Chapter 17

Jochen's next exam was Enchanting; he was not so good at this as Hugibert though he was still fairly good. There were a few others also taking it; and the written consisted of a long essay on the use of the enchantments on brooms and how the choice of broom wood and twig wood affected the performance; followed by a section which listed three wizards with their birth dates and personality traits and asked for suggested wand woods for them and the reasons. The wizard with an affinity for fire spells and an optimistic nature who was born on the last day of May was an obvious contender for Hawthorn; his birthdate, in the lunar month of Huath, governed by Hawthorn, offset any bad luck traditionally associated with the wood, providing the wood had been gathered on Beltane. He suggested a dragon's heart string or salamander's spinal cord core.

The witch who was a seer might at first glance have a choice of two wand woods; Hazel or Willow which both had affinity with divination. She had not however been born in August – Hazel's month, Coll – or between the middle of April and the middle of May – Willow's month, Saille. It would then be other factors. Ah, it said she was a scholar and liked to place her prophesies in obscure rhymes; that then had to be Hazel, governing inspiration and poesy. An augury feather quill was the obvious core.

The wizard who wanted to fight for the rights of others, and who wrote his own music and played it on a flute was undoubtedly Poplar; he would need resilience and endurance and protection; Poplar was associated with the air, if not so firmly as Elder was, still sufficiently so for the flute-playing wizard; and too the governance over inspiration of Poplar fitted. Jochen wondered if Jade Von Luytens had a poplar wand; it would suit her. Professor Luytens might well have something like a unicorn tail hair because she was such a superb healer; he would suggest that and also a jobberknoll feather because if the wizard was an academic and inspired, having a good memory and access to memory charms might not be a half bad idea.

There were sundry short questions and then the written was done.

The practical involved the enchantment of three common items, a pack of cards, a bottle and a pair of shoes. Jochen made the pack of cards self-shuffling, the bottle self-filling from a directed source and the shoes able to change size to fit any foot and, moreover, to change as one wore them if one's own feet swelled. Next he had to core a wand; which was tough but he managed it. The final task was to make a wheelbarrow fly with bonus points for the comfort of the ride. Jochen thought it had gone as well as might be expected. The examiner was only sick once.

oOoOo

Herbology required the collection of flower petals from a Devil's Snare plant; a hellishly ticklish operation. Stiv and Hilde were amongst those taking this exam. Devil's Snare liked it cold and moist and disliked fire; but then, too much fire would shrivel the petals. Even too much warmth might cause damage. Stiv called his plant a 'nikultyurny vnebratchniy' – uncultured bastard – and lit up his wand with radiating warmth to poke at the questing tentacles of the plant, hoping to snatch petals before he was himself snatched.

Both Stiv and Hilde managed some collection of the bluish-green petals without too much mishap; it may be said that two others in the class had to be rescued from their Devil's Snares and so failed.

The written was much less stressful and covered flesh-eating trees, the calculation of the right amount of fertiliser and the proper phases of the moon to sow and gather a variety of plants. And as Hilde said, it could have been worse; it could have been snargaluff.

oOoOo

History was one of Jochen's subjects; and he knew he was a solid 'E' student in this as in most things. Four tough essays were the order of the day, picked from eight, covering European wide History. Jochen picked 'Chart the rise and fall of Gellert Grindelwald with reference to his mistakes' which was a question of quoting Jade but without using the word Wanker; "Explain why the Spanish Inquisition enabled the Wizarding World to flourish' – that was easy; the Muggle Spanish Inquisition had undertaken tests using magical formulae and potion recipes and had determined that since they did not work for them, there was no such thing as witchcraft. He also picked 'explain, with illustration, why the Muggle French Revolution caused mayhem in the French Wizarding world', a time of madness when muggles were so caught up in fervour that often even confundment did not work because they were operating on pure emotion, killing anyone they dubbed an 'aristo' who looked anything but a ragged sans-culotte. Escaping from gaol was easy enough for any wizard but wizards were driven to hide and rarely emerge from the Rue De Sorcellerie and its associated streets; one reason, as he wrote, that many French wizards had a better relationship with their goblins, since goblins were more easily able to mix with the mob and acquire food and news, and worked to help keep the French wizarding world alive. His final choice was 'discuss the effect the age of mad religion had on the statute of Secrecy' wherein he might again mention that religious fervour made animals of some muggles, meaning that control of them was virtually impossible; though they could often be diverted to fight other schisms rather than wizards. It made for a lot of Europe-wide discomfort however and with the suspicions and fears of the superstitious muggles, allied with the reason and science of those who rejected superstition and – very often – religion alike made the decision to hide totally the only one that could ensure survival. For some it had been at first a temporary solution, to be abandoned after a generation or two; but the rise of muggle belief in technology as the new religion to supplant schism and superstition had made that impractical.

