The four Order banners came down from the Great Hall rafters on the first morning of third term. Jasper had seen their colours before without understanding them. Older students wore narrow edging on cuffs and scarves, Order crests appeared above certain corridors, and the dining hall had always contained four groups of tables around its outer walls. First-years had simply been too busy learning where breakfast was served and which staircase returned them to West Residence to care. Harper noticed the banners before she noticed her toast.

"Finally."

Ava looked up. "Finally what?"

"We find out why everybody has been acting mysterious."

A Year Six student at the next table turned around. "Nobody has been acting mysterious." Harper pointed at four enormous banners that had apparently been hidden above the ceiling overnight. "Those are the size of houses."

"Tradition."

"Mysterious tradition."

The Year Six student decided breakfast was safer. Afterward, every first-year was called to the centre of the hall. Alaric Thorne stood beneath the banners, although the teachers did most of the practical explaining because seven-year-olds listening to one speech for too long was considered an avoidable risk. Thorne began simply.

"At the end of this year, each of you will take part in Choosing Tide. Until then, you do not belong to an Order."

The room immediately filled with whispers. Four Orders. Brannor, edged in deep gold around a dark crest. Velmor, blue-silver beneath a symbol that opened toward a horizon. Calyx, green around a branching mark. Nocten, dark violet and silver.

"Orders are not teams for deciding who is best," Thorne said. "They are not lists of personality types either. They are communities. Each has traditions, responsibilities and ways of teaching that have developed over a very long time."

Harper whispered, "Brannor." Ava whispered back, "He has not described them yet."

"I have instincts."

"You have a favourite colour."

"Gold is not pink."

"That is not helping your argument."

Professor Ward took over before the whispering spread. Brannor placed unusual importance on protection, endurance and courage used for somebody other than yourself. Velmor valued exploration and the willingness to look beyond familiar answers without treating every new idea as automatically good. Calyx focused on restoration, patience, making and the systems that kept people and living things healthy. Nocten cared about knowledge, strategy, privacy and noticing what others missed. None of the descriptions sounded like a complete person. Jasper liked that. A boy in the second row raised his hand. "Can we pick?"

"No," Thorne said.

That produced considerably louder whispering.

"Then how does it know?" another child asked.

"You will learn how Choosing works before the end of the year."

Harper's hand shot up. "Can we argue with it?" Professor Crowe closed her eyes. Thorne looked almost amused. "You can argue with anything, Miss Vale. Whether the Tide cares is a different question." Ava covered her face. For the next month, the first-years rotated through supervised Order activities so that the names stopped being slogans.

Brannor ran a rescue course. Teams had to move through obstacles while protecting a fragile clay marker. Harper loved it immediately. Jasper liked the shields more than the running. Ava spent most of the exercise telling everybody where not to stand and somehow kept their marker intact. An older Brannor student watched the three of them finish and said, "You work like you've been stuck together too long." Harper said, "Accurate." Velmor took them to the rooftop observatory and taught navigation using stars, coastline shapes and magical bearings. Jasper liked looking across the sea instead of down into it.

Calyx gave them damaged planter boxes and asked them to work out why the plants were failing before they used any magic. Harper tried three theories in thirty seconds. Ava inspected the drainage holes. Ava was right.

Nocten built a puzzle trail through the library. Ava solved the first clue immediately, failed the second because she assumed a decorative symbol had meaning, and became furious with herself. Harper found the hidden latch by leaning on the wrong shelf.

"Technique," Harper said.

"Accident," Ava replied.

"Successful accident."

By the end of the rotations, the Orders felt less like four labels and more like four enormous houses full of people who did not all behave the same way. Harper still wanted Brannor. Ava stopped guessing. Jasper had no idea. One evening the three of them sat on Bag Bed with the little information cards they had been given. Harper held up Brannor's.

STRENGTH EXISTS TO PROTECT.

"That one," she said.

Jasper understood why she liked it. He also understood why Ava refused to choose from a sentence on a card.

"What if the Tide picks something else?" he asked.

Harper's confidence paused for the first time all week.

"Then it is wrong."

Ava looked at her. Harper sighed. "Fine. Then I will complain and eventually survive." Jasper laughed. Outside Room Fourteen, spring light turned the western windows bright. The sea was visible beyond the cliffs, ordinary from this distance. Jasper looked at it for a moment and wondered whether Choosing Tide had anything at all to do with the thing he sometimes felt beneath it. Then he put the thought away. Not every use of the word tide had to belong to his mystery.