Page 47 of Bull Moon Rising

“How do you know?” Mereden whispers back.

Gwenna grabs her hand and squeezes it, then gives Kipp a meaningful look. “Just listen to her, all right? She knows what she’s doing.” Her gaze moves to Lark, who has a bright yellow flute she’s bringing back to the table and purses her lips.

I try not to wince, because everyone knows that wind instruments weren’t popular in Old Prell. It was in the Mancer Wars several centuries ago that flutes became popular in music. But no one’s perfect.

I manage to keep a straight face as Gwenna picks up a knitting hook of some kind that has thedomensign on it, the one of the bird with its wings spread that is a favorite of forgers everywhere. She wouldn’t know, so I’m not going to judge her. Kipp picks a delicate knife and Mereden chooses something that looks like a clasp, and then all the artifacts have been chosen for our team.

Master Tiercel and Archivist Kestrel stroll past our table, picking up each item and then setting it aside. “Fake,” Tiercel declares loudly as he picks up Lark’s object.

“Fake,” he says to Kipp’s blade.

“Real,” to Mereden’s clasp, and she lets out a gasp of pure delight.

“Fake,” to Gwenna’s knitting hook.

He pauses and eyes my bowl, then looks over at his companion. Archivist Kestrel nods sagely.

“Real,” Master Tiercel says in a sour voice. “Two points for Master Magpie’s team.”

I grab Lark’s hand with excitement, and I’m pretty sure Kipp’s tail curls around my boot with delight. Two points is good considering our team has never gone over the finer points of forgery. Or even the less fine points of forgery. Or any points at all, really.

The points are tallied for Master Crow’s team and they only have one artifact declared real. “One point for Master Crow’s fledglings. Let us begin round two. Fledglings, please come and choose.”

Master Crow looks like he could spit nails, glaring at me as I get to my feet. I smooth sweaty hands down the front of my pants and wonder if I need to get a fake this time to seem as if I’m like everyone else, or ifI want to score points for my team. I debate this mentally as I continue down the long row of packed shelves. To my surprise, the man opposite me hurries over to the ewer I’d held last round—the one when I’d asked if items needed charges—and snatches it up.

Too late for hiding under the radar, I suspect.

Everything I touch now will come under scrutiny, I realize. They’re all watching my every pause to read glyphs, my every hesitation in front of an object. I need to go back to the egg from before, but as I turn around, I see a thick palm-sized disk on a chain, the metal tarnished and scuffed. It has glyphs at four equal points on the surface, one of them the ornate eye used to denote the home of the gods, which the Old Prellians believed was in the great north, past the mountain range of my home. I pick it up and turn slowly until the medallion shivers in my hand, indicating that I’m facing north.

Well, I can’t very well put it back now and pretend like I don’t know what I’m doing. I return to my table with the medallion and set it down as discreetly as possible. Mereden, Kipp, and the rest of the team pick items, and I do my best not to wince when each forgery arrives on the table. At least they’re avoiding the yellow like I’d asked. But it’s clear from what they’re choosing that they have no knowledge of Old Prellian art or enchantment, or even the basics of glyphwork. I make a mental note to bring this up to Hawk. My team needs classes on how to spot forgeries.

Well, and how to spot artifacts.

Really, we just need classes on everything.

“One point for Master Magpie’s team,” Master Tiercel declares at the end of round two.

One point is then declared for Master Crow’s team, this person a different one from before. If I had to guess, I would say there’s not an expert on Crow’s team. They’re just guessing out of luck. But now I need to go back and get that egg. I have a feeling that if I don’t, we’ll end up with a tie, and I’m willing to bet that a tiebreaker would not go in our team’s favor.

This time, I head straight for the Weight of Crushing egg with no charges left. I pick it up and bring it to our table, and sweat as I watch the others pick their choices. When everything is chosen, this time MasterTiercel goes to Master Crow’s team first and picks through their objects with the archivist at his side.

“One point for Master Crow’s team again,” Master Tiercel declares. “Total points—three.” He strolls over to our side as I busily do mental math. Okay, we’re at three points at the moment. My egg should get us to four, which is a win, unless they don’t count it because of the lack of charges. If someone else on the team has picked a winner—

“No points this round for Magpie’s team.”

“What?” I blurt out, looking up. “So deactivated artifacts don’t count after all?”

Archivist Kestrel seems puzzled by my reaction. “They do count. You do not have any real artifacts at your table. We have a tie.”

I glare up at both of them. “That’s not right. Mine is a real artifact. It just doesn’t have charges.”

“The guild frowns on poor losers,” Master Tiercel begins.

Archivist Kestrel turns the object over in his hands, peering down at it.

“I’m not a poor loser,” I declare, stabbing a finger at the stupid thing. “It’s a legitimate artifact. Read the glyphs on the bottom. It’s a Weight of Crushing but it’s out of charges. They’re a common sort of thing. Look at it again.” Master Tiercel gives me a pitying look that only pisses me off more. “Just look, all right?”

“This is not very becoming of your team,” Master Tiercel continues. “And if your teacher were here, she would hear about it. This is the reason why teams need to be supervised. You can’t be left alone. The rules are rules for a reason—”

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