Order Open Week began with Brannor trying to teach first-years how to carry a bucket without spilling it. Harper looked offended by the lack of swords.

"This is courage?"

The Brannor sixth-year supervising the activity was called Priya Nand, and she had the calm expression of someone who had heard this question before.

"No. This is carrying water."

Harper stared. Priya continued.

"The courage lesson is later."

"When?"

"If I tell you, you will perform for it."

Ava smiled. Harper did not. Open Week was Tidefall's answer to first-year Order panic. Instead of asking seven-year-olds or older students to explain the Orders through slogans, each Order opened part of its normal life to first-years for an afternoon. No recruitment speeches. No promises that one Order was better. No tests. Just participation. The first afternoon belonged to Brannor. Jasper had expected obstacle courses. There was one. It came after two hours of carrying water, repairing storm boxes, checking emergency lanterns and learning how to tie a rescue line so it could be released under tension. Harper loved the knots more than she admitted.

"Again," she told Priya after the third attempt.

"You got it right."

"I can get it faster."

"Why?"

Harper opened her mouth. Closed it. Priya waited.

"Because if someone needs it, faster matters."

"Good answer. Now do it slowly."

Harper's face became tragic. Jasper laughed. Brannor's common spaces surprised him. They were not filled with trophies. There were some. Old shields hung above one fireplace. A cracked rescue bell sat in a glass case. But most of the walls showed groups. Students rebuilding a jetty. Students carrying supplies after floods. Students cooking in enormous pots during a winter outage. One photo showed Brannor students sitting in a circle around another student who looked miserable. The caption read: COURAGE IS SOMETIMES STAYING. Jasper stopped at that. Priya noticed.

"Everyone expects Brannor to be the running-toward-fire Order."

Harper, from behind them, said, "It isn't?"

"Sometimes there is a fire."

"Excellent."

"Sometimes courage is admitting you caused it."

Harper looked less excited. Priya smiled.

"Sometimes it's apologising. Sometimes it's asking for help. Sometimes it's being the first person to say a plan is stupid when everyone else is cheering."

Ava said, "Harper may struggle with that last one."

"I can say plans are stupid."

"Your own plans."

"Why would I make a stupid plan?"

Priya looked between them.

"You three are going to make somebody's mentoring year very interesting."

The obstacle course arrived last. It was not about speed. Each group had to move four crates through a yard while keeping one person on a marked platform at all times. The obvious solution was to carry crates quickly. The better solution was to move the platform marker too. Harper figured that out only after trying to sprint the first crate across and getting called back. Ava figured it out immediately. Jasper was the one who noticed the rule said one person had to remain on "a marked platform," not "the starting platform." They won by thirty seconds. Harper took full credit. The next day was Velmor. Velmor's wing had higher windows than Brannor's and too many staircases.

Jasper understood within five minutes why older Velmor students seemed permanently aware of weather. Their afternoon started with no instructions at all. A teacher handed each group a compass, a sealed envelope and a map with three sections missing.

"Find the observatory."

Harper grinned. Ava said, "This is irresponsible." The teacher smiled.

"There are staff at every junction."

"Then it is controlled irresponsibility."

"That's one interpretation."

They spent an hour moving through upper passages Jasper had never seen. Velmor did not reward the group that arrived first. It rewarded groups for how many different routes they documented, what they noticed and whether they helped anyone else who was lost. Jasper liked that. Harper hated that she could not win by running. Ava loved the map until she discovered one blank section was intentionally impossible to complete because a stair had been closed for repairs.

"That's cheating."

The Velmor mentor shook his head.

"That's reality. Maps age."

"Then update the map."

"Exactly."

Ava stared at him.

"You did that on purpose."

"Yes."

"I dislike you."

"You learned the lesson."

"I can do both."

At the observatory they were shown weather instruments, star charts and enchanted lenses that revealed air currents as faint moving ribbons. Jasper watched one for a long time. Not because it felt like the Sea. It did not. The moving air was ordinary magic and weather. That was comforting. Not every strange thing needed to be ancient. Calyx came third. Its open afternoon began in the gardens. Harper brightened when she heard they would use magic. Then discovered the assignment was to restore a patch of soil damaged by overcasting.

"This is gardening."

The Calyx mentor, an older boy named Arun, nodded.

"Yes."

"With magic."

"Sometimes."

They tested soil moisture by hand. Added compost. Moved shade cloth. Used only one small spell at the end to encourage root recovery. Ava asked why they did not simply cast first. Arun looked genuinely pleased.

"Because magic is not automatically the best tool just because you can use it."

Harper groaned.

"Every Order is secretly teaching restraint."

"Probably because students keep needing it."

Calyx also ran part of the infirmary support system, greenhouse food production and peer tutoring. Jasper watched two older students help a homesick first-year write a letter without pretending the homesickness was a problem to cure. Calyx felt quiet. Not passive. Busy in the way kitchens were busy. Things growing because people kept showing up. Nocten was last. Everybody expected darkness. Nocten gave them paperwork. Harper nearly left. Their first task involved six witness statements about a broken storage cabinet. Four were accurate. One was mistaken. One was deliberately misleading. The first-years had to determine what most likely happened without accusing anyone based on confidence alone. Ava became terrifying. Jasper watched her compare times. Harper watched people's phrasing. The Nocten mentor nodded.

Jasper noticed the quietest statement included a sound nobody else mentioned. Together they worked out that a shelf bracket had failed before the door was forced, meaning the student everyone suspected had probably only found the damage.

"Useful secrets are not the same as secretive people."

Ava looked up.

"Meaning?"

"Sometimes information should be protected because it belongs to someone. Sometimes it should be shared because withholding it creates danger. The difficult part is knowing which."

Jasper thought of the Deepwater records. Ava did too. He could tell. Harper asked, "Do you all spend your lives doing evidence puzzles?"

"No. Sometimes we have biscuits."

Nocten's common room was the least gloomy place Jasper had expected. Low lamps. Deep chairs. A wall of locked cabinets beside an equally large wall of open books. One notice read: PRIVACY IS NOT THE SAME AS SECRECY. Another: KNOWING SOMETHING DOES NOT ALWAYS GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO REPEAT IT. Jasper looked at her. Ava stood under that one for a while. Later, as they crossed the courtyard back toward West residence, Harper said, "This is terrible."

"What?"

"They're all good."

Ava nodded.

"That is the point."

"I wanted three of them to be stupid so this would be easy."

"Why would the academy maintain three stupid Orders?"

"Tradition?"

Jasper laughed. The week had done what it was supposed to do. It had not told them where they belonged. It had made belonging harder to predict. That evening the three sat on the floor of Room Fourteen with four Order pamphlets between them. Harper picked up Brannor's.

"Still my favourite."

Ava picked up Nocten's, then Calyx's, then put both down.

"I hate this."

Jasper held Velmor's map. He could imagine himself there. He could imagine himself in Brannor. Calyx. Even Nocten. That should have made him anxious. Instead it helped. Whatever the Choosing Tide did, none of the four platforms meant losing himself. Orders were not cages. They were communities. Harper looked at him.

"You're doing the calm face."

"I'm thinking."

"Dangerous."

Jasper tossed the Velmor pamphlet at her. She caught it.

"Maybe you're Velmor," he said.

Harper looked offended enough to prove the entire point.