After breakfast and ample coffee to cure an imperfect night's sleep, Elias followed a wavering line of half-hungover twenty-somethings into the room where High Collector Zylas had administered his first test here only a month ago. It was just as he remembered it, the desks still arranged in the same perfect circle—a serpent moon, perhaps, or some semblance of equality? An arrangement befitting a "unified people," as Dion would say.

Elias took a seat between empty seats, forcing others to choose his company. For once, Caius sat himself somewhere else, while Keo—the not untalented Southlander who had nonetheless lost his duel the night before—pulled back the chair next to Elias's. Harriet slipped into the other. They exchanged a smile.

As the last students settled into the space, the classroom still remained relatively dark. A row of arched windows, their deep windowsills stacked with books, let in the gray light of the early morning, but it was not until High Collector Zylas marched inside with his tinderbox, lighting candles and oil lamps, that Elias felt the day had truly begun.

High Collector Zylas was dressed as everyone else was dressed, though the middle-aged man had not altogether abandoned his culture or personal sense of fashion. Eyeshadow darkened his green eyes, while a golden hoop earring pierced his aquiline nose. Nothing seemed to break his placid demeanor, and Elias suspected that this, too, was a quality he cultivated.

"Most of you spent a month here at the academy, likely in this very classroom, when you first awakened," High Collector Zylas began, though Elias assumed he was the lone exception in this case. "I imagine many of you may have forgotten the lessons of years past. I shall offer a quick refresher. The Gray Academy is older than any of us—some say it is even older than High Collector Grimsby, if only barely. For most of its history, the academy was a meeting ground for the Five Great Schools. Before unification, we were not all Valshynarian, but we were all collectors.

"Over three decades ago now, agreements were struck between the schools, starting with that of the Serpent Moon." His knowing gaze stopped for a second on Elias, the sole would-be member of that once small school. "A divided people become a united civilization. Bargains were made, secrets were shared, and bad actors were… dealt with. Indeed, a dangerous feud between certain members of the Terra Magma and Silver Sanctum schools threatened many lives and ended more than a few. The Valshynar charted a path toward peace, a way to reconcile these differences in a civilized forum, backed by universal laws to which every man and woman would be beholden. And it worked. We are at peace, and thus we prosper."

Elias could not quite tell the degree to which his classmates agreed or disagreed with this version of history, though he supposed they were young. It had all happened before their time, before his time. What else could they know but the fabrications of history and the biases of those who remembered?

"One thing that has not changed over the years, however, is the responsibility that comes with being an ascendant collector," High Collector Zylas continued. "You are no longer mere apprentices. At the end of this month, you will leave as leaders, bearing on your shoulders the full weight of the Valshynar. Your mistakes will not be excused nor forgiven as valuable lessons. You own them now, just as you own our future and all that you may yet accomplish with it." Arms crossed behind his back, he scanned them like lines in a book. "Questions?"

No one immediately put up their hand. Beside Elias, Keo cleared his throat. "Can you comment on the finite nature of relics?" he asked. "My father insists that as the Valshynar grow in size, we will face a crisis. It is the Great Continent's universal currency but also the source of our power. The value of a relic has inflated considerably over the past few decades. I have heard that many regulars"—a term Elias had not heard before—"believe it is their banks constricting supply. We know better, of course. We know it is us."

High Collector Zylas nodded, apparently approving of the question. "It is a problem," he said. "Relics are indeed finite, while our uses for them are quite the opposite. As populations grow, that too spreads their supply ever thinner. More relics may yet be found in the natural world, but any large deposits were mined long ago, and there exists no easy method for discovering and collecting what is still out there, scattered as they are like seeds in the wind. And thus we find ourselves recycling the same old relics.

"But the Valshynar are not the cause of this problem," he insisted. "We are a solution to it. The finitude of relics is one of the primary reasons for our existence, for why we limit who ascends and when. It may seem restrictive, but restrictions are necessary to keep balance, and balance is necessary for peace. Too many wars have been fought over limited resources and the ambition of men who can never have enough. Had we remained a divided people, there would be no such restrictions, for every tribe must forever build its strength, lest another threaten its existence. Violence would have been, indeed was, inevitable."

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"Was it not even worse than you describe?" Dion added from the back row. "There were collectors who quite literally killed their own kind in order to consume the relics of the departed. Like hunters after prey."

