That night, Addie went to Jo's room for the study group. She pushed the already slightly ajar door all the way open and peered in. Jo was lounging in an armchair with a textbook four boys were crowded onto her bed and four more were on the floor. Addie recognized Tyler, Ryan, Zachary, Joseph, Connor, Daniel, Luka, Nicholas, and Braden. Jo looked up. "Come on in," she said. Addie went in and sat in the chair by the desk. Braden and Luka were squabbling over math problems on the bed, Ryan was helping Zachary and Joseph with a poem, and Daniel and Connor were both lounging on different parts of the bed reading heavy tomes on Immortals. Nicholas was sitting by the window reading a book on deportment. He had extra deportment classes because it was so important for him to seem high class and refined. Jo closed her textbook and went over to Addie. "What homework do you still have yet to do?" she asked.

"Just the essay on the Immortals War, the poem, and the essay on basilisks," she answered.

"Okay, here is a tome on the Immortals War that we finished with, just call if you need any help," Jo told her. She returned to her chair and looked back. Addie was writing fervently in tiny writing without even opening the book. Jo shook her head; it took a really smart person to make her feel so ignorant.

Addie was done with the Immortals War essay within half a candlemark. She then tackled the poem which continued to confuse her. The poem took her almost a candlemark and a half to complete, and she was not sure that she had done a good job. Braden and Luka were back on that one problem after having taken a break from it to do their essays on the Immortal's War. Addie looked over their shoulders. It was a function problem; they had to find y when x equaled 5. She took their quills and showed them how to find the answer. They thanked her and went on to the next problem which was of the same type, finding that they no longer had any trouble solving them.

Addie took a long time to complete the poem. It was long and hard, full of symbolism and metaphor. It also didn't help that she couldn't stop thinking about the creature whose skeleton was hanging in Numair's room. What did it eat, where did it live, and, most importantly, what was it? She finished the poem just before lights out.

On the way back to her room, she tripped, fell over something and then landed in a puddle of something sticky and smelly. She heard a snicker from the shadows and the sound of footsteps lightly running away. She sighed and continued and to her room to wash the mess off.

That night, she dreamed about the creature from Numair's room. In life, it had a wide tail, a fin coming out of the top of its back, flippers on either side where its "hand bones" had been, a hole on the top of its head which it breathed through, and grey, rubbery skin. She sat on a rock in the middle of a lake, with the creature swimming around her. Suddenly, it dived deep. She scanned the water, trying to see where the marvelous animal had gone. She looked up as it broke the water ten feet away, pulling its entire body from the liquid, doing a flip, and then diving snout first back in. She laughed with glee as it swam back up to her. It imitated her with a clicking sound.

She woke up. It was midnight. She sighed at the loss of this fantasy and then rolled over and fell asleep.

As the weeks passed Addie fell into a schedule. She would get up, eat, go to her morning classes, go and bathe, go to lunch, go to her afternoon classes, have dinner, go down to the barns and lunge her stallion and work on a bit of training with him (he was coming along nicely), and then go to the study group. Addie enjoyed in her classes, all except for boxing and wrestling. She had a lot trouble in that, probably because she was small. She did her exercises, but it still wasn't enough yet. She was pleased to feel herself getting stronger though. She felt herself gaining lean muscle, unlike some of the boys who gained muscle bulkily. She advanced in combat skills about as quickly as Jo did, they learned a bit faster than two boys of their year did, but at the same speed as Hearenth and not overly quickly. She also proved her skill in academic fields. Her father had taught her thoroughly. She had given up her childhood in the pursuit of learning and slightly regretted the fact that she had never played with others of her own age.

Addie was also collecting punishment work. Each day, at least one of her masters seemed to find something that she hadn't done or that hadn't been done to satisfaction. She was then assigned varying amounts of punishment work by those different teachers. She quickly learned not to complain or argue because it would just get her more work. Her weekends were spent cleaning armor or mucking out the stable (which she didn't mind because it gave her the chance to chat with the horses).

