Liam Perrin

Murray was the seventh son of a seventh son. Eugene had been born under a full moon on a winter solstice. A vulture had deposited a live fish on his doorstep the morning of Archibald’s thirteenth birthday.

Eustice, on the other hand, could levitate a plump goose nearly five inches straight up. He could conjure edible chocolates. He could teleport small rocks and lethargic beetles medium distances, make time appear to pass slightly slower or a touch more quickly for several minutes consecutively, and he was working on a method to split sunlight and distill it into a potable fluid.

But there was nothing special about the circumstances of Eustice’s birth. You can have three guesses as to who was passed over by the admissions committee, and the first two guesses don’t count.

He pumped the lever with one hand and turned the crank furiously with the other. His panicked frenzy of action resulted in no perceptible change in trajectory. Strapped to the exoskeleton he careened with it into the facility’s wall dislodging masonry and bending a steel girder like a noodle. Steam exploded from the crank-house on his back, and he went down in a fusillade of broken bricks and hot sparks.

She was there before the dust settled. The skyward flywheel was still spinning. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay.”

She helped him extricate himself and smiled weakly as he dusted himself off.

“Most people have to take the test a few times before they get their license,” she lied.