This is set in Cynara’s Doomsday Academy, several years after its founding. Kheper is a Year Nine Student.

Professor Kheper Agislaw strode into his Year Five Law class and posed.

He didn’t exactly think of it as posing, but he stood just inside the doorway, looking over the seven students who were fresh to the grown-up classes and, thus, fresh and new to him.

Four girls, three boys. The boys looked younger, impatient; the girls – most of them – looked solid and serious. At this age – they would be fourteen, plus or minus a few months – most of his students fit that pattern.

And they were all looking at him, even the most impatient boy. Kheper knew he was striking. He’d been striking since he hit puberty, and he’d had decades to polish the look.

Vain, Cya teased him, and he was fine with that.

This wasn’t Cya’s time, and this wasn’t time for vanity. He finished his walk into the classroom, his best smile touching his lips.

“Welcome to Introduction to Law. I am Professor Agislaw, and I will be your Law Professor for the next four years.” He waited for the predictable giggles to die down, counted to three, and reached behind him.

The first book thumped down on his desk with a meaty sound. One of the boys squeaked.

“This.” He gestured, indulging in his flair for the melodramatic. “Is the book of law for the city – it’s more of a town, really – of West Sands, in what was once Nevada.”

The next set thumped down, four books, each of them bigger than the single West Sands book. “These are the laws – the greater portion of the laws – of the Restored United States of America, on the east coast, in what was once mostly Virginia.”

He had their attention. He thumped down the much smaller book. Of course, she hadn’t had that many years to accumulate laws yet. “This is the legislation of Cynapolis, the city in which you are currently sitting.”

Pause. Pause.

The pamphlet hardly made a sound. “And this is the sum total of the Law of the Ellehemaei, which will occupy the vast majority of our time for the next four years.”

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