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they managed to look right in the uniform, but mine just seemed not to fit. I threw down my staff and stared at it.
    “You certainly won’t get very far with that attitude.”
    I looked up to see a bristling moustache and the rest of Commander Hegarty. He stood in one of the archways of the stone avenue that connected the keep to the towers.
    “Commander, sir, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.” I tried to bow, not knowing how far I should go.
    “No need to stand on ceremony, Smith. You are here to learn how to be a warrior, and you won’t learn that by throwing down your weapon,” his voice sounded gruff, but I heard a touch of feeling there for me. He fixed me with a measuring, assessing eye. “Tell me Sebastian, have you seen the Map Room up in the observation tower yet? Maybe it will be more to your liking.”
    There was still an hour before the horn sounded for dinner—and I was ready to do anything to avoid having to go another round with Thea and a staff. I nodded and tried not to sound too eager. “I’d love to, sir.”
    “Come with me, Sebastian,” he turned and started walking quickly along the stone avenue, his boots clipping on the cobbles as he did so.
    The observation tower was the tallest tower at the Academy. It stuck out from the side of the mountain like a finger pointing to the sky. From this grand tower, the scribes and scouts could prepare and catalogue their scrolls for the navigators. I’d often looked up at the roof—tiled with dark slate—from the small space outside the smithy many leagues below and wondered what it must be like inside.
    Commander Hegarty nudged open a heavy, wooden door, revealing a set of spiraling stone steps and a winch-lift, a wooden platform built like a box with a series of weights attached to a cogwheel. I knew that was used for when the scouts had to get to the top of the tower in very short time—they could rise up on this when the weights were released, shooting up as if they had dragon wings. Thankfully, Commander Hegarty informed me now that we would be taking the more sedate, stairwell route.
    The commander went up the many hundreds of steps with a spry step. I followed, my legs starting to ache and my chest heaving. He didn’t even seem out of breath. I wondered just how often he had made this journey and if he even noticed how high it was. As we walked, he talked and I looked out of the narrow windows that we passed on our way up, watching the Academy open space getting ever smaller beneath. The terraced and walled city of Torvald now looked more like an ant nest, it was so small.
    “Where are you from, Sebastian?” Hegarty asked. “I can see that you haven’t had any training.”
    I stared the steps and his boots and my feet. “I’m from Mongers Lane,” I said, mumbling the words.
    “Near Old Bridge, am I right, and the gate where the woodworkers come into the city?”
    “That’s right, sir.” I glanced up, amazed that a man in his position had even heard of us.
    Hegarty glanced back and his mustache twitched. “You may be surprised to hear this, Sebastian, but a very long time ago, I grew up in Old Bridge myself. My father and mother were woodcutters. We used to spend all our time roaming the woods on the eastern side of Mount Hammal, looking after the forest there. I was all set to join them in their work before my dragon, Heclaxia, chose me.”
    I almost stumbled in my steps. “You, you were poor, sir?”
    Hegarty chuckled in the way like a bear might when presented with a strange joke or an easy meal. “Do I not look it now?” He looked down at his Dragon Riders’ armor, and then at his breeches and sturdy boots. “I guess these simple things must look like finery. I remember a time when even a pair of shoes was a luxury.”
    I hung my head. It seemed a comfort to know the commander knew something of my troubles, but I still felt out of place. “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean any disrespect.”
    “And none taken,