Graduation day at Flamel University should have been filled with joy. Instead, dread and tears clung in the air as potential graduates failed their finals in front of the public. Rowan Mosswood watched in horror as automatons carried the third student off the stage in Cobalt Square and tossed them into the back of an ambulance. This time, an ambitious student attempted to translocate a pound of gold but miscalculated the destination point. Needless to say, the gold didn’t go where it should have. It ended up fused inside their arm.

Cobalt Square was packed, crammed with students, the public, and a slew of news and business automatons recording the events. This was a highlight in the bustling city of Neosilica, the day Flamel released only a handful of students. Scouts throughout the city would descend on graduates the moment they stepped off the stage, eager to scoop them up before their competitors. However, many others in the crowd were more interested in watching for explosions and injuries that might force the dean to end the day early.

Rowan adjusted his baggy sage-green button-up shirt, the same color as his eyes, and rubbed his tanned hands together. He wasn’t ready for this. Not by a long shot. The memories of his last attempt still haunted him. He hadn’t been ready for this two years ago when he last attempted to graduate. Granted, botanical alchemy had fewer risks than other disciplines, but last time he embarrassed himself when he accidentally created a rapidly growing invasive type of sentient fungus. The crowd had to flee when it overtook a news automaton and started beating a portly businessman over the head. Of course, the dean had to step in. He dismantled nearly a decade of mechanical alchemy, leaving behind only a heap of fungus-infested metal. Rowan spent nearly a year tracking down and crawling into rather unseemly places to find and eradicate the remaining mycelium.

He tapped his foot, looking back at the line of students. Hundreds, all waiting for their turn to get on stage. Some camped out the day before to ensure the dean would see them. Rowan wasn't as desperate, but he had arrived before sunrise when the city was oddly quiet save for the whirring of maintenance automatons making their rounds through the cobblestone streets. He'd spent his morning watching the sun crawl past the towers of metal and glass that stretched high into the sky, their modern facades meshing with the old stone buildings and carefully preserved parks below only a few blocks away. Here in the industrial heart of Neosilica, anything green was kept at bay—confined to the gardens of Flamel University or the manicured grounds of Rosen Park, where wealthy citizens could escape the relentless horizon of metal.

Four people were ahead of him now, and he'd have nothing to show if she didn't hurry up. He pulled at his collar, sweat beading on his brow. He was going to fail again.

Shouts came, just in earshot. “Ugh, gross! What is that? Stop pushing!”

Rowan stood on his tiptoes and spotted the sea of students parting, plugging their noses as purple hair bobbed between them.

Marley, a short Black woman with a silver nose ring and a thick pair of overalls on, appeared in front of him, plugging her own nose as she held up a burlap sack. “You’re lucky we’re friends.”

Rowan couldn’t agree more. After nearly two years at Flamel with no friends, he’d found Marley, and she’d made his next four years worth it. He swiped the burlap sack from her and stuck his hand inside, fishing around until his fingers wrapped around a glass jar.

He shut his eyes and begged the universe, “Please, please, please have worked.” When he pulled it out, the jar was nearly empty, with only a small blue seed at the bottom. “Yes!”

“You gonna tell me why you have a bag of manure in your bedroom?” she asked.

Rowan tucked the small jar in his pocket. "The jar had to sit somewhere dark and quiet. Not all disciplines are refined metal and containers of oil, you know." He winced, thinking about the state Marley must have found his room in—piles of texts stacked like towers across his floor, dried herbs hanging everywhere, and, of course, the bag of manure.

"I nearly died!" Marley shouted at him, arms flailing. "How can someone have that many books just thrown on the floor? Why haven't you packed?"

Rowan shook his head. "After last time, I'm not hoping for much. Just that the dean might pity me and keep me for another two years."

Marley grunted, pulling out a bottle of liquid silver from her pocket, and turned it over. “I mean, would it hurt you to switch disciplines? Nano and quantum are out of the question, but metallurgic alchemy is still in high demand. I heard the dean has a quota to pass each year or his donors will stop funding.”

“Would if I could,” Rowan said. “But my mom wanted me to do this. I owe it to her. ‘The world will always need botanical alchemy, even if they don’t know it.’ She taught me everything she knew about healing salves and teas, but she still dreamed of the day I’d learn the ‘real magic nature has.’ Too bad now all I want in life is to have my own shop somewhere making the same things we used to make back home.”

"But Neosilica doesn't need that, not now that we have nano and quantum. Did she even see an automaton before she passed?" Marley asked.

Rowan dropped his head, remembering his life in a small house just outside Neosilica, in what the older folks still called the Rosen District. "No, she didn't."

Marley lightly punched his shoulder. "Ignore what I said. You're right. And you've got the talent. No matter what the dean or that piece of garbage ex-boyfriend thinks."Rowan’s cheeks flushed as that pretentious, know-it-all Calder Steelwright with his big, dumb, perfect jawline and platinum hair surfaced in his mind. He looked down at the ground and said, “Thanks.”

Marley punched his shoulder. “Hey! None of that self-wallowing. You’ve got a diploma waiting for you, and you’re gonna kill it. So just get—”

“Next, we have Marley Argentum,” a booming male voice, Dean Vayu, called from up on the stage.

Marley turned and glared at Rowan. “You signed me in before you?”

“Seemed like the right thing to do at the time,” Rowan said.

Marley rolled her eyes and hopped up on the stairs. “We’re both graduating this year and finding us some sugar daddies to fund our research. You hear me?”

“Yeah, yeah. Good luck!” Rowan shouted.

Rowan watched as she jumped up on stage. She nodded to Dean Vayu, a tall Black man in purple robes, before pulling chalk out from behind her ear and deftly drawing a sigil on the stone slab in the center of the stage. The dean stood behind her, scribbling notes on a clipboard as she worked.

Before Rowan knew it, Marley uncorked and poured out the contents of her bottled silver on the slab and placed her hands on the sigil.

Blue light glowed from the slab, and Rowan shielded his eyes. Moments later, the crowd let out a cheer. Rowan peeked behind his fingers, spotting a small silver ferret hopping up into Marley’s hands.

She held it up for the dean and said. “This is still a prototype, but this sigil and silver combination allow for automatons without seams. I think with a few more resources and years, I could work something larger.”

Dean Vayu held out a hand, running a finger along the ferret, then nodded. He traced a sigil in the air with his finger, purple light trailing behind, while his other hand pulled a blank piece of paper from his robes. When he was done, the light descended onto a sheet of paper.

“Marley Selene Argentum,” Dean Vayu shouted out to the crowd. “By demonstrating your mastery in your selected discipline, I am proud to grant you with this seal of approval, denoting you as an Alchemist of the Metallurgical Arts of Flamel University. As you step into the world beyond these halls, may your accomplishments reflect the excellence of our beloved university.”

Dean Vayu handed over the certificate to Marley. Marley grinned ear to ear, looking back at Rowan and waving it in the air before walking off the other side. Two men and a woman, all dressed in suits, flocked to Marley the moment she stepped off stage. Behind them were a group of recruiters in military dress, their uniforms adorned with the azure and silver insignias of the Island Coalition. They'd been approaching every metallurgical graduate, desperate for alchemists who could help harvest the rich veins of reactive metals that had sparked the ongoing conflict. He hoped whatever they offered Marley wouldn’t be worth it.

A crew of rusted automatons raced to the stone slab, pouring water over the top and scrubbing it clean of any residual markings. As they did that, Dean Vayu flipped through his clipboard, sighed, cleared his throat, and said, “Next, for his second attempt, we have Rowan Mosswood.”