This book is dedicated to every person who has had to live in fear of persecution due to their sexual preferences, gender identity, ethnicity, disabilities, religion, or any other element of who they are.

This is also dedicated to anyone who has suffered because of their lack of characteristics that others have tried to impose upon them, such as sexual preferences, gender, or religious beliefs.

The map above shows the continent of Kaldwyn, where this novel takes place. It is divided into four major nations � Valia, Edria, Caelford, and Dalenos. Each major nation has one or more of the Soaring Spires; these are also shown on the map.

Sufficiently Advanced Magic took place entirely within the nation of Valia.

The Serpent Spire and Lorian Heights Academy are both located in Beaufort, in the eastern nation of the nation of Valia.

Corin�s home is located in Hathridge, a city south of Beaufort.

Okay, Keras.

In case you don�t remember me, I�m Corin Cadence. We never really were properly introduced. I�m a student at Lorian Heights Academy right now, but we met a little before that.

I suppose that�s a good place to start.

I�m sure you remember being in that weird crystal prison.

Well, when I found you, I was supposed to be taking my Judgment. That�s a test that someone can take when they come of age in Valia, assuming they can afford the entrance fee.

There were two main reasons I wanted to take a Judgment.

One, because surviving one means you get an attunement. Each attunement comes with magical powers. And everyone wants magical powers, right? Right.

The other reason is a bit more personal. My brother, Tristan, disappeared when he took his Judgment five years ago.

Everyone told me that meant that Tristan was dead. I wasn�t convinced that was the only possibility. But even if he was dead, I also knew that if I managed to get strong enough to climb all the way to the top of the spire, I could ask the goddess for a boon. Bringing my brother back to life seemed like a reasonable thing to ask for.

Of course, climbing all the way to the top of the spire would be much harder than just finishing a Judgment, but I needed to start somewhere.

Our local Judgments are held inside the Serpent Spire, one of the six Soaring Spires. I assume you went in through the Climber�s Gate, which is a different entrance meant for groups of veterans who are trying to climb to the top of the spire.

Yeah, thought so.

Anyway, I found a book early on in the test. �Trials of Judgment.�

When I opened said book, it started to give me advice. No, not verbally. That would have been even stranger, but possibly more hilarious.

Text started to appear on the pages. It wrote me �helpful� comments about each of the rooms I was going through, like, �This is the Room of Eternal Death. It�s like the Room of Normal Death, but somewhat more repetitive.�

That sort of thing.

For reasons beyond my recollection, I followed some of the book�s advice. And I found a secret passage.

That led me to your prison.

You and two others � Echion and Vera � were in different jail cells. At the time, I didn�t know if that was a part of the test or if it was real.

It did seem a little bit weird for me to find just enough keys on the way to open two cells, but not the third.

I opened the other two cells, and then you cut your way out with your ridiculous swordsmanship. Apparently you were waiting until the other two were free because cutting yourself out earlier would have triggered traps that would have incinerated the other two.

You started leading the way out.

Unfortunately, we were interrupted by one of the visages of the goddess � Katashi � and he wasn�t very happy to see us.

It was strange to see Katashi in the Serpent Spire, since that�s the territory of his brother, Tenjin. But we were a little too preoccupied to worry about that.

The rest of us ran like cowards while you fought him.

Good work on surviving that, by the way. Not sure how you managed that one, considering visages can wipe out cities with an angry glare.

Maybe he thought you were cute?

Okay, maybe that wasn�t it.

Right. Anyway, Vera stabbed me in the back just a little and ran off with Echion. As you might imagine, I was pretty disappointed by that.

I managed to make my way out with some more �advice� from the book, and I even picked up a magic sword along the way. That was nice. I�m glad the goddess seems to like leaving one-of-a-kind legendary artifacts lying around in towers.

Oh, and I even managed to get an attunement, like I�d entered the spire for in the first place.

The problem? I got the Enchanter one. No one likes the Enchanter attunement.

Least of all my father, Magnus Cadence.

I got a mild case of verbal lacerations when I got home.

Also, the girl who had been raised to be my retainer � Sera � got promoted to �family member that is presumably your sister�. This was probably because she got a much better attunement than I did, a Summoner mark.

It might have also been because of my father�s general disappointment in me, though. Or maybe it was just some kind of contrived plan to get Sera and me to compete with each other and excel.

My father underestimated us. After all, competing would have required actually talking to each other about the situation.

We were far too clever to talk out our differences and concerns ahead of time.

Infinite social skills. That�s me.

Right. So, after that, Sera and I got sent off to Lorian Heights to spend two years training there before our years of military service.

We were assigned to divisions, which weren�t really important, except for the fact that we�re eventually supposed to figure out who the members of Spider Division are. Spider Division has members infiltrating the other divisions, and probably sabotaging them.

I still haven�t worked on that, because I�ve had higher priorities, like not dying. I�ll probably work on it eventually.

At the academy, I learned all sorts of things about Enchanting. Like how to blow off my own hands by experimenting without asking the right questions first.

No, I didn�t literally blow off my own hands.

After that, Professor Vellum � who didn�t want to spend the money on buying me new hands � decided to teach me some things about enchanting in non-combustible ways.

So, yeah, we took some tests, I learned magic, that sort of thing.

Even made some friends, I guess. Or, reconnected with a old friend, in Patrick�s case.

Aside from Patrick, there was Marissa, a Guardian with impressive punching abilities. I suspect you�d like her.

Oh, almost everyone calls Marissa �Mara�. I�m terrible with nicknames, though, so I forget sometimes.

Aside from that, there was Jin. I made him a bunch of items. He helped me out with a few things, too. We got close.

He asked me to the winter ball.

That didn�t work out for reasons that will be clear later.

Anyway, during one of my tests, part of the school kind of exploded.

Turns out that Mizuchi, one of the children of the God Serpent, was on a rampage. And that rampage was because Katashi, the visage we�d run into earlier, was somewhat upset.

Long story short, his brother � the Visage Tenjin � was missing. Considering how much I wanted to get my own brother back, I could sympathize.

I talked to Katashi. Surprisingly, this sort of worked. Emphasis on the �sort of�. He put a weird brand on my hand that would supposedly explode if I didn�t find the person he wanted.

I don�t know why I have a pattern of running into hand-destroying situations, but that seems to be my lot in life.

Maybe I need to figure out how to make magical prosthetics.

I should research that later.

Hm? Do I have a list of things I need to get back to?

Nah. Why�d I need that? I have a great memory.

Anyway, where was I?

Um, something about the spire. I think.

Oh, Katashi. Thank you.

Anyway, I needed to find Vera.

I talked to Professor Orden, and she instructed me to put together a team. She also explained that she was a Whisper � a member of a secret organization dedicated to one of the visages.

I worked on putting together a team as she�d instructed.

Sera was an easy choice.

I would have brought Marissa and Patrick, but Marissa was recovering from a gift of power given to her by Katashi, and Patrick lost at a coin flip to Jin.

In retrospect, I should never have allowed Patrick to flip a coin against someone with illusion magic.

I was expecting to bring our dueling teacher, Lord Teft, but Orden overruled me and brought Derek Hartigan instead. Derek was one of the most powerful swordsmen on the continent, so the choice made sense, but I was suspicious of Derek because of his connections.

Anyway, we went and found Vera.

That wasn�t the hard part.

The hard part was that we had to go back into the spire, and for reasons that I will never understand, Katashi didn�t give us any sort of way to just tell him when we�d arrived. So we had to go look for him, and that meant trying to backtrack to where I�d seen him last.

Because my life can never be simple, it turned out that Professor Orden had manipulated us into going to a place where she could kidnap Vera for her own purposes. Mostly to help her with finishing a project related to artificial attunements.

Vera was apparently a big part of researching a new type of artificial attunements, designed to make humans as powerful as god beasts. Echion was one of the first test subjects.

Orden wanted to expedite the process of making more of these powerful artificial attuned in order to use them as weapons for Valia. That�s the nation we�re in right now, if you�re not familiar. I know you�re not from around here.

Oh, and Orden had been involved with kidnapping Tenjin, so there was that.

I also found out some of the people she�d worked with on that. One was a powerful Summoner named Elora Theas, and an Emerald-level swordsman.

Orden actually wanted me to work with her group. I was a little conflicted, of course, since she was one of my professors, but I couldn�t agree with her plans. Both for ethical reasons and because I didn�t think her plans would actually work. She was not only provoking a war, she was risking our nation�s survival on a tremendous number of variables, and I couldn�t agree to that. It just�wasn�t strategically sound.

So, I decided to fight.

Now, there were five other people there. So, fighting Orden should have been easy, right? Five on one?

Except she�d tricked Derek into putting on a ring earlier. A ring that made him follow her every command.

Which was bad, because Derek was an Emerald-level attuned. Which, if you�re not familiar, is as powerful as it gets. At least as far as we know.

So, with Derek and Orden against us, we promptly ran away. We ran like a lot.

Ultimately, we got caught, though, and had to fight. I gave Sera a magic potion that I�d been saving � one that I thought would make whoever drank it more powerful.

This may have been a slight miscalculation.

It did make her more powerful. Enough to turn the tide in the fight, at least.

We knocked Orden and Derek out cold.

Unfortunately, that potion didn�t work exactly the way I�d hoped, and now Sera�s attunement appears to be broken and she can�t talk.

Oops.

So, yeah, that was all bad.

And then it got worse.

Jin decided to shoot Vera in the back. Like, repeatedly.

This was an immediate strain on our nascent love life.

I tackled him.

We did some wrestling of the decidedly non-romantic variety, until I exploited a weakness in one of the magical items I�d made him earlier and made it explode.

Which, you guessed it, blew up my hand.

Not entirely. Just enough to put some nice shards of metal into it.

It hurt Jin a lot more, though.

They say the shortest way to a man�s heart is through his sternum, after all.

Hm?

Is that not an expression?

I feel like I�ve been lied to.

Anyway, he still probably would have beaten me if Vanniv hadn�t punched him in the face.

Oh, Vanniv? Yeah, you�ll like him. He�s a summoned monster. And he�s adorable.

Anyway, yeah. I cobbled a healing item together with a rock. Not the most conventional form of enchanted item, but I work with what I�ve got.

Magic Rock is the best. Don�t you dare make fun of it.

I used that to get Vera back into stable condition, found some of Katashi�s blood � I imagine that was your work, thanks for that � and then used a thing called the Jaden Box to summon Katashi to our location.

Katashi took Vera and healed me up, but he wasn�t able to heal Sera.

So, he gave me a crazy artifact sword, Ceris, to give her instead. Which is nice, I guess?

I�m still not sure what to think about that.

He sent me to you after that. Then you defeated me in battle with a chicken leg before I had a chance to introduce myself.

I am not ashamed by this. I am exhausted, and absolutely done with fighting people.

So, that�s why I�m here.

Sorry for rambling. I�m tired, I just barely survived someone that I trusted, and I�m not sure if my sister is going to be able to use her attunement again.

It hasn�t been the best day for me.

How have you been, Keras?

A bit after explaining that whole story to Keras, I found my way back to Lorian Heights.

Derek offered us all a place to stay for a while, and we accepted.

I had something I needed to do in private after I�d made sure everyone was safe and stable.

I opened Trials of Judgment, my magic book.

And I saw a message inside that wasn�t exactly what I�d been expecting.

I stared blankly at the open book in front of me, rereading the final lines.

If I�d wanted to take it slowly, I probably could have skipped a few days of class without a tremendous risk to my grades.

My next class on the schedule happened to be one of Lord Teft�s: dueling class. That would have made it even easier to skip, since he knew about my situation.

But I wasn�t interested in a vacation. I�d seen how far behind I was in terms of raw power in the tower, and I needed all the fighting practice I could get.

More importantly, I needed every point I could earn.

Not only was I still worried about graduating, I also knew that with the growing chaos in my life, it was likely that my second year would be even harder.

The points I earned this year impacted my placement for the second year, if I graduated. That meant that getting as high of a score as physically possible was a priority, because I wanted to have a safety net for the second year.

Finishing my second year with a high score was also a must, because I wanted to be able to choose to be assigned to be a climber. The knowledge that Tristan was alive hadn�t changed that in the slightest.

If he�d already been stuck in the spire for five years, clearly there was something keeping him from leaving. Being assigned to a climber role would give me the best chance of figuring that out and getting him home.

I�d obviously get him out sooner if I could, but I couldn�t count on that.

Finally, I had one more reason to go to the class: I wanted to see how my new attunement worked in action.

That wasn�t going to be ideal, however, since today�s dueling class was dedicated to something we rarely seemed to discuss�

Dueling.

We were actually fighting duels.

That�still wasn�t exactly my area of strength, but I did have a much better chance than when I�d first started the semester.

Knowing Teft, there�d be some kind of spin on it, but I didn�t know exactly what that was going to be when I walked in.

Teft leaned up against the lectern, addressing the class. �While most classes will have final exams in the last two weeks of the school year, I�ve found that I get far better results when my students aren�t prepared. And thus, today, we begin the first stage of your final exams.�

He waved a hand. �Follow me to the dueling arena, class.�

I winced. I wasn�t ready for a final exam, but that wasn�t my primary concern.

Sera was sitting right next to me. She still couldn�t use her attunement.

But Teft knew that, didn�t he? Would he pair her with someone who wasn�t a good duelist, or maybe let her skip the test until she recovered?

We exchanged doubtful looks as we stood and followed Teft out of our usual open-air lecture area toward� I wasn�t really sure. I thought that classroom was considered the dueling arena, although we�d used different rooms for a few training exercises.

I should have known better than to expect a normal dueling arena out of Teft.

True, the location he led us toward was a sports arena � one used for vaban, a popular ball game designed for attuned. The vaban court itself, however, had been modified for our activity.

The arena floor was gray stone, about a hundred feet across and roughly fifty feet wide. Normally, the only marks would be dividing lines every ten feet to mark increments of distance.

Today, the court had been covered in square tiles etched with runes.

With a snap of Teft�s fingers, the squares began to glow a variety of colors�

In specific: red, orange, yellow, and green.

I noted that a handful of squares remained unchanged as well.

I did not like where this was going.

I hated colored tile puzzles.

From the groans of the students around me, I could tell that many of the other students agreed.

Teft gestured to the battlefield. �Today, you will be fighting in team matches on the field below. Rather than traditional dueling, this challenge combines the difficulties of dueling with the risks of a standard format for tower chambers � tiles with different magical effects.�

He glanced around to the class. �For the moment, divide yourself into teams of four.�

I breathed a sigh of relief at that, since I already had three people with me.

�Where�s Roland?� Patrick asked, glancing around.

I frowned, both because adding Roland into the formula would disrupt my perfect team of four and because I couldn�t remember the last time I�d seen him.

Where was Roland?

He wasn�t in class, certainly.

�Don�t see him,� I replied, �But we�ve got a solid team of four right here.� I was talking about Patrick, Marissa, and Sera, of course.

�Might not be so wise, m�lord Corin. I�m still not in the best of fightin� shape, nor is Sera. Maybe we could get a pass, given that we�re still recovering?�

It was savvy of Marissa to phrase it that way, since it didn�t put the entire burden on Sera. And, in fairness, Marissa was probably still recovering from that burst of extra mana that Katashi had given her. It had only been a few days since then, even if it felt like weeks.

�Wait; did Katashi use the Arbiter attunement to give her that power increase? Was his ability the same one that I have?

It seemed functionally similar, even if Katashi had the extra flashiness of drawing on the extra line of the rune for her next attunement level. He�d given her more than twice her previous maximum in mana, too, which I wasn�t supposed to do�

�But maybe that was the reason it was taking her so long to recover. It was possible Katashi had risked her health by giving her so much power at once, and it was also possible that he knew better than the Researcher did exactly how much power was safe to transfer at once.

Maybe there were other, more complex factors in play � for example, the Guardian attunement was defensive in nature, and that might have allowed Marissa to tolerate more mana safely. I didn�t know, but it seemed like it was worth researching eventually, or just asking Katashi about it if I saw him and didn�t have anything more important to discuss.

�I�ll go ask Teft if we can get you two excused from this, or maybe all four of us.� Patrick offered, jarring me out of my introspection. I nodded as Patrick headed in Teft�s direction.

I turned to Sera in the meantime. �Have you been feeling any better?�

Sera shrugged.

�I went to the Divinatory to do some research earlier. I found a few options we can investigate. I�ll tell you more after class.�

She gave me the weakest smile I�d ever seen, then turned her head away.

Patrick came back with Teft a few moments later.

Teft walked straight over to Sera. �Miss Cadence, I was aware that you were injured in the tower, but not the degree of severity. That said, there will be many times in life when you are forced to fight at a disadvantage.�

He folded his arms. �Given your circumstances, it is within reason for you to skip this week�s test to recover. If you choose to do so, I will give you a below average, but passing grade for the exam. Due to the structure, it would not be possible to take the test at a later time. Would you like to take that option? This is not a trick question.�

Sera glanced to the rest of us, her lips twisted into a frown.

Patrick put a hand on her shoulder. �We can handle this as a team, Sera! The four of us can handle whatever Teft throws at us.�

Sera turned her head to Patrick, her eyes meeting his. Then she nodded, and with new resolve, she turned back to Teft and curtly shook her head.

�Good.� Teft nodded in return, then turned his head to Patrick. �And because you�ve chosen to influence her, Master Wayland, you can be on her team. Your opponents,� my heart sank has he gestured, �Will be Master Cadence and Miss Callahan.�

I knew there would be a twist to this, I just hadn�t expected�

Resh.

�Your team will be up second.� Teft turned his back to us and walked away to split up the other teams.

�Well,� I glanced from side to side, �This is awkward.�

Patrick was full of resolve. �Sorry, Sera. Didn�t think he�d do that, but this is better in some ways. Uh, go easy on us, Mara?�

Sera stepped in between the two of them, put her hands up in a warding gesture, and shook her head vehemently.

I turned to Patrick. �Yeah, if you think Sera wants us to go easy, you haven�t been paying enough attention. She�ll murder me if she realizes I�m going easy on her.�

Sera raised a finger and made a throat-slitting gesture, her expression serious.

I said that, but the key part was �if she realizes�.

It was working, so I decided to add to the effect. �And, in truth, I�m not sure you�ll need it. Sera is vastly better with things like tile puzzles than I am. Don�t know about you, Mara.�

�I�m nae any good at them. Much better at punching things.�

Seems fair.

�Not sure how much that�ll help.� Patrick sounded dejected. �We don�t even know what they do yet.�

�I think that�s part of the point.� I jerked a thumb at Teft. �He�ll probably give us some basic rules in a few minutes, after he�s done splitting up the other teams, then we�ll have to figure out how the tiles work once we�re in there.�

We chatted for a couple more minutes. Teft did another round of walking to every group, checking on the status of our shield sigils, then headed back to the front of the class to address everyone.

�You will not always be able to choose who your allies � and who your enemies � are. For today�s test, you face a scenario every soldier dreads: a battle against some of your closest allies. Or, in the case of some of you,� he scanned the crowd, �merely the people you thought would make the most efficient team.

�In either case, you very likely know something of the abilities of your opponents, and vice versa. This will be a test of both your combat abilities and your knowledge of how to counter the tactics of your rivals.�

I caught Sera�s eyes. The tip of her mouth curled up just slightly.

She�d always dominated me at games of strategy. Valor, Crowns�it didn�t matter which.

�This test,� Teft waved at the arena, �will be a simple one, but not an easy one. Each colored square has a different effect. Some are beneficial, some are detrimental. Both the layout and the effects of each square vary between matches, and thus, fighting later will not offer you an information advantage.�

I heard a few groans at that, but I didn�t agree with Teft�s assessment. Not entirely. If there was a discrete list of possible effects, we could learn those from early matches and have an idea of what some of the squares might be, even if the specifics were different.

I also suspected Teft knew that, and that he was expecting a few of us to pick up on it.

�A few rules, of course. First, you will be given an attachment called a sigil monitor to put over your shield sigil before the match starts. When your shield sigil is depleted, the monitor will immediately detect this and teleport you out of the arena to the Mender unit.�

He pointed to a nearby door on the side of the arena. �When you�re teleported out, you�re done. The Menders will see to any injuries you sustained in the fight, then you can return to the stands to watch the remainder of the battle. You may not return to the fight, even if you can recharge your sigil.�

Well, that�s one idea down right away.

Was Teft looking straight at me when he said that? Probably just my imagination.

�Second, the match has a time limit of ten minutes. If neither team has eliminated the other in ten minutes, it will be considered a draw. Since eliminating opponents is the primary way to earn points for the exam, a draw will not be advantageous to you. While you may feel obligated to allow a draw if you are fighting against your friends, I assure you that this will not be the way to earn the highest amount of points.�

But it�s not expressly disallowed. Interesting.

Sera shook her head at me as soon as I looked back to her.

Fine, fine.

Teft continued. �You may not leave the arena during the match to maneuver. If you leave the arena, you will lose immediately.� He glanced at Kyra Dyson�s team, one of the few teams I considered almost as likely as my own to try to find a loophole in the rules.

Kyra was one of the few people with the Shadow attunement in the class, and while she wasn�t as good of a straight fighter as someone like Marissa, she was one of the most proficient at finding and exploiting weaknesses in her opponents. I liked her style.

�And you also may not interfere in matches other than your own.� He glanced at Patrick when he said that. Apparently, he hadn�t forgiven us for when Patrick jumped in on my �duel� against him on the first day of class. I brought a hand to my mouth to unsuccessfully attempt to stifle a laugh.

�Finally, you will only be fighting with dueling canes. Other magical items will be permitted, but for safety reasons, I will not be permitting other enchanted weapons.�

Another advantage gone. It was a sensible rule, however. Selys-Lyann and similar weapons could cause a lot of damage in a test like this.

�I will be watching your performance carefully. Today�s match will determine which of you are prepared for the second half of this class.�

That was an intimidating implication. Was he going to be failing some of us outright?

That was not an acceptable outcome.

From the looks on the faces of my friends, I could tell they felt the same way.

�Teams One and Two, come with me.�

Team One was Kyra�s team, consisting of her and an Elementalist named Loria Marshall. Team Two was Rupert Kent � another Elementalist and a constant subject of Marissa�s ire � and Desmond Vyers, a Shaper.

I could see why they�d assembled their team of four the way they had. Two Elementalists and a Shaper would have given them tremendous long-ranged firepower, and Kyra could have handled virtually anything else. I would have given them good odds against our own team, at least in our current state. If Sera had her Summoner abilities�

I shook my head. Hypothetical matches didn�t matter. I had a real one to watch.

Just one, presumably. We were Teams Three and Four.

We headed to the stadium seats, getting as close as possible to get a good look at the action. Teft led the two teams to the steps into the arena, where he knelt down to open a box. He retrieved four discs from within � the sigil monitors. It was hard to see at a distance, but they had some kind of prongs on them to attach to the shield sigils.

Could I disable mine to stay in the fight longer?

Probably, but it�s not worth the risk. The chance for being hurt is too significant, and it might even get me disqualified.

Fortunately, my phoenix sigil�s barrier is the outside layer � it�ll take damage before the normal shield sigil does.

And I�m a Carnelian now. My shroud will mostly be inside the barriers, so it won�t do much to help my shield last longer, but it will definitely help prevent injuries from slowing me down.

That was all good, but our opponents had phoenix sigils, too. I�d made them myself.

I didn�t regret it for a moment.

I couldn�t hear what Teft was telling the other students at this distance, but they headed to opposite sides of the arena. The tiles were just large enough for a single person to stand on them comfortably and there were a lot of them.

I also wanted to know why some of the squares had remained white, their normal color. If the other squares represented the advanced stages of an attunement, were these �white� squares supposed to be Quartz?

And, if that was the case, did that mean they had no effect?

It seemed so, since the students were stepping on the white squares on their way to the opposite sides of the arena � and there were two white squares for each team on the far sides.

There seemed to be no traps on those initial squares, but I couldn�t be confident that all white squares were the same. Teft often liked to subvert expectations.

�Bow to your opponents.�

The teams bowed respectfully.

�Begin!�

A dome-shaped barrier flickered into life around the arena as soon as Teft spoke.

The combatants surged into motion.

Kyra whispered a word, then vanished in a torrent of swirling shadows.

Instinctively, I activated my attunement to see where she�d gone � and the answer was nowhere. She was still standing in the center of the shadow cloud, reaching out with her hands.

The shadows began to spread.

Rupert and Loria turned toward each other, but Loria was a hair faster. She hurled a bolt of lightning at him. It got within inches before a glowing shield appeared in front of Rupert and deflected the blast.

That was a Shaper spell, but I hadn�t seen Desmond move. There was a good reason for that, and it wasn�t because he was too fast to perceive like Keras. He�d stuck his hands in his jacket pockets so his opponents couldn�t predict his spells based on his gestures. Simple, but effective.

