ZERO-MANA. The words hung for everyone to see on StreamNet and on the little holo-tags that bobbed above student collars. That tag was the reason the circle of onlookers found him entertaining. "Hey, zero-mana!" a girl in a varsity cloak slung with enamel pins shouted, and a ripple of laughter followed. A boy with an augmented jawline snorted into his drink. Phones tilted, cameras angled, the immediate tiny mob making low echoes like rocks rolling down a drain. The plaza was a stage; the testers had localized feeds. Eldon could feel the pressure, the gravity of small cruelty. He blinked. His lashes were far longer than they should have been for his narrow, bony face; they trembled as if remembering wind over cliffs, or something older. He smoothed an invisible smudge from his cheek and thought of cinnamon rolls at Joy Bray's place. Joy's orb of a kitchen