Hey everyone, the three of us who write this story wanted to let you know that we will be taking a break from posting for a while.

Our current intent to refill our back log of chapters and keep the story going, but the details (like a time line) are a bit foggy. At least for now. Luckily, as of our last check, there are around fifty chapters and 156,000 words of content available for any new readers who stumble onto the site during our hiatus.

Feel free to leave comments or reach out to us even when we’re not posting. Hope to see you all soon.

The parties were dispatched. The backup was in place. The game was afoot and Miller was wrist-deep in a potted plant. 

“Three sausages,” he muttered, digging his fingers into the dirt. “Or three per person? Stupid, stupid, Atalan. They have to cook them over a fire if they don’t get them from a dirty-aproned bartender. Obviously! You’ve read about this!”

“Miller?” said a slow drawling voice.

He spun around and hid his hands behind his back. 

“What are— Oh,” he sighed, “it’s just you, Hitch. That’s good.”

“Are you alright?”

Miller shrugged and examined his fingernails, hoping the dirt made him look less like a stay-at-home-can’t-get-a- date-and-reads-magazines-about- birds loser. 

“…why?”

“Cause he’s a bird. A real-life bird! Come on Hitch, use your head.”

“Ahh. Obviously,” the stout Aketsi said. “How does killing a plant impress him?”

“Cause I need to look tough! I need to look like someone who doesn’t mind getting their hands dirty for an investigation!”

“Dirty?” his partner said, taking the time to think through each word before letting it seep out like chilled molasses from a bottle. “Why literally dirt-y?”

“Cause, Jercash, he said that, like,  they go to doctors! They go to doctors if they get dirt under their nails!”

“Who?” 

“Losers!” he said, voice running together into one breathless tumble of anxiety, “Losers who can’t get dates, and embroider their underwear, and read magazine stories about birds!”

Hitch frowned. 

“Do you embroider your underwear?”

“No!”

The Aketsi gave him a look. 

“I don’t! Actually,” he paused, eyes losing focus, “Do you think I should show Jercash my underwear? But like, casually. Sag my pants, you know. Or bend down and show that I wear what a bird wears. Wait, what underwear does a—”

