On the fifteenth day of July, 2014, it was a chilly Monday morning.
Annabeth paced restlessly around her room, wrapped in a thick blanket, and her phone clutched in her hand.
She refreshed the page displayed on the lit screen occasionally, awaiting the upload of the final shortlist.
She, and a few thousand others had waited with bated breath for months after submitting their publications for perusal to the management of the King's Crest royal academy. The news of the shortlist's upload had made the headlines a week ago, much to their relief. On July 15th, the final list would be made public.

It had been her...