Infusion required placing our demons in the center of a pentacle-a five-pointed star surrounded by a circle. We learned to “infuse” our demons and then summon them back into existence. Summoning was the first lesson together with the nobles, and I am pleased to see that it is being taught by the closest person I have to a friend (forgetting Sable of course), Lord Cavendish. When I did, I never received anything more than a polite nod. There were commoners among them too, but I rarely saw them, even in the commoners’ quarters. I also saw some second-year students, but they kept even farther apart from us than the first-year nobles did. What I do know is there are four of them, two girls and two boys. They sat at a separate table, so there was not much more to discover. They do not speak to us many would not even deign to look at us.

“If you wanted to become a horse racer, you could study horses and riding until the cows come home,” she said, “but you’d never become any good unless you practiced riding the damned things.”

But she also warned me that book learning will only get me so far. She has given me a long list of books to study and help me prepare for the tournament. In any case, I thanked Lord Cavendish for his direction and went to the library, a great room filled with long benches, armchairs and of course, shelves upon shelves of books. As a commoner himself, I could not understand why he thought this could be true. Valentine said it was fate’s way of punishing her for marrying so far below her station.

Later, his mother had disappeared when her flying mount went down somewhere deep in the orc jungles. His father was a commoner, and his mother had married his father in disgrace. Yesterday, I had heard Valentine and the others gossiping about Lord Cavendish. Connor’s brother, Rufus, was still a few years off from attending Vocans, but I was small for my age and we shared the same mousy hair and upturned nose, or so Lord Cavendish said. It seems I reminded him of his younger brother, who had been lucky enough to also inherit the ability to summon (I am told that only the firstborn children of summoners will be guaranteed to inherit the ability-the siblings have a far smaller chance). He has taken pity on me, and his advice was gratefully received.

Taran matharu the summoner's handbook