“Bye Miller, have fun,” his partner said, turning around at a pace that was (for Hitch) shockingly fast.

~~~

They left the Eyrie, and Jercash set off towards where his team had gone to eat.

“Miller, what with my delicate disposition and bird-like investigative skills, I wanted to ask; why the fuck are your hands covered in dirt? You trip into a plant or some shit?”

The diviner froze. 

Whoa. Jercash had deduced the exact origin of the soil just by seeing some particulate on his hands. 

What a bird.

“Uhhh?” What was a witty comeback? Fast, he had to be fast and snappy. And laconic (magazines always made them laconic). And tough. But mostly, fast. “Why don’t you have dirt on your hands?”

Jercash smirked from under the brim of his hat and shrugged off the blatant evasion, “Sorry son, only blood.”

They walked to a nearby place that had cheap food. While the raven gathered up his unit, Miller quickly ran down the street.

He came back to see the relatively small group huddled together in a circle. Altogether there were five of them, including Jercash. He was the raven, the leader, and he commanded three crows and one diviner. All of them were travel-worn, hard-edged, and looked ready to enact abrupt, jaded, and super laconic violence at a moment’s notice. 

One of them must have spotted him because Jercash looked over his shoulder before he made it all the way down the street. 

“What you got there, Miller?”

The skinny diviner hefted the twine-wrapped bundle of wax paper. 

“There’s a good butcher down the street, so I grabbed some sausage for this sausage party.”

Everyone went silent. Then, with the sort of eerie unity you only see in people who have spent years together, they all turned to Isa, the lone woman on the team, and roared with laughter.

Kit, their diviner, caught his breath just long enough to gasp, “What do you say, Isa? You getting enough sausage in your life? Or do you need what Miller’s packing?”

“Wha—”

Oh.

That moment. That exact moment, was when Miller realized that he had fucked up.

Isa snorted before grabbing at her trousers, “I’ve got more sausage than the rest of you combined.”

Oh no.

Sausage party wasn’t about the communal eating of greasy, meat-based products in a way that (Miller assumed) tough and/or rugged people did to bond. 

No. This was a sex thing. A genitals thing.

Isa pantomimed exactly how big her sausage was, with disturbingly evocative hand motions, and Miller felt his face heat up.

How had he not realized it was a penis thing!

Luckily, Jercash stepped in. He snatched the parcel of (obviously phallic) meat products from Miller’s hands and tossed it to Kit. 

The dirty jokes continued, though Miller stayed silent. Far to mortified to even look up. 

Was there an encyclopedia of sexual innuendos somewhere? He really needed to study. So he could curse like Crammerson, and to make sure something this embarrassing never happened again. 

Actually, they would probably call that sort of encyclopedia a dick-tionary.

Heh. Nice.

While he thought, they had passed by the Eyrie, dropped off the food, and headed to the part of town where their quarry had slipped away. 

It was right on the border between where the shops became expensive and where the poor people lived. The ones who stayed out of sight, and worked the unglamorous jobs that kept the wealthy patrons of these neighborhoods in peak comfort.

The last spot they had seen the suspect was in a confluence of alleys so overhung with awnings, laundry lines, and window boxes that the muddy gutters never saw enough sun to wholly dry. 

“This guy is Spring Court, right?” Miller asked.

“Yeah,” Jercash grunted as his team slowly stopped joking and wordlessly spread out to cover all the entrances to the alley. 

“What other types of magic have you seen him use?”

“Nothing much above the level of a control exercise. Float a knife behind his back sort of thing.”

They called the other diviner over. 

Despite being an egghead like Miller, Kit was the largest and most muscular of the whole team. He deep set eyes under a heavy overhang of bone that looked like it was meant for breaking through doors. He sat right on the edge of how fit a normal person could be without magical intervention. If his hair had been a strange color, or his eyes were at all unusual, Miller would have bet money that he had paid to have his body altered.

“How have you been tracking him?” Miller asked.

“I had a marker on him. Sort of thing a circle jockey shouldn’t have been able to sense.”

“Soul’s magic?” he said, thinking of the types of magic that the Spring Court and their spell circles tended to overlook.

“Souls?”

Miller’s mouth worked on auto pilot as he tried to imagine how someone could have slipped out of such narrow confines with a team of elite trackers after them. “Old word that the researchers like. It’s the soul bond, feeling-y, ghost sorta thing.”

“Yeah,” Kit nodded, “it’s that sorta.”

“Tell me more about him.”

“Short hair, had a beard, then shaved it. No one agrees on his height or voice. Steals new clothes all the time. People say he has a weird accent. Also—”

“Yeah yeah,” Miller interrupted, “but what does his magic feel like? How does he think?”

Kit just stared at him, but Jercash jumped in.

“He’s wrong in the head. His magic is smooth. Not technical, proper spell work, but advanced. Like Aketsi food. Recipe is all sorts of queer, but it still works anyway. But then, this guy, he deals with people and there’s none of that patience. None of the canny or willpower that goes into his spells. He just fuckin’ drains ‘em like a fruit and leaves the husks. At first, he cleans up, makes a den. But the longer he stays in one place, the sloppier he gets.”

“Is he getting lazy, or is he getting preoccupied?”

The raven’s face hardened, “It’s contempt. He doesn’t give a shit about people and doesn’t think anyone will catch him.”

From where he leaned against the mouth of an alley, Dentin, a crow with a missing tooth and the innocent, ruddy face of a farmer who just stumbled into town, said, “I’ve seen the bodies. Contempts right. Sick fuck likes the power.”

Miller nodded as all the information he had on their target swirled around his mind. The Bal DuMonte texts were supposed to be an innovative way to improve healing. But mixing healing with Night Court magic tended to make people go strange. The reality-bending beliefs you needed to change a person’s body could get poisonous. To have that level of conviction that you had the right to meddle in life and death, that you fundamentally deserved to control another person’s body… when it went wrong, it went badly wrong. 

A picture of who their suspect was as a person started forming like a collage in his mind. 

Miller reached for one of those holes he had drilled through his own sanity—a tunnel into the sort of fanatical, devoted belief that sneered at reality. 

He let himself remember that all the world was one. Everyone was one. And any two added together were, in fact, one. There was a brief moment of dissonance as the model he held in his head, the psychopathic convictions of their prey, clashed with the profound emphatic unity of the universe that his spell required him to believe in. 

If he had still been in classes, the clash of two worldviews would have made him lose the spell. But Atlan Johnson Miller was not in school. He was in the streets, chasing down a criminal. 

And he was a bird. A real-life bird. 

That trumoped everything. He summoned a massive surge of magic and threw it behind his convictions. For a second, the world resisted him. His own brain resisted him. But Miller clenched his hands and unbent his spine until it felt like he was physically growing larger.  

With a final flexing of will, a synesthetic trail of colors and patterns appeared in front of him. It told the story of magic—both as it had been in this location and as it currently was.

With his senses open, he immediately felt Isa with a painful sort of intensity. By far, she had the greatest amount of raw power. Also, she was an elementalist naturally dialed into a subset of water threaded with influences of fire. Being near her felt like a mist of burning, liquid flame dewing against his skin.

Jercash was also a powerhouse. So much so that Miller thought his skin must be buzzing to contain it all. Kit on the other hand was obviously a professional tier mage. Ordered, focused, and in possession of the sort of talent that brushed aside tricks able to fool ninety percent of the magic population. But, he was also clearly the weakest of them. And the enchanted items hidden underneath his clothes stood out like a beacon to Miller’s magically enhanced sight. 

If not for the feeling of purpose flowing through him, he might have stood and stared at the infinite complexities of magic for hours. But he was on duty.

Also, for all his evil training, and unnaturally long life, their target was about as subtle as a fire in the library. Which was a real bummer.

Miller had brought his ‘A’ game out. He was ready to tear through the ether. To  do complex analysis on every strand of power until he found one that matched their target’s personality and style. 

But he probably could have followed this guy (and Miller could taste that their target considered himself to be a guy) with his ‘C’ game. Maybe even his ‘D’ game.

Amidst the jumbled impressions of power like a burning river, and disappointment with their prey, Miller made a decision. Nay, a covenant. To never utter the phrase ‘D Game’ aloud. 

Not after the sausage party incident. 

Not again.

“Got him,” Miller growled, his throat feeling thick. Almost like he had just gotten over a cold. 

But, rather than getting an answer, he heard the sound of harsh whispering and someone spitting onto the street.

“Listen,” Jercash hissed to one of his people, “it’s a reality bender thing. Crammerson said he literally isn’t able to notice; even if we talk about it. So shut your mouth, buck up, and stop freezing him up.”

“It’s fucking weird,” Gordo said. He was their artificer and was one of those people who managed to both be skinny and have a protruding gut at the same time. 

“They’re all weird.”

Miller cleared his throat, “Who’s weird?”

Kit, who had been bent over in the corner of the alley, turned to face him while wiping something off his chin, “You! You with your kape kifting.”

“My hoop hefting?”

“YOUR SHAPE SHIF— ”

Miller put a hand to his head and winced. Something about his spell must not be balanced. He was getting an absolute beast of a headache. Also, he didn’t remember his jacket feeling so tight across the chest. Even his face felt weirdly stretched out. That was one of the reasons he didn’t like divine and detect patrol. When he was on the hunt, his civilian clothes always seemed so confining and claustrophobic.

“Sorry, what? I didn’t hear the last bit.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jercash interrupted, glaring at Kit and Gordo. “You just, ahh, you get a different look about you when you’re on a trail.”

“I do?”

“Yeah,” Jercash grunted. “Just a whisker different around the eyes.”

“I don’t know what everyone’s complaining about,” Isa said, coming up and looping her arm through his. “This is a good look on you. The—” for just a second there was whining in Miller’s ears that made it hard to tell what Isa was saying, “ — process wasn’t the best. But maybe we can talk about that sausage party idea again.”

