Summary

In Chapter 17, there are 20 days left for Conn to find his stone. When 18 days are left, Conn gets to join other academicos students in regular apprentice classes. Conn is paired with Keeston, a haughty boy who is also Pettivox’s apprentice. He often mocks Conn’s slow progress with reading and writing. One day, they come to the embero spell in a text. When Conn attempts to correct a mistake in Keeston’s pronunciation, Keeston insists he is correct. Periwinkle, the teacher, confirms that Keeston is correct. Yet, when Conn protests, Periwinkle tells him that the book is “intentionally in error” because students would have “no good reason to use the embero” (179). When Conn questions the point of teaching students “spells they can’t use” Periwinkle simply tells him to keep quiet (180).

After class, Keeston confronts Conn about his lack of a locus...