The answer clicked into place.

She selected it. Confirmed. Submitted.

She wasn’t studying. She was playing.

Maya laughed. “Your mum sounds smart.”

Ten minutes remaining.

She glanced up. Across the room, Arjun was staring at his screen, lips moving silently. Beside him, Priya tapped her finger in a steady rhythm — nervous energy. Maya looked back at her own screen. One last question: a complex figure matrix. Three boxes across, three down, the bottom-right missing. She traced the transformations with her eyes. Rotation. Color inversion. Size shift.

“She is,” Arjun said. “She also says the real test isn’t the CAT. It’s what you do after.”