The diviner froze.

What?

What!

“But, ahh” he swallowed, throat suddenly dry, “you’re a bird.”

She grinned up at him, “I am. And do you know what a hawk eats when it gets into a chicken coop?”

“No?”

“The biggest co—”

Jercash probably saved the skinny diviner’s life. If he hadn’t interrupted then Miller’s might have died of a heart attack right there. 

Would have been worth it though.

“Miller! Move your ass!”

He blinked, trying to think past the shock and cacophony of magic around them, “I really need to go on more dates,” he muttered to himself.

“You had better focus on finding our man,” Jercash said, ”or you’ll have a date with my boot.”

“Your boot?”

“Yeah,” the wiry man gave him a smile that was not in the slightest bit kind or reassuring. ”You’ll treat it to dinner and wine, like a gentleman. ‘Cause if you don’t start moving, we’re gonna see just how far up your ass my boot will go”

It was such a bird thing to say. So much like Crammerson that Miller found himself grinning. It helped anchor him. Made him feel a little bit more grounded amidst all the intense sensory information benign channel into his brain. 

“Not the sort of action I’m into, sir,” he said, quoting a bit of dialogue from one of his favorite Rue DeLite stories. 

A quick glance showed him that their guy had used some ugly-looking magic to jump onto the roofs. Miller nodded his head towards the exit and took the lead.

With a sharp whistle, the raven summoned their team.

“Might not be what you’re into,” the man rumbled,, ”but you go empty-eyed like that again, and it’s the kind of action I’ll be ankle-deep in, you hear me?”

Miller shook his head.

Vulgar, threatening, snappy, and coarse. 

What. A. Bird.

Which made him more sad that this mage was so easy to track. He would have paid good money to watch a team like this scour the streets for a lead. 

They walked to the far side of the building. Miller could immediately see where their target had expended an (unnecessary) amount of his energy to jump to another roof before clambering down into the street.

“Sir,” he said, as they walked (no, stupid. They were birds. They stalked) down more streets, “why is it that Isa seems shorter?”

Jercash and one of the crows looked at him.

“You really don’t know, do you?” the raven asked.

“Don’t know what?”

The bird just shook his head and readjusted his wide-brimmed hat.

“Focus on this hunt. I want to be out of this town as soon as I can.”

Miller frowned, “You don’t like Istima?”

“Whole place puts my hackles up. Nothing about it is real. And the money,” even with his senses as wide open as they were, Miller could not sense emotions. But the hatred that the man next to him exuded was so strong it almost felt like he could. “Money means more than life here. And I can’t abide by that. This whole place is just a—” the man grimaced. “It isn’t right.”

Their team paused at an intersection and looked at him expectantly. 

To him the trail was so obvious it almost hurt his eyes. Really, considering how inefficient their guy was with his power, it wasn’t a surprise he needed to eat so many people. 

Sure, the specific types of magic the criminal used had switched, which might make it hard for other Diviners. But Miller could see the transition like a single ribbon shifting colors as it unspooled. It being red before and blue now didn’t stop him from seeing one long line pointing right at their prey as he had shifted from making himself stronger to moving his flesh around to look different. Which was clever. Most people assumed that shape shifting was the sole domain of the Night Court. But there were creative ways to get almost the same result with different court’s spells. 

Even so, despite the style of magic changing, the energy still had the same tainted flavor. And it still had the same odd mixture of complex structure with poor fundamentals. To him that was an easy trail. 

Maybe if the guy had the common sense to not use magic for every little problem like a first-year who just learned telekinesis, he would be harder to track. As it was, the only reason they had paused at all was to wait for a passing line of carriages.

Once they could cross the street, there were two options. They could follow a road on the left that would eventually lead into the Side Market, or go to the right down a pretty road full of successful and pristine-looking shops. 

To the right, people paid to keep the homeless away and for trash to never sit in front of their shops more than a few hours. It was where Miller’s preferred post office was. 

But, a few hard-to-spot turns away was the Side Market. Or at least one of the locations where the multi-headed market popped up. It was the place where you found less than licit goods. The people there provided for the fancy shops, gave them discounts on rare goods, supplied them with toughs when they needed guards for their shipments, and tried to hook as many of the store’s owners on wakefulness potions as they could.

“It just isn’t right,” Jercash sighed one last time, eyeing the opulence around them. Then the wide-brimmed hat tilted upwards just enough for Miller to see the Raven’s steely gaze. “But maybe you can change my mind, Miller. Impress me with what a fancy Istima bird like you can do.”

Impress him? 

The thin diviner clenched his fists and looked across the street. The trail very clearly went to the right, down the main avenue towards the beautiful shops and perfect restaurants. But they could, hypothetically, go into the Side Market and then exit right at the other end of the main avenue. Worst case scenario, they would walk back towards the intersection until he saw the trail again.

And Miller had studied the Side Market more closely than anyone else in Istima. There were so many raids, so much dark magic, and so many reports filed by his favorite birds in the Eyrie. He and Hitch rarely came this far, but after reading all those reports, he felt like he had lived here for years. There was hardly a shady shopkeeper whose name, business, favorite color, and preferred drug he hadn’t memorized.

It would be grimy, and tougher, and more bird-like. But it would take longer.

So, the question was, what would impress a real bird-of-the-streets? Demonstrate his skills with a fast, efficient, effortless hunt through one of the most beautiful parts of the city? Or show his street savvy and expertise with a drawn-out, tiring, dangerous crawl through the underbelly of sin?

“Well,” he said, eyeing the two options, “I don’t know about impressing you. But…”

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“If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times!” Teagan said as she marched into the room carrying a smoldering sack. “If you don’t properly anchor the runes on your projects, all you’ve done is hand in a fucking time bomb.” She reached in to withdraw a twisted hunk of metal before chucking it in the direction of a mountain of a boy sitting in the third row. It landed next to him with a dull crunch. Teagan leaned against her lectern and rubbed her temples.

“Gods below, Yaxley, students like you are the reason I drink!” She paused for a moment and frowned. “Alright… one of the reasons.”

She launched into her daily lecture. As usual, class took the form of Teagan explaining what mistakes were made in the last challenge. Sometimes, the mistakes were basic, such as Yaxley’s failure to anchor his runes, causing the energy contained within the magic to seek new and explosive means of expression. Other times, the issues were more esoteric. Many of the students would try and act like nothing she said phased them, but from the discomfort on their faces, it was apparent when Teagan was talking about their mistake.

“One of you turned in this design,” she continued, holding up a metal vest. Cal saw another student, a girl named Viraen, wince in recognition. “It is designed to be worn and to deliver an electric shock to anyone who strikes it. Fine, clever enough, and the runes serve their purpose.” Viraen relaxed slightly, which was a mistake. Teagan locked eyes with her.

“But there are three mistakes in the design. The first and most glaring is that there is nothing to stop the vest from shocking the wearer. Next, the runes are not protected, and even light damage to them could cause them to fail, or worse, cause a catastrophic discharge of energy. Lastly,” she held up the vest to her own torso, “what good would this do against a determined attack? It barely covers the vital organs, and the metal plating is so thin it might as well not even be there!” She tossed the vest back into the pile with the rest of the projects.

She sighed. “There is one additional problem that almost all of you had.” She looked around the room. “Your last assignment was to create something to defend yourself with. I would’ve thought the wording in this task was pretty clear, but apparently not.” She gestured at the pile of items. “Everyone, with the exception of Callion, handed in a defensive item. Or in Yaxley’s case, a tool I can only assume was designed to assist in suicide.” She scoffed. “Shields, means of escape, even a very loud whistle that is, and I quote, ‘supposed to alert the guards.’” Her piercing gaze could’ve melted ice. “Callion was the sole member of this class who decided to go on the offensive.” She withdrew Cal’s gravity crossbow and fired it at the wall. More than one student flinched as the bolt shattered the stone and sent a hail of shrapnel down upon them.

“A shield will not stop a sword, it will only delay it from reaching its target.” She gently set down the crossbow and turned to look each of her students in the eyes. “If you are attacked, stop them, subdue them, and while there are those higher up in the administration who would rather I not say this, kill them if you must. If you are unable to handle the inevitability of conflict, then you shouldn’t have joined. We are the Summer Court, you milksops!”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I think it goes without saying, Callion wins this challenge. For those of you keeping score, this puts her in second place for the whole class, one point behind Rathana.”

Cal sucked in air. When she’d first arrived, she’d thought partaking in the challenges would give her the appearance of a proper student. She hadn’t expected to do this well in them… or to enjoy them so much.

“What’s more,” Teagan continued, “I suppose I should congratulate all of you on having made it this far. We’ve reached the midpoint of your first semester at Istima, and only four out of twenty of you have dropped out. To those of you dragging your feet, it’s time to start thinking about advancement.  Only the top twenty-five percent of the class, based on points accrued, will move on. The rest may either try again or leave.” Her words hung in the air. With sixteen students in the room, only four of them could advance. Cal was aware of the eyes on her now.

“There is still half a semester left, and many things can change, even for those of you who haven’t won a single challenge.” She threw a pointed glare in Yaxley’s direction. “But, as of right now, Rathana, Callion, Viraen, and Lorrel would be the students moving up a rank. The next four closest to them are Jasten, Bachan, Koris, and Arden.”