Jochen thought he had done as well as he might and was glad to have the exams over and done with!

oOoOo

Care of Beasts was Hilde and a couple of the others; and was the last ZH exam to be taken. Hilde had a shrewd idea why THAT might be and was not surprised to find herself collecting murtlaps on a shore stiff with Mackled Malaclaws. Hilde managed to get four murtlaps, which was better than none; and managed not to be bitten by the Malaclaws.

The written was to write three essays chosen out of five; and Hilde picked 'outline the diseases to be expected in dragons and how to treat them' – Hilde rather liked dragons – and she wrote knowledgeably about such things as scalerot, treated with rubbing the affected area with sea salt, tar and white spirit, and Squabbs Syndrome, when a dragon lost its fire, treatable with hot baths, chilli powder and pepper and four crates of rum daily. Her second essay was 'Describe in Detail the major types of flying horse and their characteristics'; and the third she chose was 'discuss in detail how to move an erumpant from a range too close to muggles to an area that is more acceptable; diagrams will be credited.' This called for a diagram showing exactly where to cast cushioning charms to prevent the erumpant's explosive horn contacting anything and exploding; the method was similar to that used to capture an erumpant and drain the explosive fluid – which would renew itself – which Señor Carcano had impressed upon the class as it was a possible ZH level practical. Once the charms were in place the wretched animal could be hit with a sleep spell which would make it groggy – erumpants were too stupid to be readily affected by magic that could even loosely be described as mind affecting – enabling in this case a mobilofaunus spell to be cast and, if one knew how to, drag it via ley line for greater speed of travel. Hilde did NOT know how to, but she knew that it was possible and so mentioned the fact in the hopes of more points.

And then the most senior exams were all over.

oOoOo

The ZP students taking chanting had already taken it; so that was one less, as Xanthe said cheerfully.

"If you twins weren't taking an unreasonable number of ZPs you'd not have to worry" said Harald Trollkettil nastily "You won't be able to cope and you'll fail them all."

"Which is why on the whole we're straight 'O' and 'E' students in class" said Xanthippe in scorn. "Grow up do, Trollkettil; just admit that your problem with potions will spoil your 'E' average, shrug, and move on. If you must carp at people biting off more than they can chew, carp at Hallow, who plans on going for quantity not quality; as she's taking what the English consider to be a standard nine ZPs."

Most of the class were taking seven or eight ZPs; and Harald, who knew fine well he was only going to pass seven of his eight, resented the fact the both twins were taking ten, and achieved better marks than him.

"You think you're so clever!" he raged "Picked to play quidditch and managing somehow to cheat in your classwork to look good; nobody can get 'O' and 'E' over so many subjects!"

"Funny then how Nefrita Von Strang got twelve straight 'O' grades in Prince Peak" said Xanthippe sweetly "Of course it DOES emphasise academic excellence; that's why poor Hallow had to come here not go to the school where her cousins are."

"I came here to avoid mudbloods" said Aglaia Hallow.

"Of course; so embarrassing to have mudbloods and goblins performing better than you" said Xanthippe "Harald will surely sympathise after his trip to Hogwarts."

"Stow it, 'Thippe" said Xanthe as Aglaia looked furious.

"By your command my glorious sister" said Xanthippe, sweeping her twin a deep curtsey "You types are spared any further fusillade of my phonemic fantasy; it's your lucky day."

"They can't help being creeps, twin" said Xanthe, tucking an arm through Xanthippe's "It's to be pitied, like Spattergroit."