A hail of glowing swords appeared in the air above Loria, descending in a glimmering flash. She dodged to the side, but that meant jumping onto a colored square. A bolt of light erupted when she landed on it, and I saw cracks flicker across her shield.

The glowing sword-storm struck the tiles where she�d been standing a moment before, sinking into the stone several inches before vanishing.

The tiles themselves aren�t shielded, I realized. I might be able to work with that.

Rupert was still gathering energy in his hands. A swirling ball began to manifest, glimmering with heat while he whispered. His Elementalist mark was on his left hand, so he didn�t strictly need to use incantations, but it looked like he�d learned to use his lungs to augment his spells further.

From the intensity of the glow, I�d say it was paying off.

The globe seemed to solidify over the following seconds. Loria hurled another blast of lightning, this time at Desmond, but another phantasmal shield appeared in the way.

This time, the lightning shifted in mid-air to arc around the shield, blasting Desmond back a step and leaving a crack in his barrier. He landed on a green square. Vines burst from the ground beneath him, wrapping around his legs in a moment. His expression was more perplexed than furious.

Near me, Patrick whistled appreciatively. Controlling lightning mid-flight like that was impressive.

So, however, was the ball of flame that was gradually solidifying in Rupert�s hands.

Kyra�s shadows were still spreading � they now encompassed a half-dozen squares, almost reaching where Loria was standing. Assuming she could see within her own shadows, it seemed like a valid strategy � her opponents wouldn�t know where to attack.

Desmond ducked down, forming a phantasmal blade to cut away at the vines that were binding him, while Loria hurled another lightning blast. Rupert took this hit head-on, but he managed to retain his focus on the spell he was gathering.

And, without any further delay, he hurled the sphere in Loria�s direction.

Kyra�s shadows shot out and covered Loria�s square, then seemed to thicken as the fireball approached.

The flames diminished as they entered the enclosure of shade, and not just visually. With my attunement active, I could see the intensity decrease as it crossed inside. An unexpected effect; I hadn�t known that shadow magic could diminish the power of other spells.

But it wasn�t enough.

The fireball detonated with tremendous force, burning away a section of shadow and crashing into Loria. The impact hurled her backward, shattering her barrier. Then she vanished.

It wasn�t one of Kyra�s tricks this time. Loria�s barrier was gone, and she�d been eliminated from the match.

Kyra dropped to the ground when the fireball detonated, and it left her mostly unscathed. Her shadows began to spread again immediately afterward, but it didn�t seem like a sustainable tactic.

Desmond was almost free of his vines, and Rupert was already preparing another ball of fire.

I was expecting Kyra to do something sneaky. Maybe create a bunch of illusions, or manipulate the shadows into attacking from a direction opposite from her own location.

Instead, she braced herself, took a breath, and jumped.

The remaining shadows jerked inward, pulled as if connected by strings, and condensed until they were pressed against her skin.

Kyra�s features vanished as the shadows stretched across her entire body, covering her like paint.

I�d seen that kind of spell before, though; it was more than a cosmetic change. The shadows would enhance her physical capabilities further, and protect her like a suit of armor.

The leap didn�t take her far, but it did draw her opponents� attention upward. That meant that her opponents didn�t see that she�d left something behind when she jumped � a tiny metal rod.

She landed on another white square, just a few feet away from where she�d started, and began to slowly advance. Nothing happened, seemingly confirming that the white squares were safe.

Desmond was free now, and he conjured another hail of glittering blades in the air above Kyra. They descended, jamming into the writhing shadows around her � and vanished without a trace.

The shadows seemed to diminish for a moment after the attack, but Kyra exhaled a breath, and they solidified again.

Kyra advanced, hopping from white square to white square.

Rupert turned to his partner, still focusing on conjuring a ball of flame, and yelled, �Slow her down!�

Desmond gave a nod and a reply, then closed his eyes and focused.

A glowing wall appeared in Kyra�s path.

She punched it. The wall rippled as umbral mana met with gray, tearing a fist-shaped hole.

Seeming satisfied, she struck the wall again and again, widening it until there was almost enough room to jump through.

The wall vanished just in time for Rupert�s fireball to pass through where it had been a moment before. It hit Kyra straight in the chest.

The shadows rippled on contact, sizzling and burning away as the fireball drilled through. Kyra reached into a pouch at her side, twitching her hand just as Rupert waved his.

The fireball exploded at Rupert�s command, but Kyra had already vanished.

She was right back where she�d started, standing near the metallic rod on the white square.

I hadn�t heard the chime, but I understood what she�d done �

She had a jump bell in her bag.

And now, with Rupert�s fireball detonated harmlessly, she charged.

The lingering shadows around her must have augmented her physical abilities. She was too fast to be running � and then jumping, to clear a section without white tiles � based on muscle alone. I knew Shadows had access to enhancement mana as their secondary type, but I hadn�t seen it in action before.

As she ran, more shadows began to collect around her. Rupert tried to start to gather another fireball, but he was panting with exhaustion, and his forehead was dripping with sweat.

And Kyra was too fast.

Desmond conjured another wave of weapons, but Kyra avoided them entirely this time, dodging and weaving through the flurry of glowing blades.

Then she was nearly on top of Rupert, hurling a knife from her belt. It hit his barrier and made a crack just before she landed in front of him, widening that crack with a solid punch.

Rupert stumbled backward, landing on an orange square. The blast of energy that surged upward enveloped him, shattering the last of his barrier.

Then there were two left on the field.

Desmond gestured upward, and glowing wires rose from the square below Kyra, similar to the vines that had enveloped him earlier. She jumped over them, but Desmond gestured again, and a glowing shield appeared and flew forward, slamming into Kyra�s midsection.

The force knocked her back, forcing her to land on a yellow square.

A warm glow emanated upward, and as I watched, it began to slowly repair some of the damage to Kyra�s shield. She grinned, stretched, and made a �come hither� gesture to her opponent.

Desmond waved a hand again. �Finally, you�re visible and standing still.�

A glowing metal box appeared around Kyra�s entire square.

I blinked.

The box shook a moment later, no doubt due to Kyra�s attempts to break it from the inside. She couldn�t use the jump bell again so soon without recharging it.

Desmond shook his head, then made another gesture. Another box appeared around the first box.

Then another. And another.

Then he closed his fist � and the boxes began to collapse inward, as if crushed by an invisible hand.

I could hear the sounds of vibrations from inside the box for a few more seconds before Teft stood up.

�That�s enough.� He clapped his hands. The light from the squares vanished, as did the boxes.

Kyra was still there, breathless, huddled into a ball on the ground. It must have been the only place she could find the space to breathe.

�Master Desmond wins by incapacitation. You may both exit the arena and rest.�

And that, I considered, is why I should never fight a Shaper in a duel.

My own match was, unfortunately, only a few minutes later.

On the plus side, I�d figured out a few little things from that first one.

On the minus side, it was safe to assume that Sera had noticed the same things, and she was probably already a step ahead of me on formulating a strategy.

We made our way to the arena, clipped on the sigil monitors, and headed to our sides of the ring. We only had moments to prepare before the match started.

I saw Sera on the other side of the arena bending down and pointing at the tile beneath her, making a sweeping gesture with her hands, and Patrick nodding in assent, then whispered something I couldn�t hear.

Then Sera turned toward us, pointing her dueling cane at me and smirking as she made a mock salute. She couldn�t cast spells, but she could still use a dueling cane with deadly efficiency.

I turned to Marissa and leaned close to whisper to her. �I need you to cover me for a minute. I�m going to try to do something with the squares.�

�Can�t be makin� promises, but I�ll do what I can. Not at my best right now. Ye sure we shouldn�t just charge?�

I nodded. �We�d win that fight if we could get close, but Sera will be ready for that. Not sure what they�re doing, but they�re up to something.�

�Bow to your opponents.�

We bowed.

�Begin!�

We had no more time to plan. I ducked down to look at the nearest tile, an orange one.

Marissa apparently took my instructions to mean �literally stand in the same square as me�, which didn�t give us a lot of space, but it did allow her to deflect the first couple of shots from Sera and Patrick�s opening barrage.

And barrage was definitely the right word for what they were doing. They were firing fast � and Marissa still too sick to move as quickly as usual. The distance was giving her time to batter blasts out of the air with her fists and the occasional kick, but she was struggling with it.

I had to help.

I looked at the tile, and by the goddess, it was complicated.

There were seven sets of runes on it. Not seven runes, seven sets.

At a glance, I could tell that five of them corresponded to different functions � presumably for white, red, orange, yellow, and green. They each had a different function rune, as well as mana storage and regeneration runes.

The sixth was the most important part - the ones that controlled which set of functions currently in use. I wasn�t able to identify all of these, but I guessed one of them tied the tile into some kind of central organization system, and at least one of them was a rune that responded to voice commands. Presumably Teft�s.

The eighth set involved a trigger rune for pressure, very similar to the one used for activating a return bell. It had another rune adjacent to it that I didn�t recognize, but that gave me something to work with.

I realized that not only was this whole situation absurdly complex, but that the floor of this arena was probably worth more than everything I owned by multiple orders of magnitude. Even if the enchantments were weak � and they almost certainly were � this was a crazy investment for just a couple tests.

Maybe they get some of the enchanting classes to build things like this as class projects? Wouldn�t take long if they�ve got hundreds of students�

A blast that just missed my head brought me back to focusing on my work.

Fight now, research later.

I turned on my attunement, observing the paths of mana flowing in the runes in front of me. As I suspected, only one of the five initial sections of runes was currently active. I couldn�t tell exactly what it did, but it had something to do with earth magic.

I grimaced, thinking about how much easier this would be if I could read all the runes.

Behind me, Marissa took a hit and staggered, nearly knocking me off my tile. She managed to steady herself quickly, though, and I braced my hands on the ground to prevent myself from falling.

I had to work fast.

I looked at the function tiles as a set.

First one is earth related.

Second one recharges shields.

Some kind of energy blast from this one. Maybe the one that was orange last time?

Not sure about this one. It uses enhancement mana, though, so it may be good.

Last one�disables all functions, maybe?

That was good enough information for now.

I pulled my engraving rod out of my bag. We weren�t allowed to have magic weapons, but Teft hadn�t said anything about tools.

I started carving a new rune. The tile already had a system for changing functions � I just needed to add a new way of doing that. One I could control.

It was a decent idea up until the point where an energy blast knocked the engraving rod out of my hand, sending it flying three tiles away.

I looked up.

Patrick and Sera were advancing, firing while they walked. Marissa was struggling even harder now, taking a hit to her left leg while I watched. As Patrick and Sera got closer, it was getting easier and easier for them to fire accurately.

�Corin, little help �ere?� Marissa had switched into a sideways stance that exposed less of her own body to attacks, but that meant that more of me was exposed.

�Almost got it.� That was almost true.

I glanced at one more tile � a green one right next to me � and identified that rune as the beam blast one.

I stood up, thinking while I pulled the dueling cane off my belt and finally began to return fire.

Patrick and Sera scattered as I fired, stepping on colored squares.

Nothing happened.

I blinked.

Our opponents advanced.

I didn�t have any idea how they were managing that, nor did I have time to think about it. Patrick hurled a bolt of lightning that split into three.

Marissa managed to jump and smash one of the branches of the bolt, which was pretty impressive, but the other two smashed into me and left deep cracks in the barrier. I felt the mana in my phoenix sigil sink to just over half.

Panic got my mind working.

If I was right that earth magic meant vines, that meant orange and green had been directly swapped.

I dodged Sera�s next attack directly onto a red tile.

Slowly, gray mana began to trickle upward and recharge my shield.

Now we�re talking.

I aimed at Sera and fired three shots in rapid succession. She dodged easily, still ignoring the color of the squares below her entirely.

I leaned closer to Marissa, who was still standing on our starting tile. �Red is helpful, so you can dodge to those. Think green is the energy blast one, don�t get hit by that.�

I knew yellow was probably beneficial, too, but red seemed like a better bet until I could identify the function.

�Got it.� She nodded, immediately scanning the ground for red squares. Patrick tried to take advantage of her distraction to hit her with a lightning blast, but she just swatted it out of the air without even looking.

Marissa hopped to a red tile, and I saw the same kind of energy wash over her.

We were both recharging now, which was good. The problem was that it was slow, and we weren�t doing any damage in return.

When I turned to fire at Patrick, he was more sluggish in his response than Sera, but he still managed to blast my own attack out of the air with one of his.

I hopped to another red square to dodge Patrick�s return fire, but Sera anticipated my movement and hit me with a shot from her cane as soon as I landed.

Their teamwork was better than ours, too. They�d been practicing together for months at this school alone � and known each other for years before that.

We needed to even the odds.

But I was taking too long, so Marissa was the one who acted.

She ducked a pair of shots, plunging a fist into the ground. A fist that was, as it turned out, surrounded by a cutting aura like I�d seen her demonstrate for Keras.

In a moment, I understood. I jumped closer to Marissa, deflecting two shots from Patrick and returning an ineffective barrage of my own.

It only took a few more moments for Marissa to cut the green square out of the floor, then pull it up by the edges. It fired a harmless blast into the air.

Sera must have seen what she was doing, too. I couldn�t parry her attacks fast enough, but I stepped into the way and took two hits. This was worth the cost.

Marissa flipped the square to face Patrick and shook it.

A blast of energy flared out, too fast to dodge. It slammed into Patrick, knocking him back and damaging his shield.

The attack carried him back several meters, but he never triggered any tiles. And I finally saw why�

He was floating. Both Sera and Patrick were. They were only an inch off the ground, so it was almost impossible to tell.

As an Elementalist, Patrick had access to air and fire mana. He usually mixed them for lightning attacks � but that didn�t mean he couldn�t use them on their own.

Marissa shook the square some more. Nothing happened.

�Probably needs time to recharge. Let�s get to safer squares.�

Together, we fell back.

Sera opened fire directly at the square that Marissa was carrying. She managed to get it out of the way, but the effort knocked her off balance. I stepped in and caught Marissa before she could fall on a more dangerous square.

Marissa looked chagrined. �Sorry, not fightin� at my best.�

�You�re doing great. Better than I am. Just keep firing that thing as it recharges and we should wear them down.�

Patrick and Sera were backing off, too, which surprised me. I saw why in a moment. Sera ducked down with her dueling cane, produced the bladed portion, and began to cut out a square of her own.

That�s bad.

Fortunately, the blade on the dueling cane wasn�t meant for cutting stone, even when empowered with mana. It was taking her much longer than Marissa had.

I raised my cane and fired at her, but Patrick was right there in front of her a moment later, batting my attacks to the side with practiced ease.

This isn�t working.

�Hand me that. I�ll use it, you�re better at melee range. Close in and smash them before they can finish copying you. Yellow squares are probably safe, but I don�t know what they do.�

I hooked my cane on my belt. Marissa handed me the square and charged.

Patrick settled into a fighting stance.

Normally, he wouldn�t have had a chance in a physical fight with Marissa. But she was still sick, and Patrick was the kind of friend who paid close attention to everything about the people he cared about.

Including, it seemed, how to fight us.

Marissa was nearly in striking distance when Patrick threw his dueling cane at her.

She ducked it, closing in further, and threw a punch at him.

She hadn�t noticed that in the moment he�d thrown the cane, he�d charged his shroud with lightning.

Patrick blocked with his left arm, shuddering at the force of the blow, but the effect on Marissa was far worse. The electrical charge jumped into her, bypassing her barrier entirely because she�d been the one to make physical contact.

Her shroud might have absorbed a fraction of it, but from the way she shuddered and staggered backward, I could tell it hadn�t done much.

�I am so sorry about this.� Patrick stepped forward and shoved an open palm into her chest.

Marissa convulsed again as the electricity surged through her, and she fell to a knee.

I stepped to the side to get a better angle and shook the square in Patrick�s direction, but nothing happened. Connecting with the mana in the square told me that it was critically low. It did have a mana recharging function built in, but it seemed like it wasn�t meant to be triggered several times in rapid succession. Maybe it would have recharged faster if it was still connected with the other squares � I saw some transference runes I didn�t recognize.

I couldn�t count on it to recharge on its own fast enough to be useful. Fortunately, I didn�t have to.

I found the right rune and shoved my own mana into it.

Marissa tried to stand.

Patrick raised a fist before she could, but he never had a chance to swing it. The blast of energy from the tile caught him in the side and tossed him twenty feet out of the way.

Sera raised her own tile, triumphant, just in time for Marissa to smash it in half with a fist.

I advanced while Patrick picked himself off the floor.

Sera tossed her shattered pieces of the tile to the side, ducking one of Marissa�s swings and picking up her discarded dueling cane from the floor.

Marissa was moving a lot slower than usual now, the lightning clearly having taken a toll. That made her slow enough to let Sera blast a sphere into Marissa�s chest at point-blank range.

Marissa hadn�t lost any of her resilience, though.

She smacked the dueling cane right out of Sera�s hand right after that, then grabbed her and shoved her at the closest green square. The levitation spell apparently wasn�t strong enough to resist the kind of force Marissa could use.

The blast erupting from the floor cracked Sera�s shield, but it wasn�t enough to take her out of the match. She backed off rapidly, circling to try to flank Marissa alongside a recovering Patrick.

I couldn�t let that happen. My hand was burning � recharging the tile had taken a lot out of me � but I recharged it again.

I fired at Patrick again.

This time, he was ready.

The blast was too fast for any of us to dodge, save maybe Marissa at full strength. Instead, he snapped his fingers, and a wall of lightning appeared in between us. The blast of light crashed into it and deflected to the side, impacting harmlessly on the barrier outside of the arena.

He winced and grabbed his left hand with his right. He was starting to feel the cost of all his spells, too.

Slowly, I advanced. The burning in my right hand had changed to throbbing, which wasn�t a good sign. I was probably too low to safely recharge the square again without causing myself permanent harm.

My opponents didn�t need to know that, though.

I moved closer to Patrick, stepping on red squares as much as possible, feeling my phoenix sigil recharging just a bit with each step. I kept the square leveled at him, hoping to keep him too worried about it to focus on Marissa.

It didn�t work.

Sera had managed to reclaim her dueling cane from the floor, and now she was falling back and firing at Marissa from a distance. With Marissa�s injuries, she was moving slow enough that Sera was landing hits almost half the time.

Patrick ran for his own abandoned cane.

I couldn�t run effectively while carrying the tile. It wasn�t heavy - it was probably only a few inches thick � but it was large enough to stand on, and that made it cumbersome.

I threw it to the side, but I still didn�t run.

I stepped on a yellow square, planning to duck down and figure out what it did � but I didn�t need to.

The dueling cane on my belt started to glow as soon as I hit the tile, and I understood.

I pulled my cane back off my belt and fired � straight at Patrick�s cane.

The orb that emerged from my weapon was three times the normal size, more like one from a war cane, but without the loss of speed.

I didn�t hit the cane, though. Patrick was just quick enough to get in the way, and he slammed an electrically-charged fist into the super-charged sphere.

There was a flash of white and the sphere shot back in my direction.

I had not expected that.

I threw myself out of the way too fast to pay any attention to where I was landing.

My shroud did precious little to absorb the pain of impacting with a stone floor.

That wasn�t the real problem, though. When I tried to push myself up, I discovered that there were vines wrapped around my chest.

Oh, and I�d lost the grip on my cane, and it was a couple feet from my hand. So there was that.

Glancing up, I could see that Patrick was in bad shape, but he�d managed to get his cane. He was now running full-speed away from Marissa, while Sera was firing orbs at Marissa�s back. She was only occasionally connecting now that Marissa was moving, but Marissa wasn�t gaining any ground. She was injured, sick, and had to avoid half the squares that the other team didn�t.

She wouldn�t win this on her own.

I pushed upward, but the vines below me were too strong.

If I wiggled, I could just barely reach the function runes.

I didn�t have a tool to carve a whole new rune and change the function, but maybe�

I concentrated on the energy in the active runes, identifying the earth mana. It wouldn�t work to activate the other runes, of course, since they were designed to use other types of mana.

But what would happen if I mixed in some of the wrong type of mana?

I had a pretty good idea, and I knew it was going to hurt.

I shoved transference mana into the rune.

The tile beneath me exploded.

Fortunately, my chest was far enough off the ground that my shroud actually did its job.

Unfortunately, it was still enough concussive force to throw me a good ten feet into the air.

�And I landed on an identical tile only a few feet away.

This time, I had the presence of mind to roll immediately, and the vines only managed to entrap my leg.

I coughed, producing a mixture of blood and phlegm that would have worried me a great deal more if I wasn�t still wearing a ring of regeneration.

I tried to stagger to my feet, but I barely managed to get to a knee. Marissa blazed by, ducking and slashing through the vines with the aura around her hand.

�Tha�,� was all I managed before I collapsed into a coughing heap. That was definitely not a good sign.

I wiped myself, pushed myself to my feet, and decided I needed to end this fast.

I staggered back to pick up my cane, while a visibly exhausted Marissa continued to do her best to pursue Patrick.

Patrick was slowing down, too. And I knew that if Marissa could catch him, she stood a good chance of winning that fight, even with his electrical aura.

I decided to help with that, and I had a better idea of how the tiles worked now.

I dodged a quick shot from Sera, shooting her a dirty look in reply.

She gave me a mock bow, stepped back, and fired at Marissa again.

I shot Sera�s attack out of the air, then turned to Patrick and Marissa�s chase, watching closely before I fired.

I hit a tile right in front of his path.

Patrick jumped back, anticipating the tile triggering from my attack.

Which it didn�t. I knew it wouldn�t � the activation runes didn�t work on gray mana intake � but I also knew that Patrick wouldn�t know that.

And his hop took him back just far enough for Marissa to close the distance.

She hammered him with a haymaker before he had a chance to recover. His electrical aura was still active, but she was ready now. She braced for it, charging her fists with her own aura and slamming them into his chest again and again.

Patrick fell backward, managed to duck a punch, and waved his hands outward � blasting Marissa back with a gust of wind.

She hit a green square, the column of energy cracking her shield.

That just made her angrier.

So, for just one punch, she turned on the bracer I gave her � and she hit Patrick hard.

Patrick vanished as his phoenix sigil and shield sigil barriers collapsed in one strike.

And then it was two of us against Sera alone.

By the time I�d turned back to Sera, she was already running.

It�s probably what I would have done in her situation, too, thinking that getting some distance and running out the clock would be a good way to force a draw.

But Patrick was the one who had been powering the levitation spell. She only managed to make it a couple squares before the spell faded and dropped her.

But maybe she�d anticipated that, too, because she landed on a yellow tile, and she still had her cane.

She fired at Marissa first, now shooting super-charged orbs empowered by the square. But even exhausted, Marissa had little difficulty defending when it was only against a single opponent. She punched and kicked the spheres out of the air with practiced precision, while I found a flanking position and returned fire on Sera from a yellow square of my own.

Sera matched me shot-for-shot, perfectly knocking each attack out of the air.

But every second she turned her focus toward me, Marissa inched a little closer.

Sera glanced back and forth, firing lazy attacks at each of us, probing.

We both deflected her attacks and advanced.

Marissa was only a few squares away when Sera charged.

Toward me.

I raised my cane and fired at her, but Sera ducked the shot and jumped between squares with surprising speed and ferocity. She only had the same safe spots we did now, but she was still outpacing the injured and exhausted Marissa. I assumed she wanted to isolate us, fight us one at a time.

I was almost right.

I managed to hit Sera just once with an empowered shot before she was right in front of me. I expected a close-range fight with dueling canes.

I didn�t expect her to jump on top of me.

I stumbled backward, half because of her weight and half because of my usual aversion to touch, and landed right on a green square.

Sera tried to sweep my feet, and I understood too late that she was trying to pin me on a square that would damage me continuously.

Her sweep didn�t quite work, though � I grabbed onto her as I toppled backward, and we tumbled onto the square together.

The square triggered a second time, engulfing us both in light. Then a third.

And then I was somewhere else.

I blinked, finding myself in a sitting positon in a medium-sized stone room on a bed.

Sera appeared a moment after me.

Patrick, of course, was already inside, sitting on another nearby bed. An older Phoenix Division student had a hand on Patrick�s forehead and an irritated expression.

Patrick grinned at us. �Ooh! Did you two manage a double-KO?�

I nodded. �Sure did. Sera managed to tackle me onto one of the green squares. That was a clever move. I didn�t expect it at all.�

Sera winced, shaking her head.

I could understand why � Marissa still wasn�t in here.

Which meant we�d won the match.

I let out another cough, and another Phoenix Division student approached me a moment later. �Any injuries?�

I pointed to my chest. �Coughing blood. Might be my lungs.�

�That�s not good. Hold on.� The student put a hand on my forehead, closing his eyes and concentrating, then let out a sigh. �Your lungs are fine. You just bit your tongue.�

I laughed, letting out a sigh of relief. �Thanks. You might want to check on Marissa when��

Marissa appeared unceremoniously on a nearby bed.

