What is Eden Academy?

Eden Academy, formally Eden College, is the most prestigious private school in Ostania, set in the capital, Berlint, with a documented history of more than 500 years. It educates roughly 2,500 students from age 6 to 19 across thirteen grades, in three stages from primary to high school, and admission runs through examinations and a family interview that the Forger family's entire cover story was built to survive. Operation Strix depends on it: Donovan Desmond appears in public almost nowhere except at gatherings for the school's elite scholars, so Loid's adopted child has to become one.

The school runs on a visible merit economy. Stella Stars are awarded for academic excellence, the top two students in each subject in a grade, and for exceptional service or heroism outside the classroom. Eight Tonitrus Bolts means expulsion; eight Stella Stars makes an Imperial Scholar, entitled to the scholar's cape and to the Imperial Scholars' social gatherings where Desmond can be reached. Stars and bolts do not cancel each other out, and a failing score below 30 on an exam earns a bolt without exception.

Anya's ledger opened both ways within weeks: a Tonitrus Bolt for punching Damian Desmond, reduced from the automatic three because her housemaster, Henry Henderson, accepted she had defended her friend, and a Stella Star for saving a drowning child's life. The school's workings are documented as modeled on British public schools, whose houses, prefects and honors Eden replays in Ostanian dress.