"Only less socially acceptable" Xanthippe could not resist adding. Which considering the contagious and quarantined nature of spattergroit left Harald and Aglaia spluttering still more.

oOoOo

The first exam was Charms. There were questions on cheering charms, on wand motions to go with incantations, on locomotor charms, and on colour change charms. In addition there were some questions on banishing and summoning charms, the summoning charm being accio which brought to the wizard whatever he had called for specifically by name rather than being conjured, loosely called summoned, out of nothing as was a rather advanced transfigurational technique. That afternoon was the practical and each student in turn – going four at a time in alphabetical order – had to still dancing teacups, change the size of one of them then make it cartwheel, lift it in the air, change its colour and then summon it to the hand with the spell accio to demonstrate a practical use of the summoning charm. Only Alexand Amsel, the Austrian friend of the twins, made really heavy weather of it, managing to break all his teacups. He turned the examiner yellow instead of the remains of one of the teacups. Aglaia struggled as did Yorick and too Vighard Sternschappe; but had more or less success.

oOoOo

Next was Care of Magical Beasts. The practical involved cleaning a firecrab, dealing with a chizpurfle infestation and discussing with the examiner the diet of sick unicorns. As Jade had nursed the Unicorn foal the year before, nobody had any problem with that part, though Adolph, Alexand, Vighard, Aglaia and a number of others had to be treated for burns from their firecrab. The written covered brief questions on a wide number of creatures to be found in the wizarding world, their description, habitat, habits and any peculiarity that made them worth mentioning. Nobody was a high flyer in this class; but Professor Carcano made his lessons so fascinating that nobody was likely to fail.

oOoOo

Following Care of Beasts was Dark Arts. The written exam called for the definition of dark creatures; and called for details on listed ones, recognition and how to deal with them, and the recognition of jinxes and curses by effect; this was an exam in which the greatest number of marks lay in the practical. And for that, the candidates must resist two curses, cast two, and curse an item chosen out of three, a hat, a pair of shoes and a necklace. Clovis had ruefully told the examiner, Herr Bergen, that the class fell into two halves; the really rather good, and the pedestrian plodders who neither wanted to use the dark arts nor oppose dark wizards.

"And fortunately my high fliers plan to fight dark wizardry" he said cheerfully "Though I dread to think what they'll do to their cursed items."

"I always like to see something out of the ordinary" said Herr Bergen, who enjoyed examining the disciples of Jade Luytens.

Fortunately for Herr Bergen the first on his list was Alexand Amsel. Alexand made the hat lay a truth-telling curse on the wearer, so he could speak only the truth and had to tell the whole truth. Hence Herr Bergen started babbling about how good he expected the better ones to be and how clever Jade Luytens was, so Alexand rapidly uncursed the hat because he had no desire to get an unfair advantage when Herr Bergen started getting specific about how well he might be doing.

Xanthe cursed the hat. She cursed it to grow to the head and immediately burst into growth of woolly hair – it was a knitted hat – in the ghastly purple and orange from which it was knitted and give the wearer a very bad hair day. She had to chant to free Herr Bergen from its effects. Her twin, who was the more macabre of the two, cursed the necklace to give any wearer the appearance of an inferius.

"Vanitas, vanitam, omnia est vanitatum"* she said sententiously.

"Only too true my dear" said Herr Bergen.

He had several pedestrian ones between these early in the alphabet and their friends at the end, the sort to whom making any of the objects unremoveable was the best curse they could come up with; then Scholastica, who was not perhaps as good as some in terms of performance but who did have an imagination that she knew how to use, cursed the necklace to make the face of the wearer as pretty as her thoughts; which as she said cheerfully would be pretty ugly for a lot of people. Scholastica was a very good chanter as well as studying enchanting and drew on those skills to embed a really rather advanced curse; and Herr Bergen regretted that unless her written work was out of the ordinary that he would be unable to give her an overall 'O' on the strength of one part of the exam.

A couple more youths and the last name in the alphabet, Zollschlange, brought Adolph, another stalwart of the ECC.

Adolph cursed the shoes to refuse to come off with an embedded tickling charm that could not be escaped; because it was the funniest thing he could think of and would be well cool to do to some of the stuffier prigs in the school, as he explained.

It should be mentioned that all the ECC managed a corporeal patronus for bonus marks; and Herr Bergen was glad that the bonus marks should just lift Scholastica into an 'O' if her written was up to scratch.

oOoOo

Harald Trollkettil's Bête Noir was next, the potions exam. The practical was first and consisted of brewing the confusing and befuddlement draught and some appropriate antidote.