��She gets here.� I pointed. �Patrick gave her a couple electrical shocks.�

�I�ll check.�

It took a few more minutes for each of us to get a thorough check, as well as a few healing spells. The Menders were perplexed when they got to Sera.

�Miss, you seem to have quite a bit of mana scarring��

�She knows,� I answered for her. �We�re looking into solutions.�

�I�m honestly not sure this is treatable,� the student replied.

He definitely needed to work on knowing what not to say to people. Sera�s expression had already been sour, but now it was quickly turning toward depressed.

�Don�t worry, we�ve got some leads on how to take care of it.� I turned to Sera. �I looked some things up, and I�m going to be doing more research later. I�ll tell you at home, okay?�

Sera nodded silently, but she didn�t turn to look at me.

Marissa stood up, walking over to put a hand on Sera�s shoulder. �Can we head on out?�

�Just wait a few more minutes, the professor will want to tell you how you scored.�

We�re getting scored immediately? That�s unusual.

True to their word, Teft appeared a few minutes later.

�Well, that was a unique match, at least.� Teft folded his arms. �Marissa and Corin�s team won, as I�m sure everyone expected. You shouldn�t feel particularly proud, however. That was quite a debacle right at the beginning of the match, Master Cadence. You almost managed to turn a nearly insurmountable advantage into a defeat by taking so long playing with your toys.�

�I��

�I�m not finished. Do not interrupt. Regardless of what you almost did, the result was that you learned how the tiles worked. Against most opponents, that would have given you an even greater chance at victory, and may have been worth the investment. But I fear you underestimated Miss Shard.�

Sera looked up, blinking.

�She took every bit of information that you gained and learned it by watching you. If she was in fighting shape, you would have been defeated soundly, and most likely without contest.�

I started to open my mouth again.

He raised a hand. �I said, do not interrupt. I am lecturing. You will listen. My greatest commendation must go to Miss Callahan, both for her individual combat abilities, which remain in the top of our class, and the ingenuity to cut out a tile and use it as a weapon. This was an excellent example of teamwork, as was the use of levitation, which I suspect was Miss Cadence�s idea and Master Wayland�s implementation.�

�In light of all these factors, Miss Callahan receives a grade of �A� on this test. Master Cadence, you contributed to your team�s success, but leaned heavily on Miss Callahan. You would have failed without a team member as skilled as her. I begrudgingly offer you a �B� for managing to discern and properly utilize the functions of the tiles.�

He turned to the other two. �Master Wayland, you carried much of your team�s weight, but you also failed to eliminate either member of the opposing team. Your general combat prowess was above average, but you were not able to apply it in a way that neutralized your enemies. You receive a �C-�. �

�Miss Cadence, you might have rivaled Miss Callahan if you were able to fight properly. You made a choice to fight in spite of your disadvantages � and it was the wrong choice. You were not ready. You will also receive a �D�, which is lower than what I would have given you if you had chosen to withdraw from the test. This is not low enough to expel you from the class, but one more of them would be. We will conclude the final exams with a second battle of this type next week. I will offer you a similar choice. I hope that next time, you will make the correct decision for your circumstances.�

�That is all. I have more teams to observe, so there will be no questions today. You may come with questions next week, before your second matches. Your next opponents will be better prepared. You should ensure that you are as well.�

And with that, Teft spun on his heels and left the room.

Sera managed to make it home before she cried.

After Sera rushed up to her room, the rest of us sat down in the main living area.

Derek was reading a book when we arrived. �Huh, she�s in a hurry. Something happen?�

We explained the situation.

�I could punch Teft for her?� Derek offered, helpful as usual.

�No, Derek, I suspect that would only complicate things further.� I shook my head. �And she doesn�t blame him, anyway. She blames herself � probably mostly for dragging Patrick�s score down.�

�Aw, it�s not that big of a deal.� Patrick waved a hand dismissively. �We�ll just do better next week.�

�She won�t see it that way.�

Patrick shrugged. �She�s a great student, though. Always has been. Even if we get kicked out of this class, we can still graduate. It�s an elective.�

�Just graduating would never be good enough. And if she caused someone else to fail a class, I don�t think she�d ever forgive herself.�

Patrick laughed. �She did fine. You guys just did better.� He stretched his arm. �Mara, you�ve got a mean punch.�

�At least you had a shield to help with that. That lightning aura went right through me.� She shivered. �Maybe less of that for sparrin� in the future?�

He blinked. �Oh, sure. Didn�t realize it would hurt that much.�

Derek leaned over. �New lesson, Patrick. Lightning hurts people. Considerably.�

Patrick scratched behind his head sheepishly. �I�ll keep that in mind.�

�Was a good trick, though. Almost had me.� Marissa grinned.

�Uh, thanks?� Patrick blushed a little. �Right, uh, back to Sera, though. Corin, you should go talk to her.�

I pointed at myself. �Me?�

�Uh, yeah? Obviously? You�re her brother.�

�Sure, but I also was on the team that just beat her.�

�All the more reason you should talk to her,� Derek offered. �If you�re right about how she thinks, seeing Patrick again will probably just make her feel worse.�

Maybe, or maybe it would help if Patrick told her he didn�t care. Eh.

Either way, I was overruled, so I stood up. �Fine, fine. I�ll go talk to her.�

I headed up to Sera�s room. The door was closed, so I knocked.

She didn�t answer, but I could hear her quietly sobbing inside. And coughing a little, too.

�Sera, it�s Corin. Can I come in?�

I knew she couldn�t verbally tell me to go away, so I was making things a little awkward. Eventually, she opened the door, still wiping her eyes.

I offered her a handkerchief, which she accepted and used to wipe her face and nose more effectively. Then she put on a stronger face, folded her arms, and stared at me expectantly.

�Can I come in?�

She stared a little harder. She wasn�t going to make this easy.

�Sorry, Sera. I�m no good at this. I�ve never been good with�emotional stuff in general.� I paused for a moment. �Not really sure what to say. You fought fine back there. Would have beaten us hard if you had your spells, and it�s not your fault you lost them. You saved our lives back in that tower. No question. We�d be dead if you hadn�t summoned Seiryu.�

Sera turned her head away, letting out a sigh.

�I mean it. And I know you�re suffering right now, but it�s not your fault, and we will find a way to fix this. It doesn�t sound easy, but I�ve already been doing some research, like I said earlier.�

That got her to turn her head back toward me, tilting her head up to meet my eyes. Then she twisted her lips, turned, and gestured for me to come into her room.

�Thanks.�

I came in and sat down on a chair next to her bed. �You want to hear about what I�ve found?�

Sera sat down on her bed, wiping her nose again.

�Okay. I�ll fill you in.�

I summarized everything the Researcher had told me about her situation.

�So, I�ll read the book about the mountain. If I think I can handle it, we�ll go ourselves. If it sounds too dangerous, I can ask Keras or Derek to handle it. If the flower doesn�t work, we can look into some of the other treatments she mentioned. Since my new attunement involves life mana, I might even be able to learn healing magic myself eventually and treat it directly. I�ll start looking into that.�

She listened patiently, but got up when I�d finished and grabbed a sheet of paper to write a reply.

I got uncharacteristically overzealous about my new enchanting prospects, making crystal after crystal until my hand was throbbing and my temples were searing.

When I was done, I checked my mana with my mana watch. My hand registered at 14/82 and my Enchanting attunement was down to 18/50. That was much lower than I was used to going, even while focusing on deliberately exercising. The excitement helped me push past my fear, at least to a point.

My reward was a table littered with crystals. Mostly gray, but some transference mana and some mental mana.

They weren�t worth much, but I was getting better in two ways. First, I was getting used to making them without the shells. Second, I�d been focusing on making the new ones at progressively higher levels of density. My original crystals weren�t even a full point of mana, but my latest ones each held about three mana each.

That still was less than a Class 1 mana gem, but I was getting there. And I was confident I could get even further with practice.

Not bad at all for a day of work.

As excited as I was, though, I still didn�t have anything to give as a suitable gift. I went downstairs to talk to everyone, which was the point when I realized that it was the middle of the night.

Oops.

I wasn�t quite alone, though.

I found a familiar figure sitting next to the fireplace, reading a book. He looked up as I approached. �Ah, Master Cadence. I was wondering if you would bother to make an appearance this evening.�

I blinked. �Lord�Teft? What are you doing here?�

He waved to offer me a chair across from his. �Playing the role of your guardian for the evening, it would seem.�

I frowned, taking a seat and folding my arms. �I seem to have acquired quite a few of those recently.�

�You have made yourself a figure of some significance, but lack the power necessary to defend yourself adequately.� Teft raised a hand to silence any objections.

�I did not say that you lack skill. You are young yet, and your magic will grow over time. But the circumstances you have found yourself in are dangerous � that can no longer be in any doubt. I do not expect that anyone would be foolish enough to strike at you in the heart of Master Hartigan�s home, but it is wise to be prepared.�

I sighed. I couldn�t entirely disagree. �Preparations are fine, but I suspect that Derek and Keras are quite enough for any threats that might emerge.�

�Ah, is that who the man in the masquerade mask was? I suspected from your prior description, but I was uncertain. Nay, the pair of them left somewhat earlier, and will not be returning this eve. Thus, I am here. Much to our mutual dismay, I�m certain.�

I was a bit surprised by that. �Gone? Where? To the tower?�

�I would prefer that in some senses, even if I would disapprove of going with only two people. Nay, it is far worse. They have gone to a place of ill repute.�

I blinked. �What?� Like a brothel?�

He shook his head and waved a hand dismissively. �No, no. Although I have little doubt such services are offered, such would be positively mundane compared to the depths of depravity where they have gone. It is a place representing the worst of our society. Dark dealings, gambling, and all forms of excess.� After a brief pause, he clasped his hands dramatically, �A casino.�

I�d heard of casinos, but I�d never been to one. They sounded rather entertaining. I had a number of questions, but the first one was simple enough. �Why?�

�It would seem that Master Hartigan has gotten it into his head that reputable sources of information are insufficient for his investigations. And thus, he turns to those who would sell anything for the right price, information being one service of many.� Teft lowered his head. He looked tired, as well as disapproving.

�You look like a casino just killed your favorite dog. What�s the problem? Those two can take care of themselves, if you�re worried about them.�

Teft sighed. �In body, I am certain they can fend for themselves. Derek is a master swordsman, and if the one accompanying him is Keras Selyrian, I am certain that even the cutthroats in that place would give him a wide berth. I am more concerned for their health in other respects. In mind, and of spirit.�

Spirit? Derek had mentioned that Teft was devout, but I didn�t see what the problem with this place was. �In what way? I thought the goddess approved of gambling. Isn�t going into the spire essentially gambling in itself?�

Teft shook his head. �I would not compare the spire to mere secular gambling, but it is true that the goddess favors games of both chance and skill. No, the distinction is that the goddess is fair. The casino is designed to be unfair. Therein, Derek and Keras will be tempted, and when they are at their weakest, exploited. It is dishonesty in business form.�

That sounded kind of fun. I mean, Teft clearly thought the whole concept was awful, but I liked the idea of testing myself against their rigged games. The intoxication and other forms of temptation I could do without.

I raised a hand to my chin. �So, I take it you don�t want to head over there, then?�

Teft stared me in the eyes. �I know you�re jesting, but no. I most certainly do not.�

I chuckled. �Fine, fine. I�ll let them have the fun this time. But that still doesn�t tell me why you are here.�

Teft�s jaw tensed into an uncharacteristic look. Frustration? Dismay, maybe? �I have made mistakes. I consider this the first of many steps to make amends for them.�

�You mean like making Sera fight when she clearly was still injured?�

He shook his head. �I make no apologies for that. I offered her a fair choice. That is more than she would be given on the battlefield.�

�But we�re not on a battlefield, and surely you�re aware it came across as a false choice.�

�Only because there are too many fools who do not realize that retreat is a valid option. At times, it is the best option. I do not fault Miss Cadence for fighting, of course. I respect her tenacity, and she performed better than I expected, given her disadvantages. But she was not �better� by a sufficient margin to overcome her disadvantage, and thus, she failed.�

�It still wasn�t very kind of you.�

�If you think that training for battle should be about kindness, you are more of a fool than I realized.�

I pushed myself up from the chair, glaring down at Teft. �Really? Turning to insults? I suppose I shouldn�t be surprised, given that attacking students seems to be the only thing you�re good at. It�s fortunate that we haven�t actually been attacked tonight, because you�re certainly not capable of defending them.�

Teft stood as well, returning my stare. �Perhaps you are right. I deserve your ridicule for allowing you into that battle outside the tower, and more so for allowing Derek to take my place in the aftermath. But if I seem harsh, Master Cadence, that is because I am seeking to prepare you for what is coming. And in war, there will be no one to coddle you, or any other child.�

�Oh, I believe you. I�ve heard the same thing from my father for years. You two are quite a lot alike.�

Teft actually winced when I said that. I hadn�t expected to hit a nerve with that, but I certainly wasn�t going to complain.

And, given that he was startled enough that he didn�t reply immediately, I took that as a chance to make my dramatic exit, and headed back toward my room to sleep.

When I woke up in the morning, I could hear a group gathered downstairs. I hadn�t slept well, mostly as a consequence of the pain from overworking both of my attunements.

Fortunately, Derek was wealthy enough that his washrooms had bathtubs that generated their own hot and cold water. We�d had just one of them at home, so I knew how to activate the runes to change the temperature. I settled on hot, which helped chase away some of the lingering pain.

I inspected the runes on the side of the tub as I bathed, but I wasn�t awake enough to remember them very well.

After I finished bathing and getting dressed, I checked my mana. It registered at 84/84 for my Arbiter attunement and 52/52 for my Enchanter attunement.

So, two points for each.

That was fantastic progress for one day of work, comparable to what I�d gotten after the fight outside of the tower. Unfortunately, it had taken most of the day, and I was still exhausted from the effort. I planned to keep pushing myself to increase in strength quickly, but I�d have to figure out a way to make it more efficient.

Transferring my mana into runes is much faster than trying to form crystals, so that would reduce the time it takes to drain my mana reserves � and it would give me more time to recover. Presumably, using my Arbiter attunement to transfer mana directly into someone will work similarly� I should test that out soon.

It was Kyrsday, so I only had two classes: Understanding Attunements and Physical Combat.

The latter was less exciting than it sounded, since it ended up being more about exercise and general weapon familiarity than direct combat. We practiced dueling cane usage, basic sword strokes, and footwork more than anything else. Occasionally, we had a class dedicated to another weapon, such as bows or spears � mostly with the goal of learning how to counter them.

The Valian military used a mixture of firearms and dueling canes, with sabers as side arms for close combat engagements. Up to that point, we�d only been given a single lesson with firearms � we�d focus on them more the following year.

Physical Combat was one of the few classes where I was toward the top in performance. I couldn�t hope to match up against Guardians, but my years of training with my father had gotten me into excellent shape.

I can skip both classes today if I need more time to work on a gift for Sheridan, but I need to be careful.

I can�t miss my classes often. My grades are fine, but graduating is still extremely important. I can�t afford to get set back a year or sent off to some obscure military assignment.

I�ll see how the morning goes and hit Understanding Attunements in the afternoon if I have time.

With that in mind, I headed downstairs.

Everyone was gathered for breakfast, minus Teft. I didn�t know if he�d left or if he was just sleeping somewhere, given how late he�d been up.

Patrick waved excitedly at me as I headed into the dining room. �Corin! You�re awake!�

I waved sleepily in return. �For certain values of �awake�, yeah. Strange seeing everyone here at once. What�s the event?�

Patrick waved for me to take a seat next to him. I obliged. �We were waiting for you. Not too long, don�t worry. Derek has news!�

Taking the opening, Derek leaned forward across his spot at the table. �I think Orden�s conspiracy made their next move. Or moves, as the case may be.�

�What do you mean?�

Sera passed an empty plate to Marissa, who passed it on to me. I accepted it and began to load the plate from the dishes on the dining table � eggs cooked with bacon, a couple sausages, cooked carrots, and a muffin.

I wasn�t sure who cooked all of it, but at the moment, I was too famished to care. I tore into the breakfast with abandon while I listened to Derek.

�I�d been hearing some dark rumors about happenings in other countries, and I decided to look into it further. Last night, Keras and I went to The Golden Run to meet with a few old friends of mine. We learned a few things that are, well, concerning.�

�Such as?� I asked, while Patrick poured me a drink and handed it over. I nodded to him gratefully.

Derek�s expression took a turn for the serious, which was never a good sign. �Only hours after we left the Shifting Spire, someone detonated an explosive device in the Grand Cathedral in Dalenos. Dozens were killed, and hundreds injured.�

I had to put my fork down to pause and process that. �The Grand Cathedral? Isn�t that one of their biggest centers of worship?�

�It is. Or, rather, it was. The place was devastated. There�s talk that Katashi�s Hierophant may have been killed in the explosion, but I haven�t been able to confirm that.�

I winced. �That can�t be good. With Tenjin missing, Katashi was already inches from leveling Valia.� I paused, processing that. �Which was probably deliberate. You think someone is trying to force Katashi�s hand?�

�Definitely. Could be the same group that Orden was working with, could be someone else being opportunistic. Either way, the longer Tenjin is missing, the more this situation has a chance to escalate. I was hoping that with Orden captured, Katashi would have enough information to find his brother and resolve this himself��

I understood where Derek was going. �But if someone just attacked a major temple in Katashi�s home region, he�s probably going to need to deal with that.�

�Right. And there�s more to it. Two more temples have been attacked in the last few days, and three other government buildings. There have been a few people arrested, but the attacks haven�t stopped. They most likely have organized leadership, and I suspect this is just an opening move.�

Patrick had a thoughtful expression. �For what goal?�

Derek grimaced. �A few possibilities there. Orden mentioned protecting Valia as a goal. By drawing Katashi�s attention back to Dalenos, the people who were working with her might minimize the damage to our country. There are all sorts of other longer-term goals that could be behind this, though. Weakening specific countries to allow for an invasion from another force, such as Edria or Caelford, for example.�

I had another hypothesis, but I didn�t say it aloud. It was pure speculation at this point, and I didn�t want to raise any more alarms.

�So many people,� Marissa mumbled. �It�s terrible.�

I hadn�t even been thinking about that, in truth. I agreed with her, of course, but my mind was elsewhere.

Tristan, what are you planning?

Derek was right. If Tristan and his organization were behind this, they�d have a longer-term plan of some kind.

I glanced at Sera, saw her calculating expression, and knew she was contemplating possibilities like I was.

Keras turned his head toward Marissa. He�d been silent up to this point, his expression neutral. �It�s unconscionable. And we intend to put a stop to it, but for that, we need to find the source.�

Derek nodded. �Right. And we were planning to do just that, so Keras and I headed straight to the spire after we were done at the casino.�

That drew a series of blank stares. Marissa was the one who spoke up. �Just yerselves?�

�Either one of us could handle the first twenty or so floors on our own without much difficulty, and we were only planning to check the first few floors for clues. The plan was to try to find the spot where Tenjin was captured, and see if we could find any blood or other clues. Unfortunately, that wasn�t the problem. Someone has sealed the spire entirely. It�s impossible to get in or out.�

Several pairs of eyes turned toward me. I opened my hands in a gesture of surrender. �You think Tristan sealed the spire somehow?�

Derek shook his head. �Not exactly. I think Tristan is one of the people involved, though, and he might be the easiest to find to get some answers. The other possibility is that Katashi sealed the spire himself to prevent any further interference to his own investigation. We don�t have a good way to contact him to ask, however, nor would he necessarily respond even if we did.�

�Do you have a way of finding Tristan?�

I had the book, but that was just a way of sending messages. I�d considered the possibility that it might be used to trace his location in the same way he seemed to be tracking me, but I didn�t know how to do it.

And I hadn�t told everyone about the book yet. I wasn�t quite sure if I wanted to.

�If you�d be willing to give us a sample of your blood, I think we could use it to locate Tristan.�

I folded my arms. �The spire blocks most forms of divination, even for people inside. That was one of the first things we checked when Tristan disappeared. People try to locate lost loved ones in the spire all the time, it doesn�t work.�

�True, under normal circumstances. But certain people are given the ability to circumvent that in order to do their jobs properly. Using it for personal gain is, of course, strictly forbidden.�

My eyes narrowed. �You�re talking about Whispers.�

�Yes, or other groups in the service of the visages. I believe that given the dire nature of the situation, we could find someone who would agree to help us.�

I wonder if there�s any chance Arbiters are on the list of people that can use detection magic inside the spires? It would make a degree of sense, since it�s an attunement that the visages give out directly, and we�re supposed to be some kind of assistants to the visages.

I can�t count on it, but I can try to learn an information gathering spell or two and test them next time I�m inside the spire.

In the meantime, I�ll need to look into other options.

I took a drink, pondering. �Orden was a Whisper. Tristan was, or is, a Whisper. How would we know if any given member of their organization is working with Tristan?�

�I don�t think we could decisively prove someone�s allegiance, but I have a few ideas for people Tristan and Orden might not have been willing to work with. Either due to ideological differences or personal ones.�

I turned toward Keras. �What about your magic? Would the tower block it?�

He shrugged. �I�ve never learned any dominion sorcery for information gathering. If my friends were here�� He shook his head. �But they�re not. And I�m honestly not sure it would work, either way. Whoever made these towers was familiar with my style of magic, they may have taken precautions.�

That was an interesting statement, but before I got a chance to follow it up with more questions, Derek spoke again. �I think I know someone who could do it, but I�d need Corin to agree to help first, and it could take a while for me to track them down. Probably a few months, at least. They were in Caelford, last I checked.�

I glanced to my right.

Sera gave me a curt nod.

I turned back to Derek. �I�ll do it. But under one condition.�

Derek grinned. �You want to come with us when we enter the spire, I assume?�

I twisted my lips into a frown. �Am I really that predictable?�

I tried not to wince at the chorus of chuckles that followed.

�I�ve talked to Keras about it, and it would be dangerous, but there are enough advantages that we�re willing to take you along. Even if we can get a divination spell to work from outside of the spire, it�s not going to give us enough to find Tristan, especially if he�s moving. If you�re with us, we can have the diviner cast the spell any time to get his current location. And if we do find Tristan, you�re the most likely to be able to talk him into cooperating.� He paused. �It�s also possible you could talk Katashi down if he gets angry at us for investigating this on our own.�

I wasn�t exactly sure that was true, but I wasn�t going to disagree with arguments that supported taking me along. �Okay, but you just said the spire was sealed. How are we getting in?�

Derek shook his head. �We�ll probably have to wait. Keras thinks he might know an alternate way in, but he�s going to have to get in contact with a friend. Use this time to prepare as heavily as you can, but be ready to go any day. If that spire opens up, I want to be able to jump in there within hours. I�ll be working to have a full team ready to go.�

�Okay. As for a team, I�d like to take��

Derek waved a hand. �No other novices.� He raised both hands defensively to ward off the ensuing glares from my classmates. �It�s nothing personal, but even bringing one Carnelian along for something like this is a tremendous risk. We�re effectively losing two slots to bring Corin, because someone is going to have to protect him full-time. We�re going to take a balanced team of veterans, all Citrine or higher. This is not negotiable.�

Sera looked like she wanted to argue, but when she opened up her mouth, no words escaped. She settled with a frown.

Patrick spoke where she couldn�t, though. �Isn�t it more important to bring people you can trust in there? You don�t know who might be working with the bad guys.�

Derek shrugged a shoulder. �I�ve been climbing for years, Patrick. I know a lot of other climbers better than I know any of you. I can put a good group together. If it�s any consolation, I�ll probably be bringing Teft, and you know him.�

There was a round of confused blinking.

Patrick replied first. �Teft? Seriously? You think that makes us more comfortable? That guy is a jerk.�

I turned to Patrick. �No, it makes sense. I might not like his personality, but he�s already involved, and we can be reasonably confident he�s wasn�t working with Orden. If he was, she would have brought him into the spire with us. He�s Citrine-level, and he�s got an excellent attunement for fighting.� I paused. �Moreover, someone needs to sign the paperwork for me to be able to get back in the spire.�

�I hadn�t even considered that,� Derek admitted. �You�re right, a student isn�t getting in there without a teacher to escort them. Even then, going in with a full group of climbers is going to look a little strange, but we can probably make it work.�

I nodded. �So, that�s you, me, maybe Teft� I assume Keras?�

�I�ll be there. I intend to see this through, and I�m supposed to be watching over you.� Keras gestured at his eyes, then at me. If that was supposed to feel reassuring, it certainly didn�t.