Perhaps Cal was being paranoid, or perhaps she was beginning to understand how this ridiculous school worked. Teagan wasn’t just letting everyone know where they stood, but putting a target on the backs of the top four. Still, it felt good to see Jasten’s brow furrow in consternation. All semester, he’d lagged behind her, and his annoyance had begun to turn into anger.

“With all that in mind, this next challenge is special for three reasons. One,” she held up a finger, “you can make whatever you want. The only goal is to impress me.” She waited for the students to stop murmuring to each other. “Two,” a second finger went up, “there will be three winners.” The whispers were louder this time, and took longer to die down. “And three,” she extended a third finger, “each winner will receive three points.”

Across the classroom, Cal saw Jasten sit upright. He couldn’t have been very far behind Viraen and Lorrel. Winning this challenge could put him into the top four. For almost everyone else, three points was at least enough to bring them back into the running. Teagan leaned back and smiled, pleased with the firebomb she’d just dropped on them.

“That’s it. Class is over. Everyone but Callion, leave the room.” Cal froze in place, raising an eyebrow in question. “We have something to discuss, my lady.” The title dripped off her tongue like acid.

As the rest of the students made their way out, Cal approached the lectern.

“Nice speech,” she said.

“Nice toy,” Teagan gestured to her gravity crossbow. “I think I’ll sell it.”

“I registered it with the Bank this morning,” Cal smiled. “But I’ll give you resale rights for, oh, say, a twenty-five percent take of the profits?”

The faintest hint of a smile formed in the corners of Teagan’s mouth. “So, the stuck-up little noblewoman can learn a thing or two.” She folded her arms over her chest. “How’d you learn you about these runes?”

“I’m no going to just—”

“No,” Teagan held up a hand, “I could hardly expect a student to divulge their source so easily. I ask because, despite my personal disinterest, I do have a responsibility to my students. Especially those who actually show promise, which unfortunately, you do. It doesn’t really matter where or how you found out about it, but just know that what you’re now working with is beyond most first-year students. Hell, there are second-years who still haven’t figured out how to make something like this. So be warned that this will get you the wrong sort of attention. In this place, knowledge kills as many as it helps. People may have already begun to see you as a way to get the information for themselves, or worse, as a potential threat.”

Cal wanted to laugh. Perhaps to Lady Callion Augurellia, that information would have been new, but it was a lesson Cal had learned long ago. “Thanks for the warning, but I can take care of myself.”

“It’s only the first semester, things will get far worse from here.” Teagan shrugged. “Sure, you’ve made it this far, I’ll grant you that. But still…” she grabbed the gravity crossbow and extended it out to her. “I’d say it’s best if you hold on to this one.”

“You’re… giving it back to me?” Cal’s brow rose in surprise. “And here I thought you wanted to get rid of me!”

“Would you just take the damned thing?” Teagan seethed.

She smirked, grabbing the weapon and tucked it in her bag. “See you next class.” 

Out of the classroom, she made her way down the hall and back into the blazing sunlight. She climbed the steep staircase back up to the main yard of the Summer Court and looked down the two hundred foot drop to the city below. She was glad the sight no longer gave her vertigo as she climbed, and at the top, she found Rathana waiting for her.

“Cal! Congratulations on your win.”

“Thanks!” She smiled. She could tell he meant it.

She hadn’t come to know anyone else in her class aside from Rathana, with the unfortunate exception of Jasten. The rest of the students avoided her, perhaps out of jealousy, or perhaps because she was supposed to be nobility. If it was the latter, Cal couldn’t see the appeal in it. It seemed a rather lonely life, especially if it meant her only potential ‘peer’ was the esteemed Lord Jasten Forthale. She grimaced at the thought. 

But Rathana had only ever been genuine with her. She didn’t know much about Aketsi, but they didn’t seem to have a concept of royalty, which suited Cal just fine. But as friendly as he was now, with time, would he become a rival like Teagan warned?

“It shames me that I did not see the meaning behind Teagan’s challenge,” he said with a smile. “I designed a shield meant to absorb the kinetic energy of blows.” He shook his head. “I thought it rather clever at the time.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Cal said. “And you’re still ahead of everyone else in class.”

“For now. We will see what happens after this next challenge.” He sighed, shifting his body from one set of legs to the other. “I am sure you will do well. You have an extraordinary ability to think outside the confines of the challenge.”

“You mean… to think outside the box?”

“The box?” Rathana frowned. “Oh! An idiom, I see. Apologies, your language is… quirky.”

“And pronounceable,” Cal laughed. “I went back to Chirrum’s bar the other day. I still can’t pronounce a damn thing on the menu. Fortunately, he remembered how much I like mho.” She didn’t add that it was also the cheapest meal she’d been able to find in the city. Her trips to Chirrum’s were about the only thing separating her from starvation.

“Well, I’ll have to join you again sometime.” He looked up at one of the numerous clock towers visible in the city below. “I have class to get to. I will see you around!”

As he trotted off, Cal rested her hands atop the stone rail and looked out across Istima. If she squinted, she could just make out the outline of Sable & Burr’s from here.

What was she planning to do for the next challenge? Up until now, she’d lucked out using Rathana’s book and, most recently, stealing designs from the ring she’d bought. But considering how much this challenge was worth, everyone would be putting in more effort. She’d need something truly impressive. Perhaps she could steal a new book on artificing? She shook her head. If it was worth anything, it would have anti-theft enchantments on it. Out of principle and lack of funds, she refused to just buy a book. She turned and looked back across the semi-circle of buildings surrounding the yard. Near the middle, the imposing tower of the Bank stood.

Cal had gone there in the morning to register her design. The inside had been rather plain by Istiman standards, but after the clerk had finished processing her design, she got a peak through the door and saw a staircase leading down to who knows where. How much information was gathered in there? If everyone registered their designs, then just about anything imaginable. That was the real mother lode.

“Well, he seemed nice,” a familiar voice said. Cal was stirred from her thoughts and turned to see Renna leaning against the railing. Anywhere else, Renna would’ve looked inconspicuous enough, but without the robes of a Summer Court student, she stood out here.

“What are you doing here?” Cal hissed, backing up slightly.

“Just taking in the view.” Renna said, flicking a pebble off the ledge, sending it tumbling toward the buildings far below. She gave a short whistle.“Figures that the mages would keep the best view for themselves.”

“If someone were to see us together—”

“Relax, would you? I’ve seen plenty of people come and go through here, quite a few of them shadier than me. You panicking is more likely to draw attention than us talking together.”

Cal returned to the railing, but she didn’t relax. Up until now, she’d been able to pretty cleanly separate her school from the rest of her life. It just didn’t seem right for Renna to be here.

“Okay,” she said, “then talk.”

“I thought I’d check in on you, see if you’d found any leads. I mean, you’ve been going to classes here for a while, you’ve gotta have seen something, right?”

“I’ve had some ideas, just haven’t acted on any of them yet.”

“Yeah? Let’s hear it.”

It had been a lie. Sure, she had her job with Sable & Burr, but she wasn’t going to complicate that by bringing Renna in. She looked around in panic before her eyes settled once again on the Bank. Suddenly, it all became clear. Her next assignment, another job with Renna, and advancement in the court.

She turned back to Renna and smiled. “How about another heist?”

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3.01

Another first-year student would be afraid of debating the price of tutoring with someone from The Winter Court. They were more amicable than any other faction when it came to inter-court tutoring. But their motto was, ‘Second to none but nature.’ That referred to the harshness of their lessons and the scale at which their anger made itself known.

Luckily, Yam Hist of the Ken Seekers was the very spirit of tact and social grace. 

“Without rancor or exaggeration, I can say that I have seen men sell their children for less. Your ego is big enough to serve as a local landmark. No second-year student is worth that many drams unless they shit silver, and piss liquid enlightenment. Make me another offer or I say you are a buffoon and not worth my time, let alone my gold.”

He felt a tremor go through the ground as the muscles in the young woman’s jaw flexed.

“Oh, truly now? You would call me that?” she said, the smile on her bargaining face laughably stiff. 

He nodded. 

“If you said that to a pyromancer, I’d hesitate to call you anything but an imminent burn victim.” 

“Luckily,” Yam grinned, spotting the game in her words, “I’m only talking to geomancer.”

“Only a geomancer?” she said, going completely still.

“Only a geomancer,” he confirmed, folding his arms and leaning back.

His potential tutor clenched her jaw and glared. 

They were standing in a small courtyard near the entrance of her court and Yam was finding himself grateful for the thick and layered spring court clothes he wore. All the trees lining the scenic, bench-lined nook between buildings were leafless. They did live in perpetual winter after all. But the Hibernal court refused to let something as simple as a supernaturally inhospitable climate get in the way of their aesthetics. The trees were barren but still managed to be hauntingly beautiful, branches swimming through the air in cultivated sweeps and elegant lines as they searched for a non-existent pocket of warmth and sunshine.

The pause in their conversation only lasted a moment before the elementalist mastered herself and summoned her own bargaining face. 

Again, her smile was amateur. It came across as wide-eyed and feral rather than politely interested. But Yam was becoming used to how unpredictable human social cues were. 

She tilted her head to the side, disconcerting smile still on full display, “You said you wanted tutoring in control because you had difficulty moving more than a fist-sized stone?”

“Correct. Tutoring in control and general geomancy. There is rock I need to be able to move and reform on short notice.”

She stared him straight in the eye, not responding to his words. 

“… ma’am?”

Her smile widened, becoming sharp as a butcher’s cleaver and even less forgiving, “First lesson then. A Winter Court classic.”

“We haven’t agreed on a cost.”

“Oh, this one’s for free.”

