Three days after Open Week, every first-year suddenly knew a story about Choosing Tide. None of the stories agreed. According to Theo, refusing to move caused the basin to dump you into Nocten automatically. According to Mia, her cousin's friend's older sister had been held in the middle for eleven minutes while all four Orders "argued." According to Harper, the Tide once launched a boy directly over a platform because he insulted Brannor. Ava rejected all three.

"Source."

Harper pointed vaguely upward.

"Culture."

"That is not a source."

"It is if enough people repeat it."

"That is how misinformation works."

Jasper listened to the argument from his bed. The closer the ceremony came, the stranger the rumours became. Some students claimed the water read your thoughts. Others said the Tide chose based on the first spell you ever cast.

One first-year insisted it was secretly random and the academy only pretended otherwise. A Nocten third-year told everyone the basin could smell fear. Then admitted he had made that up. Thorne finally called a first-year meeting. He stood at the front of the hall beside a model of the basin.

"We appear to have reached the annual stage at which imagination overtakes plumbing."

Harper whispered, "Great opening." Thorne continued.

"Choosing Tide is old. It is magical. Its precise original design is not fully documented. Those facts do not give you permission to invent sharks."

Theo looked disappointed.

"No student has been eaten. No student has been thrown over an Order platform. No Order can reject a student. No student can be left without an Order."

A hand went up.

"Can the Tide change its mind?"

Thorne paused.

"The current may hesitate or redirect. The final platform is the placement."

Another hand.

"Can you fight it?"

A teacher at the side of the room closed her eyes. Thorne said, "You should not." Harper whispered, "Not cannot." Ava pinched her arm.

"Ow."

Thorne's eyes flicked toward them.

"The basin is shallow. Staff are present. If a child becomes frightened or distressed, the ceremony stops. Safety is more important than tradition."

Jasper liked that sentence. He wondered whether it had always been true. Probably not. Tidefall kept traditions, but the year had taught him traditions could improve. Thorne gestured to the model.

"The academy's working moves the water through four channels. It reacts to a combination of magical signature, sustained choices, patterns of learning and factors we do not fully understand."

Ava raised her hand.

"So it is not personality detection."

"Correct."

"Not elemental affinity."

"Correct."

"Not strongest subject."

"Correct."

"Not family inheritance."

"Correct. Relatives frequently enter different Orders."

Ava looked satisfied. Harper raised her hand.

"Does the actual Sea choose?"

The room changed. Jasper felt several students look at him. Thorne did not.

"The basin uses seawater," he said. "The ritual predates much of our current understanding. We have no evidence that an independent presence in the Sea personally assigns every student."

Precise. Not denial. Not claiming more than they knew. Harper asked, "Could it interfere?" This time Thorne looked at Jasper. Only briefly.

"We do not know."

Whispers spread. Jasper hated them instantly. After the meeting, two students approached him before he reached the door.

"Can you ask it where we're going?"

"No."

"But can you feel what it'll choose?"

"No."

"Could you try?"

"No."

Harper appeared at his side.

"He said no."

The students left. Jasper was grateful. Then annoyed that he was grateful. He looked at Harper.

"I could answer."

"You did."

"You jumped in."

"They kept asking."

Ava joined them.

"Both things can be true."

Harper groaned.

"Is this the protection conversation again?"

"Yes."

Jasper exhaled.

"Thanks. But let me handle the first two nos."

Harper considered.

"Third no I bite them?"

"No biting."

"Unreasonable."

That afternoon the rumour changed. Now Jasper supposedly knew everyone's Order and had been forbidden to say. He discovered this when Theo asked him whether he was "under oath."

"No."

Theo nodded knowingly.

"Exactly what someone under oath would say."

Jasper threw an eraser at him. By dinner, he had become tired enough to consider hiding in the library. Thorne found him first. Not deliberately, Jasper thought. The Headmaster was crossing the east cloister carrying a stack of folders. He stopped.

"You look hunted."

"Everyone thinks I can predict Orders."

"Can you?"

Jasper stared. Thorne's mouth moved slightly. A joke. Terrible timing.

"No."

"Good. That would create paperwork."

Jasper leaned against a pillar.

"What if Water does something during mine?"

Thorne's expression lost the joke.

"Then we observe."

"What if everyone thinks I caused it?"

"Then we correct them."

"What if I think I caused it?"

Thorne shifted the folders to one arm.

"Then remember the year you have just spent learning the difference between invitation, communication and control."

Jasper looked toward the sea.

"I won't ask it."

"Good."

"Even if it shows up."

"Good."

"What if it chooses something I don't want?"

Thorne took longer to answer.

"That question applies to the academy ritual whether Water appears or not."

Jasper nodded.

"You're allowed to dislike an outcome," Thorne said. "Belonging is not obedience. Orders are meant to give you a community, not erase your judgment."

Jasper thought of Brannor's buckets. Velmor's broken map. Calyx's soil. Nocten's witness statements. All four had room for him. Maybe that was the point. The ceremony would choose a direction. It would not write the rest of his life. That evening, Room Fourteen made a new rule. No more Order predictions after lights-out. Harper broke it in six minutes.

"Ava is absolutely Nocten."

A pillow hit her in the face. The rule improved immediately.