The music teacher was happy with her progress. He gave her and Tyler some duets for them to work on. After a few weeks, he told them delightedly that they were going to play at parties Midwinter came around, just some of the popular songs of course. This was daunting, but they still had several months to go.

She worked hard in math and reading and writing. She was learning more advanced subjects than the second year pages were. They were challenging her and she loved it. She also enjoyed history, which she knew a lot of from her father, but still learned new information all the time. Her masters could not believe that she had read so many classics at her age but her photographic memory allowed her to quote directly from them to prove it.

She was sometimes used as an example in deportment. After the master of that class learned that she knew many things that were important to know in that field, he had her demonstrate proper bows and handshakes and such. She just sighed and complied. She was also learning how to properly serve and was disgusted to find that she failed miserably at it.

Her class on Immortals was interesting. Tkaa was very thorough in his teaching of the habits and facts about Immortals. There were many Immortals and, besides basilisks, Tkaa started from the least powerful and worked his way up. The entire subject intrigued Addie. She raised her hand often in his class to ask a question or to give an answer.

Addie paid attention in her magic classes, but never participated for several reasons. She didn't want to give her secret away or let on how much knowledge she had of magic. She had studied it so hard because she was afraid of it and thought that if she had more knowledge of it she would be less afraid. Stories of the deaths of spell caster or his victims overshadowed the stories of those who helped with their Gifts in Addie's mind. Numair's lessons were full of warning of the traps and dangers that a magic worker could do. He brought in the tree man Qiom and told the story of how Qiom became a man, down to the intricate details of how the magic had worked. He told how the Lioness' brother Thom had brought back the king's cousin, Duke Roger, from the grave and how it had cost him his life. He told of sorcerers who had brought up giant tidal waves, wiping out entire villages at a time. She heard stories of horrendous earthquakes, terrible fires, and tornados of an unnatural origin. She ignored the lessons on Healing and other such good magics, focusing on the bad until that was all she saw. She sometimes caught Numair looking at her, but she always kept her magic hidden during his classes. It was a strain and it told on her strength as the weeks past.

She never touched the skeleton again. It still intrigued her, but she was afraid of the magic that had sucked her into its old life. She looked through the library to find out what it was, but she tried every fish classification book and they had never seen anything like it. Could it have been an extinct species?

Addie kept up in her combat training. She excelled in archery and horse back riding, but was average in everything else except boxing and wrestling where she was far below average. She took her punishment work without complaint.

Every day, Addie would stay later than every one else in the stables to groom Sundancer. One day, Leo dumped his saddle in front of her stall. Hearenth, William, and Caden followed suit, sneering. "Put our stuff away and curry our mounts," Leo said. Addie just stared at them, her silver eyes cold. Leo appeared slightly unnerved. "We expect them to be done," was all he could say before he left. His followers left with him, snickering and joking around. Addie shrugged and continued grooming her mount. She looked over their mounts before she left. She felt so bad for them, as they stood in their stalls still steaming and sweaty, that she curried them despite not wanting to give in. The horses thanked her. She left all the tack where it was piled though.

The next day, they cornered her just outside Sundancer's stall. "We told you to put our tack away," Leo said as he shoved her, "We don't like being disobeyed by commoners! You have been put on this planet to do nobles' bidding, my bidding!" She ignored him and continued going about her business. William blocked her way into the tack room. Caden shoved her stuff to the ground and grabbed her arms. Leo came at her with his fist raised. As soon as he got close enough, Addie kicked him in the groin. She stamped on Caden's foot and delivered a vicious kick to his knee. He swore and released her. Hearenth tackled her and soon the four of them had her tied with some rope that had been lying around.

Addie struggled and Leo slapped her. She fell back into a pile of water bottles, splitting one. She felt the cold wetness seep down her back. She struggled up again but William pushed her back.

William's sneering visage was right in her face, he had really bad breath. "Do you know what's more fun than just beating her up?" he asked. The other boys laughed as he unzipped his pants.

R&R Please