~~~

Two days before, Yam had left the meal with his roommate and found that a double dose of the wakefulness potion was potent.

Phenomenally, euphorically, manically potent.

The seller had given him several small containers. A glass bottles barely the height of his thumb. All filled with an unappealingly thick liquid and kept shut with small corks. He was advised that the doses were for large humans and that half a vial would be more than enough for him. 

But he had also heard the wakefulness pills would keep him awake better than any black tea could. 

Two full vials later, his bones held the same impossibly fast rattle that he had felt as a child when he would run alongside a fence dragging a stick down the slats. Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Going so fast his teeth seemed to buzz like a bee’s hive.

In some ways, his fervor had been enlightening. Yam felt like he was able to do anything. He was invulnerable, unstoppable, already a god, and seconds away from learning how to fly. 

Obviously, he had realized in a burst of inspiration, when a master craftsman took an apprentice they made them do hundreds of thousands of repetitions. They did not just read about how to weave, sew, or hammer metal. They did.

The way to be able to do something, was to start doing it. 

And Yam’s focus was unstoppable. He hardly had to think of a task before he found his body moving to do it.

If he had any idea how to make a familiar bond, then he would have run to the Understacks at that exact moment. With the amount of energy in him, he knew in his heart that he would have opened that whole doorway to the Flesh Ants in a single surge of magic. 

Unfortunately, he didn’t know how to make familiar bonds so he could start doing like a craftsman’s apprentice. And he couldn’t still the thunderstorm in his veins long enough to sit through a book on the topic. 

