chapter 3, part 2

It was on Midsummer's Day of my fourteenth year, four years to the day since I had joined the University, and the day when several hundred new ten-year-olds would enter those same ancient halls, that Golpin Anamis finally took us on the long-promised tour of the mage's tower.

By then, my desire to walk the corridors and see the rooms of Abacus' venerable home had begun to drive me mad with obsession. I still managed to keep this yearning quiet from all but Hero, who was wonderfully good at...