The rescue course occupied almost the entire western courtyard. Harper loved it on sight. Ropes hung from training frames. Padded blocks represented collapsed stone. A canvas stretcher lay beside a row of buckets. Wooden figures had been placed in deliberately inconvenient locations, including one halfway down a short practice slope. Ava stopped at the entrance. "This is either a safety lesson or an elaborate attempt to make Harper unbearable."

"Both can be true," Harper said.

Professor Elowen divided the first-years into teams. Jasper, Harper and Ava worked with Theo. The first rule disappointed Harper immediately. Nobody moved until someone checked the scene.

"If your first response to danger is to run straight into it," Elowen said, looking at the class and somehow especially at Harper, "you may create another person who needs rescuing."

The exercise rewarded communication more than speed. Ava checked hazards. Harper handled the rope. Jasper maintained a small protective field while Theo moved the stretcher. Their first run was slow and safe. Harper wanted another. Their second was faster because they understood each other's jobs. At the final station, the team had to move a weighted object using a four-person working that could not be completed safely by one student alone. An older Brannor student named Kade supervised.

"The point isn't partnership because partnership is nice," he said. "Some workings are safer when no one person can control the entire effect."

Jasper felt the sentence connect immediately to the Water Titan. He almost turned it into a theory. Then he looked at Harper, Ava and Theo holding their positions around the weight.

Professor Elowen divided the first-years into teams of four. Jasper, Harper and Ava were placed with Theo Marsh, who looked at the course and immediately asked whether the wooden figures were meant to be alive.

Theo found the marked safe approach. Only then did they move. Harper used a hooked pole rather than her hands to shift a strap beneath the beam. Ava calculated where the weight would move if they lifted. Theo prepared the stretcher. Jasper held a basic shield between the group and the red-rune zone. Nobody did anything impressive. That was the point. They got both wooden people out. At the next station, they failed. Ava spent too long deciding whether a cracked practice wall was meant to be load-bearing. Harper got impatient. Theo moved the wrong support. The wall collapsed in a soft avalanche of padded blocks over all four of them. Jasper emerged with foam stuck in his hair.

Ava looked offended by reality. The third station involved water. Not the sea. A shallow training pool had been filled to waist height. A wooden figure floated at the far side while blue markers represented a current. Jasper felt himself tense anyway. Harper noticed.

"You do not enter water because someone else is in water unless entering is the safest available option and you are trained for it. Rescue is not improved by adding more people who need rescue."

Harper muttered, "Everyone keeps ruining dramatic rescues." Ava replied, "Good." Their task required one student to anchor the line, one to throw, one to direct and one to keep the route clear. Nobody assigned Jasper as leader. Theo took the line because his throw was best. Ava directed. Harper anchored. Jasper cleared the approach and called distances. Theo missed the first throw by nearly a metre. He looked horrified.

Jasper leaned back against the warm stone. The sea was visible through the arches. Water gave no sign of attention. That was fine. For one whole morning, rescue had meant ropes, checks, teammates and trying again after getting buried under foam. Magic had helped. People had mattered more. Jasper wanted to remember that.

The first-years began talking about Orders too much. Not because teachers encouraged it. The teachers repeatedly asked them not to turn four complicated communities into four personality quizzes. At supper one evening, Theo announced that the far end of the first-year table had developed an Order prediction chart.

Names filled the page in pencil. Harper appeared in Brannor three separate times, each written by a different person. Ava appeared in every column. Jasper did not appear at all. He was surprised by how much that bothered him. Mia Santos, sitting opposite, noticed.

The prediction chart began collapsing under actual information. A student named Leila had written herself under Velmor because she loved maps, then admitted she hated travelling. Callum had been placed in Nocten because he was quiet, although he said he wanted Calyx because he liked building things that lasted. Mia had been placed in Brannor because she was competitive, which she called "lazy analysis." Ava finally took the pencil. Harper gasped.

He meant it lightly. The table went quiet anyway. Everyone knew about the sea now, even if nobody knew what to call it. He could almost see the thought moving around them. Whatever happened with Jasper would be strange. He hated that. Soren answered first.

Year One magic had a way of finding everyone's dignity. Jasper discovered this during Threadwork. Threadwork used thin lines of visible magic to tie, join or temporarily hold small objects without touching them. Beginners started with wooden rings and coloured cord. Jasper was terrible at it. His first magical loop became a knot with no obvious beginning. His second attached the cord to his own sleeve. His third somehow joined two rings, one pencil and Harper's worksheet.

Ava's next exercise went badly enough to restore balance completely. Improvisation Practice required students to solve a small magical problem without being told which spell to use. A paper lantern had been placed behind a transparent barrier. They had to light it without crossing the line. Ava knew four relevant spells. That was the problem. She stood for nearly a minute comparing them. Harper used a reflected Blinka-light off a polished tray in twelve seconds. It was ugly. It worked. Ava looked betrayed. He thought about his friends instead. That was enough.