The Retake

You are allowed to fail Summoning twice at the Academy. On the third attempt they make you sign a form, and the form is not encouraging. Wisp signed it. She was good at most things — wards, herblore, the theory of basically everything — but Summoning required a kind of confidence she had simply never been issued, and confidence cannot be borrowed, no matter how nicely you ask your roommate. The examiner drew the circle. Wisp stepped in. She was supposed to call something small. A messenger sprite. A pocket imp. The exam standard was, frankly, embarrassingly low, which somehow made failing it worse. She spoke the words. She felt the pull. And then — and she would replay this moment for weeks — she sneezed. You are not supposed to sneeze during a summoning. The circle does not know what to do with a sneeze. The circle, faced with a sneeze, made an executive decision, and the air in the examination hall folded itself in half, and something stepped through that was definitely, definitely not a pocket imp. The examiner dropped his clipboard. That, more than anything, told Wisp she was in trouble.