The twins declared this absolutely lovely; they brewed the draught and then set to in combining a memory draught with the wit sharpening potion, balancing ingredients to counter the effects of the confusing and befuddlement draught's ingredients – Jobberknoll feather to balance fwooper down, peppermint to balance the inflaming herbs of the confusing and befuddlement draught and so on.

It has to be said that although most people managed the confusing and befuddlement draught they were rather seriously confused and befuddled over the antidote; Vighard brewed the wit sharpening potion in the hopes of getting some points, and in similar vein Aglaia went for the memory potion. The best Scholastica could come up with was peppermint tea to calm the senses with a dash of glumbumble juice to further calm down and a big tot of rum so you did not care anyway.

Harald managed to fail to produce even the basic potion and was almost in tears over the turgid mush in the bottom of his cauldron, which was his second attempt and hardly any better than the first. Had he been a popular boy he would have been given expressions of sympathy over his smoking cauldron when the students left; as it was Xanthippe was moved to ask him why he was trying to make inferii, when alone of the quidditch team, he had fled the quidditch pitch when the real ones attacked.

Harald was unwise enough to try to jinx her and had to be extracted by Xanthe from the farting, floating, bouncing predicament into which that precipitated him.

Xanthe did speak sharply to Xanthippe about knocking him when he was down.

"Like he wouldn't if he could, if anyone in the class is down, regardless of whether they're a particular enemy of his or no?" said Xanthippe.

"We're nearly adult, twin; we don't want to get caught up in childish tit-for-tat that comes close to bullying; we know way too much about the dark arts to risk being tempted down a dark path" said Xanthe. "Why let him jerk your strings? We're far better than him in any subject, pretty, loved by Zlatko and we're Marauders."

Xanthippe nodded.

"You're right; but it's such fun to make him rise" she said "Yes, and I suppose that IS bullying; but he's such an egregious little git, always trying to put others down….. I'll leave him alone. Dignified silence. He isn't worthy of my linguistic gifts anyway."

"Attagirl" said Xanthe.

They went on to the written exam in a virtuous frame of mind that was almost dispelled when Harald tried to hit Xanthippe with a babbling curse on the way in. Xanthippe smiled beatifically at him.

"I forgive you, Harald, because you can't help being an egregious little inadequate" she said.

"It'll have to do I suppose" muttered Xanthe to herself.

The written called on the candidates to cite Golapott's first and second laws, and to list ingredients for an antidote to each of several potions. They had to draw and label a Chinese chomping cabbage; and had to answer questions on the use of certain ingredients in potioneering. The twins considered it fairly straightforward. Harald was so furious over not being able to get near Xanthippe's guard that he could not even recall Golapott's first law and his chomping cabbage was a vague unlabelled sketch. Which was hardly any different to the similar homework he had turned in a few weeks before. Cacilia sympathised with those few who were unable to brew a viable potion; but it was no excuse for sloppy theory work.

oOoOo

Transfigurations followed, the written exam in the morning following the day of the potion exams. There was an essay on vanishing spells and conjuration, which had the twins writing cheerfully about partial vanishment as well as getting rather more technical in nature about conjuring than was required at ZP level. And Xanthe quoted Krait Malfoy Snape and proceeded to wander off above ZH level briefly too in arithmantic explanation of why more energy was required to conjure items. She had also become rather arithmantic over the different forms of vanishing, from evanesco to the more controlled forms that had equations akin to apportation. The second long essay was on switching spells which raised a few groans, though the twins had no difficulty. The third essay was on human transfiguration which may have lost Xanthippe as many marks as it gained her for throwing around phrases like 'assimilative correlation' in suggesting that Harald Trollkettil would do well as a chomping cabbage animagus or rather vegimagus as all he did was vegetate, go green with jealousy, and bite at people so one could not tell the difference between him and a chomping cabbage anyhow.

The standard ZP practical that was in the afternoon required the conjuration of a quill, and marks given on how ornate it was; Vanishing the contents of a bowl; the switching of the contents of two more bowls, some marks given for switching the bowls themselves in their entirety; a cross species switch, and an animate to inanimate transfiguration. The twins managed to switch the contents of the bowls though everyone else stuck to switching the entire bowls. They had a tortoise on which to perform cross species switches and animate to inanimate; because the German for tortoise translated as 'shield-toad' it was normal to switch the tortoise to a toad.* It amused Xanthippe to make her toad resemble Aglaia Hallow. Both twins produced flamboyant quills; Xanthippe a peacock feather and Xanthe an ostrich feather of great size and magnificence. The boxes they made their tortoises into were spectacularly inlaid creations with boxwood stringing in Xanthe's case and brass in Xanthippe's; Xanthe's box was burr walnut with a simple geometric pattern in the centre in box, yew and mahogany. Xanthippe went for rosewood with filigree peonies in mother of pearl and brass details in the stamens.