�I will most likely ask Sheridan, but it depends on how they behave during the meeting tomorrow. I�m reasonably confident they weren�t working with Elora when I investigated months ago, but that could have changed. I�ll pry a bit, see if I can pull any secrets loose.�

�You could ask Professor Meltlake instead of Teft!� Patrick grinned at his own idea. �She�d be amazing!�

Derek rolled his eyes. �No, I will not be bringing Aunt Meltlake with me into the tower. Powerful or not, I�d never be able to stand her lecturing.�

�Aunt Meltlake?� Patrick sounded as confused as I felt.

�She�s my mother�s half-sister, and a Hartigan by birth. And she�s just as irritating as any member of my mother�s family, I assure you.�

Huh. I suppose that made a degree of sense, given House Hartigan�s reputation for powerful offensive magic in general.

Maybe I�d change my own name at some point, if I did something as amazing as evaporating a lake in a duel.

�Regardless,� Derek continued, �Aunt Meltlake is well past her prime. I�d prefer to bring people who have been in the tower recently. I have a list of names to check with. I expect to have a team assembled within a week or two, just to be on standby. The real problem is getting a Diviner with spells that can track people inside the spire, but I�ll get that sorted out eventually.� He turned to me. �Depending on how high Tristan is in there, we could be inside for weeks. You should start putting together equipment with that in mind.�

I nodded. �I don�t suppose you have extra magical items you could loan me for the trip, given how dangerous this could be?�

Derek seemed to consider that. �I�ll see what I can put together. My resources aren�t what they once were. You might have better luck with Keras.�

Keras shook his head. �I tend to travel light. Most items don�t work very well for me. I have a cache of equipment I�ve picked up from my various adventures, but it�s in Caelford.�

�Why won�t items work fer you?� Marissa sounded curious, and she was watching Keras intently.

�It has to do with my aura, or I suppose you�d call it a shroud. It�s not gray mana like yours, and it has a tendency to interfere with items. Only powerful ones, like my sword and mask or the Jaden Box�� He paused, blinking. �Hey, Corin. How full was the box when you got it?�

I tilted my head to the side. �Full?�

Keras grinned. �If you�re lucky, we might not have as much of a shortage as I thought. Toss me the box?�

I didn�t have it on me. �Hold on, I�ll go get it.�

I headed upstairs, bringing the box back down. I was hesitant to hand it to Keras � he clearly wanted it for his own reasons � but he could have taken it from me by force at any time if he wanted to.

I handed it to him.

�This should be fun. I need to make some space.�

He went and sat down on the floor in the middle of the room, setting the box down in front of him. �Retrieve: All Items.�

A moment later, Keras was surrounded by�stuff.

All sorts of stuff.

At a glance, I saw dozens of weapons, at least two full suits of armor, several bags of various sizes, and dozens of bottles and vials. There must have been hundreds of pounds of equipment in total.

�Oh, Wrynn, you beautiful thing.� Keras lifted up a potion filled with red fluid and kissed the side of it, then opened the top of the box and put the potion down inside. It didn�t fit, completely, but� �Store Superior Healing Potion.�

The potion vanished.

I broke down in laughter, so hard I nearly cried.

I had taken a magic box filled with items into the tower, and I�d never even tried to get them out. I hadn�t even checked.

True, I probably wouldn�t have known there was a way to simply empty everything out � that wasn�t in the documentation � but checking for a healing potion? That wasn�t out of the question.

I might have been able to save Vera without making a magic rock, or maybe found a better solution to any number of other situations.

I turned to Keras. �That kind of potion wouldn�t help Sera, would it?�

He shook his head. �No, it�s just for wounds. Don�t think it would do anything for the kind of mana scarring she has.�

I nodded. I expected that, but it was good to check. His magic was functionally distinct from what I was used to, so I didn�t want to assume that �healing potion� meant the same thing to him that it did to me.

Keras lifted up a glimmering dagger etched with runes, turning it over in his hands with genuine fondness. �I remember you.� He gingerly put the hilt into the box. �Store: Silverbrand.�

The dagger vanished. He turned his head to me. �Most of this is mundane,� he gestured at a full backpack that had appeared at his side, �But there are a few things that might interest you. And moreover, it�s a good way to keep a whole bunch of non-magical supplies without having to worry about the weight.�

Another thing I hadn�t considered. �What�s the maximum capacity?�

�Not sure, exactly. It�ll just stop storing when it gets there, though, so you don�t have to worry about it too much.�

Keras patted a hand on the ground next to him. �Come help me organize this when you�re done eating, and we�ll see what we can find.�

It wasn�t long before all of us, even Derek, were sitting on the floor and shifting around mysterious items with legitimate excitement.

Sera, who had already brought paper downstairs to aid in her communication, started working on a catalogue of everything we found in the box and the words we were using to store them. It would be a useful reference, because Wrynn had stored a lot of stuff.

I dug through piles of equipment, searching for anything that interested me. There were coins, flasks, potion bottles� even a few entire bars of metal.

She also had a surprising number of flowers. Either she was the sentimental type or an alchemist. Possibly both. Based on the fact that most of them were either bound in bundles or inside labeled vials, I was guessing the latter.

Perhaps more interesting, the labels on those vials were in a foreign language. It looked almost like one of the two lettering systems they used in Dalenos, but not quite. I showed a vial to Keras. �Can you read his?�

He lifted it. �Hm? Oh, sure. It�s in Liadran. Just says �aldenleaf, five units�.�

�Huh.� I put the vial down. I hadn�t heard of that language. Maybe I could ask him more about it later, but I had a higher priority for the moment.

I shifted on my attunement, searching through the piles for anything that glowed with magic. I found a handful of items that glowed, but it was hard to tell how powerful they were. Much like Keras, many of them had auras that didn�t seem to fit into the standard color framework.

A hand-mirror glowed purple. A necklace had a turquoise glow that rippled like waves.

I considered the possibility that purple was simply higher on the color scale than even Sapphire. While that was possible, I suspected these items simply had auras that didn�t work the same way. It wasn�t impossible; Keras was one precedent for it, and I�d also seen elemental auras that glowed with the color of the element, rather than a representation of the item�s power.

Maybe that was what was going on here?

A couple rings and what looked like a hairpin had more conventional yellow auras, but I still couldn�t be sure they were Citrine items. They had some runes etched into them, but I wasn�t familiar with any of the ones that I saw.

There were three more daggers that had magical glows � apparently, Wrynn Jaden liked daggers. One had a lime green aura, the second was crimson, and the third one glowed black. I didn�t even want to touch that one. I didn�t know what a black aura meant, but it didn�t sound good.

I warned the others, of course.

The last glowing item I found was an earring that glowed with a soft white hue, almost transparent. Keras gasped aloud when he saw it.

�Let me see that.� He gestured, and I handed the earring over. Keras turned it over in his fingers reverently. �I should have asked you to open the box sooner.�

I tilted my head to the side. �I take it that thing is powerful?�

�No. Probably the weakest item in the bunch in terms of raw power. But it�s the most important, at least to me.�

I raised an eyebrow. �Sentimental value?�

�No, practical. Did you see a second one?�

I shook my head. �Nope.�

�Good. This is part of a matched set. They�re designed to allow communication with each other.� He raised it to an eye, then hovered it next to his ear. �But I don�t think it�s active.�

Marissa leaned over. �Yer lady friend leave that for you, then?�

He nodded. �Not for me, necessarily, but I�d be one of the ones to know how to use it. I thought it was unusual that Wrynn left the box behind. It�s useful, as I�m sure you can see, and she rarely parts with it. This might help explain what she was up to.�

I frowned at that. �Seems too circuitous. How�d she know you, or whoever she wanted to get the box, would end up with it?�

�Sorry, I phrased that poorly. I don�t think she abandoned the box so that someone would find the earring. That wouldn�t work.�

Keras paused, seemingly considering how to explain. �I think she left the box for some other reason, and if I can get this to work, it might help tell me why. It uses sound magic. Maybe she kept the other earring, or maybe she even stored a message inside. Problem is, one of our other friends made this, not me. And she made lots of them � with different passwords.�

�As interesting as that is,� Derek cut in, �Is it useful to us right now? We have a short time to come up with a gift for Deni, and I�m seeing some prime candidates here, assuming any of it is useful.�

Keras closed his hand around the earring. �This is personally valuable to me, but it would have no use as a gift. There are plenty of communication items in your magic shops. As for the other items, none of them belong to you. They belong to Wrynn.�

Derek shrugged. �Provided she�s still alive. Death would be the simplest explanation for why she doesn�t have the box, yes?�

Keras gave Derek a sharp look. �Simplest, but not the most likely. When last we met, Wrynn was about my equal in a fight, and vastly more flexible. I�d give her better than even odds against one of your visages. It would take a great many enemies to threaten her.�

�Or the rigors of age.� Derek started to lean down toward one of the daggers. Marissa smacked his hand away.

�Yer bein� a jerk, m�lord.�

I tensed for a moment � I didn�t know if Derek was going to take being insulted in his own home well � but fortunately, he just laughed.

�Oh, Keras knows I�m just teasing.�

Keras continued to glare.

Derek made a forced smile. �Well, regardless of Wrynn Jaden�s status, I think a bit of pragmatism might be appropriate here. She abandoned this years ago. Clearly she couldn�t need the contents that badly.�

I turned my head to Keras. �Derek has a point. We probably need these items a great deal more than she does right now. Not even necessarily for gifts. If we�re going to the tower and these might be useful��

Keras closed his eyes, then shook his head a moment later. �Very well. I recognize most of these, and I can tell you what those do. For the ones I don�t recognize, we�ll need someone to identify them.�

�I can arrange for a Diviner to visit,� Derek chimed in happily.

�Once we�ve determined the functions, I will loan some of these items out, with the understanding that they all belong to Wrynn. If we end up trading something as a gift to this Sheridan to heal Sera,� he turned his head toward Sera. �Sera will owe me something comparable to pay Wrynn back.�

Sera gave a curt nod.

�Good.� He turned to Derek. �Similarly, if any loaned items are broken or go missing, I�ll expect them to be replaced.�

�That�s quite acceptable. And, for what it�s worth, I have quite a trove of items myself from my climbing days. They�re not all here, of course, but I have a few things lying about that might interest you. Perhaps we can arrange for some trades?�

�I will consider it. I have some idea of which items Wrynn would be more willing to part with, but I don�t wish to presume too much on her behalf.�

�Fine, fine. For now, tell us what you know?�

Keras nodded and sat down next to the magic items pile.

He picked up one of the daggers first. It had a wavy blade, the kind I�d always associated with dark rituals in old stage plays. �Couple of Wrynn�s backup weapons here. This is a nasty one. Makes its own poison.�

Keras set it back down, picking up the second one. �Don�t recognize this one. I can sense a connection with the Dominion of Flame, though.�

�How does that work?� I considered my question, then added, �I mean, your sense. I didn�t think you could see auras.�

�I can�t.� Keras put the dagger down. �But I can feel some of them, especially for types of mana I�m familiar with. The sensation varies based on the specific type of mana. I can feel warmth from the dagger, even when I�m not touching it, and I know it�s not physically that hot. My aura is sensing the flame inside and sending me a signal, which feels like heat.�

�That�s not all that different from how I can sense auras,� Derek added. �Many attuned with hand or leg attunements eventually develop a sense like that. But we can�t sense the mana from anything unless it�s inside our shrouds.�

Patrick moved over to sit next to Keras. �Uh, I don�t want to presume, but if that�s a fire dagger, is there any chance I might be able to borrow it? You know, just for a little while?�

�You�re an Elementalist, correct?�

Patrick nodded in reply.

�No, not this, then. None of the daggers.�

Patrick looked like Keras had just thrown those daggers at a puppy. ��Oh, okay. Sorry, I guess.�

�You don�t want a dagger as an Elementalist, unless it�s a last resort. Don�t want you thinking about one of these as an option. In a real fight, if someone gets that close, they�re more likely to use it against you than you are to use it to your advantage. You want something with range. Either a true ranged weapon, like a bow, or something with physical reach.�

Patrick looked back up. ��But we don�t have anything like that, do we?�

�Not in Wrynn�s pile, no. But these spires seem to have magic weapons all over the place.�

�Yeah, I guess. Just not sure I�ll make it far enough in the year to get back in there.�

Keras frowned. �Is this academy that difficult?�

Marissa jumped in. �Quite a difficult one, m�lord Keras. Very few make it to the second year, and fewer still graduate.�

That was�a bit of an exaggeration, but it wasn�t going to make me look any worse, so I didn�t correct it.

Keras nodded thoughtfully. �All right, so you need an edge. I have some extra weapons, but they�re not in Valia. Maybe I could bring you one before the end of the year, if there�s time.�

I thought about that. �Keras, we were talking about trying to enchant something for Deni together before. Maybe we could practice by trying to enchant a weapon for Patrick?�

Keras turned to look at me, then to Patrick, taking in Patrick�s wide-eyed look of hope. �Sure, sure. I can see this means a lot to you.�

I considered options. �I have a saber I enchanted with some basic transference sorcery that we could work on improving?�

�I have a tougher time working with things that are already enchanted. Too much of a risk that I�d damage them. But I�ve got another idea. Sera, pass me the silver bar next to you.�

Sera found a silvery-looking bar in the stack of metal bars and passed it over. I�d just�assumed that it was made out of something more mundane, like a type of steel. A silver bar was worth a relative fortune.

Another glance told me that there weren�t any bars of gold, sadly.

Keras turned the bar over in his hands, feeling the weight. �This should do.� He glanced over at me. �Corin, you wanted to see some of my type of sorcery. Watch and learn.�

As I watched, I realized he wasn�t just flipping the bar over.

He was rolling it between his hands. Reshaping it, like flour dough.

The metal rippled in his hands, never fully turning to liquid, but shimmering enough that it looked almost gelatinous.

Marissa�s jaw dropped wide open as she processed the same thing that I was.

He moved his hands again, laying the bar on the floor, and took two fingers to draw a portion of it downward.

He plunged his fingers into the metal, piercing it without resistance, and pulled sections to the side.

He was making a hilt.

Derek leaned closer. �Silver? Pretty, but isn�t that a bit impractical for a weapon? It�ll break almost as easily as you�re molding it.�

�This is only the first part.� Keras continued to weave the metal between his fingers, beginning to roll the bottom section of the bar into a cylindrical shape between his hands. �When I�m finished, it won�t be silver. It won�t be steel, either. It will be something greater.�

His hands moved the material easily, but the work continued for minutes. It was probably close to an hour before he finished. Not one of us looked away.

I knew of metal magic. The God Beast of Dalenos was associated with the metal element, and I�d heard of a Forgemaster attunement that could use metal magic.

I�d never heard of anything like this. I�d never dreamed of anyone working metal with such ease.

Keras had the basic shape of a hilt in minutes, but he worked with diligence, hardening some sections while he made others pliable. When the pommel was complete, he traced runes in the air, which burned into the metal. Each letter was only the thickness of a fingernail, and he fit dozens upon the surface.

It was when Keras was sculpting the crossguard that a look of recognition crossed Patrick�s face and he uttered a word in wonder. �Dawnbringer.�

Keras turned to Patrick with an expression of surprise. �You recognize her?�

Patrick nodded reverently. �I�ve read about the Six Sacred Swords since I was a child. I know this isn�t the real thing, but even seeing something that looks like one of them�it�s beautiful.�

Keras grinned. �I�m not done yet. Pass me three of Wrynn�s gold regals � those are the coins with the holes in the center.�

Sera passed the coins over, and Keras turned them over in his hand. �Make that five total. Pass me two more.�

As Sera moved to comply, Keras began to roll the gold coins in his hands. He was making them into round sections like he�d done with the handle, but he made them much thinner.

He�s making wire, I realized. He didn�t wrap the wire around the grip like I�d expected, though. He started pressing it against the silver of the crossguard, then weaving it through the silvery metal like thread.

Keras was drawing letters in a golden script, stretching the writing across the full surface. I couldn�t read a word of it, but it looked like yet another language. Maybe it was another form of runes, but I�d never seen runes interconnected in a cursive format like this writing was.

Either way, the result was beautiful. I�d never been one for the aesthetics of a weapon, but the gold-on-silver was a good look, and there was something ephemerally pleasing about how Keras was weaving it.

It was beautiful, like the echo of something transcendent. Something lost.

Keras turned his head toward the metal pile. �I�ll need another of the silver bars. It�s time to forge the blade. This will take some time, so feel free to rest or eat if you need to. It�s not going to be that interesting.�

We all stayed, of course.

He folded the metal bar in his hands, flattening it, stretching it into the shape of a blade. Then he folded it over, time and time again, in a process I assumed was some sort of analogue to folding steel for a sword blade. I was no expert blacksmith, but I�d heard of the concept. I didn�t think it applied to silver, but he�d mentioned that the metal would no longer be silver when he was done.

Normally, when faced with new magic, I�d have a million questions.

And I did here, too. In my mind. But I couldn�t bring myself to utter them. Keras didn�t seem to have any difficulty concentrating, but it seemed inappropriate to interrupt. Like stopping a brilliant singer to ask about the meaning of a particular line.

So, I waited, and I watched.

I didn�t forget my questions, of course. I was still me. There would be time for magic theory later.

True to his word, Keras worked for hours on forging the blade. Like with the hilt, he wove gold into the blade, tracing a gleaming wave straight through the center, stopping a few inches from the tip. He mirrored it perfectly on the opposite side.

It had a small protrusion in the bottom that he inserted into the hilt, and when the metal met, it rippled and merged. When he was finished, the weapon looked to be forged of a single piece of metal. There were no cracks, no seams.

When the weapon looked finished, Keras closed his eyes, placing two fingers against the sword�s blade just above the hilt. A single rune burned into the surface, glowing gold.

When his eyes opened, the blade was glowing a faint golden hue.

He turned the weapon over, holding it by the blade, and offered it toward me. �Your turn.�

I accepted the sword by the hilt, staring blankly. I�d been so stunned by the whole process that I�d almost forgotten that we were going to try to combine our sorcery. ��right. Can you tell me what your enchantment does?�

�Nothing other than make it glow, so far. I�ve just opened a connection with it. I also changed the way the metal itself works, but I wouldn�t call that an enchantment. It�s not using mana anymore; I altered the properties of the silver and gold. It�ll be stronger than steel and lighter than silver. I need you to put some mana in there so I can actually have something to work with, and you can also add any additional functions you want.�

I nodded. �I can do that. Let me get my tools.�

I sat the sword down reverently, heading upstairs and retrieving my etching rod.

When I got back, people were having food. I didn�t blame them. Keras had been at it for something like six hours now.

After a few moments of deliberation, I joined everyone else in a dinner break. That gave me some time to think about what I wanted, and to talk to Patrick.

�What do you want this sword to do, Patrick?�

He blinked. �I, uh, don�t know. This is just so�it�s amazing. I never thought I�d actually get a sword like this. I mean, I thought you might enchant something for me, and that�s great and all, but��

I laughed. �Don�t worry. I get it. I�m no Keras � at least not yet. It�s not every day you get a sword forged with ancient magic by�� I glanced at Keras, who was biting into a sandwich. �I still have no idea what you are, Keras.�

�Just me. I hope.� His words could have easily been a joke, but it didn�t sound that way. He sounded�introspective, maybe.

I let the subject drop. He�d tell us more about himself when he was ready.

Besides, he looked ravenous. He was on his third sandwich and showed no sign of slowing down.

I turned back to Patrick. �You said you recognized this as being similar to an existing weapon. Do you want it to be like that?�

�Wow. Uh, yeah, that�d be amazing. If you could do that?�

I shrugged. �Don�t know what it does. I�ve heard of Dawnbringer, but legends often get exaggerated. I sincerely doubt it can burn entire cities with the Dawnfire�s light.�

Keras very nearly choked on his food. ��They say that about Dawn?�

Patrick beamed. �Oh, yeah! Like, there�s this story about how Ishyeal Dawnsglow used it to wipe out an entire legion of monsters that came out of the Tortoise Spire.�

Keras frowned, set his food down, took a drink, and then just stared silently at his plate for a moment.

That was odd.

I tried to pick the conversation back up. �Okay, light powers. I don�t think I can do that. Light mana isn�t something I can use. Keras?�

�Hm? Oh, yeah, light. Sure. I can do light mana, but I can�t actually charge a weapon with mana the way you can. I can�t enchant weapons the way you can in general.�

�What�s that rune on the hilt, then?�

�Something different. It lets me sense the blade and channel mana into it � but not in the way an Enchanter would. I can use it to alter the structure of the mana for the weapon, but if there�s no mana inside, I can�t do anything with it. And I can�t make runes that generate mana like you can.�

Patrick looked thoughtful. �So, it�s like what Derek does with his weapons?�

Derek must have heard his own name and taken it as a signal to jump in. �Not really. I contract with creatures then bind them to weapons, magical weapons or otherwise. It sounds like Keras is more or less binding himself to the weapon?�

Keras nodded. �That�s a good way of putting it. Temporarily, in this case, so I can make modifications after Corin does his part.�

�And you needed to make the bond before I did my part?� I asked.

�I didn�t strictly need to, it�s just that my magic has a tendency to be�damaging. If I have a connection in place before you make the enchantments, it should lower the risk of something going wrong.�

I didn�t quite understand what he meant by his magic being damaging, but he sounded like he was being deliberately vague, so I didn�t press the issue. When I�d seen him fight, his magic was clearly specialized for offense, so maybe it had something to do with that.

I finished eating and brought down my books of runes, thinking it over.

I set the first book down and flipped it open. �Okay, I think I know what we need to do. I�ve never actually done this before, but there are instructions in here for �priming� a rune so that someone else can contribute mana to it. That�s how an enchanter normally makes something like, say, a fire sword, even though he doesn�t have fire mana.�

I traced a rune on the page. �Basically, I draw a rune, then I fill it with a �container� of gray mana. Then the other person channels mana into the rune, and when it hits the capacity of the container, theoretically the rune should activate. The important part is to stop channeling more mana into it when the container is full, otherwise you break the container and bad things happen.�

Derek walked over. �It�s not hard, actually. I�ve helped Enchanters on several occasions. Whoever is contributing the mana to the runes should be able to feel the gray mana straining when you�re reaching the capacity. Just don�t push too much mana in there too fast. When the rune starts to glow, you�re done.�

I was sincerely grateful for that knowledge. This whole thing was sounding a little intimidating. I�d hoped to enchant cooperatively at some point, but this scale was a little bigger than I�d imagined for my first project. �Okay, thank you, Derek. I think what I�m going to do is draw runes for holding light mana, recharging light mana over time, and a maximum capacity for absorbing light mana. That combination of runes is fairly standard.�

�Light and fire,� Keras interjected.

I turned to him. �Light and fire?�

He nodded. �If we�re making this similar to Dawnbringer, her rays use both light and fire. And you�re going to want some enhancement and transference, too.�

�I can do the same thing for those, but just to be clear, these won�t actually do anything other than put mana in the weapon and store it. I�m not sure how to let it do Dawnbringer�s fire attack.�

Keras shook his head. �You won�t have to. Once it has all the right types of mana in it, I should be able to give the weapon the functions it needs.�

I frowned. �I thought you couldn�t make runes on your own, though.�

�That�s what the bond is for. Well, one element of it, anyway. Once there�s mana in there, I can work with it. And, to be clear, I can make runes. They just work somewhat differently.�

Okay, fair enough.

I started flipping through my books, finding all the relevant runes and thinking. �How high of a capacity do you want on these?�

Keras shrugged. �As high as you can go?�

I�d expected that. �Best I can handle is Sunstone, even if I�m just doing the containers. And the containers are only a tiny fraction of the total mana necessary for the enchantment.�

�Can you put multiple containment runes on it for a higher capacity?�

I raised a hand to my lips, considering how best to explain. �Yes, but any individual spell effect can only draw from one capacity rune at a time. That means the strongest spells an item can cast can�t take up more mana than what a single capacity rune would hold. Also, you need a separate recharging rune for each capacity rune, and that gets expensive and time consuming.�

�Okay, that�s good to know. I won�t put any spells on it that take up more than the mana capacity of one container, then. If you can handle the containers, I can handle the rest. We can upgrade the rune to a higher level when you get powerful enough to do that. At that point, I can enhance the sword�s other capabilities.�

�Where should I put the runes?�

Keras pointed at an empty section on the crossguard, just above the grip. �Here. You�re going to use that tool?�

I nodded.

�I�ll make it easier.�

He touched the crossguard. The metal softened.

�That�s a pretty amazing trick.�

With the softened metal, it was easy to etch the runes into the surface. When I was done, Keras waved his hand again, cleaning up any imperfections in my cuts and hardening the metal again.

I was a little jealous. Enchanting would be much easier if I could do that.

But etching was always the easy part, anyway. Now came the hard part.

I checked the exact amount of gray mana necessary to make a container for each rune, then got to work.

And for once, my work was easier than I expected.

