The Outer Bamboo Courtyard was located behind the Academy’s manure sheds and rotting timber piles.
Dead leaves choked the stone gutters, and gray fungus climbed the damp wooden porch posts. The courtyard wall was made of cracked river mud reinforced with brittle reeds. Through the gaps in the timber fence, the foul stench of fermented night-soil drifted whenever the wind shifted south.
“Charming,” Kaelen Vance murmured, stepping onto the sagging porch. “Good ventilation, plenty of natural shade, and neighbors who clearly mind their own business.”
“It smells like a dead badger stuffed with sulfur, you blind donkey,” Barnaby Holt snapped, dropping a wicker crate of iron ladles onto the floorboards.
The old herb keeper wiped grease from his forehead with his good sleeve. Behind him, Linnea entered through the lopsided gate carrying a bronze travel cauldron under each arm.
The young alchemist had tied her red hair back with a leather cord. Her cheeks were flush from lugging metal across three hills, but her amber eyes were bright with nervous energy.
“The placement syllabus arrived from the registry while we were walking,” Linnea said, dropping the cauldrons with a dull thud. “The outer court requires thirty hours of cauldron practice before the placement audit; orientation begins tomorrow. Tier 4 fire-control drills. Core heating, soot suppression, and slag separation.”
