This is book 10 of the "Young Wizards" series.

This note contains spoilers for the book.

Still loving these.

There's an Invitational contest, every 11 years, for very promising wizards (and their mentors). It's local, so it's just plain stupid—11 years is too long (Dairene for example never got a chance at one, since she was the wrong ages). There's a woman who was Earth's Planetary at 22; it's a Young Wizard's game. Every 11 years is just weird. It's even referred to in the book as being clearly unfair to some people, but there's an off-hand reference to having it that infrequently somehow "working better".

Okay, but ignoring that, it's excellent.

Kit and Nita get one candidate to mentor, Dairene gets another, and they both make it through to the finals (through the most drastic initial cut on record, or close).

As tends to happen to these people, complications turn up. Raushon, missing for a few books, turns out to be hiding in the sun, filling a space where the Phoenix usually lives, but which has been empty for two long. Luckily the Phoenix entity returns, and Dairene is able to rescue (and claim) Raushon.

And Kit and Nita are progressing to actually holding hands. I tend to forget their actual ages; it's always younger than I'm thinking, so this isn't really all that slow.

These really are a lot better than Harry Potter.