Making the containers in the runes was very nearly identical to making a mana crystal, just in a rune shape instead of a prism shape. It was even easier in some respects, since the containers were designed to be hollow and extremely thin.

The total mana requirement for a Sunstone-level container was 7.2 mana, or one fiftieth of a Class 3 mana crystal. I�d only managed to make crystals that held three mana before, but I�d made them in droves without much effort once I�d gotten the hang of it.

This was harder, but within my capabilities. A Citrine-level shell would have been six times more, though, and I didn�t think I had a chance of handling that.

And certainly not twelve of them in a day.

I made six shells, took a break for an hour, and then made six more.

When I was done, Keras tried to charge one.

It shattered instantly.

There was a flicker of light in the rune, but fortunately, no explosion.

Keras muttered a curse I didn�t recognize, and I rebuilt it. Then he tried again. This time, a bit more slowly.

After a minute, his jaw had tensed, and he was breathing heavily�but the rune began to glow.

Keras pulled his hand away, taking a deep breath. �One down.�

Eleven to go.

I let Keras charge the other two light runes before I got an idea. �Hey, Patrick.�

�Yeah?�

�Why don�t you try charging one of the fire runes? I mean, at least part way. It�s going to be your sword.�

�C�can I?� He looked positively gleeful at the idea.

�Yeah, but to be clear, you�re not going to be able to fill it all the way up. These are Sunstone-level runes. I�m doing the easy part, which is only seven mana each. Keras has been putting three hundred and sixty mana into them.�

I didn�t say it, but Keras didn�t look any more tired than when he�d started. The only stress for him seemed to come from channeling the mana slowly enough to avoid breaking the runes or the weapon itself.

I handed Patrick the mana watch. �Check your total.�

�Uh, it says 49?�

�Okay, good. Just about the same as my attunement. We�ll get you stronger, but for now, let�s be safe. You�re going to channel 30 mana in there, then stop. Then Keras will handle the remaining 330.�

Patrick grinned. �Got it.�

Derek sat down across from us. �You know what? I can help, too. I�ll finish the fire runes so Keras can rest. Assuming you all want me to.�

Patrick clapped his hands together. �More the merrier!�

Keras gave Derek a nod. �I�d be grateful for your help. The fewer runes I have to handle myself, the fewer chances I have to break it.�

Patrick seemed to struggle to put enough mana into the rune at first. I couldn�t blame him, he�d probably never used more than a couple points to activate an item, and casting a spell probably felt completely different.

But, all told, it only took him a few minutes to get the thirty mana into the first fire rune.

Derek finished the rest of it in under a minute. And, of course, he didn�t look tired at all.

In spite of his usual attitude, though, I don�t think Derek was just trying to show off the fact that he could help as easily as Keras could. When he smiled afterward and shook Patrick�s hand, I saw true comradery there.

Making something, it seemed, brought out the best in all of us.

Transference mana was last. I was tempted to try to do some of it myself, but after thirteen runes at 7.2 mana each, my hand was burning pretty bad. Taking the break in the middle had been smart, but it hadn�t been long enough for me to completely recover from that level of strain. I could have drawn from my mental mana, but I didn�t want to.

So, I let Keras handle it. He seemed to have an easier time with these, going through them faster without breaking a single one.

And then it was done. Twelve runes glowing on the hilt.

�Okay, great.� Keras took a breath. �Now, let�s get the other side.�

I stared at him incredulously. �You�re joking.�

�Not at all. Need to make sure the sides of the sword match. And besides, I�m going to need more mana to work with.�

I sighed. �Fine, fine. But first, I need a break. Can you tell us what the rest of the items do?�

�Fine, fine. Let�s go.�

We headed back over to the item pile.

That foreboding looking dagger with the black aura?

It was gone.

I stared at the spot where it�d been lying last. Keras was staring right along with me.

�That�s bad,� I offered.

�Really bad,� he agreed.

We spent the next hour or so searching the house for the missing weapon, but with no success.

Patrick voiced what I suspected most of us were wondering. �How�d it disappear? Daggers don�t just get up and walk away�do they?�

�More than likely, it teleported.� Keras knelt near the spot the dagger had been laying on the floor, turning his head toward Derek. �I take it the wards on this building are for keeping things out, not for keeping anything inside?�

�Right. It didn�t vanish instantly, though. That�s unusual.�

Keras stood up. �Probably was waiting for us to be distracted, so it could get a head start on us.�

�You�re saying it was intelligent?� I asked.

�Almost certainly. It was one of the few magical items in the box I didn�t recognize at all. Maybe it was dangerous enough that Wrynn didn�t want to tell me she had it, or maybe she just got it recently. Either way, your guesses about it are as good as mine.�

Patrick frowned. �Could it be Luck�s Touch?�

I hadn�t heard of that one. �What�s that?�

Keras answered. �Intelligent shape-shifting weapon, usually associated with legends of Aayara Haven, the Lady of Thieves. And yes, it�s plausible Wrynn could have had Luck�s Touch. She and Aayara don�t get along, but Luck�s Touch is notoriously fickle. If he wanted to get on Aayara�s nerves, working with Wrynn for a while would be one way to accomplish that.�

I nodded. �Okay. Any other possibilities?�

�There are numerous intelligent weapons out there. It could very easily have been one bound with a monster, like the ones I use,� Derek offered.

Patrick looked thoughtful. �Maybe it was the Midnight Star?�

Keras gave Patrick an inquisitive look. �Doubtful, that�s supposed to have three blades, sort of like a trident. Surprised you�ve even heard about that, or Luck�s Touch for that matter. Those are legends from my own homeland.�

�Ah, I like to study weapons and monsters in general. Stories of those go back to before the exodus to Kaldwyn.�

�Hrm. Good to know. Derek, any chance you know a Diviner that can track the destination of a teleportation spell?�

�Of course, but without something tied to the item, tracking it will be virtually impossible. A physical description is insufficient.�

I thought about that. �Would the aura from the weapon have seeped into the wood where it was lying?�

�No, not in just a few hours. If it�d been sitting there for weeks, maybe.�

�Beggin� your pardon m�lords, but if it teleported, would that�ve left a trail?�

We all looked at Marissa, surprised that she�d interjected. She was usually quiet when Derek was involved in a conversation.

Derek frowned. �That�might work. I can ask. Let�s finish cataloguing the rest of this, then I�ll go find a Diviner. I�d rather know what we�re dealing with before anything else wanders off.�

Keras gestured at the remaining items. �Nothing too exciting here, I�m afraid.�

He lifted up the mirror first. �Another communication device. Works like the earrings, but with images rather than sound. I would have been more excited about it, but I have one of my own, and it doesn�t seem to work at all. I�ll try to get this to function, but my best guess is that the paired mirror is out of range.�

Keras set that aside and picked up one of the rings. It was silver with a design of a leaf, or maybe a feather. �Jumping ring. Motion� sorry, you�d call it transference magic. Fairly straightforward, it lets you jump much further.�

I looked at the ring with renewed interest. �Further? Does it trigger when you jump and add an additional burst of force, or do you trigger it manually somehow?�

�Not sure, never used this one, just saw Wrynn with it. I think you activate it manually, so I suppose that adds a bit of flexibility, but a little bit of a cost as well.�

I nodded at that. �Okay, thanks.�

He picked up the other ring, turned it over, and set it back down. This one was gold with a single blue gemstone. �Not sure about this one. We�ll have to have the Diviner look it over.�

Next, a necklace with a spiral-shaped translucent crystal. �This is easily the strongest item in the bunch. Surprised she left it in the box. It blocks most mind-affecting spells.� He smirked at Derek. �I can think of a few people who might need something like this.�

Derek folded his arms. �One time, Keras. It happened one time.�

Keras shrugged a single shoulder. �Well, if you don�t think you�ll need it.�

Derek leaned over and snatched the necklace out of Keras� hand. �Fine. I�m borrowing it. We can talk about a trade later.�

�Thought so.� Keras laughed, picking up the last of the glowing items � the hairpin. �Ah, yeah, Wrynn loves these. I�m sure everyone�s heard stories about hairpins being used as emergency lockpicks? Well, that rarely works well in practice. Except if you have a magic hairpin.�

Now that was interesting, maybe even more than the necklace. I leaned a little closer. �Think it�d work on chests or doors in the tower?�

�Don�t know. I usually just break those. But since Katashi seemed upset about my habit, it may be worth trying this out. You want to borrow it?�

I nodded hastily. �You bet I do. Also, the jumping ring.�

He blinked. �Really?�

�Definitely. Mobility is one of my biggest weaknesses, especially compared to someone like you or Derek. I still wouldn�t be able to keep up with you, but I might slow you down a bit less.�

Keras handed over the ring and the pin.

�Thanks.�

My response was subdued, but inside, I was positively gleeful. Even if I was just getting to borrow them, I loved having new magical items to play with. I didn�t know if the hairpin would actually work when I needed it to, but I could already think of several rooms where the ring might have helped.

�Before I forget to ask, how do I actually use the hairpin?�

�Oh, just stick it inside the lock. If you touch the tumblers, it should force them to realign.�

Huh. That implied it had some kind of detection magic built in, otherwise it couldn�t know how the locks worked and how to realign them.

Fascinating.

I wanted to test that immediately, but I had a feeling Derek wouldn�t like me tinkering with his locks.

Instead, I slipped on the ring. �Anyone want to make sure I don�t fall off the roof?�

Patrick laughed. �Oh, I have to see this. Sera, Mara, you coming?�

We headed up to the roof, which was definitely the best place to practice untested transportation magic.

Definitely.

I managed to avoid knocking myself off the roof the first time I used the ring.

Not the second time, though.

�Oh, goddess! Levitate!� Patrick shouted.

�And I floated safely down to the ground.

My friends gazed over the edge, and I waved up at them sheepishly. �I�m fine, I�m fine.�

The amount that the ring pushes me is based on the amount of mana that I send into the ring. It�s probably converting gray mana into transference, as Keras mentioned, or possibly air. Maybe a combination of both.

Which means, if I use a little more from down here�

I jumped, then activated the ring, and flew back onto the roof.

My descent was slower than it should have been, even without Patrick�s intervention. Apparently, whoever built the ring was smart enough to realize that jumping high would result in falling from great heights.

Still, I appreciated Patrick�s quick thinking when I�d fallen. A fall wouldn�t have killed me either way � my sigils and ring of regeneration would have saved me � but it sure could have hurt.

I landed among my friends with a smile. �I could get used to this.�

A bit more tinkering gave me a better idea of the ring�s intended uses�and maybe a few other options.

After that, it was time to try out something I�d been waiting even longer to tinker with.

�Patrick, come over here.�

�Sure!�

�Take off your glove.�

He frowned, but complied. �Did I do something wrong?�

Oops, did the social failure thing again. He probably thinks that�s symbolic or something.

�No, no. I want to try out my new attunement and see if I can make you more powerful.�

His expression brightened. �Oooh! Am I the first one?�

I nodded. �Yep, haven�t tried it on anyone else yet.�

I considered explaining my logic about Marissa and Sera having just received similar infusions of mana from other sources, but after considering it, I realized that would just diminish his happiness at being the first one I picked.

He stuck his hand closer. �Okay, let�s do this. Hit me with all you�ve got.�

I grinned, checking my mana watch. 65/84. I�d recovered almost all of my mana while we�d rested, and then used a bit of it again to tinker with the ring. My hand was still hurting, but it was tolerable for the moment.

I turned my Enchanter attunement on. It�d help me monitor his aura to see what happened.

With that done, I took Patrick�s hand. I sent a surge of mana through my attunement into his. The aura around my hand flashed, then glowed white while the attunement was active.

That was unexpected � it didn�t glow like that when I was just enchanting an item. The aura must have been the purification function at work.

From my side, it didn�t feel any different from the usual tingling sensation of sending my mana into an object. As I spent more time, the tingling would give way to burning, and then throbbing along with my pulse.

I didn�t know what it would feel like to him, though. �Does that hurt at all?�

�No, but it�s�maybe a little uncomfortable. It feels like my hand is filling up with water or something and that the water wants to get out.�

Not a bad analogy for what I was doing to the attunement, really. �I�ll just charge it a little more, then��

His aura flickered, and his knees buckled for a moment. He stumbled away from me, his aura shifting from transparent to crimson.

The rune on his hand changed.

�W�woah!�

Marissa caught him before he could fall over.

I stepped closer. �You okay?�

�Yeah, just, uh, wow. I think I need to spend some of this.�

Marissa helped Patrick stand back up, then he turned his hand upward and cast a blast of lightening into the air.

He took a deep breath and his aura faded back from Carnelian down to Quartz.

His rune shifted back, too, changing to the simpler Quartz style.

I patted him on the shoulder. �Better now?�

Patrick nodded. �Yeah�that was just more intense than I expected. What happened?�

Oh, right. He couldn�t see what I could see. �You hit Carnelian for just a second.�

�Really? That is so amazing! Can you do it again?�

I found myself grinning, infected by his enthusiasm. �Yeah, but I�m not supposed to push someone over their maximum capacity more than once per week. We didn�t really push you to your limit � that�d be temporarily doubling your mana � but I don�t think we should risk breaking any rules until I have a better idea of what I�m doing.�

�Aww. I finally hit Carnelian and I barely got to do anything with it.� He laughed. �But it was still great! Thank you, Corin.�

�No problem.� I subconsciously wiped my hand on my shirt. Touching someone else still wasn�t easy for me. The moment of experimentation had overridden my reticence toward touch, but now the aftermath was hitting me hard.

�It only took me a few moments, so you�re already very close. You should hit Carnelian permanently soon. If you haven�t hit it by next week on your own, I�ll give you a boost once a week until you get there.�

�That sounds amazing! Thanks!� He stretched his arms. �I think I could still use some more exercise, though. You want to practice a bit?�

I shook my head. �Think I need to rest for a few.�

Really, I just needed a few minutes of not dealing with people.

�Maybe one of the other two will spar with you?�

Marissa waved him over. I found a corner as far away as possible and sat down to watch.

Sera sat down next to me in silence.

She was intruding on my isolation�but I found myself being bothered less than I expected.

Maybe it was just because I didn�t need to talk to her, but Sera didn�t bother me the same way that other people did, even among my friends. I didn�t know why, but at the moment, I didn�t really need to think about it.

I did, however, think about other things in those next minutes of silence. Like how much fun it had been to spend some time experimenting with my friends, even if it had ultimately proven to be too intense to continue.

It also made me realize that I�d taken an uncharacteristic risk by tinkering with the ring on the roof. True, I�d nearly blown myself up when I�d first built my gauntlet, but I�d taken what I�d considered to be reasonable precautions.

This time? My main precaution was bringing my friends.

And it�d worked. Even if the ring hadn�t had a built in safety function, Patrick would have saved me. I�d trusted them, and they�d helped me.

That was�a surprisingly good feeling.

Especially after everything I�d been through with the tower.

Jin came back to my mind without an express invitation, and Tristan quickly followed.

There was a part of me that felt like any trust that I formed was just going to be betrayed.

I shoved that part of me aside as hard as I could. One moment of joy couldn�t banish everything that had happened, but it was a good start, and I was going to bask in it for a while.

Adding to my own positivity was Patrick�s obvious awe at the replica of Dawnbringer that we�d been working on. It wasn�t quite finished yet, but it was already obviously Patrick�s favorite thing in the world.

He was having the time of his life just swinging it at Marissa, even if she was deftly dodging or deflecting every strike before it could connect.

It was good that we hadn�t actually finished the sword yet, because I would have had to step in and stop him from using it if the weapon was more dangerous. I didn�t trust shield sigils to stop whatever crazy magic Keras ended up imbuing it with.

Patrick nearly ended up going off the roof, too, before their sparring match was over.

For a while, Sera and I just watched Patrick and Marissa�s sparring practice. After a bit, though, she passed me a note.

I tried to bury my worries about Tristan in my studies, but my mind kept wandering.

How had he survived?

Did Mother and Father know?

And, perhaps most importantly, why was he involved in kidnapping Tenjin?

I needed to talk to him directly at some point. He had ample chances to tell me about his situation through the book if he had wanted to. He�d even sent that hooded figure to talk to me in the spire.

That couldn�t have actually been him, could it?

Could his human body have been taken away?

I shook my head. It was much more likely that the creature I�d seen was some sort of solid illusion, like those created with the Shadow attunement.

I needed answers.

I reached under my bed and retrieved Trials of Judgment.

I�d been procrastinating about reading the Mysterious Book Entity�s reply to my question. I�d been afraid to face the possibility that it really was Tristan.

But that was absurd, and I knew it.

Why would I give up when I was finally this close to my goal?

I could do better than that.

I could be better than that.

I flipped open to the most recent page and looked for the Mysterious Book Entity�s latest reply.

It was much later in the same evening that Derek brought a Diviner friend over.

I was far too exhausted from Marissa�s test to pay much attention at that point. His name was Harold or something.

I�d almost forgotten why he�d needed the Diviner. They were looking for the teleportation trail of that strange dagger that had disappeared. They managed to confirm that something had teleported out of the area, but the Diviner explained that his tracking magic was being blocked by something more powerful.

That was not a good sign.

We did get to bombard the Diviner with a few other questions, though.

The magic ring that Keras didn�t recognize turned out to be something that enhanced physical strength. I was sorely tempted to ask to borrow that as well, but I�d already borrowed two things, and Marissa beat me to it while I was hesitating.

In truth, it was a better fit for her skills than mine, but I wasn�t sure she�d need it. We weren�t planning to bring Marissa with us to the spire, and that was the main reason I wanted to stock up on items.

Still, it would have been useful in the fight outside the spire, and we didn�t know if that might happen again. I wasn�t going to begrudge my friends picking up a couple more items of their own.

Aside from that, Sera wrote a note and asked us to have the Diviner look at her modified attunement. He managed to give us a couple bits of new information.

The attunement was still maintaining connections to multiple external entities � meaning her contracts were intact � and that those entities were still attempting to drain away some of her mana continuously.

He also noted that the connections seemed stronger than normal Summoner contracts, which was both scary and fascinating.

I considered asking the Diviner to take a look at Trials of Judgment to see if he could identify how it worked, but I decided against it. Even if he was one of Derek�s friends, I didn�t know if I could trust him with information that important.

After the Diviner headed out, I took Sera up to her room to discuss what we�d learned.

�Seems likely that Vellum was right about the contract spells somehow activating the potion. If it somehow tied you more deeply with your contracted monsters��

Sera nodded. She still couldn�t reply aloud, but she began writing something.

I kept talking because I could, and because it helped me think. �Wouldn�t you still be able to draw from those contracts, though?�

Sera shook her head, writing some more. I waited this time.

I took a few moments to breathe, then a few more moments to panic.

My right hand was completely numb.

I slipped off the bracer, rubbing my wrist. I hoped it was just a circulation problem from sleeping with the bracer on too tight.

It wasn�t.

Tentatively, I tried to push a bit of mana through my hand.

That was a mistake.

My hand ignited with agony, the muscles between my thumb and forefinger twitching uncontrollably as I fell backward and bit my tongue.

The ring kicked back in, but instead of soothing my pain, it just reversed it. The inside of my hand felt like ice, the numbness worse than before.

Cradling my hand under my arm for warmth, I found my mana watch and pressed it against my attunement.

85/85.

My mana was fine. It�d even gotten a little higher as I slept. I hadn�t broken my attunement in the same way that Sera had, but I�d managed to do something else.

After several minutes of consideration, I clenched my functional fist and slipped off the ring of regeneration.

Over the next hour, feeling gradually returned to my hand. That feeling, however, was agony.

I may have made a mistake.

I tried to go back to sleep. That was hilariously impossible.

I could hear people chattering downstairs, presumably over breakfast. I had to put a pillow over my head to drown out the sound. Any additional sensory input felt like too much.

I cradled my hand under the covers for the next couple hours until it returned to some degree of normalcy. I could move my fingers. Trying to use any mana sent me back into a state of pain that could best be described as tear-inducing, so I avoided that.

The ring was nearby the whole time, tempting in some respects, but it had also been a part of what had probably caused the problem. By suppressing my pain so much, I�d let it build to the point where the ring and bracer must have numbed the whole area to prevent the pain from affecting me.

I really hoped I hadn�t just injured myself badly enough to leave mana scars. My understanding was that scars formed from repeated overuse, and I�d been pretty good about avoiding that until recently.

Hopefully remembering this pain would serve as a sufficient deterrent to making a similar mistake again.

It also taught me a valuable lesson. I needed to stop using the ring when I didn�t need it or I�d be facing consequences like this in the long run.

It was nearly noon by the time I crawled downstairs, disheveled and still cradling my half-functional hand. I�d missed the morning�s classes.

And there was a stranger in the kitchen.

Specifically, sitting in the middle of the kitchen table, legs crossed in what looked like it was probably some kind of meditative posture.

The newcomer was about my height, wearing layered scholarly robes in crimson. The robes were in a Dalenos style, folded across the center of their chest and constrained with a cloth belt. Their short hair was cut unevenly at a diagonal, as if it had been sliced once with a blade and no further care had been given. They held a half-eaten apple in one hand and a carafe of some kind of liquid in the other.

This was clearly someone who did not care in the slightest what others thought about them.

I liked them immediately.

�Look,� they were saying, �If you�re going to shower me with gifts, you need to make them interesting. If it�s something I could just buy and forget about, it�s not worth risking Wydd�s ire.�

Patrick intercepted me physically before I could approach and make introductions. He took me by the arm and silently walked me out of the room.

Whatwhatwhat�

I panicked for just a moment at the unsolicited physical contact, but I allowed him to lead me to the entrance chamber.

�Sorry, sorry!� He let me go. I breathed a sigh of relief. �Believe me, you don�t want to go in there unprepared.�

I raised an eyebrow. �That was Sheridan Theas, wasn�t it? They�re wearing House Theas colors.�

I didn�t know a lot about House Theas, but I�d done some reading in advance of the meeting. They typically wore red, sometimes gold.

He waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. �Yeah, but we didn�t know what we were getting into. I mean, maybe Derek did, but he�s been hiding from them for most of the morning.�

�Okay? What exactly is such a problem?�

Patrick sighed. �They�re not interested in anything we�ve been offering. I think they�re enjoying watching us fret, though.�

That was unfortunate. �Has Keras offered to tell them about dominion sorcery? That�s forbidden knowledge, it seems like the most likely thing to work.�

�Keras isn�t here. We�re saving him as a last resort, since most people don�t even know he�s been staying with us. And he said he had business to attend to, something to do with that earring.�

�Probably trying to get it to work. Makes sense. Okay, I can offer the same. I obviously don�t know as much as Keras does, but I could regurgitate the lessons.�

�Don�t think it�ll help, but you can try. Just don�t mention Keras being around unless you need to. We could offer to arrange a meeting between them as a potential �gift� for Sheridan.�

I didn�t think that�d be enough, but it wasn�t a bad idea. �Okay. Do they know about my new attunement yet?�

�Not sure. They didn�t say anything about it. Neither did we.�

�Okay, good. Anything else I need to know?�

�Marissa isn�t here. She�s in class today. Probably not an issue, but figured you should know.�

I nodded. �What else?�

�Uh, just be warned that Sheridan is sort of� eccentric.�

�I can deal with eccentric.�

I headed back into the kitchen. Sheridan�s gaze turned toward me as I approached.

I lifted a hand and waved. �Good morning. I�m Corin Cadence.�

Sheridan picked up another apple from the table and threw it at me.

I stepped to the side, avoiding it, and bowed at the waist. �Pleasure to meet you.�

Honestly, who throws apples at people?

Sheridan stared at me for a moment, then beamed brightly. �Your reflexes are commendable, Master Cadence. Are you here to help negotiate for my �dark magic� as your retainer puts it?�

I shot Patrick a glance. He shrugged at me. �That�s what it sounds like.�

I turned back to Sheridan. �Definitely. Doesn�t matter where magic falls on the light spectrum as long as it works.�

Sheridan looked me up and down, appraising. I suspect Patrick or Marissa might have found that intimidating, but I was too used to being among nobles for that sort of thing to shake me in the slightest.

�I appreciate your pragmatism,� Sheridan began. �Unfortunately, I�m not certain we�ll be able to reach an agreement. Alas, the services your dear sister requires utilize forbidden magic. While I would be happy to help her in private, under conditions she could not observe, it seems your friends are hesitant to agree to such basic precautions. And that leaves me in a difficult position.�

I took a few steps closer and adjusted my style of speaking. If Sheridan wanted pretentious noble banter, I could play that game. �Ah, but certainly you must understand that in these difficult times, we must all take reasonable precautions for our well-being. My darling sister has already suffered so much, I fear I must take every due precaution to ensure she is not harmed again. It�s the only reasonable course of action, don�t you agree?�

Sera shot me a look that wasn�t quite a glare, but probably sat between a glare and a withering glance. She obviously didn�t like being treated like a fragile teacup, but I was playing to the tone of the conversation. Hopefully she�d understand, even if she didn�t like it.

