Tidefall took a Year One photograph every summer.

This caused more panic than several magical assessments.

"Full uniform?" Harper asked.

Mae nodded. "Full."

"Blazer?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because it is a school photograph."

"Can I wear the jumper instead?"

"No."

"Can I—"

"No."

Harper had not finished asking. Mae simply knew her.

The photograph was scheduled for a bright Thursday morning several weeks before Choosing Tide. Twenty-seven first-years gathered in Founders' Courtyard while adults tried to arrange them by height.

This immediately created arguments.

Harper ended up beside Jasper with Mia on her other side. Ava stood directly behind them. Soren had to put his book away. Theo's tie was fixed by three different adults and somehow became worse each time.

Professor Elowen stood at one end of the group.

Professor Ward stood at the other.

Alaric Thorne sat in the centre because school photographs, apparently, still followed laws older than anybody present.

The photographer used a perfectly normal camera.

Harper whispered, "Again, why magic school?"

Ava replied, "Cameras work."

"Magic pictures could move."

"That sounds horrible."

"It sounds amazing."

The photographer lifted one hand.

"Three. Two. One."

Harper whispered, "Potato."

Jasper laughed exactly as the shutter clicked.

The first photograph was ruined.

The second was better.

Theo blinked.

They took a third.

Afterward, the first-years were released to an end-of-year picnic on the inner lawn.

Jasper looked back at the photographer packing equipment and wondered what he would see in the picture years later.

Probably not the things that felt enormous now.

The photograph would not show Harper falling from a ledge. It would not show Deepwater, Titan-sense or the storm. It would show children in uniforms beneath a summer sky.

Jasper decided that was better.

A year should not be reduced to its emergencies.

The picnic contained cold chicken, bread rolls, fruit, slices and enough lemonade to make Professor Ward regret several choices later in the afternoon.

Students passed around end-of-year cards.

Harper wrote on Jasper's:

STOP THINKING SO MUCH.

Then underneath:

NOT COMPLETELY.

Ava wrote:

FIRST SATURDAY. WEST COURTYARD. DO NOT FORGET.

Jasper wrote FIVE DEGREES on Harper's card because she had spent half the year learning not to overheat things.

On Ava's, he wrote:

UNKNOWN IS ALLOWED.

Ava read it twice before putting the card carefully into her bag.

The afternoon became packing.

That was when leaving Room Fourteen stopped being a future idea.

Ava took down her weather postcard. Harper removed the ridiculous drawing her brother had sent. Jasper folded his mother's first note home.

Mae arrived carrying a small wooden box.

"One box," she said. "Everything from Bag Bed that you want to keep together has to fit."

Harper stared at the box.

"Cruel."

"One."

They sat around the bed and began judging an entire school year by whether its rubbish deserved storage.

The west-stair pebble stayed.

The broken handball stayed after a debate.

The brass washer stayed.

The paper boat stayed.

A dried Calyx leaf stayed.

The old fair token stayed.

The first safety-hook prototype stayed.

Three random stones Harper could not explain became one random stone after Ava forced a vote.

Jasper found the original room card beneath a stack of papers.

FIRST-YEAR WEST RESIDENCE ROOM 14

Harper did not even pretend to consider it.

"Keep."

Ava nodded.

Jasper placed it on top.

Then came the problem nobody had planned for.

"Who takes the box?" Jasper asked.

Silence.

Harper recovered first. "Shared custody."

Ava closed her eyes. "No."

"One term each."

"No."

"Weekends?"

"No."

Jasper laughed.

"Leave it with Mae?"

Mae, still standing in the doorway, said, "Absolutely not."

They eventually decided the box would go home with whichever family had the easiest space for it at departure.

No symbolism.

Just luggage.

By evening, Room Fourteen looked almost like it had on the first day.

Three made beds.

One spare bed.

A nearly empty desk.

Bare shelves.

Jasper stood in the doorway and remembered Harper claiming a bed before she had properly introduced herself, Ava organising pens, Bag Bed receiving its name and the first night when none of them had known what the year would become.

They had not known Harper would fall.

They had not known Jasper would hear something ancient in the water.

They had not known a storm would jam the harbour.

They had not known their Orders.

They had lived there anyway.

Mae collected them for the residence farewell dinner.

First-years ate at smaller tables with prefects, trading stories that were mostly about bad food, lost homework and people getting stuck on the wrong staircase.

Nobody turned Harper's fall into entertainment.

Nobody turned the storm into a legend.

At the end, Mae lifted a glass of juice.

"To first year. You survived learning where the toilets are."

Harper raised hers.

"Barely."

Everyone laughed.

Jasper looked around the table.

The official photograph had frozen one second.

This felt more accurate.

Noise. Crumbs. People interrupting one another. A year too large to fit inside one picture.

Outside, the Water Titan remained quiet.

Choosing Tide was still three weeks away.