The brass aperture blades inside Matron Bell’s eye sockets contracted with a sharp, camera-shutter click.
Four feet above Row 1, the proctor stood like a dark iron tower against the fluorescent lights. Her starched white collar stood stiff as sheet metal, pinned tight against her throat by four heavy cervical rings. Beneath the fabric, the six-inch bronze throat-gong vibrated with a low sixty-cycle hum that Julian could feel vibrating through the soles of his boots.
Julian didn’t look up into her empty face.
He dropped to his right knee beside Row 1, Seat #019.
The mahogany surface of the desk was worn smooth by hundreds of hours of study. In the center of the green felt blotter lay an open blue examination booklet. Stamped in purple ink across the header was the serial registration:
OAKHAVEN ACADEMY -- SCHOLARSHIP EXAM BOOKLET #SEAT-019.
Beneath the stamp, written in Clara’s neat, upright handwriting, was her name:
Clara Vance. Sophomore, Department of Municipal Transit History.