�Of course, of course.� Sheridan shook their mug-carrying hand. �Family is most important, after all. And after all the tragedy you�ve suffered, I�m certain you couldn�t bear to lose someone else.�

Sheridan set the mug down, allowing them to make an exaggerated shrug with both hands. �But my loyalty is to Wydd first, and thus, I am bound to secrecy. Your friends have offered to exchange a few curios for the service, but are such trinkets worth the value of my word? Surely not.�

I lifted my gloved hand in a warding gesture. �I would not dare to insult you with the implication that you would accept a mere trifle in exchange for defying your sacred vows. But perhaps you would accept a trade that even Wydd would approve of?�

Sheridan fluttered their eyes. �If such a thing were to make itself manifest, surely I would consider it.�

�Allow me to begin by offering a small secret, but one of great personal significance.�

I slipped the glove off my right hand, displaying my new Arbiter attunement.

One of Sheridan�s eyebrows raised a fraction. �My, my. When someone banters about trading with a visage, I generally presume it to be all sand and no salt. I wasn�t aware you were an authority on the subject. Consider me thoroughly intrigued.�

Sheridan leaned a hair closer to me, then abandoned the slightness of that gesture to push themselves off the table and walk right up to me. �May I?�

I wasn�t quite sure what the question was. �Of course.�

Sheridan took my hand in theirs, lifted it to their mouth, and kissed my attunement mark.

I blinked, taking a step back unconsciously and breaking their hold.

What?

Ick.

�Fascinating. Just forged, but such potential.� Sheridan smiled. �Yes, quite delightful. Sit. Tell me what you have to offer.�

I stared blankly for a moment, trying to process whether or not Sheridan had just used some kind of identification magic on my attunement during that exchange, or if they were just being strange.

After deciding that the answer was probably both, I backed away and took a seat as instructed. I took a breath, considering where to start. �Would you have any interest in learning about Pre-Attunement Era sorcery?�

�A good thought, but I already know about it. You�ll need to do better than that. And before you offer me any sorcery-imbued trinkets, be aware that your friends have already tried that. Unless you�re hiding away any legendary artifacts, I�m not interested.�

I glanced from side to side.

We�sort of are hiding some legendary artifacts, aren�t we?

But Sheridan doesn�t know that, do they?

I couldn�t tell, but I wasn�t going to let the conversation jump in that direction.

�Perhaps you�d be more interested in something more conventional, then?� I shifted in my seat, allowing me to reach the pouch on my side. Then I pulled out the newly-made bracer of regeneration. �A new take on a ring of regeneration. Wydd would approve of taking something representing innovation, perhaps?�

�I�m certain it�s lovely, but traditional innovation more of Tenjin�s purview. Or Ferras�, depending. Unless it regenerates something other than the body, I�m afraid it�s not forbidden knowledge, and thus it�s outside of Wydd�s domain.�

�Well,� I reached into my bag again. I�d planned on the conversation going this direction. I�d counted on it. �That bracer may only regenerate the body, but this one,� I removed the other new bracer from my bag, �Does something more.�

Sheridan looked the bracer over, inspecting the runes. I didn�t know if they could read them. �Oh? Something to repair bone more effectively, perhaps?�

I shook my head. �No, it�s much better than that. This is a bracer of mana regeneration.�

Sheridan chuckled. �Something that poisons the wearer isn�t exactly the world�s greatest gift, darling.�

Sera shot me a quizzical look. I�d told her that mana storage and regeneration items were impossible when she�d asked for one a few weeks before.

Weeks ago, I hadn�t known how to make one.

I smiled. I�d worked until late at night on it.

I was nearly certain it would work the way I wanted.

I clipped the bracer onto my wrist. �You�re aware, of course, that such poisoning is because of contamination from the creator�s mana?�

Sheridan nodded. �I am a healer, Master Cadence. Of course I�m aware of that. Meaning that if you�re about to show me how it works on yourself, that�s not proof of anything. Yes, you can probably make an item that regenerates your own mana safely. Presuming that you continuously recharge it yourself. Clever, but of limited usefulness to you, and completely useless to anyone else.�

I allowed myself to smile, feeling an uncommon bit of pride. �You�re quite right � that�s the best an ordinary Enchanter could do. I did manage to find discussions of an Emerald-level enchantment for mana regeneration that works, but it�s never been popular due to the extreme cost. It has standard functions for recharging its own mana, much like the healing ring does, but that�s only a small portion of the item.

�The majority of an Emerald-level mana regeneration item�s runes work toward purifying the mana inside it, making the item inefficient. But what if a purification function wasn�t necessary?�

Sheridan�s eyes flashed. �Your Arbiter attunement. You believe that if you enchant an item with purified mana, the mana it regenerates over time will also be untainted?�

�Allow me to demonstrate.� I closed my eyes, forming a crystal in my hand, and then took out my mana watch. My mana in my hand registered 81/85. I showed Sheridan the display. �Normally, I regain my mana over the course of an hour. Thus, regaining three mana would ordinarily take me just about two minutes.�

I pressed the rune on the bracer, activating it. �I used up all the mana that I initially filled it with. The only mana inside the bracer now should be mana generated by the item�s regeneration runes.� I pointed at the appropriate runes to illustrate. �It will quickly recharge my mana with the amount that it has stored within. It also has runes to detect my maximum mana, and will not attempt to recharge me when I�m full.�

I tapped my hand with the mana watch again. It had only been seconds, but my mana registered 85/85 now. I didn�t feel any new discomfort, although my hand was still in enough pain from the night before that I wasn�t sure if I would have been able to tell.

This was a bit of a gamble. I wasn�t certain that the mana inside the device was pure. But if it wasn�t pure, it was probably the same composition as my original mana, and therefore not harmful to me.

Whether or not it would be harmful to someone else was more questionable.

I showed her the display. �When the bracer runs out of stored mana, it will continue to assist my mana regeneration as quickly as it regains its own mana. And that�s at a rate of ��

Sheridan raised a hand. �That�s quite enough. You want to offer me something experimental? Something that might not even work properly, and that obviously could be dangerous to the user?�

�I�m reasonably confident that it will work� But yes.�

�How absolutely delightful. What�s that other trinket there, the one that you�re using to measure your mana? I�ve never seen anything quite like it.�

I turned the watch over in my hand. �Oh, this? It�s a mana watch. I made it earlier in the year. It checks your safe mana value like a Diviner would, as well as how much mana you have, and displays a value indicating the��

�Yes, yes. I saw how it worked. And you made this device?�

�Sure?�

�How widespread is the design?�

I shrugged. �I just tried to patent it, but I haven�t heard back on that yet. As far as I�m aware, only a handful of people know it exists.�

�Delightful. I�ll take it.�

I blinked. �The bracer?�

�No, the mana watch. While I find the idea of a mana regeneration item delightful, and the idea that you were interested in trading me an untested one even more amusing, I would prefer something more practical. You may give me the mana watch now, in exchange for my services.

�When you have properly tested your mana regeneration item, I will consider another trade with you at a future date.� Sheridan opened a hand. �Given how creative you appear to be, I foresee great possibilities for a future business relationship between us.�

Their hand was open, waiting for the mana watch.

I hesitated.

Of all the items I�d made, the mana watch was the one with the greatest personal value. It was how I�d managed to convince myself to use my mental attunement, even if only a little bit.

It felt necessary to me. It wasn�t just a magical item, it was a staple of my way of life now.

Could I use my mental attunement without it? I�d turned it on for a few minutes here and there, of course, but that wasn�t anything like what I�d been doing to train the attunement. That took either hours of keeping the attunement active or directly transferring mana from the attunement into an enchantment.

How could I do that without knowing how much mana I had left?

I could make another one, of course. It wouldn�t feel the same as the original, but I�d survive.

I comforted myself with that thought. For the moment, it was enough to keep the fear at bay.

I put the mana watch in Sheridan�s hand. �Thank you. I�ll look forward to doing more business with you in the future, then.�

Sheridan slipped the watch into their robe. I felt something in my heart disappear along with it. �Excellent. Shall we get to work?� They turned toward Sera.

�What�like right now?� Patrick stammered.

Sheridan chuckled. �Why ever not? I imagine Miss Cadence would appreciate a resolution to this.�

Sera stood up and nodded once.

I agreed with Sheridan. �Are we doing this right here?�

�Goddess, no. There will be blood, and as much as it might amuse me to leave Derek�s kitchen strewn with viscera at some point, it would presently be in poor taste. I do believe Derek has a room upstairs for alchemical experimentation, however. That should have everything we need to take the precautions. Patrick, do be a dear and fetch Derek from whatever shadow he�s managed to hide in?�

�Sure thing!� Patrick waved and headed up stairs.

Patrick brought Derek back a minute later, and Derek grudgingly led the way toward his alchemy room. �I�ll have to clear off the table, but it should be a good place to work. Easy to clean, and I have healing potions if something goes wrong.�

Sheridan chuckled. �Nothing is going to go wrong, darling. I�ve been doing this for years.�

Outside the door, Sheridan stopped me. �You probably don�t want to see this.�

I shrugged. �I�ve seen blood before. Sera, do you want me there?�

Sera nodded emphatically.

�I�ll be in there, then.�

Sheridan turned back toward the door, but continued speaking. �No interrupting me. Regardless of how much she struggles or how bad it looks. You�ll only make things worse.�

With that said, she walked into the room. Derek was already clearing off a large central table, as he�d explained earlier. I recognized most of the equipment from Vellum�s lab and the one alchemy class I�d attended, but it wasn�t important right now.

We helped him move some of the potions onto shelves, then Derek waved at the empty table.

Sheridan nodded. �Good. Sera, take off your shirt. You can keep your undergarments on, but I need to be able to reach the whole front of your torso. Then lie down.�

Sera frowned, but followed their instructions. She waved me over, and I pulled up a chair to sit down next to her. She reached for my hand after she laid down, so I gave her one.

For the moment, her discomfort was going to be a lot worse than what I felt just from holding hands, so I�d tolerate it.

�Not going to give her a speech about how this won�t hurt?� Derek inquired.

�Why lie? All I can promise is that I�m not going to kill her. Provided none of you interrupt me. In fact, none of you are essential, so you should just leave. The brother can stay.�

Derek folded his arms. �I sort of own this house.�

Sheridan pointed at the door. �It�s a big house. Why don�t you find a mirror and gaze at the person you most adore?�

�Now, that�s not fair, Deni. There�s no point to staring at myself all the time � I need to study other people for contrast.� He shook his head. �But fine, I�ll leave. Patrick, come on. I have this great story about when Deni had just turned twelve��

�Oh, you wouldn�t.�

Derek waved as he dashed out the door. Patrick walked over to Sera before leaving, giving her a brief hug and some presumably comforting words before disappearing and closing the door behind him.

�Goddess, you�re all building this up too much. This isn�t a funeral.� Sheridan shook their head. �Sera, are you ready?�

Sera nodded.

I was thinking about whether or not I had any final questions when Sheridan snapped their fingers in front of Sera�s face.

Sera�s eyes slammed shut, and I felt a wave of drowsiness and vertigo. I tipped backward, but Sheridan caught me before I fell backward.

�Sleep spell. Wasn�t expecting to catch you with it, but physical contact must have passed a bit through.�

I raised a hand to pinch myself in the arm, trying to shake off the sensation. �Ugh. Could have warned us?�

�Nonsense. If she was ready for it, she�d have braced her mental defenses, even unconsciously. The spell probably still would have taken hold, but I wasn�t going to take the risk. Steady yourself.�

I did my best. I�d read a little bit on how to defend myself against mental magic after seeing what had happened to Derek, and that little bit had taught me something important. Since I had an attunement with mental mana, that would give me a degree of resistance, even if mine wasn�t built for casting mind-influencing spells � and I could actively resist mental magic by converting more of the mana in my body into mental mana. By cycling that fresh mental mana through my body, I could burn away the spell.

So, I started doing that.

It wasn�t fast.

I was so distracted with trying to break the spell that I scarcely noticed when Sheridan started the procedure in earnest. Sheridan pressed their hand against Sera�s neck, frowned, and shook their head. �More severe than I expected, but still workable. Let me see the attunement.�

Sheridan flipped Sera over and pressed a hand against the modified attunement mark over her lungs. �Remarkable. I�ve never seen anything quite like this. I can sense the damage, but I�m not sure how much I can treat. The throat will come first, and then I�ll see if I can handle making any improvements here.�

I nodded weakly, still focusing on cleansing my mind of the sleep effect. It wasn�t as easy as when we�d practiced, presumably because I wasn�t ready for it. Also, potentially because Sheridan�s spell was more powerful than the ones we�d used in training.

That�seemed odd, though. �How�d you do a sleep spell? Aren�t you a necromancer? That doesn�t sound like a sleep magic type.�

�Obviously that wasn�t my first attunement, darling, just like Arbiter wasn�t your own first attunement. Restricted attunements are almost never given to people without a previous attunement.� Sheridan flipped Sera over again, then pressed a hand against Sera�s neck and closed their eyes. �I�m going to need you to come up here and hold Sera still.�

I stood, stumbled, and steadied myself. �Okay.�

�Sit behind her.�

Sheridan sat Sera up with surprising ease. I pulled my hand out of Sera�s grip, which was harder than it sounded, and then sat behind her. �What do I do?�

�You need to make sure her head is facing downward, but support her neck so that it doesn�t have too much stress.�

�Shouldn�t we just lie her facing down?�

�I need to be able to access the entire front of her neck.�

I nodded, taking the position behind Sera. I essentially was using myself as the back of a chair, which led to another question. �Shouldn�t we just use a chair, then?�

�She�d just fall out of one. Hold her still.�

I held her still, at least as well as I could. My mind was definitely clearing up, even though I was too focused on Sera now to actively try to convert my own mana and fight the effects.

�Now we begin.� Sheridan tapped Sera�s neck and their fingers began to glow.

Sera�s body jerked, and she almost fell off the table immediately. I held her as steady as I could, but she continued to tremble.

Sheridan backed off after a few moments, the glow fading from their finger.

Sera coughed, and that cough produced more blood than I was comfortable with.

�What��

�Relax, Corin. The blood is supposed to be there. Let her cough.�

There was a surprising surge of anger while Sera continued to cough messily onto the floor. She didn�t wake up in the process, which seemed miraculous, but that sleep spell must have been stronger than I�d expected.

�We�re moving her to a chair now,� Sheridan explained.

Of course we are.

I helped Sheridan move Sera to the closest chair. It was, as I�d expected, much easier to hold her in place that way. �You sure you�ve done this before?�

�Of course. I�ve just never done it outside of a hospital.�

I�didn�t know how to respond to that, but there was definitely some anger involved.

Derek presumably knew.

Sera might have known as well.

But operating on someone outside of a hospital without any prior experience sounded like a terrible risk to me.

Maybe that was why they didn�t tell me.

Once Sera was secure in the chair and her coughing had died down, Sheridan reached forward and touched Sera�s neck again. The glowing reappeared around Sheridan�s fingers, but Sera didn�t spasm this time.

Not until Sheridan�s fingers began to move further down her neck.

I held Sera as steady as I could, grinding my jaw in a mixture of fear and frustration.

Minutes passed. Apparently, the damage went all the way down Sera�s esophagus, which was why she was having such difficulty with speaking.

More time passed. More coughing from Sera. More blood.

I�d expected that removing the physical scar tissue would be some sort of surgical process; it wasn�t. At least, not in this case.

Sheridan was transforming it. Partially liquefying it, if I wasn�t mistaken.

Thus the coughing, the blood, and everything else she was coughing up.

This was feeling more and more awful the more I thought about it.

�Don�t worry, we�ll make Derek clean it up.� Sheridan gave me a knowing look.

That was not what I was worrying about at all.

Sheridan began tracing their fingers back upward, the glow shifting in color to a bright green. Healing, I realized.

I wished I had trained with life mana more. If I had, maybe I would have been able to sense what Sheridan was doing a little better, or even helped. As it was, I had only the barest comprehension of how healing magic worked, and I certainly wasn�t ready to attempt it. That was the kind of thing to practice on scratches, not on internal injuries.

I�d definitely start studying it soon, though. My attunement wasn�t strictly made for healing, but just having life mana meant I could do a bit of it, even if I wasn�t ever going to be an expert.

It only took another minute before Sheridan finished the process of moving up Sera�s body, then back down without any visible glow on their hand, presumably to double check the work.

�Throat and esophagus are done to the best of my ability. Even with my healing, however, the recovery time will be significant � and she may never regain the full use of her voice. There was simply too much damage. She should be able to whisper almost immediately, but she shouldn�t. Tell her to restrain herself from trying.�

�For how long?�

�At least a few days.�

I nodded. �Would it be safe to give her a regeneration item to speed up the healing, or would that make more scarring?�

�Regeneration items should be fine, but it�s not going to help that much. I�ve already healed most of what can be fixed with healing � her body needs to acclimate to the change. But no, it wouldn�t hurt to give her an item if you have one. And she still shouldn�t be trying to talk.�

That was all good to know. �Even being able to whisper in a few days would be a huge improvement. When do you expect her to be able to talk at normal volume, if at all? And what about her attunement?�

�Months, probably, if she recovers that much at all. As for the attunement, I�ll need to use a different technique for that. Mana scars aren�t quite the same as traditional scar tissue. They�re more like clusters�she�s waking up.� Sheridan snapped her fingers, and Sera slumped down again.

I didn�t feel the effects this time, so presumably Sheridan was a bit more careful.

�Now, then. The mana scars are different. I can�t extract them entirely; I need to change them back down into a usable form. Given how severe her scars are, this will likely take several treatments, but we can do the first one today. Let�s lay her back down on the table.�

We did so, placing her face down. Sheridan put their fingers on Sera�s attunement again, then closed their own eyes. �Don�t say anything. Be silent and still.�

I complied.

Sheridan�s fingers began to glow again, but not with a solid color. This time, I could see tiny runes � the size of handwriting, maybe smaller - tracing across Sheridan�s fingers and wrist. I�d never seen anything quite like it.

Then the tiny runes flowed off their hand, into the attunement mark.

Sera twitched once, then let out a sound like a hiss. Then she settled again.

�Done.� Sheridan pronounced. �At least for now. This is not a complete fix � in fact, it may not do anything at all on its own. Make sure to tell her what I told you, and also, tell her not to even try to use her attunement for a few days.�

�You don�t want to explain yourself?�

�Obviously not. Talking to people is awful, and I�ve done more than my tolerance for the day. She�ll wake up in a half hour or so. I�ll be long gone by then.�

�You�re not going to stay and see if she has any side-effects? Complaints?�

�I�ll do another diagnosis spell on her before I leave.� Sheirdan tapped their fingers on Sera. �There. All done. She�s fine. I�m leaving.�

I sighed. �And if she needs to find you for a second treatment�?�

�I�ll contact her directly. Her little mark has gained my interest, so you can be certain I�ll try to follow up. I�m not sure I can fix damage this extensive, but I enjoy a challenge.� Sheridan turned and headed toward the door. �Now, if you need anything else�� They smirked. �I suppose you�ll just have to track me down.�

�And how would I do that?� I asked.

Sheridan reached into a bag at their side and retrieved a business card.

It read:

I ended up doing the bulk of the cleaning. In spite of Sheridan�s joking about making Derek do the work, I owed him a great deal for both housing us and letting us make a mess in his lab.

I helped put his equipment back, too.

Sera wrote that she felt miserable in the aftermath, but she seemed stable. She coughed a bit more here and there, but there was a minimal amount of blood, and fortunately, no more of the liquefied scar tissue.

More importantly?

She already could whisper again.

It just provoked a series of terrible coughs every time she did.

I reminded her every time that Sheridan had told her not to try to talk for a few days, but Sera was just so happy to be able to communicate verbally at all, she couldn�t stop herself.

She gave me a few more hugs, too, in the direct aftermath. I braced myself for them as best I could. I knew she was just excited.

The most common thing she tried to whisper was some variation on �thank you� for helping her.

That mostly made me feel more awful.

I still felt like the whole thing was my fault on some level, since I�d given her that potion. The whole �it was what let us survive� thing was great, but I had a hard time internalizing that and pushing the self-recrimination out of the way.

It helped that we�d made some progress, though, and I was determined to do more.

Sheridan had given us some hope that Sera�s condition was fixable, even if Sheridan wasn�t certain they could fix it entirely through this method.

If a cure existed, I�d find it.

But for the moment, I had a more pressing priority.

The next dueling exam was coming up, and I didn�t feel even close to ready. I was probably one of the strongest general duelists in my own class, but there were still types of attunements that I didn�t have a good way of countering.

Especially Shapers.

I had plenty of practice �training� against my father, but I still didn�t have any effective means of countering his attunement. The tiles seemed like my best bet, but a skilled Shaper could still shield themselves from the effects of stepping on one.

I spent some time putting together ideas on how to handle each attunement, making some notes. It comforted me to get into that familiar mode, almost like I was preparing for my Judgment again.

But I was still nervous.

I made another mana watch to help diminish my anxiety. I tried to convince myself that I was working on ways to improve my original design, but I knew the truth. I�d grown completely reliant on the mana measurements. I didn�t know if I could function without them.

I felt a little better when it was done. I�d built in one extra function; the new device stored and displayed the last two measurements, rather than just one. It was an incremental improvement, but the bit of progress made me feel less guilty about spending my time on the watch.

The watch was simple enough that it didn�t take long to make, even with the improvements, but at that point the pain had finally gotten to the point where it wasn�t manageable.

If I�d been a more social person, maybe I would have spent the few remaining hours of the night checking in to see how Sera was doing or visiting Marissa or Patrick.

But that wasn�t me.

I spent the rest of the night reading instead.

I still had so many things I needed to learn. I had a bad habit of realizing I was behind on a subject and ignoring it in favor of something that felt more urgent.

I needed to work on breaking that habit, and I was going to start with something that I was interested in studying.

Foreign attunements were a tempting prospect, but I decided to research something a little bit more immediately relevant � tracking magic.

Even if the spire was sealed, there was still a good chance I�d need to track my brother down soon. To do that, I�d need to have at least a basic understanding of the types of tracking magic that were available.

I didn�t have any specific books on the subject, but Derek had a library, and I was able to find a general book on Divination. I paged through it, stopping at a section that caught my eye.

It was Tensday. My hand had mostly recovered, but I was still feeling nervous about overusing it.

I wasn�t going to stop training, but I needed to be aware that if I kept my regeneration items on, it would dull my pain to the point that I could overwork myself. I resolved to avoid using the regeneration items while I was enchanting and just put them on when I expected to be in combat.

I had three days left to get ready for the next dueling class, and I�d spent much of that time working on fixing Sera�s problem.

I knew it wouldn�t be as simple as just fighting another pair of students from our class. Things with Teft were never that simple.

I wasn�t sure exactly what he�d throw at us, so I needed to prioritize carefully.

I wanted to finish the replica of Dawnbringer, but if the class was anything like the last one, we wouldn�t be allowed to use magical weapons. I estimated that it would take nearly a full day if I didn�t want to overuse my attunement again, and I couldn�t justify using that much time on something we might not be able to use.

I started by making a list of likely things that Teft would change for the test.

I spent the rest of that day studying alone and trying to get invasive thoughts out of my mind. I had too many doubts about Jin, about Patrick, and about my own priorities in life in general.

On the positive side, I finally found the time to start really digging into foreign attunements. I stopped when I found something that sounded fascinating.

I pulled Sera aside when we got back to Derek�s house, asking a question I�d been thinking about since the match. ��What was with the tiny Vanniv?�

She chortled. �Remember how I summoned a weaker version of Seiryu in the spire? Same principle. Summoners usually learn to summon stronger versions of their monsters. I�ve been practicing summoning weaker versions since I got my attunement, so I could eventually learn to summon a weaker version of Seiryu like that. I doubt I�ll ever be able to summon Seiryu at her full strength.�

She shrugged a shoulder, then continued. �Anyway, that was a depowered version of Vanniv. I still don�t have enough strength back to summon the real thing.�

That made sense to me, although I wouldn�t have expected a weaker version to be smaller, even though that was what had happened with Seiryu. Maybe that was just the particular way she�d learned to decrease the power of the monsters she was summoning.

