''Children. Children,'' she grabs our attention and silences a group of three whispering girls. ''Now, most of you already know this, probably, but we will have a refresher. What do we call this?'' She pulls out a fist-sized red crystal. Thirteen girls and twelve boys in the cssroom sit still as statues, almost ignoring our teacher. I scratch the side of my head while my right knee rapidly jiggles up and down to an unknown rhythm. ''Well, don't all raise your hands at once.''

  Crystallology Grandmaster Penelope Arden is a gorgeous woman of about thirty-five. She has the clever eyes of an eagle—that doesn't make sense, hmmm...well, there is something hawkish but pretty about her hazel yellow eyes. She is tall and slender and moves her figure gracefully with an effortless gait of a cat.

  Cssroom eighty-eight is quite simir to the one we had cartography and bearing in, with some slight variations. Grandmaster Penelope's desk looks like an obelisk lying on its side. No! It looks more like one of those blocky water towers Aleera and I saw while flying to this pce, but pced on its side. The ceiling here has special nooks which hold scores of fully-charged Cobalts. Combined with a series of well-pced crystal mps, there wasn't just reading light, there was a crisp full-might-of-the-best-spring-day type of light in the cssroom.

  Grandmaster Penelope Arden proceeds to look at some list pced on her long desk. ''Lana. Lana Furia.''

  ''Crimson.'' The girl with bright yellow hair and pale brown eyes answers. Lana sits far behind me and to the left, in the distant upper part of the cssroom.

  ''Next time raise your hand, silly child.'' The st two words were muttered but the sound carries well in this space and I'm sure all could hear her, easily enough. ''All of you,'' the grandmaster raises her clear confident voice a little bit while addressing us. ''Will communicate with me or I might triple your time spent here.'' I don't like this. She smiles now. The evil grin doesn't suit her pretty face at all. ''If none of you wish to answer my next question we will be here until this Crimson turns to shiny dust. Oh, and it's a fresh one.'' Grandmaster Arden then pulls out a blue crystal from somewhere behind her desk and gently pces it on top. She clears her throat. ''Now. What...do we call this little shiny.'' Her long delicate fingers almost completely cover the Cobalt, obscuring most of its light, as she grips it with her right hand. The st uttering coming from the grandmaster was said with a hissing whisper—kinda like a praying mantis might whisper to anything smaller than it.

  Akin to long-pent-up arrows, twenty-five arms shot up for the sky. We all raise our hands. Every single one of us.

  She repeats the process with Lic, Amber, and Viridian and all of us are quite enthusiastic to oblige and answer each question.

  ''Crystals come in different shapes and there are no two that are exactly the same,'' Grandmaster Penelope Arden continues. ''Ordinary crystals can be broken into smaller parts but it is very difficult to do. If they come in a cluster or as twins then it is easier to cut them separate without shattering. Smaller the piece being cut is, greater the chance the crystal will break and crumble into crystal dust. The cutting process must be done while they are empty of living light. Now, besides light, how else are crystals used?''

  ''Money.'' Some tallish boy, sitting near the dead center of the cssroom, speaks without even bothering to raise his hand.

  ''Good, Horatius,'' she nods at the boy. ''Through a painstaking process, hex is made. What else?''

  ''Weapons,'' I say.

  ''Using crystal in the making of weapons is possible but extremely expensive and in the end, not very practical way to use them.'' Her eyes stare through the back of my skull. ''Also, raise your hand before answering. You can't all speak willy-nilly, it would be pandemonium.''

  I'll just not bother anymore.

  ''Crystalcrafting is a difficult process,'' Grandmaster Penelope climbs upwards to the middle of the cssroom's benches and stands in our midst. ''Crystal is chipped with a special chisel or cut with wire made of strong metal, all the while being empty of light. If it still has light in it then there is a much bigger chance of the crystal cracking and crumbling away into dust. The room where the process occurs has to be shielded from any sunlight. Smaller pieces of the once bigger crystal can be further shaped and charged with light and...perhaps even used in the Genesis process.''

  She continues with her many questions, testing the limits of what we know. Learning the basics about crystals is an early autumn breeze and a waste of time for me considering my father's profession. But, ''arrogance is an ugly tunic to wear,'' as my mom would say. I look our teacher straight in her comely ''eagle'' eye and absorb her words like a sponge. I bet my father could make a really wicked-nice crystal sword.