This was a subject at which Harald was better than most; and he managed a box of wood inlaid with tortoiseshell; many of the students stuck to tortoiseshell boxes and were just glad if their box did not wander off or try to eat lettuce.

oOoOo

That was then the compulsory classes completed; and now the electives might begin. The twins, Alexand, and Aglaia were the ones taking Ancient Runes; it was not a popular class. Scholastica and Yorick might be keen chanters, but declared the subject way too hard, however useful it might be to chanting. As Scholastica put it, it wasn't actually all that useful if you didn't do it right because you didn't understand it.

The exam consisted of a number of texts in a variety of scripts that had to be translated; and only Xanthippe really enjoyed it. The rest knew they had dropped marks on a particularly tricky piece of hieroglyphic translation because, as Xanthe said, all those ruddy birds look so alike and when it's just the difference in the beak it was dead easy to get confused. They all agreed – even Xanthippe who checked to see that she HAD got it right – that the person who set that exam was a confirmed sadist.

oOoOo

Arithmancy was next. The departure of Magdalene Meyer had not been in time for this batch of ZP students when choosing electives; and indeed the next year had probably been sufficiently put off too that it would be a while before a significant number were taking the exam. Which being so, more were taking it than might have been otherwise anticipated because they were an arithmantic year; eight was well above average. The class stars were Xanthe and Yorick; Xanthippe was better than her twin at runes but lagged behind her arithmantically. The big complex questions involved simple calculus, the calculation of the maxima and minima of a number of wizards of specified MHR capacity – Man-hours running, the arbitrary measure of energy in the wizarding world – to open a given area of wizarding space; and in the calculation of a simple apportation. For the simpler questions, numerological calculations on marriage partners were the usual type, as well as a question that expected the completion of two more places in a number of series. This question tested recognition of the Wenlock series, prime numbers and factorial numbers – requiring the calculation of the next two of these – as well as simple relationships such as multiples of numbers or squares of each number, calling for some calculation. It may be said that only Xanthe and Yorick managed the apportation calculation; though the rest managed to struggle through the solving of y/ x to find where the value of it was zero, defining the top and bottom of the curve, the maxima and minima. The class had been drawn from those who loved Arithmancy despite Frau Meyer; and the influence of Katarina Nachtigall had brought them all up to at least E average students.

oOoOo

Enchanting followed, which Xanthe was taking and Xanthippe was not; Scholastica, Adolph, Harald, Vighard and Yorick were taking this as were a few others. Yorick was not especially good at this, though he achieved pass grades through the course, and looked upon it as an extra ZP and a backup to his chanting. Xanthe had a real talent for it and wished that Durmstrang also offered Goblin Metalcrafting.

The written was a fairly standard series of questions on the reasons that certain items took enchantment better than others, and a calculation of the greater amount of energy required to enchant inappropriate objects, and hence the increase in ritual. There was an essay on wand woods, and on the choice of core. The conventional answers called for the discussion of the date of birth of the witch or wizard involved since each lunar month was governed by its own tree; but there were wand woods that fell outside of these, and too sometimes personality and predilection was more important than birth date. And when wands chose their wielder, as Xanthe wrote, sometimes hidden or subliminated traits might be guessed at. And of course every wand wood was modified by the core which might emphasise one trait more than others, even making some of the governance of the wand irrelevant by holding contradictory properties to some of the wood's traits.

The practical involved enchanting a quill and ink separately; and an item of the entrant's choice prepared beforehand for enchanting in front of the examiner.

Xanthe made her ink disappear until activated by a word in Parseltongue; and her quill to work only for her or those of her blood – this would include the blooded though Xanthe was not about to mention this – by having enchanted it whilst writing the powerful binding runes in her own blood. For anyone else it would only write the phrase 'I am a snotty little thief' whatever they tried to write. Her chosen item was a pair of self-washing knickers and bra so she could travel light; practical if not quite what the examiner expected to see presented to him.

oOoOo

Geomancy was so new a subject that it had very few adherents as yet; and if Xanthe had a talent for enchanting, then that was balanced in Xanthippe who had the place sense ability that enabled her to feel ley lines without needing the specific four-point spell to find them. Adolph and Aglaia were the only others taking this.