�How functional is your attunement, then?�

Sera shook her head. �Barely at all. I figured out how to break my contracts using my hand, and cast some spells with it. I�ve been recovering a little since then, but not a lot. I can only cast the most basic spells, and even that takes a lot out of me.�

I nodded. �Glad you�re recovering at all.�

�Yeah. I feel more like myself again. I don�t like being useless.� She scratched at her back, where her mark was located. �My attunement feels different now. Not worse�just different.�

�But it still works?�

�Yeah. In fact, Vanniv told me he felt a stronger connection with me, and that maybe we could do something new with it. I�m going to experiment with that when I�ve recovered a bit more.� She coughed, lifting a hand to her throat. �Think I need to stop talking for a while. That match took a lot out of me.�

�Do you need to go to the hospital again?�

She shook her head. �No, it�s not that bad. Just need to rest.�

�Okay. I�ll see you later.�

I headed back to my own room to isolate myself for a while after that, thinking about what she�d said. It was good to hear that she was recovering, I wasn�t confident she�d heal all the way on her own. And we still didn�t know what else had changed with her attunement, unless she�d figured out more than I had.

It also reminded me of another question � how�d she get that contract with Seiryu in the first place?

Had she gone back into the spire after getting her attunement, but before even coming to the academy?

Or had she somehow managed to get a contract during her Judgment?

It was worth asking later, but she clearly wasn�t up for talking. And honestly, it wasn�t all that important. I was just curious.

I�m not ashamed to say that I took it easy for much of the rest of the day. I hadn�t had a chance to just rest in a long time, and it was good to finally have a minute just to breathe.

The next week was the easiest I could remember in what felt like ages. We had to study for the last few final examinations, but none of the other classes worried me to the extent that the dueling class had.

Aside from studying, I spent a lot more time training with Marissa and Keras. I used some of that training to try to improve my use of Haste, but even after another week, my coordination was still too poor to use it for moving around rapidly.

It did work for rapid attacks like how I�d used it against Marissa, but only for a couple seconds, or I�d get too dizzy and lose my focus afterward.

My biggest project was finishing up the replica of Dawnbringer with help from Keras and Derek. We did it over the course of a few days so I wouldn�t strain my hand further.

When I finally presented the finished product to Patrick, he lifted it and gazed at it with awe. The silvery blade, etched with golden script, glimmered brightly even in the indoor light. �It�s amazing. I love it. Thank you!�

I grinned. �Glad you like it. Keras said we should tell him when you�re ready to test it out.�

�Does it work like the real Dawnbringer?�

I shrugged. �No idea. The runes I put on it are just for storing and replenishing mana, and for making sure it doesn�t overflow and explode. They don�t actually do anything.�

I pointed at the strange rune Keras had put on it. �That thing is what�s supposed to give it the actual functions. It�s not a traditional rune like Enchanters use � as far as I can tell, it�s more like a contract that Sera makes with a monster, but on a sword. Keras has been funneling mana into it for days, but he hasn�t told me what the functions of it are.�

�Huh. Do you think he�s really seen the real Dawnbringer?�

�Wouldn�t be surprised, given how powerful he is. We can ask him about it sometime.� I paused for a moment, considering. �You�re pretty familiar with the stories about the Six Sacred Swords, right?�

�Of course! They�re my absolute favorite swords. What do you want to know?� He turned away from me, testing the weight of the sword and making a few tentative swings in the air.

I was familiar with a lot of stories about the Six Sacred Swords, but they were just that � stories. Most of them were things I�d heard as a child. I�d never made an academic study of them. I knew legendary monsters and items were something of a hobby for Patrick, though, and maybe he had more reliable knowledge.

I tapped the hilt of the sword at my side. �Do you think there�s any chance Selys-Lyann is one of the six? I know the swords go by different names in different stories. I think Flowbreaker was supposed to be a water or ice sword.�

He lowered his sword and furrowed his brow. �Yeah, Flowbreaker is ice. But I don�t think that�s your sword. I mean, you�re right, there are a lot of different stories. But they almost always talk about Flowbreaker being destroyed.�

I remembered hearing about that, too, but I�d considered it. �When I first found this, it looked rusted. It was inside a pillar of ice. The Voice of the Tower did something with it that repaired it.�

�Still don�t think it�s the same sword. It wouldn�t have been just rusted � Flowbreaker was broken in pieces, and those pieces were scattered all over the continent. Flowbreaker did make ice that grows on its own, though. Maybe they�re related somehow?�

I nodded. �Yeah, that�s possible. Thanks.�

�Sure! Let me know if you want to know more about the swords sometime.�

�I will.�

There was someone that would have more information, but I wasn�t willing to ask.

Not until Tristan answered so many other, more important questions.

After we�d finished the Dawnbringer replica, I approached Keras about something I�d been considering for a while.

�What are the odds I could convince you to help me make a whole bunch of magical items?�

Keras shook his head. �Can�t.�

Not the answer I was hoping for. My chances of making a simply absurd amount of money by selling high powered magical items were diminishing. �Can�t? It didn�t seem like investing the mana in the runes was causing you any difficulty.�

�That�s not the hard part.� He folded his hands together. �You saw the rune I created on the sword before we started to work on it?�

I nodded. �Yeah, you mentioned it�s how you�re actually giving the weapon any functions. Given that you spent so much more time on it, I assumed it was more mana intensive, but I figured we could skip that if we just used conventional function runes.�

�Wouldn�t work. If I tried to enchant something else,� he waved to the sword at my hip, �I�d break it. That wasn�t a standard rune, it was more like one of Sera�s or Derek�s contracts. While I was working on the sword, it was bound to me. That prevented my shroud from damaging it during the process.�

That made some degree of sense. Sera�s contracts were able to transfer mana safely between herself and a monster, like Vanniv or Seiryu. If Keras� contracts worked similarly, it stood to reason that he could invest mana into a contracted weapon without causing it harm, and� �Does that imply that you�re able to draw power from the weapons you�ve bound as well?�

He shifted awkwardly, turning his head to the side. �I�d rather not say too much on the subject, but yes.�

Huh. Sensitive subject, apparently.

That was fine, I had other avenues of questioning that were more pressing. �Okay, then. So, you need to bind an item to be able to enchant it safely. Can�t you just bind whatever we�re working on?�

�In theory, yes. I already have a number of contracted items, however, and they each use up a bit of my power. I�m near the limit I can handle without reducing my fighting abilities significantly.�

Just like Summoner contracts use up some of Sera�s mana. That was a problem, but it seemed easily solvable. �If the goal is to enchant an item, though, couldn�t you just break the contract afterward? Would the item lose the power if you did?�

�Yes, I can break my contract and leave the mana in the item intact. There�s a problem, though. Binding spells use something more valuable than mana. That�s true for me, and it�s true for people like Sera as well.�

I frowned. �What else would you be using?�

He patted his chest. �A fraction of our spirit.�

�Spirit?� I sounded a little more incredulous than I would have liked. �The Summoner attunement doesn�t have access to spirit magic. It�s just air and transference. And even the combination of those two types isn�t spirit.�

�Attunements have a lot more magic in them than the two types they let you cast. You�ve heard that higher level attuned get a third magic type?�

I saw where his logic was going. �Yeah. Which implies there�s another function on there, it�s just not active until your mana reaches a certain level.�

�Right. And how does the attunement know how much mana you have?�

�You�re implying all attunements have a mana detection function, which means they all have some amount of mental mana.� I thought about that. �And any number of other enchantments we don�t think about, because they�re not actively giving us mana to work with.�

That was kind of a terrifying idea, actually. It meant that I had any number of unidentified enchantment functions built into a mark on my head.

What if one of them was some kind of enchantment that allowed a visage remotely cause the attunement to detonate?

I didn�t like the sound of that at all.

I consoled myself with the fact that humans had apparently figured out how to make artificial attunements, which meant that someone out there had a strong enough understanding of how they worked that they probably would have caught onto a hidden �kill� enchantment.

Probably.

I was already planning to study artificial attunements extensively, but this conversation pushed it higher on my list. I couldn�t study much here, though � no experts were available. I�d need to either track Tristan or Katashi down, or go all the way to Caelford.

�Right. Your attunements are complex, and each one looks to be designed a little differently. The bindings Sera and Derek use create a bond between the spirit of a human and the spirit of a monster, which enables them to transfer mana back and forth.�

�Okay, I get that. But what about a sword? That shouldn�t have a spirit to work with.�

�Right. Most of them don�t, which is the problem. That means I have to give the sword a piece of my spirit in order to make the connection. As I�m sure you understand, that�s not something I can do routinely.�

��Does the piece of spirit you�re using on the contract grow back?�

�Eventually, but it takes a while. And I don�t exactly like leaving pieces of my spirit lying around. That�s a dangerous prospect. Making a copy of Dawnbringer was a special case. I might be willing to work on other special cases now and again, but I need time to recover first. Weeks, at least, if not months.�

I shivered at the image. I wasn�t sure I�d be willing to cut off a piece of my spirit and put it in an item at all, under any circumstances. I certainly wasn�t going to blame Keras for not wanting to do it regularly. �Okay, let me think for a minute.�

Was there a way of salvaging my idea?

�You mentioned before that powerful enough items, like the Jaden Box, might be able to survive contact with you for a long period of time. If we enchanted an item with defenses, like a powerful shield sigil, could you enchant it safely?�

�Doubtful. Transferring mana into those shells you use would require touching the item, and that�d put me inside the barrier. I�d probably break it as soon as I touched it.�

�Worth testing.�

It took me a few minutes to make a basic shield sigil, then create a container rune like one of the ones we�d put on Patrick�s sword.

It only took him a few seconds to break it.

Over the next couple days, I tried a couple more designs � enchantments designed to protect the object itself, rather than the wearer. I even had Marissa help me with one that used enhancement mana to harden the item, rather than a conventional shield.

Keras broke those, too.

�I don�t think this is going to work, Corin.�

He was probably right, but I was stubborn, and I liked the idea of a theoretically infinite amount of money.

The one with enhancement mana had lasted a little longer.

Maybe Keras could have safely enchanted one that had a Citrine or higher level hardness enchantment�but an item like that would have been as valuable, or more valuable, than the product we were trying to make.

I had another idea, though. �You said that most items don�t have a spirit. Does that imply that some do, and those would be easier to work with?�

�Yeah, but you�re not going to find those just lying around. They�re rare, and bonding myself to one would be the equivalent of a contract with a monster � they�d have to agree to it.�

�What about that black dagger that disappeared earlier?�

He winced. �Wish we hadn�t lost that. I wouldn�t know enough about it to know if it�s something I could make a contract with. But yes, that was probably an example of a weapon with a spirit.�

�How do we make an item grow a spirit? Could we do that artificially, so you don�t have to use some of your own?�

�Most of the time, an item with a spirit implies someone did put a piece in there at some point, and it grew and developed into something unique. There are probably spells that make new spirits, but I�m not an expert in the subject.�

I�d have to find one at some point, then, but it was a low priority. Spirit magic was an entire field of study, and I wasn�t going to look into it for something this dubious. I did want to study it at some point for other reasons, but it was going very low on my list. I had more pressing concerns.

�Crystals.� I realized. It was obvious.

�Hm?� Keras quirked a brow.

�You could make crystals, then I could transfer the mana from them into the item.�

Keras shrugged a shoulder. �Good idea in concept, but I�ve never been able to get that to work. Don�t know if it�s my lack of patience or how my mana works, but I�ve never been able to make mana solid.�

�Want me to teach you how I learned?�

�I suppose you can try.�

A few hours of lessons and practice hadn�t produced any results, but he did say that using a crystal casing made more sense to him than the other methods he�d tried in the past.

It had taken me weeks to make my first crystal, so maybe he�d make one eventually. This seemed like my best bet, so I decided to wish him well, provided him with a set of practice cases, and decided to focus on other things for a while in the meantime.

The first order of business was trying to get Derek to help me with the same money making scheme that I�d been planning to use Keras for.

�No.� He told me. �Don�t have time.�

�Fair enough.�

At least in his case, I got a simple answer.

Passing dueling class had left me with a higher degree of confidence that I could pass my classes for the year, but I�d also seen how much it had helped to prepare in advance.

I already knew what one of them was going to be � the third attempt at the fake spire. It would be considered our final exam for Magic Theory class.

This time, I was determined to be ready.

Unlike with Teft�s class, it was clear that researching the rooms in advance was going to be considered cheating. I wasn�t against the idea of cheating a little bit in emergencies � passing was more important than following arbitrary rules � but I didn�t want to take the risk of getting caught.

And, more importantly, beating the test without cheating would be far more satisfying.

I wrote a list of all the rooms we�d seen so far, and drew simple maps of each.

We had a few specific challenges we�d have to overcome for each room. The shadow monster, the fire statues, the false Tyrant in Gold, a sleeping dragon�

Those would all be tough to deal with in direct confrontations, if not impossible.

I spent some time researching magical items to help with those challenges, as well as some general ones.

I still wanted communication items more than anything else, and I spent some time digging into how to make them. Most of them were based around variations of Wayfarer spells, and many of the functions I wanted were higher level than I could handle.

The other problem was getting a communication item to send a message where I wanted it to go.

Most of them worked by sending a message to another item that was enchanted at the same time, similar to how Keras had described the pair of earrings that sent sounds back and forth.

That wasn�t very flexible, though. For any member of my team to communicate with any other member of my team, I would have to make pairs for each combination of team members, and that was both prohibitively expensive and time consuming.

I wrote up a rough design for a single item that could connect to five others by using different runes to activate different communication functions. Unfortunately, the runes involved were too advanced for me to manage, and I didn�t have a Wayfarer friend to help me with them.

I focused on other items instead, trying to prepare a couple things that would both be useful for the test itself and for future ventures into the spires. I had limited time to work with, so I had to prioritize, but I was pleased with my results.

I wasn�t sure what my other final exams would consist of yet. I tried asking around, but the teachers were being pretty tight lipped. Apparently, each individual teacher had quite a bit of flexibility in choosing how to run their finals, as long as it covered certain basics.

Aside from final exams, we only had two real activities left before the end of the school year.

The first, I�d almost forgotten about entirely: Spider Division.

The second, I�d been deliberately ignoring as much as possible: the winter ball.

I briefly went through my list of suspects for spiders, but I hadn�t gathered enough information on anyone.

Roland missing classes was unusual for his personality, and it could have easily been because he was doing special Spider Division activities, but I had no evidence.

Jin was almost too suspicious, to the point where I doubted he was actually a spider.

Beyond that, I hadn�t noticed anyone behaving too unusually. I knew I�d need to make an effort to start investigating soon.

While the whole situation with Katashi and Tenjin was obviously a bigger issue, I still needed to make certain I passed my classes. I couldn�t help anyone if I was kicked out of the school and sent home. I was still determined to score well and get assigned to being a climber.

I checked Trials of Judgment to see if Tristan had sent me any further replies, but there was nothing new.

With worrying about Tristan deferred to another time, that meant I had to confront the one thing I�d been looking forward to the least.

I�d planned on willfully ignoring it right up until the day before, but Patrick never let me get away with doing anything easily.

The following day, I had a surprise visitor.

I was reading about artificial attunements at the time, from what little I�d been able to scrounge from the library. The publicly available information was scarce, but it was still worth researching.

�Your friend is at the door for you,� Derek informed me. �You know, the one who almost killed you.�

I didn�t have to clarify who he meant. �Thanks.�

�Just keep an eye on that one. I don�t want to deal with any more trouble than I already am. Understand?�

I nodded to Derek. �I�ll make this quick.�

I headed to the door.

Jin stood in the entryway. He still had a visible bandage on his right arm, but aside from that, he looked reasonably recovered. He�d shaved and brushed his hair, which went a long way toward making him look more like typical Jin. �Corin. I�d like to talk, if you have a bit of time.�

I frowned, then pointed at the floor. �Leave your weapons here.�

Jin raised an eyebrow. �No weapons allowed inside?� He reached into his coat, removing the two pistols I�d enchanted for him.

�No, there are plenty of weapons in here. I�m just not comfortable with you carrying them.�

Jin�s mouth opened, then closed again. Slowly, he set the pistols on the ground without complaint.

�The dagger too,� I said, waving my hand toward it and ignoring the hurt in his expression.

Four of us waited outside the testing facility for our next exam � our third and final chance at the simulated spire.

Jin was the last to arrive. He walked over without any sign of injuries, wearing his characteristic coat over an otherwise ordinary school uniform.

I was still nervous about allowing him to work with us, even after the conversations we�d had.

Is he going to try to use the test for a chance to kill us? Could he make it look like an accident?

I sincerely doubted both, which was the only reason I�d agreed to let him stay on the team. We were being closely monitored, and Jin had made it clear he didn�t hold a grudge.

But that was the thing about irrational fears � you couldn�t just tell them to go away and expect it to work. Trying to actively dispel my fears just expanded them, until I was picturing dozens of possible scenarios for Jin�s betrayal.

The rest of the group looked tense, too�except for Patrick. He just walked over and grabbed Jin in a hug. �Glad to see you�re out of the hospital! C�mon, we were just talking about our strategy.�

We weren�t.

We�d planned the general strategy weeks ago, and confirmed it days before.

But that little lie was enough to get everyone focused on the subject at hand. We�d need to fill Jin in, and accommodate him now that we were sure he�d be joining us. He�d asked to, of course, but we hadn�t wanted to count on it until we actually saw him. I couldn�t trust anything he said at this point.

�Corin,� Patrick gestured to me. �Want to catch Jin up?�

With Sera still having difficulty talking, it had fallen to me to serve as the de-facto leader of our group. I wasn�t entirely comfortable with it, but as long as it was a temporary measure, I could deal with it.

I nodded to Patrick, then turned to Jin. �All right, here�s the plan��

We began the test.

The room I was teleported into was pitch black.

I activated my attunement.

At Carnelian level, I had a clearer sense of everything around me, even in the dark. I still couldn�t see clearly � it didn�t give me night vision � but the colors of the images around me were crisper and easier to discern.

We were in the same room I�d started in the very first time.

I�d assumed that was probably the case from the darkness, but I also known that the test could have been changed for our third attempt. We could have ended up with a different challenge entirely.

It was fortunate I�d ended up here, rather than in the other room or a completely new one. That meant less logistical awkwardness and time wasted on switching groups using the return bells.

I wasn�t going to assume everything was unchanged just from one initial indication, but I figured my next action was probably safe.

I sent a spark of mana into the first of three magical items I�d prepared specifically for this exam � a lantern.

The lantern flickered to life, an orb of flame appearing within and casting a glow across the room.

I nodded to Jin, who was at my right side.

He raised his monocle over an eye and scanned the room. I�d made him the item earlier in the year, but I hadn�t actually seen him use it here � he�d been paired with someone else last time.

�There.� He pointed.

I drew the sword on my hip and slashed in the direction he�d pointed. With a hint of mana applied to the transference aura around the blade, I sent a shockwave of force across the room, toward a seemingly empty spot in the back corner.

The furious howl that came in response confirmed Jin�s words.

The creature appeared as it charged into the light, a wolf-like beast with vicious spiked tendrils protruding from its back.

Months ago, the sight of this thing had been terrifying.

By now? It was merely routine.

I side-stepped a spiked tendril and slashed it apart, then stepped in with a jab. The creature reacted quickly, hopping out of my attack range, only to take a bullet to the side from one of Jin�s revolvers.

The noise of the gunshot startled me in spite of expecting it � even with the runes I�d etched into the guns, they were still pretty loud.

Fortunately, the creature failed to take advantage of the opening, opting to turn to run instead. I swiped at the air again, and a shockwave slammed into the creature�s back, leaving a wide cut. Jin fired two more shots, hitting once, before it dematerialized and fled into the wall.

�Resh. Wish we�d killed it outright.� I glanced at the walks cautiously, knowing it could emerge from anywhere now that it was in an incorporeal state.

Jin holstered his pistol. �It�s not a major threat. Stick with the plan. I will watch for it while I work.�

I nodded, walking over to a wall and lighting one of the torches with a burst of mental mana. That extra light would help keep the beast at bay, and it was the first part of completing the room�s central puzzle � unlocking a cage that contained a fountain near the center.

In the fountain was a key, which could be used to unlock the next room.

Thus far, nothing appeared to have changed, and thus, I suspected the solution to the puzzle remained � there were six torches, each with a rune etched beneath them. The runes came in three sets. The solution was to use three different types of mana to light the torches; a different type for each rune set.

Mental mana couldn�t actually ignite anything, of course � we�d figured out that all we had to do was channel a little bit of mana of any type other than gray into the torch and it would light itself.

I lit the matching torch just before the beast lunged at Jin from behind.

�Look��

Jin kicked backward, catching the beast in the face. Then he spun, ducked, and grabbed it by the neck.

The beast thrashed, spines flying toward his face, but Jin picked it up and slammed it against the ground, then laid his knee across its neck. While I closed with sword in hand, Jin drew a knife and jammed it into the creature�s chest, dragging it downward.

The monster stilled.

�That was�quick.� I blinked at him.

�Been practicing.� Jin gave me a sly grin, then flipped his knife back into a concealed sheath inside his coat. �And I don�t have to hide my strength from you anymore.�

That was true. I hadn�t been paying much attention, but he was burning with his full Sunstone aura. He�d always suppressed his true strength before our fight, but presumably the academy staff already knew about it, and�well, I obviously knew now, too.

I wish I�d learned under better circumstances.

�C�mon. Hard part is over. Let�s get the rest.� He pointed at the torches.

We each picked another one of the remaining pairs and lit them. I used transference mana. I wasn�t sure what type he was using�probably perception?

Either way, we got all the torches lit. The iron cage lifted away, and the fountain in the center was revealed, allowing us to approach and access the key in the water.

The �water� was acid, of course. I hadn�t forgotten that.

Previously, we�d frozen the water, either with Selys-Lyann or Sera�s skills. I was banned from using Selys-Lyann after nearly killing myself with it, so that was out. Sera probably could have frozen it, but we�d decided conserving her mana was a priority.

I had a much simpler solution. I handed Jin the torch, and brought out a small rod, similar to a dueling cane.

I pressed the rune on the cane. The key shook, then flew toward the end of the rod.

Magnetism was a form of metal magic, usually restricted to people with the Forgemaster attunement in Caelford.

There were, however, a few others who could use it.

Keras was one of them, but he couldn�t help me enchant items without risking breaking them.

Fortunately, I had found another option � Tavare, one of Derek�s summoned monsters. It took some convincing to get Derek to summon them to help me with an enchantment, but it was very worth it.

With the key stuck to the end of the rod, I stepped back, avoiding the cage as it fell back to the ground.

�Easy.� I remarked.

�Indeed.� Jin agreed.

The tip of the rod was sizzling. �Oh, ack. Acid on the key.�

I deactivated the magnet function, letting the key drop to the floor. Fortunately, the rod didn�t seem badly damaged.

�Okay, we�ll need to move the key without touching it.� I knelt down next to it.

�Should have kept your gauntlet for that.�

I shook my head. �Don�t need it. I�ve picked up a few new tricks.�

I pulled just a bit of transference mana into my hand, then released it, blasting the key forward.

�Hmpf. Not bad. Can you get it into the keyhole that way?�

I shook my head. �No, but I can get it close enough and pick it back up with the rod for just a second.�

The rod�s tip was burned, but not badly enough that I was overly concerned. We were probably dispersing any remaining acid on the key just by moving it around, too.

I pushed the key over to the door to what I was affectionately calling the �Tyrant Room�. I knew from past experience that it contained a long hall lined by magical vines, and a majestic carpeted floor leading down the center toward a throne.

On the throne was a crown.

Picking up that crown would summon an illusion of the Tyrant in Gold.

I rubbed my face, remembering where he�d punched me in the face. Thanks, Professor Orden. Your teaching methods are second to none.

I shook my head, raising the key to the door using the rod, and opened it.

We�d planned for this, too.

The door opened, revealing exactly the room we�d expected.

There was one problem �

The Tyrant was already there.

Nine feet tall and armored in golden mail, he carried a gilded two-handed sword, which had been lying hidden in the vines last time we�d visited the room.

I�d seen something else shimmering in the vines, too, which I�d presumed to be a hidden key. The plan had been to use the magnetic rod to pull the key out of the room and avoid the crown entirely.

This was, of course, no longer possible.

I backed away immediately.

�Ah, the young swordsman has returned. Do you intend to fight me without the benefit of your winged friend this time?�

I frowned. Professor Orden had been the one running the test last time, hadn�t she?

Who else knew about what I�d done last time?

�Was the Tyrant here a summoned monster, rather than an illusion? If that was the case, perhaps his knowledge would have persisted�

But it was more likely there was just more than one teacher observing and running each test. This was probably an illusion, just like the others.

I couldn�t let his taunts intimidate me.

�I�m afraid I won�t be challenging you today. Just here for the key, no need to scuff your armor.� I glanced around the room while I talked, hoping a bit of chatter would buy me time.

That glimmer I�d seen in the vines was gone.

I saw why a moment later, when the Tyrant raised his left hand. �Regrettably, the key is already in my possession.�

�Is it?� I pointed the magnetic rod at the key and turned it on.

The key flew out of his hand.

The Tyrant stared blankly at us for a moment. �That was rude.�

I nodded. �Yeah, we�re like that.� I tossed the rod, key and all, to Jin. �Try that on the box.�

He caught the rod and headed toward the back of the room, where we�d found a container we�d never been able to open.

