My son turned ten today and he has Cherub lung. “They’re not accepting anyone on account of the drought. Mary’s sent me here,” his mother yelled, too angry to convince anybody, and too angry to stop being angry. She said, “They don’t cover these tests no more. The receptionist barely moved, like this old white lady was so tired she didn’t have energy left for nodding. “Are you fucking kidding?” his mom asked the receptionist at the clinic. When he was ten, Noah had the transparent green action figure of Vamon on his person at all times. The two of you are supposed to have an intimate conversation about the future of your education. He projects himself as a transparent green specter. If the Ozymandias Academy accepts you, the image of Vamon Kinctuarin visits you. When the paramedics got him, he was still holding his application. That was the first time Noah blacked out. When she took him by the shoulders, he slumped into her side. The light turned red as she unbuckled herself to get at him. His mom held the inhaler up for him, but he couldn’t take the breath. “I’m going to do magic with my-” His proclamation gave way to a peal of strangled coughs.

Fighting through the coughing, he said, “Vamon’s going to solve the drought. His shoulders rocked against the seat and he hugged his application letter to his chest. Under that yellow traffic light, Noah’s wheeze became a brittle cough. The next light turned yellow and his mom rolled the car to a stop. Do you know what he used instead?”įor a moment Noah removed a few fingertips from the envelope, wiggling them like they were shooting lightning through the windshield. When he was too tired, he magicked his own bones to keep fighting against the Seraphs. He said, “He could make daggers from nowhere, and one time he used bone magic so that all the skeletons in a graveyard fought for him. Noah started wheezing, like he had crickets in his lungs. “And he became a magician but didn’t need a wand?” Noah sat up as though she had blasphemed. He asked his mom, “Did you know Vamon doesn’t need a wand?” He clutched the envelope in both hands so there was no chance of dropping it. Noah wanted it worse than anyone.ĭo you know where he was on his fifth birthday? Sitting in the stained passenger seat of his mom’s clunker, bouncing with excitement because she was driving him to mail his application. What you don’t get is that attending Ozymandias was Noah’s dream. All they know about him is the headlines, and they think he’s ungrateful. People ask how Noah could possibly turn down the Ozymandias Academy. When the elitist institution of Ozymandias Academy and its headmaster, Vamon Kinctuarin, can’t find a solution to the city’s worsening drought, 2 self-taught magicians, Noah and his partner Manny, take it upon themselves to find a solution to the crisis.

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