There were questions on unplottability, a blank map of Germany on which the principle ley lines must be drawn, and a brief essay explaining the uses of ley lines. Short questions on the geomantic symbols and on definitions and terminology completed the paper.

The practical followed the English format of being taken blindfold with a broom to a place from which one had to return to the castle; it was a little late in the day because the examiner had been examining the pupils at the new school earlier. It made no odds to Xanthippe, who returned very quickly indeed. Adolph was almost as fast, with a rapid piece of wand work to find out where he was; Aglaia took a bit longer.

oOoOo

There were just two exams to go after this, History and first, Herbology. There was a fairly large class of herbologists; it was reckoned a relatively soft option except by those who had talked to sixth formers taking it to ZH.

Both twins were taking this, Alexand, Yorick, Harald and Aglaia and sundry others. The practical involved collecting bubotuber pus, fertilising screechsnaps without making them wriggle uncomfortably and picking a flitterbloom from devil's snare. The written had questions on self-fertilising plants, use of fertiliser and self motile plants with various short questions on plant recognition, uses, care and so on. The twins did not feel it was one of their best subjects; but it was handy for potioneering.

oOoOo

The only historians in the class were Harald and Vighard and a colourless and mousy small girl; and it was the given opinion of the twins that the boys had chosen it only because they thought it would be a soft option and had probably had a shock when Lazlo Ijas actually started teaching history not droning on about dates like old Fabeln. The mousey looking girl, whose name Lazlo had managed to find out to be Adasinda, actually left the exam virtually glowing, and declaring that Herr Professor Ijas was WONDERFUL because now she understood enough to make a reasonably good showing in explaining what happened when and why. It dispelled the air she wore about herself that had acted almost like an invisibility cloak to make people forget her very presence, and the twins resolved to get to know her better, as it was a neat trick to have.

oOoOo

And that was the last exam over; the lower sixth and the lower forms still had a couple of weeks lessons while the upper sixth considered their career options according to how well the exams seemed to have gone, and the fifth considered their ZH options under the same feelings, negotiating with the staff regarding the same.

Then the end of the year was upon them; and as Zoltan said, the Music Marauders were now in the middle school and required therefore to be trouble.

"I rather thought we already were" said Beryx.

"More so I suppose" said Corneliu "Have a heart, Zol, we'll be too busy with our maze to do TOO much mischief."

"That's why we need to do mischief to disguise how much we're actually doing with the maze" said Zoltan. "So we need to put our minds to it all over the hols to make sure we have something planned by the time we get back."

"He's fairly clever, my brother" said Sigismund "And we don't want people thinking the maze was more than a mad Herbology venture. And I say, I guess we'd better all take ancient runes as an elective; we so are going to need it to manipulate the maze properly."

"And some of us might actually ask if we can taken the new art OWL that the English have" said Beremud "Because of the topiary horses we're going to grow and actually of the pattern magic we helped re-establish. If we can get a book, one or more of us taking it is a good excuse for us all to learn."

"Well volunteered" said Sigismund.

"I shouldn't mind studying it too actually" said Lindhard "I enjoy drawing; it'd be nice to do something useful with it as well; and to learn to improve. Let's go see the head, Beremud."

oOoOo

Agata was a little taken aback to have two of the youngest marauders wanting to study a rather esoteric subject; but Lindhard managed to sound enthusiastic and almost knowledgeable and Beremud was enthusiastic. Dubiously she agreed to permit them the text book and to write to the Prince Peak teacher to ask if they might have the odd written critique; and read them a homily on not neglecting their other work for frills. Beremud started to open his mouth to say that it wasn't a frill if it helped with the maze, but was well kicked in the ankle by Lindhard; who had no intention of sharing the maze's secrets with a grown up.

Decisions having largely been made, the end of year feast was upon them; and some of the pupils would not be returning next term. Zhanargul and Takeo were off to Prince Peak for a post graduate year, Saula was getting married. Hilde had applied to work in Romania with dragons and others too had their chosen careers to try for.

And the maze was still growing.

* vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

* Schildkröte to Kröte