Instead, he cleaned and oiled the leather of his belt, sharpened his remaining knife, ran out into the moonlight to scrub all of his clothes in a fountain, and practiced control exercises ceaselessly. 

The control exercises were what gave him the idea. Yam had seen a  stubby building with stacks of crates piled against the wall. Immediately, he wondered if his work with Coach Combs had made him strong enough to climb to the roof. So he tried it. He had also picked up a foreign coin off the ground and known immediately he should practice control exercises. So he had. 

Doing both at the same time had been difficult, but he was unstoppable. 

Which resulted in him sitting with his legs dangling over the edge of a roof, fingers scratched and bloody, clothes still wet from washing, and using Autumn Court gravity manipulation so the coin would be lighter and easier to move with his geomancy. 

Then The Idea hit him like a horse’s hoof to the stomach. 

There were dozens of ways to levitate a coin. Hundreds of combinations of different court’s styles. That was the truth of control exercises. And realizing every combination he would need to master— it was so daunting that he actually cried. Right there on the roof, moons shining silver on his damp fur, he wept.

That was the truth about magic too, he realized. Like layering tissue paper until the overlap in the middle became dark and impossible to see through. That shape in the middle was reality. All these ‘natural laws’ falling unevenly, one over the other, until each individual factor had overlapped to make the shape of the world. 

The overwhelming massiveness of it bowled him over. The thought of confronting such immensity on his quest for godhood made his heartbeat so fast that he briefly thought he might be dying. Short of breath, chest aching, and dark thoughts whispered to him about his age, about how he couldn’t possibly master so many thousands of combinations, and about how his weak body would give up while he was still friendless and sleeping in a cave. 

It overwhelmed him. 

Until he leaped to his feet and started laughing so hard that the tears came even more heavily.

Because the truth about control exercises not only showed him his failure but the way forward. It gave him The Idea.

He could strain with all his might to fight directly against the shape of reality. Or, he could use the hundreds of spells, the thousands of combinations and the five types of magic to nudge all those different factors. To shift a few pieces of tissue paper and make the opaque shape in the middle of the pile one where what he wanted was easier: where god-like feats were almost natural. 

The key was to not tie himself to one approach.

Why just lift a boulder with nothing but telekinesis and raw power? He could reduce gravity to make it lighter, harden the air below it so it was rolled up a shallow incline, bend space so an inch of the movement shifted it a mile, and automate it all with mind magic. 

It would take a fraction of the power, and he would only need to be a passable novice at any of those skills, instead of being twenty years into the single-minded development of his telekinesis. 

That was the solution to the Flesh Ants. To familiars. To how he would become Aehp.

Under the effects of the potion, his confidence was as boundless as his energy. Mastering all of those disciplines was easily within his grasp.

The first step filled his focus like it was the only thing in the world: Flesh Ants. They would be his. The coin fell forgotten as he sprinted for the crates he would need to clamber down. It never occurred to him to look at the steep fall next to him as he skittered across the rooftop made slick by dirt and dust.

He would be, and with the potion still buzzing inside his skin he felt like he already was, Aehp the Eclectic Beast Lord. And obviously, Aehp was going to know every single way to make himself familiar. 

That was how he would learn the divine truth; how he would see all the ways of lifting a coin. One at a time put down a new piece of tissue paper and see the overlap. In this case, each piece of paper was a different approach to making a familiar. He would look at similarities and outcomes until he figured out the truest, most powerful, familiar spell there could be. All he had to do was find the best parts of each court’s magic, throw away the dumb pieces, and focus on the parts that were showed up repeatedly.

With that goal in mind, everything until the next morning descended into a single continuous blur of activity.

He woke up back in the underground cavern of his dorm, even though he had sworn not to go down there until he knew how to lock the entrance. The young mage found himself surrounded by nearly seven drams worth of paper covered in frantically written notes. Very few of them made sense. 

But, aside from learning that he really did only need half a vial of potion, he took one other important lesson from the experience. 

