On the morning of her first day as a highmage, Sciona is delayed by Aunt Winny’s fussing and matchmaking talk, then by a stream of neighbors congratulating her for making history. Though Sciona is awkward with the attention, the goodwill around her reflects Aunt Winny’s place in the neighborhood more than Sciona’s own sociability. On the train, Sciona works on notes, then arrives at the university aware that the whole city is now watching the first woman admitted to the High Magistry.

Sciona reaches the restricted fourth floor of the Main Magistry and finds the secretary absent. A Kwen janitor named Tommy helps her navigate the halls. When they meet several highmages and assistants, Sciona is introduced to Yurith Tanrel, Farion Halaros, Jerrin Mordra, Evnan, and especially Cleon Renthorn, a former labmate and rival from Archmage Bringham’s laboratory. Renthorn immediately belittles Sciona’s ability and, when the group discusses her lack of an assistant, he mockingly "promotes" Tommy to serve her, treating both Sciona and the janitor as objects of a joke.

Sciona refuses to give Renthorn the satisfaction of seeing her openly wounded and follows Tommy into her new laboratory. Once alone, she is shaken by how quickly the supposedly merit-based High Magistry reduces her sex and class to insults. Tommy notices her distress and asks if she is alright. Realizing that the joke humiliates Tommy as much as herself, Sciona stops him from leaving and decides to make the arrangement real: if an assistant mostly follows directions, then Tommy can do the job. Despite Tommy’s warnings that he is uneducated and barely literate by university standards, Sciona hires him anyway, partly because she believes she can work around convention and partly because turning Renthorn’s insult to her advantage feels like a victory.

Sciona settles Tommy to shelving her books and briefly leaves to find a restroom, discovering another practical slight of the all-male floor: there is no women’s lavatory. She returns through the upper library and encounters Renthorn alone. Their conversation turns hostile as Renthorn flaunts his multiple research-mage assistants and suggests that Sciona only entered the High Magistry through politics, Bringham’s vanity, or sexual manipulation. Sciona counters that his assumptions can be tested through their rival sourcing plans for the barrier expansion.

Renthorn dismisses his cruelty as "just a joke" and warns Sciona she cannot survive in the High Magistry if she is too sensitive or if she challenges him. Rather than break, Sciona leaves the confrontation with sharpened resolve. She returns to her laboratory charged with anger and purpose, tells Tommy to leave the shelving unfinished, and declares that they have real work to do.