The Great Hall
Every castle has one room where everyone passes through, and this is ours. Schoolwide announcements hang on the noticeboard, the year's turnings and falling stars are kept on the school calendar, and when Evershade celebrates, it celebrates here.
New here? You are as welcome in this hall as anyone who has been here a year. Take the Sorting if you would like a house — it suggests, and the choice is yours — then step into your first class. Joining a house is optional; curiosity is the only requirement.
Welcome
Wherever in the world you are reading from, the hall says it first, in as many tongues as it can:
The Noticeboard
This part of the board posts itself: feasts, turnings, and falling stars, worked out for your own date, wherever you are. The moon's feasts follow the calculated calendars and may stand a day either way by local sighting.
Notices from the School
The House Calendars Are Hung
The year's festivals, the turnings, and the falling stars now hang in the four house commons, each calendar in its own house's season colours. When a house's season comes round, that house hosts — its scholars plan the celebrations, and the announcements are made in the Quadrivium.
The Games Room Is Open
Eight ancient games are ready to play in the Games Room: senet, the Royal Game of Ur, hnefatafl, nine men's morris, fox and geese, alquerque, oware, and seega — each with its true history, its rules plainly, and a living board. Free to play, against the school or against a friend.
Celestial Studies Is on Its Way
Professor Glimmerwick's lessons are being prepared for the Celestial Tower. When the first lessons open, the news will hang here first.
A Welcome Gift for New Scholars
Join the school by the form at the foot of any page, and the Scholar's Starter Pack will come to you as our welcome gift: the Headmaster's letter, the houses, your first runes, and more.
The school newspaper will be shelved here when its first issue is ready.
The School Calendar
The Turnings of the Year
The March equinox, about March 20 · The June solstice, about June 21 · The September equinox, about September 22 · The December solstice, about December 21. The exact day shifts a little with the year and with your time zone.
The Great Star-Showers
The Quadrantids, night of January 3 · the Lyrids, April 21–22 · the Eta Aquariids, May 5–6, best under southern skies · the Perseids, August 12–13 · the Orionids, October 21–22 · the Leonids, November 17–18 · the Geminids, December 13–14, the richest of the year · the Ursids, December 22–23.
Founders Day
September 14 — the School of Evershade's own day, kept every year.
Every Month, in Full
The whole year — every festival, every sky, and what to look for after dark, north and south — hangs in the four house commons, each house keeping its own season. When a house's season comes round, that house hosts the celebrations.
From the Hall
This Season at Evershade: Autumn
Autumn is House Occidens’s season — the season of falling leaves and long evenings. The house gathers in the Terrace, and this season’s games are shelved there.
Visit the Terrace ShelfTHE INSTRUMENTS OF THE SCHOOL
Five working instruments stand in the school's rooms, each one built from its class's own lessons. They are free to every scholar, and they reward the hand that uses them.
Choose a botanical and see everything it can become — nineteen brews, and the Deep Shelf cauldrons for lotions, soap, and ink.
Work an inscription out letter by letter in eleven scripts — carved on wood, stone, or clay, and honest about every gap.
The sky over your own place, for any date and hour — the stars, the Sun's road, and the Moon as she truly stands.
The school's shared herbal: all 202 plants, searchable — where each is studied, and how each is used in the Laboratory.
Plan a whole piece of scribal work before the pen is dipped — ink, pen, hand, page, seal, and one secret line if you want one.