He was not going to let the Flesh Ants win. And he could not afford to wait and read until a teacher told him how. The time to learn by doing was now. If he waited until he was prepared, until someone cared about his tragic backstory and tears, then he would wait until he was dead.

~~~

Two days later, and after nearly an hour of silent meditation and harmonic resonance, Yam was able to recover from his first flailing attempt at geomancy. At least well enough for him to bend space again. 

 The ground of the Winter Court had slid almost up to his waist. Or more accurately, the geomancer had made the ground open up so that he fell and was swallowed up by it.

It was a particularly harsh first lesson made all the worse by how cold the Winter Court was, and how the stone leached away his body’s heat. 

Either way, the now solid-stone had constricted the opening of his money pouch and pressed it both wide and flat against his side, like a disapproving mouth. With the lightest spatial manipulation, he was able to increase the distance between the two lips until his fingers could slip inside. 

Ideally, he would have pulled out the small, stiff leather tube where he stored the gold shavings; the change he used when his sticks of gold were just a little too heavy or too light for whatever he was purchasing. 

However, the width of the spatially-altered opening precluded him from pulling out something so wide, and he was forced to bring a small finger of gold rather than the shavings. 

It would do. 

“Excuse me, excuse me sir!” he called out to a nearby student. A boy who was taller than he was short, more blond than he was brunette, and very loud. 

Solitarily, and without equivocation, loud.

The student was speaking animatedly to a young woman who seemed politely disinterested in what he had to say. When Yam called, she interrupted to point out the young Len hailing them.

Though Yam could not hear what the boy said, he could swear he saw the student’s mouth from the words, ‘can’t be talking to us’.

“No!” he yelled, ”I am very much am talking to you!”

The young man turned his back and tried to continue speaking with the young lady.

”YOU! You the human mage who gives off the energy of an earth elementalist! I am YELLING at YOU!”

The boy hunched his shoulders and gave a very insincere laugh to his conversation partner.

“Young miss! Ma’am! I will give you gold,” he waved his money and spoke very loudly and very slowly, “if you, yes you, bring the earth elementalist over here. Right! Over! Here!”

The pointing and arm waving seemed to do the trick. She excused herself. The elementalist started to follow before she blocked him with a hand and left at a very determined pace. 

“Now that you are unoccupied!” he continued shouting, ”Could you—”

“I can hear you!” the student yelled, scowling ferociously, “what is so important?”

“Well, my…” Yam almost said ‘good sir’, but he was not yet desperate enough to speak a falsehood, “my young and aggravated earth elementalist, as you can see, I am stuck. Would you help me?”

Before Yam could begin implementing any of the four B’s (barter, batter, bribe, or berate) the earth mage stomped his foot, and Yam was launched to his feet. 

Where he immediately fell and, after the minimal justified amount of swearing, began massaging blood back into his legs.

“Ahh,” the boy winced, his posture less stiff than when he had been talking to the young woman, “I’m sorry. Should have remembered. You alright?”

“I am deeply uncomfortable, attempting to be angry, but also overwhelmingly glad that I did not die of dehydration.”

“Dehydration? No, the stone would have reasserted itself. Permanent changes are hard.”

“Yes, I had deduced as much?’

“Deduced?”

The young Len nodded, ”Originally I was buried to my ribs.”

The boy winced, “I know the feeling.”

“You do?”

“Of course. This is the Winter Court.”

“I don’t understand.”

The other student shrugged and came to his feet, “I’m sure you will. But I’m afraid that I really need to be—”

“Please,” Yam said, forgetting his stiff legs as an idea took hold of him, “I owe you a drink.”

The earth elementalist paused, “A drink?” 

“Yes, and a conversation.”

“Ohhh. Yes. About that—”

“Two drinks, I meant to say.”

“Well!” said the elementalist, with the exact same forced laugh he had used on the woman, ”Like I was saying, my most fecund and furry friend, I’m famished and really need to find a place to feast!”

“Of course,” Yam nodded, as the student laughed at his own alliteration, “I know of a nearby tavern. Would you like to join me?”

“Most assuredly!”

“And what was your name? I’m not sure I caught it,” he said, managing to avoid choking on the barbarian’s introductions, even though it made him feel like a child still learning their letters. 

“I’m Neal!” The elementalist said, throwing an arm around Yam’s shoulders and steering him towards the center of Istima. “And you’ll have to tell me about how you ended up chest-deep in the literal court of the Winter Court. Ha! I’m sure it’ll make a great story.”

“Well, it happened like this—”

“Wait, friend. I hate to be rude, but perhaps this story is best saved for when we have drinks in hand and food on the way?”

“You are quite persistent about your compensation,” the young Len nodded, face serious, “I respect that.”

“Exactly right! That’s what they say, ‘Neal is all about wine, women, and wanton acts of wizardry’ they say,“ the elementalist threw his head back and barked out a short, strong laugh. 

“Yes,” Yam said, surprised that his smile at the barbarian equivalent of humor was more genuine than not, “I have heard a person say that. Quite recently too.”

“Oh really. Was the person me?”

“Yes.”

Neal clapped him on the back and laughed again, “Very nice! I’m sure we’re going to be fast friends. You said the first three rounds were on you, right?”

Yam nodded and found himself oddly touched. Honestly, he had thought the man too dumb to notice the small game in his words. He certainly hadn’t expected him to immediately call it out without any attempt at subtlety or tact. Combined with how bold-faced he was about up-selling him on the drinks and Yam was finding himself to be pleasantly surprised. 

Not quite Len, but better than most humans.

Also, it would be a lie to say he hadn’t noticed that this boy’s magical presence was substantial. From his limited understanding of this court’s hierarchical system, that could mean that Neal was rather highly placed. Perhaps highly placed enough to know about how the Hibernal Court bound their familiars? 

No matter what, the potential knowledge he could gain from an amicable geomancer was great.

All he had to do was play it cool. Summon the good old bargaining face, use his impeccable knowledge of human norms, and turn up the charm. 

Poor barbarian didn’t stand a chance.

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“She sounds dangerous.”

Cal looked up from her work. Alendra was sitting opposite her on the floor of the attic of Sable and Burr’s, surrounded by scrolls and tomes. They’d been studying in silence for over an hour since Cal had told her about Renna.

“She’s not that bad,” Cal said. “Plus, she taught me most of what I know. I’d have been dead in a gutter if it weren’t for her.”

“Well, ‘not that bad’ sounds like a ringing endorsement.”

Cal rolled her eyes. “Trust me, that’s better than most where I’m from.” She looked back down at her project. This week’s artificing challenge was to make something that could be used to defend yourself. So far, she was sitting around a pile of scraps and hastily scrawled notes.

“Do you want to take a break? I feel stuck.”

“Hold on a second,” Alendra stared intently at the page of a book. “Got it!” She jumped up and put her hands out in front of her, fingers splayed and tensed.

“Oh no,” Cal said, scrambling to her feet. “Not in my room!”

“Relax, I know what I’m doing.” The air began to tremor and smell of ozone as Alendra concentrated. Cal felt a pressure, emanating from an invisible point floating in the center of the room. The wood beneath the point creaked, and the papers and books scattered across the floor as though pushed by a wind that wasn’t there. The effect held for a few moments, but it disappeared just as quickly as it appeared. Alendra threw up her hands and scowled.

“Gah! What’s wrong with me? I’m doing exactly what the books said to do!”

Cal looked around at the room.“What just happened?”

“It was supposed to be an omni-directional non-terrestrial antigravitational effect spell,” Alendra muttered, regathering her displaced books.

“Allie, you’re doing that thing again? The one that we talked about?”

“Hmm?” She looked up from her book. “Sorry, what was that?”

“You went all… Fall Court on me.”

“Right. I was trying to make this stupid spell work. It’s supposed to create a point of anti-gravitational force—that is, pushing instead of pulling. That in and of itself is hard, but I can do it. The harder part is that the force isn’t in the direction of natural gravity, so you’re working to counteract that while also adding another direction of force at the same time. Third, it’s in all directions. That’s why everything moved away from the center of the room where I cast it.”

“Okay, I think I get it. But what’s the problem? You were doing it!”

“A few seconds that leaves me breathless is hardly ‘doing it’.” 

Cal tried and then failed to suppress a snicker. 

Alendra frowned. “What? What’s so—” She frowned as what she’d said dawned on her. “Oh, grow up, Cal!”

Cal let out a full laugh. A couple seconds later, Alendra joined in.

“So you want the spell to last more than a few seconds,” Cal said once they’d calmed down. “What’s the problem? Is it a… energy problem? Do you not have enough?”

“No, my reserves are fine. Plenty of sleep and I ate only a few hours ago. It just takes a lot of concentration. Basic spells are like training a muscle, but this is more like juggling.” She shook her head. “I think I’m getting too frustrated to think straight.”

“Whenever I get that way, I go back to basics.”

Alendra raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize I was speaking to an expert in advanced spells.”

“Didn’t say I was.” Cal grinned. “But sometimes picking an easy lock gives you the confidence to pick a hard one.”

“Right. I’m sure that’s totally transferable to gravitic magic.” She rolled her eyes. “So, what, I should just lift some books?”

“You could, or you could teach me to.”

“Really? You want to try?”

“Yeah, why not? That light spell you showed me has come in handy already.”

“Okay, just the basics then. Nothing that’s Autumn Court specific.” She crossed over to the makeshift bed and sat down, gesturing for Cal to sit across from her. “You’ve been practicing the light spell?”

Cal thought back to the alley, to when she’d thrown her hands over Jasten’s eyes. She remembered his screams of pain and the light seeping through her fingers. “Yeah… I’d say I have that one down.”

“Good. We start with the same process. Energy from your body being put out into the world. Except, unlike light, gravity isn’t technically a force of energy.”

“It’s not?”

Alendra smiled, leaning forward.

“No. It’s a part of the universe and exists within all things, though we can’t see its effects in nature except for on a huge scale, like Apaernore itself.” She was speaking fast now. “But, everything attracts everything else. The books on the ground are constantly pulling on each other. The papers, this bed, the floorboards. There’s attraction between them.”

“What about you and me?”

Alendra nodded. “Definitely. People have gravity. And unlike light, for example, it’s constant. A lamp may run out of oil, but it will always be pulling on everything else.”

“So how come things don’t just slam into each other? And what about the sun? Or the moons? Why don’t they just fall into us?”

“That’s for a variety of reasons. I can explain some of it, and tell you some of it is Autumn Court secrets. But the part you should be concerned about is that gravity is weak and gets stronger the closer or more massive two things are. The celestial bodies are very, very far from us. Again, this is a simplification. So far, so good?”

A million questions swum in Cal’s head, and she wasn’t sure any of them had a good answer. Plus, it unsettled her to think that the sun was constantly pulling on Apaernore. “I’m just going to say yes so we can get to the fun part.”

Alendra laughed. “A good theoretical knowledge makes for a good working knowledge. But fine, we can move on to the fun part.” She grabbed a book off the floor and held it in her hands. “And while making things float is fun, antigravity is harder. The first thing to learn is how to amplify gravity in the natural direction. I’ll hold this book and I want you to try and make the book pull on the ground more.”

Cal frowned. “Not the other way around? Doesn’t the world pull the book?”

“Do you know how far it is from here to Tumaan?”

“What? I don’t even know where that is.”

“It’s halfway around the globe. And the answer is far. Very, very far. My point is that Apaernore is incredibly large. If you want to be the first mage to successfully bind the entire planet to do a basic spell, be my guest.” She cocked her head to the side and smiled. “If not, let’s stick with the book.”

Cal sighed. “Fine, let’s use the book, I guess.”

“Good. Like I said, gravity isn’t a force of energy. If two objects are drawn to one another, but cannot move closer, the object holds that as potential energy. When the object can move closer, their potential energy becomes kinetic energy. To increase the book’s gravitational pull, you have to pour energy into it. Just be careful, because I don’t want you setting this thing on fire. Last time, I said to focus on the heat of your palms, this time, focus on the weight.”

“Got it.” Cal held her hands out over the book, hovering inches above the leather cover. She concentrated on feeling the weight. The weight took on a new meaning with Alendra’s lecture on gravity. It wasn’t just a heaviness, it was a pulling sensation. Something tugging her extended arms down, and pulling up on the world itself. A desire for closeness.

She looked down at the book. She imagined pushing the weight she felt in her hands into the book.

At first, nothing happened. There wasn’t a light, like her first spell, and it was hard to see if anything was happening. Then, Alendra smile.

“I can feel it, the book seems heavier.”

“Really?” Cal said, her eyes snapped up, concentration broken.

“Yeah! That was it!” Alendra tossed the book aside and broke into a grin. “That was amazing!”

Cal laughed. “Well, I’ve got a good teacher.” She felt great, and not even the sudden wave of exhaustion following magic could bring her down.

“And I’ve got a good student.” She sat back, picking up the book again. “You know what? I think that helped. I’m gonna give the spell another go.” She stood up, arms towards the center of the room. The air became charged, and Cal felt the hair on the back of her neck stand upright. As Alendra concentrated, Cal felt herself being pushed backward toward the wall. She recognized the tug of gravity, but this was sideways.

She held her breath as the seconds passed and the sensation grew stronger. Soon, every item not nailed to the floor was pushed against the walls. Finally, Alendra lowered her arms and the spell ended.

“Oh my gods, I did it!” She turned and beamed at Cal. “It worked!”

“Now that was amazing,” Cal said as she stood. She was momentarily thrown off balance as Alendra wrapped her arms around her.

“Thanks, Cal.” As she pulled away, she looked around. “Oh… sorry about—”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. This place was a mess anyways.”

“If you’re sure.” She looked out the window. It was pitch black outside. “Shit, what time is it?”

“You think I can afford a clock?”

“Given your classes, it’d probably be easier for you to make one.” Alendra grinned. She stared out at the street and furrowed her brow. “I really don’t feel like making the hike back to my place.”

“Then crash here,” Cal said. “I don’t mind.”

“Thanks,” Alendra said, flopping down on the bed. She yawned and looked up as Cal sat down on the floor in front of her artificing book. “You not gonna sleep yet?”

“Not yet. I think I’m close to something.”