"It is a tragic fact of our past, yes," High Collector Zylas agreed. "I wish it were a more uncommon one. As I'm sure you all know, or most of you know"—he glanced at Elias again—"when a collector dies, the power they had collected over their lifetime dissipates into the wider world. If no fellow collectors are standing near the body, this energy will simply spread into the air, evaporating like water on a hot day. But like water, it still exists and thus will, over time, harden back into relics, though often nowhere near the body, which is to say nowhere convenient. Our law is simple: only the one dying may choose who, if anyone, may collect their power upon their passing. We Valshynar share most things in life: our homes, our airships, our goals. For love, we allow a single exception. This we call inheritance. Assuming, of course, the inheritor in question is in good standing."

Someone whose name eluded Elias asked whether the Ancestors also faced this quandary.

"While we do not know everything about the Ancestors, we do know that the finitude of relics experienced today was not a problem for them. They didn't consume their power—but rather cultivated it from within." High Collector Zylas began to pace, arms behind his back again. "They also channeled it into objects and complex machines whose workings we still scarcely understand. Theirs was an infinite power, and yet it, too, led to their ultimate demise. We are living in their shadow, building castles out of their bones."

Their teacher stopped in front of Elias. "I wonder, how much of this have you heard before, Mr. Vice?"

"Only a little," the man in question replied. "Less than anyone else here, I imagine."

"And you do not have questions of your own?"

He did. Elias was simply trying to read his environment—how much they knew and how they composed themselves—before determining an appropriate thing to ask. Like choosing clothes for an occasion, only this particular occasion had been thrust upon him, whether he felt comfortable with it or not. And so he spoke. "I still have no idea how your airships function without a hydrogen balloon. Or the grounds here at the Gray Academy, for that matter: how is it you keep the temperature unnaturally warm?"

"It is old, old technology," High Collector Zylas explained.

"From the Ancestors?"

"Who else?"

"So, we can still use their machines?"

"Some. Not all."

Elias recalled the contract The Two Worlds Trading Company had taken from Jalander years back to acquire a bracelet from Bjorn Halvorson in Saint Albus. He had wondered then why the Valshynar were so eager to acquire every artifact that surfaced back into existence, and perhaps now he had a clearer picture.

After taking a few more questions, High Collector Zylas centered himself in the classroom as the dim morning finally ceded to the sun, dust motes dancing in beams, illuminating him like a statue reunited with its podium. "Understanding the limits of our people is an appropriate beginning to our lessons," he said. "Limitation is the bedrock of potential, as paradoxical as that might sound. It is only when you know what we cannot do that you will begin to discover what we can. After the Cataclysm millennia ago, relics were discovered in large deposits, in the ruins of former cities and the skeletons of hollowed-out machines that have long since been disassembled or acquired by collectors. Given humanity's proclivity for resource extraction, no new deposit has been discovered for over a century, and not for a lack of looking.

"As the Valshynar grow, our supply of relics may well shrink. This is the future we must prepare for—that you must prepare for. Which is why we cannot squander the resources, the opportunity, that we have today to build a better tomorrow. These have always been the virtues of the Valshynar—intelligence and innovation—and it is for this reason above all others that collectors united under a green and gold banner. I myself am just old enough to have once joined the Four Winds School, but for decades since I have been Valshynarian. I take pride in our mission, in selflessness before selfishness, in putting the future ahead of the past.

"That said, we do of course take history very seriously at the Gray Academy," High Collector Zylas went on. "History imparts many valuable lessons. Which is why your first assignment is a deceptively simple one. I wish for you to retrieve an object found somewhere, anywhere either in this building or on this island. Tomorrow morning, you will present it back here and tell us why you chose it. You have the rest of the afternoon and evening to complete this assignment, and furthermore you will undertake it in pairs." He stopped there, assuming perhaps that he had explained enough.

A few befuddled expressions appeared to suggest otherwise.

"What kind of object are we looking for, exactly?" It was Maria, hand half-raised, eyes half-squinting.

"That is entirely up to you," he answered. "Obviously, it should be an object you may reasonably borrow for the duration of this assignment. If consent is required, please seek it. Do not steal High Collector Grimsby's pocket watch, though I would be rather impressed."

Realizing High Collector Zylas's assignment was vague by design, students promptly began pairing up. Elias turned to Harriet, keen to ask if she wished to be his partner in this strange endeavor.

"Do you…"

She nodded before he could finish, casually businesslike, as if their pairing were obviously implied. "I know just where to look," Harriet told him. "I've been stuck in this place for months. That has to be worth something."

Elias grinned. "You tell me where to go."

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