“Alright,” she turned over, “just don’t wear yourself out, okay?”

“Mmm,” Cal said, narrowing her eyes at the page. Something to defend yourself with, right? Cal would recommend not being stupid enough to get into the situation in the first place. That and know how to climb the walls in an alley.

But that wasn’t exactly something she could present to Teagan.

She’d scribbled half a dozen bad ideas on the page. Alendra would’ve been horrified at her treatment of the book. Using the mechanism from her jumping boots to make a punching gauntlet? There wasn’t a proper energy source, and it would do just as much damage to your arm as to the other person. Light had worked well against Jasten, but that was point-blank into his eyes. Flame… Cal wasn’t going to test a flame weapon in her wood room.

Cal’s mind wandered to the ring she’d first used to fake the entrance exam. Out of fear that someone would realize what it was, she’d stashed it under some shattered pottery on the balcony outside her room. She quietly slipped onto the porch and took out the ring.

Jewelry had never interested Cal beyond what value it had once fenced. The ring itself was rather plain, and if she didn’t know about the runes covering the inside loop, it wouldn’t even have been worth stealing if she saw it on the street. Now that she’d had artificing classes, she could actually pick out enough of the runes to know that this was more impressive than any mundane, gem-encrusted jewelry. What had the salesman called it? A gravitic-mitigation device?

Cal’s eyes widened. Runes for gravity! Her classes certainly hadn’t covered that! She hurried back inside, clutching the ring tightly. She flipped to another page in the book and started to trace out the runes on the ring. She was careful not to draw the links that would complete the enchantment.

The work was difficult. The runes on the ring must’ve been made using a magnifying glass, as they were almost impossible to pick out. By the time Cal had them all down, her eyes hurt. She stared down at the jumble of lines on the page. Some she knew, others she didn’t. It was easy enough to pick out the anchors, inputs, outputs, and even some triggers. She circled what she recognized, leaving only the unknown glyphs.

She gave only a moment’s thought to trying trial by error. The wrong circuit could set the room on fire, or explode, or something else even worse. With irritation, Cal realized her only choice was to do what she hated most.

She had to do it the “right” way.

So, grabbing her quill, she started to take notes, charting out what each part of the ring’s circuit did. There was the system to activate the ring’s power, as well as the signs for various fixed values, but the energy channeling didn’t make any sense. According to her drawings, the ring only used the heat of the wearer’s hand. That wasn’t nearly enough to create the weight-canceling effect. There was something going on here she didn’t get. At least not yet.

She moved on. This was clearly high-level artificing. As her head began to ache, she finally arrived at a rune that she knew had to represent gravity.

Using high-level magic was sure to earn marks in her favor, but what could she do with it? She started sketching concepts, but none of them stuck. She turned to a new page and started again. Still nothing.

Cal scowled, ripping the page from the book, balling up the paper, and tossing it away from her.

As it impacted softly across the room, she had an idea.

Systems worked on energy transference, right? Heat to light, light to sound, sound to kinetic. But these worked in both directions. If something could be made hot, it could be made cold. If something had kinetic energy pushing it in one direction, it could be made to move in the reverse direction. What about gravity?

Alendra has said that if two things were far apart, gravity was weak. The further apart they were, the weaker they were. If their energy was expressed as a number, like it could be in artificing runes, then it stood to reason that eventually, two things would be so far apart that their energy was essentially zero. So could they be less than zero?

Cal was making her own head hurt. She flipped to a new page in the book and started to draw in the margins.

First, she drew two circles. Objects. Because of gravity, these objects had potential energy, and if the objects moved toward each other, it transferred from potential to kinetic, didn’t it? She drew two arrows pointing at each other, each with the kinetic rune. So the potential energy due to gravity was transformed into movement, and the kinetic energy left the object when it could get no closer. Where’d it go? Well, into whatever it hit. Cal had fallen off enough roofs to know that tended to go badly for all involved.

But Alendra had also said gravity wasn’t a form of energy. If it wasn’t, then what was it? It was… a thing. A thing everything had. Just like weight, or shape, or color. It was a quality. A property.

Cal’s eyes snapped back to the ring. That’s why the energy transference hadn’t made sense! The ring didn’t use heat to lift objects; it used heat to power itself and used runes—runes Cal didn’t understand—to change the target object’s relationship to gravity!

Cal stared at her notes and frowned. They looked like the scribblings of a madman. But theoretically… it was sound.

Time to make it real. In one corner of the room, she’d started accumulating scraps of wood and metal, junk that she could practice with. She grabbed some pieces and scratched the runes in place. She didn’t know how late it was, but when she was finished, she felt pride. Sure, it was literally a piece of splintered wood covered in runes, but it might actually work!

In the end, she’d stolen a lot of the ring’s design. The body of the device she had made was a little like a crossbow, with a handle to hold and aim with. This is where she’d place a set of runes to collect heat from her hand while she held it. Next was the hard part. While the ring used fixed integer glyphs to lower an object’s gravity by a percentage, Cal had to make a system which reversed an object’s gravity. Not only that, but since gravity was so weak, she’d have to amplify the effect at the same time. She decided to give the weapon an equivalent effect to negative thirty times the planet’s gravity on a linked object. She fashioned a crude trigger that completed the circuit when pulled, activating the mechanism.

But now she had a weapon without any ammunition. She found a metal rod and scratched new runes into it, linking it to the gravity system.

When all was said and done, Cal’s hands were cramping and there was sweat on her brow. It was time to test. She loaded the rod, aimed at a wall, and pulled the trigger—

The rod shot out, lodging itself in the wall. At the same time, Cal was pushed back, knocking her to the ground. She cried out and Alendra jolted upright.

“What? What happened?” She said, raising her hands and preparing to cast a spell. She looked over at Cal, who was shrieking with laughter, then back at the wall where the rod had impacted. A spiderweb of cracks had formed around it. “Was that, uh, on purpose?”

“I didn’t think it would work!” Cal said, standing up. “Sure, I forgot to account for the effect it would have on the launcher itself, but that can be designed out.” She held up the device. “I reversed gravity!”

“Really?” Alendra blinked. A smile spread across her face. “That’s amazing!” Then, staring back at the rod, she frowned. “And then you used it to make a weapon?”

“Yeah!” She saw Alendra’s expression. “But don’t worry! It’s for class.”

“I know, it’s just…”

“What’s the problem?”

Alendra hesitated.

“What?” Cal asked again.

“Have… have you ever killed anyone?”

Cal cocked her head to the side. It seemed like an odd question. “A good thief doesn’t have to.”

“Is that a no?”

“I’m a good thief, aren’t I?”

“But could you do it?”

Cal thought for a moment. “Hard to say. I’ve never been in a position I couldn’t get out of before. But, I guess. If it came down to them or me, yeah, I think I could do it.”

“What about Renna?”

“I think she could too.”

“No, I mean, has she killed before?”

“I… no.”

“You don’t know, do you?”

“It’s been years since I’ve seen her. I don’t know what’s happened since then. Why?”

Cal saw the concern in Alendra’s eyes. “Like I said, she seems dangerous.”

“And as I said,” Cal said, scowling, “I’d be dead a dozen times over if it hadn’t been for her.”

“Okay, fine, forget I said anything.” She sighed. “Just promise me you’ll be careful, alright?”

“Don’t worry,” Cal held up her new weapon. “I’ve got this thing under control.”

Alendra turned back over in bed. “I wasn’t talking about that.”

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“What’s the matter, Kid? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Renna smiled. “Come here!” She spread her arms wide and embraced Cal. When they let go, Renna slapped her hard on the back. “I haven’t seen heads or tails of you since Kalros.”

“I… that’s it?” Cal frowned. “I left you for dead!”

“And?” There wasn’t a hint of malice in her tone. It was as though Cal had said she was hungry, or that it was going to be cloudy tomorrow. All she did was flash her beautiful smile, and it only made Cal angrier. Why was she the only one upset by this?

“You should be furious with me!”

Renna shrugged. “It was the right move.”

“But how did you survive?”

Renna’s smile morphed into a scowl. “Cuolè,” she spat the name. “The bastard decided I’d suffer more if they kept me alive. He let me take the fall for the heist while he made off with the goods. Spent a few years in prison before I finally broke out.” She looked up and smiled again. “But, I’m more interested in how you got here.”

“It’s a long story.”

Renna lifted her mug. “My favorite kind.” She took a long swig. “Let’s start at the beginning. How’d you make it out of Kalros?

“When I went over the side of the roof, I was still holding an amulet from the loot. I left the city and sold the thing. After that, I fell in with a Len caravan for a bit. Then worked my way up the coast. Moving on whenever options ran dry.”

“Resourceful.” She nodded approvingly. Cal suppressed a smile from the praise. “So how’d you end up here?”

She explained the whole story. How she’d come across the rich girl in the tavern, how she’d found her body and the acceptance letter. Renna’s eyes got wider and wider as she went.

“Let me get this straight—you’re a student here?” She laughed. “That’s the funniest shit I’ve ever heard!”

“Keep it down!” Cal hissed. “You want everyone else to hear you?”

“Wow, since when have you been so uptight?”

“Look,” she said, her eyes swiveling around the room, “can we go somewhere else? Somewhere private?”

Renna smiled. “Your place or mine?”

Cal decided that bringing Renna back to Sable & Burr’s would be too conspicuous. Instead, she let Renna lead her out of the Falls District. They weaved their way through town until they were in an area Cal had never been, but recognized instantly. It hung in the air, and you could see it on the faces of everyone who she passed in the street. Every city had a place like this; where only the poorest and most desperate lived.

“Where are we?” Cal asked.

“The Toscan District. Locals call it The Stacks,” Renna said. The name rang a bell. Cal heard students who couldn’t even afford the Day Court’s accommodations ended up here.

The buildings were precariously tall and packed close together. It felt like the only thing holding them upright was that they had nowhere left to fall. It seemed like the streets had been cobbled once, but had long since been worn down and churned into a thin mud. Occasionally, someone would curse under their breath as their foot caught upon a stone hidden in the muck.

Cal frowned. The school actually let such squalor exist in the city?

Renna noticed her expression and laughed. “What,” she said, “you haven’t spent so much time up in the clouds that you forgot what living was like, did you?”

“I’m just surprised that, considering how big this place is, you choose to live here.”

“It’s a good place to get lost. And no one asks questions.” She led Cal down an alley. “And if you know where to look, you can carve out a nice little hideout.”

They climbed a set of rotting wooden stairs and entered a small, abandoned courtyard. The plants had long ago died, choked of sunlight by the tall buildings surrounding them. In the center, there was a dry, graffiti-covered fountain.

“Well,” Cal said. “I wouldn’t call it your usual home, but I suppose you could do worse.”

“Please, Cal, have some faith. This isn’t my place.” She pointed upwards, at a gaping hole in the side of one of the buildings. The edge of the hole was black with soot, as the wall had been blown outward. “That’s my place.”

Cal grinned. “That’s more like it.”

“You still climb, don’t you?”

“Better than you.”

“Oh?” Renna said. She took off running. Cal chased after her. They reached the wall and began to climb. The disintegrating mortar and uneven brickwork made for quick progress, and Cal reached the lip of the hole mere seconds before Renna.

“Well Kid,” Renna said as she hauled herself up, “at least playing the rich girl part hasn’t dulled your abilities.”

Inside of the hole, it was obvious to Cal that whatever had destroyed the wall was definitely magical. Some experiment or spell gone wrong. Rubble lay strewn across the floor of the ruined apartment, and the door which would have led further into the building was boarded up.

“Not too shabby,” Cal said. “I’ve definitely seen worse.”

“Yeah, it’s real homey in here.” Renna dusted off her hands and looked up at Cal. “Now, spill. You’re an honest-to-god student?”

“Yeah, I’m enrolled in classes and everything!” Cal laughed.

“Is this for some sort of job? Can you cut me in?”

“No job. Not yet. But, when else was I gonna get this kind of opportunity? I mean, there’s gold everywhere in this city!”

“I hear that. I’m just glad you aren’t actually a mage.”

Cal frowned. “Why’s that?”

“Cal, you serious?” Renna narrowed her eyes. “Did you forget what a mage did to us? To me?”

“No, I—”

“Good. Because I haven’t.”

Cal wanted to say something. After all, Alendra and Rathana weren’t like that. But… perhaps it was safer to leave that unsaid. She decided to change topics.

“What about you? Working on any jobs?”

“Oh, I’ve got a couple things lined up. Just need to get a crew together.” She raised an eyebrow. “You want in?”

“Definitely!”

“Good,” Renna said, relaxing her shoulders. She smiled again. “Frankly, I wasn’t sure you would. I’ve gotten you mixed up in some pretty hairbrained schemes before.”

“I’d follow you anywhere, Renna, you know that.”

“I knew that when you were younger. Back then, I couldn’t have gotten rid of you back in the day. Honestly,” she laughed, “I would’ve sworn you had a crush on me or something!”

Cal tried not to blush. “Actually, I do— well, I used to.”

Renna smiled again. “Used to? What, I’m not good enough anymore?”

“Well, thinking I betrayed you and left you to die horribly sort of puts a damper on things.”

“You always did get hung up on little things.”

Cal looked up at the darkening sky. “Shit. I better get back.”

“Aw, but you just got here!”

“I, uh, have to do some studying.”

Renna stared at her for a moment, as though unsure if Cal was being serious. “You sure you’re not becoming one of them?”

“Hey, I gotta play the part, don’t I?”

“Whatever you say,” Renna said.

“Night, Renna.”

“Night, Kid.”

As Cal traced her way back to the Falls District, she couldn’t help but feel confused. She should be glad! After all, Renna was back. But, something about her was different… darker. It would’ve been naive to assume that she would’ve stayed the same after all these years, and she herself had learned a lot since Kalros. From the Len, the streets, other urchins, but there was something in Renna’s eyes whenever mages got brought up. Like a wolf ready to strike. And she hadn’t said anything about what she’d done since she’d escape prison. Had she been hiding something?

Cal shook her head. This was Renna! She’d been with Cal through thick and thin. Whatever had happened, it didn’t change anything. Now that she was back in Cal’s life, things could only go up.

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