The Tyrant took his sword in both hands and stepped forward. �That belonged to me.�

I drew my sword again, taking a traditional fencing stance. �You seem to think a lot of things belong to you.� I gestured with my sword at the crown he was now wearing above his mask. �At least you�ve got the crown. Isn�t that good enough?�

The Tyrant shook his head. �Of course not. Everything belongs to me. I�ll show you why.�

The Tyrant charged.

I slashed the air, sending a shockwave in his direction, but he cut the shockwave in half with a swing of his own. Then he was in swinging range, taking a huge sweep at my midsection.

I backed off.

Jin calmly said, �It doesn�t fit,� as if I wasn�t currently in the middle of battling against a seven-foot tall illusory deity.

�Okay, little help, then?� The Tyrant�s next swing connected with my blade, battering it to the side with incredible force. Then he released one hand to throw a punch at my face.

Not again.

I ducked, lashing out with a punch of my own, charged with transference mana. It only blasted him back a few inches, but that was just enough to make his next swing miss.

I took advantage of that, swiping my blade upward and connecting with his chin.

The blade deflected harmlessly off his steel mask, just as I�d feared.

Then he was swinging again, with enough force to cut me in half.

Move.

I activated the ring of jumping, blasting myself out of the way. The Tyrant�s blade hit the stone where I�d just been standing, and I hit him with a shockwave of force from the side.

He barely even seemed to notice it. His armor was unmarked.

Then Jin shot him in the back of the head.

I heard the ring of metal as I suddenly remembered that Jin was there, and the Tyrant fell forward a step.

Jin�s attunement was preventing both the Tyrant and me from noticing him sneaking up, I realized. Nice.

I couldn�t be too congratulatory, though, because the Tyrant backhanded Jin a moment later.

The Tyrant was still moving, and from what I could see when he spun around to swing his sword at Jin, he was probably unhurt.

This is ridiculous. We can�t beat him in a straight fight.

�Keep him busy!� I shouted.

I heard the sounds of gunfire pinging against metal in response.

I rushed for where Jin had dropped the key next to the box.

Should I keep trying to open the box and hope there�s something useful inside?

No, that could take ages for something that may be unrelated.

I picked up the key and rushed to the other door: the one leading to the fire statues.

I set the key in the lock. It fit. I didn�t turn it.

�Hey! Over here!� I blasted the Tyrant from behind.

�You fight without honor. I am quite disappointed.� He turned, ignoring Jin for the moment, to walk in my direction.

�You know, my father says the same thing all the time.� I waited for the Tyrant to get right in front of me � and thus, in front of the door. �So this is going to be cathartic.�

I turned the key, then immediately activated the ring of jumping to push myself out of the way.

The door opened.

The fire statues inside fired out a blast of incinerating flame, enveloping the Tyrant completely.

It was the same way Jin had been annihilated in the first test. Those flames were a powerful trap.

When the flames subsided, however, the Tyrant still stood.

�You are a fool if you think that��

Jin hurled a knife.

It pieced the Tyrant right in the center of the chest, through his armor.

The Tyrant lifted a hand to the knife, mumbling in disbelief. �How�?�

�I�ve picked up a few new tricks, too.�

Jin�s second knife lodged in the Tyrant�s skull, just below the crown.

The Tyrant fell to a knee, his greatsword slipping from his fingers.

�Finish it, then.�

I raised a hand for Jin to wait, then walked closer to our injured enemy. �One thing first.�

The Tyrant turned his masked face toward me, but remained silent.

�This is for breaking my favorite nose.� I grabbed the crown off his head, then slammed the pommel of my sword into the knife that was already embedded in his forehead.

His head snapped back and he crumpled to the ground.

I kicked him one more time for good measure, then sheathed my sword.

I sat the crown on my head, then turned to Jin. �So, you want the greatsword?�

�A little gaudy for my tastes, but it might be useful.� He stepped over and picked up the huge weapon. �Surprisingly light. Shall I try it on the box, Sire?�

I shook my now magnificently adorned head. �Nay, good Sir Jin. Perhaps I should take a look at the runes, now that I�m a bit better versed with them.�

I inspected the box. After deciphering the runes, I came to a sad conclusion.

�It would appear that my time as a monarch has come to a swift end.� I took off the crown, rotated it, and found a rune on the back.

I pressed the rune to a matching one on the box.

The crown vanished, and the box clicked open.

�Tragic,� Jin muttered, completely deadpan.

Inside the box, I found another key � this one colored red. �This is probably for the flame room.�

Jin retrieved his knives from the Tyrant�s corpse. �Shall I fetch Sera, then?�

I nodded.

Jin rang the return bell and vanished.

Before Sera appeared, I heard a crashing noise coming from the direction of the Tyrant�s room�followed by a roar loud enough that it caused me to tremble.

I took a defensive stance, looking in that room�s direction, but there was no monster in evidence.

Just the room � and one wall in the back that was glowing under my attuned sight.

The false wall.

I�d remembered that it existed, but I hadn�t planned to make it a priority to investigate unless we couldn�t find the solutions within the Tyrant�s room. With the Tyrant beaten, it had seemed irrelevant, except�

When Sera appeared, I turned to her immediately. �Exactly how tough was that dragon?�

�Why?� She glanced around. �And is that a dead Tyrant? I thought you weren�t going to fight him?�

�I liked his hat.�

�Corin.� Sera folded her arms.

I chuckled. �He was already in the room as soon as we opened it this time. And, from that and some other clues��

The sound of a roar interrupted me, almost as if on cue.

I continued, �I think the dragon is awake.�

Sera clenched her hands into fists. �Too tough to beat outright, I think. Marissa and Patrick are stronger now, but��

That was all I needed to hear. �Then let�s go help them.�

She picked up the return bell from the floor, but I shook my head.

�Not like that. Got enough mana to make us levitate?�

Sera nodded, then pointed at our feet. �Float.�

I felt a slight pressure beneath my feet, but that was it. When I glanced down, though, sure enough I was no longer touching the floor. �Huh. Okay, let�s hurry.�

�Where?�

I tucked the red key away in my pouch. �There.� I pointed at the Tyrant�s room. �Follow me.�

I ran. Sera followed.

Just as we expected, the vines didn�t respond when we entered the room. They weren�t activated if we never touched the floor.

�Oh, the false wall, you think it leads��

I nodded. �Ready?�

�Go.�

I tapped the glowing wall with my sword.

It vanished.

In front of us was a tremendous chamber, probably a hundred feet wide and long, and at least thirty feet tall.

In the center, atop a pile of treasure, was a dragon.

It was the first dragon I had ever seen. Dragons were broadly believed to be mythical offshoots of more conventional serpents like Seiryu and Mizuchi. Rather than having snake-like bodies, dragons were built more like gigantic lions with scales instead of fur.

Both dragons and serpents were usually winged, although some serpents were wingless and capable of flight through other means.

This dragon had bright red scales, indicating a strong association with fire.

More importantly, it was awake, aware, and angry.

As I watched, it took a breath, and exhaled a wave of flame that enveloped nearly a quarter of the room.

The next thing I saw was Marissa, flying upward above the fire, then soaring downward with a gleaming fist.

�Star descends from sky!�

Then she punched the dragon in the face.

The dragon staggered back at the impact of her fist.

That was an image I would not soon forget.

Marissa landed, launching a series of punches and kicks against the creature�s neck without pause. Then she jumped aside to avoid a swipe from one of the dragon�s claws.

A blast of lightning struck the dragon on its side, and it hissed and turned its head toward a new target � Patrick.

At that point, I was done waiting.

�Sera?� I turned my head to her.

She was already forming a globe of ice in her hands. She replied in a still-scratchy voice, �Let�s give it a try.�

We had hoped to avoid fighting the dragon, but we�d always known it was a possibility.

Hitting it with small attacks was never going to work, especially since we were short on attacks with its weakness � ice.

So, we�d formulated a way of hurting it a little more reliably.

I drew my sword and presented the blade to her.

Sera whispered as she moved her hands closer to the sword.

�Child of the goddess,

I call upon your aid,

Summon all your power,

And breathe ice upon his blade.�

She plunged the globe of ice forward and it spread, enveloping the blade.

I nodded in thanks as Sera slumped, holding her throat. That had taken a lot out of her.

As I turned back to the dragon, it was breathing fire again.

Patrick was, impossibly enough, deflecting it with fire of his own.

Like deflects like, Teft�s words echoed in my mind.

But Patrick was falling back, and he was clearly struggling. He couldn�t defend himself for much longer.

Marissa landed on the creature�s back and slammed her fist into it again, but it just shook her off.

I activated the ring of jumping and blasted myself forward, landing in a pile of gold.

Marissa, struggling to stand, caught sight of me. �Corin?�

I nodded to her. �Secret door. Help me flank this thing.�

�Got it,� she replied in a determined tone.

We rushed the dragon from opposite sides.

The dragon ceased breathing fire for a moment, turning toward Marissa.

I stabbed it with my frost-covered sword. The blade sunk in to the hilt.

The dragon howled, whipping its tail toward me with surprising speed. Instinctively, I activated the ring of jumping, taking me over the tail and safely out of the way.

Unfortunately, I�d left the sword embedded in its side.

The dragon turned and swiped at me with a claw before I even had a chance to land, but a blast of lightning hit it in the eye. The claw still connected, but it was a glancing blow.

Even then, it was enough to knock me out of the sky.

Fortunately, between the levitation spell and the ring�s own effect, I just bounced harmlessly in the air before I slammed into the ground.

I could see cracks in my first barrier from the dragon�s claw impacting against it, but that was nothing to worry about.

The dragon turning toward me and opening its mouth was a far bigger concern. I could see a sphere of flame forming between its open jaws.

Then Marissa was in front of me, waving her hands in a circular motion.

The flames blasted over us, but a circular barrier appeared in front of Marissa, blocking the flames. It cracked more and more with every passing moment, but each second, Patrick was blasting the dragon from the side with more lightning.

It eventually turned its gaze away, and Marissa slumped to the ground, shuddering from the effort.

�Th-thanks�� I managed to mumble, pushing myself to my feet.

�Up to you for a bit.� She stumbled backward, and I caught her.

�Got it. You rest.�

Marissa nodded and steadied herself as I rushed forward.

The dragon was turning toward Patrick again, but that didn�t mean it was safe to approach. It was thrashing wildly now, its tail threatening to crush me as I ducked under it and avoided a rear claw.

I tried to grab for the sword embedded in its side, but it just smacked me aside with a claw, moving too fast for me to avoid. I tumbled down the gold pile, my shield cracking further.

The dragon breathed again, in Patrick�s direction. I doubted he could deflect much more � he�d already looked exhausted.

Without the sword, I didn�t have a good weapon to fight with.

But I did have tools.

I grabbed the magnetic cane from my bag, angled it carefully, and then activated a different rune from last time.

Hundreds of pounds of coins, weapons, and other bits of metal were propelled forward, slamming into the dragon�s side.

The dragon teetered, its head turning upward, the flames harmlessly enveloping the ceiling.

Then it was looking at me again.

I turned off the rod and ran.

The smashing sounds behind me were a good indication that I was being followed.

I heard a whir. On instinct, I activated the ring of jumping just in time to blast myself out of the path of a swipe from the creature�s tail.

Unfortunately, I aimed it poorly, and I ended up falling forward. I hit the ground hard this time, indicating that Sera�s levitation spell had finally expired.

When I managed to flip myself over, I found my cane was missing, having slipped out of my grasp.

The dragon loomed over me, fangs bared to strike.

Marissa ripped the frozen sword out of its side.

The dragon howled straight into the air, swinging its head and slamming it straight into Marissa. She flew backward, bouncing as she landed. Her phoenix sigil�s barrier cracked, then shattered entirely.

She still has one more barrier, I assured myself. But it won�t last long. And if we keep fighting this thing, neither will we.

Apparently, I wasn�t the only one with that impression.

�Run!� Patrick shouted.

That was not a very helpful suggestion, given our precarious position, but he did add a bit right after. �Sera found the key!�

That was good news, at least.

The dragon was moving toward Marissa, and she was still on the ground.

Unmoving, as far as I could tell.

No sword. No magnetic cane.

I glanced from side to side, but I couldn�t see it. There was just too much junk in the pile.

No choice, then.

One.

I picked myself up, beginning to charge transference mana in my right hand.

That was when Patrick jumped on the dragon�s back, his entire body shrouded with lightning. �Go!� He shouted.

The dragon writhed in agony, trying to shake Patrick free. In a moment, I understood why � he was inside the dragon�s shroud. His lightning attacks hadn�t been able to hurt it much from a distance, but up close�

I ran toward the dragon at first, still charging my fist.

Two.

Then I saw Marissa, still down for the count.

And I prioritized.

I let the mana leave my hand, turned, and rushed to Marissa�s side.

She was moving, but only barely. A trail of blood was running down her forehead � she must have impacted the ground even harder than I realized.

Without hesitating, I ducked down and scooped her up from the ground. �We�re leaving.�

She was just aware enough to wrap her arms around me, making her easier to lift. She�d dropped my sword, but at the moment, that wasn�t a priority.

I blasted us forward three times in rapid succession. Given that she probably had a head injury, that might not have been good for her, but I judged that it was better than being splattered by a dragon.

We landed not far from the entrance to the Tyrant�s room. Sera was already running across that room, apparently having levitated herself again.

I spared one last look back at Patrick, then blasted Marissa and myself half way into the Tyrant�s room.

The plants on the side of the room twitched.

I tried to activate the ring of jumping again�

�And nothing happened.

Apparently it does have a limited amount of mana. Oops.

The plants rushed inward.

I ran.

A vine was just about to grab me when Sera cut it in half with a blade of ice, then helped pull us through the doorway into the room where I�d started.

The dragon roared in the distance, but what I heard after was something far more surprising � the gentle sound of a ringing bell.

A few moments later, I realized what had happened as I set Marissa down on the floor.

We took a few deep breaths, then Patrick appeared in the room next to us. �That was fun! Anyone need a break?�

Marissa raised a hand. �I�think I hurt something.�

Sera passed her the return bell that Jin had used. �Go take a rest, Mara. We�ll take care of things from here.�

�Mm. Kay.� Marissa grabbed the bell and rang it, vanishing immediately.

Marissa sounded like she was pretty badly shaken. I hoped that whoever was monitoring the exam would take a look at her head wound now that she was out of the testing area for a while.

We had a more urgent problem to deal with, though.

The dragon had lost its target, and now I could hear its footfalls heading our way.

I picked up the fallen bell, just in case we�d need it later.

�Uh, can we close this door?� Patrick pointed to the entrance of the Tyrant�s room.

�Not sure how to force it shut.� I looked at the opposite side of the Tyrant�s room, where the false wall had been dispelled. �I don�t think it can fit through there, though. We should be��

A claw smashed away a huge chunk of the wall, making the gap wider.

��moving as quickly as possible.�

I pointed at the flame statue room.

�On it.� Sera headed toward the room, inspecting it from an angle. �I don�t know if I have enough mana to block all of those.�

�Get what you can.�

She nodded. �Wall. Wall. Wall.�

She pointed, and ice walls appeared, blocking jets of flame.

Jin appeared in the room a moment later, glancing around. �Hm. You have acquired a Patrick.�

�Hey Jin!� Patrick waved enthusiastically.

Jin just gave him a curt nod. �And there�s�that�s a dragon, isn�t it?�

�Yeah, we�re leaving now.� I pointed at the flame statue room. �Want to lead the way?�

�If I must.�

We headed into the chamber.

Sera had managed to block almost all of the statues.

Unfortunately, her ice walls were melting pretty fast, and I doubted she had enough mana to renew them.

I pulled the red key out of my bag. �Remember, the statues can turn. Be careful.�

The two remaining statues were breathing flames across the room in a predictable sequence�at least, predictable until they deliberately changed it when we tried to cross.

Fortunately, we were ready for that. Patrick waved his right hand and deflected the jets of flame out of the way, then stumbled. Jin caught him and dragged him forward.

�Thanks!�

�Keep moving.�

In spite of Patrick�s perpetual cheer, I could tell he didn�t have a lot of mana left himself. Blocking fire from both the dragon and the statues had taxed him close to his limit.

We reached the other side of the room.

I turned the red key in the door.

Nothing happened.

�You have to be kidding me.�

Jin pointed. �There�s a key over there, behind one of the statues.�

I shook my head. �I got the key from this room before and tried it. It didn�t work.�

�I will retrieve it while you try other options.� Jin moved forward, dancing between blasts of flame to head toward the key. I winced, remembering the first time he�d been blasted with the flames, but he was lighter on his feet this time.

And he had his full Sunstone shroud to protect him if he did get hit.

I withdrew the red key from the door. Before I had a moment to consider other options, Sera had slipped by me and she was turning another key in the lock. One with a dragon�s head.

The door clicked open.

�Ooh, nice.�

Ahead of us was a room with a familiar sight � a single central fountain, filled with shimmering blue liquid.

Those of us in the doorway slipped inside, and Jin followed us a moment later with the key from the previous chamber. He�d managed to retrieve it without a scratch.

I scanned the room carefully with my attunement active, but I saw no signs of magic in the room aside from the fountain and a single door on the other side.

�I don�t see any traps. It�s probably safe in here.�

We approached the fountain, but I waved a hand to halt. �That looks like a mana fountain, but let�s be careful here.�

I grabbed a coin out of my bag and flipped it into the water.

It didn�t sizzle on contact. So, probably not acid, at least.

�Jin, can you�?�

He walked over to the water and knelt down, then tentatively reached a hand over to touch it. �It�s mana water.�

We all breathed a sigh of relief.

I also briefly wondered how the examiners had access to a fountain just like the ones in the spire, and if I could figure out a way to make one of my own. Mana water wasn�t nearly as potent as a mana restoration potion, but it was still incredibly useful.

Everyone took a minute just to rest and drink from the pool.

�Should we go back and fight the dragon?� Patrick asked.

I shook my head. �Don�t think we can beat it.�

�Agreed.� Sera added.

�Never fight dragons.� Jin said, without any further explanation.

I agreed, of course, but he sounded almost like he had experience at it.

One more mystery.

�Okay. That,� I pointed at the door, �Is almost certainly going to be a floor guardian room.�

�Oh, right! They�re usually next to mana fountains like this, right?� Patrick sounded excited, and I couldn�t blame him. He hadn�t actually gone on the spire expedition with the rest of us.

He hadn�t nearly been impaled by the limbs of a giant spider, while running from an Emerald-level Soulblade.

Sera, Jin, and I all looked a little more�cautious.

�Plan?� Jin asked.

We had discussed all the rooms we�d already seen, as well as made some other more general plans, but we hadn�t discussed a scenario quite like this. �I think we should run for the stairway if there is one. Even with the mana water, we�re in bad shape.�

I took another drink, considering. �Let me recharge everyone�s phoenix sigils before we go.�

The sound of a gong echoed in the distance.

��Or maybe not, because I think that means we�re running out of time. How bad of shape are you in?�

�I am intact,� Jin offered helpfully.

�I�m unhurt. You all took the dragon�s attention,� Sera added.

�Uh, not great, honestly,� Patrick admitted. �Phoenix sigil is out, other sigil is bad.�

�I�ll recharge it for just a second, then.� I walked over and grabbed onto Patrick�s sigil, flooding mana into it. It would take minutes to recharge completely, but I could recharge it a little bit in just a few moments. It would be better than nothing.

�We need a plan for if there is no stairway, or if it is inaccessible,� Jin pointed out.

Sera pulled her dueling cane off her belt and handed it to me. �We hit whatever is in there with everything we�ve got. It can�t be worse than a dragon.�

I accepted the cane and nodded to Sera in thanks.

�True. Okay, we ready?�

Everyone acknowledged their readiness. Jin looked a little more skeptical, and I understood why. �Let�s go open the door first. Maybe we can take a look before the fight actually starts and formulate a strategy from there.�

Jin looked noticeably better after I said that. �Agreed.�

We walked over to the door.

There were three keyholes.

As far as I knew, we only had two keys left � the red one from the box, and the one Jin had just retrieved.

Fortunately, Sera pulled out a third. I raised an eyebrow. �Where�d you get that?�

�That series of pillars that led to nowhere above the water in the room I started in? Turns out you were right. There was an invisible platform over there with an invisible key on it.�

�Nice.�

We inserted the three keys.

The door slid open.

Inside was a plain, circular room, almost like what I�d expect from a fighting arena.

There was no visible stairway within.

Instead, on the opposite side, was Professor Meltlake.

Patrick said what we were all probably thinking. �Uh, guys?� That might be worse than the dragon.�

�Hello, students.�

A blazing aura enveloped the professor�s body. �Welcome to your final exam.�

Somehow, in spite of having actually fought one of my professors inside the spire, it hadn�t occurred to me that one might show up in the fake spire test.

Teachers weren�t exactly typical spire monsters.

Then again, the professors at this school did seem to have a bizarre fixation on beating up their students in general, so I probably shouldn�t have been surprised.

We paused in the doorway, hesitant. This was a bad situation for a number of reasons.

Professor Meltlake was renowned for her fire magic. Her surname was a title she�d earned by literally evaporating an entire lake.

The best way to counter that was ice magic, but even if Sera was at her best, she wouldn�t have been strong enough to do much against someone of Meltlake�s level. And Sera was still far from recovered.

This was going to be messy.

Sera stepped forward. �Professor, is that actually you over there, or a simulacrum? I need to know if we should be using lethal force.�

�An excellent question, dear. I�m a copy. But even if I wasn�t, I�d invite you to do everything in your power against me. A group of first-years isn�t much of a threat.�

That helped resolve any concerns about killing Meltlake by accident, at least.

�And I assume we have to beat you to conclude the test?� Patrick asked.

�Correct, Patrick. Unlike the rest of this exam, there are no hidden tricks here. You can think of me as a floor guardian.�

That was unfortunate. If there was a hidden trick, we�d have had decent odds of finding it with this group.

�Also, Patrick,� Meltlake continued, �no using the high ranked spells I�ve been teaching you. You�re not ready to use them in an actual fight yet.�

�Aww.� He frowned. �If you say so.�

Professor Meltlake clapped her hands, causing her fiery aura to swell out for a moment before collapsing back around her. �Well, if you students are done with the questions, shall we begin?�

Sera whispered, �Jin, Corin, go right. Patrick, with me. Go.�

Jin and I rushed forward, then veered right.

Jin drew a pistol and opened fire while on the run. His bullets disappeared into Meltlake�s aura, and I saw no sign that any of them connected.

Sera and Patrick ran the opposite direction, and Meltlake turned to follow them. Apparently, she saw them as the threat � and she was probably right.

Meltlake threw a sphere of fire in their direction, which Patrick blasted with a jet of his own flame, knocking it back toward Meltlake. It exploded part-way, and I felt a wave of heat wash over the entire room.

Sera followed up by hurling a shard of ice. Meltlake didn�t even move. The ice shard hit her aura and melted on contact.

Jin and I were safely behind Meltlake now, and I fired a few blasts from my dueling cane at her back.

The spheres of mana hit her aura, crackled, and vanished without a trace.

Meltlake threw a blast of lightning, which forked into two. Patrick�s aura shifted into a crackling field of electricity, causing the lightning aimed at him to rebound off harmlessly, but Sera took a hit. Cracks spread across her shield.

Sera folded her hands and whispered. �Child of the goddess, I call upon your aid��

Meltlake slammed her cane into the floor, and the whole room shook. Sera fell back, losing her concentration on her spell.

I didn�t have my sword or gauntlet, so I just kept firing the dueling cane at Meltlake. It was ineffective at hurting her, but I had to hope it would work as a distraction.

Jin fired another bullet into her aura, but again, nothing happened.

This is ridiculous, we can�t even hurt her. Unless�

�Jin, can you do what you did to the Tyrant?�

His jaw tightened. �Just tried. The bullets are melting too fast.�

Resh.

Should I ring the bell and get Marissa?

I shook my head, dismissing the idea.

No, she�d have to run all the way across the fire room to get to us, and she�s still probably injured. I can�t lean on her to handle this for me.

Shrouds are less effective at close range. If I had my sword, I could reach that far, but the dueling cane is too short.

I�d seen that problem solved before. Keras could form blades out of his mana, and Marissa had learned to shape her shroud in a similar way.

I still couldn�t do that. My shroud stubbornly refused to move into a blade shape, in spite of numerous attempts.

But I did have another idea, based on something else I�d seen Keras do, and one of my own older techniques.

I pressed a rune on the dueling cane, bringing out the blade.

Then I pressed my hand against the metal and concentrated. This was going to take a minute.

While I focused, Meltlake was beginning to attack with greater ferocity. She threw another sphere of fire, but when Patrick blasted it like before, it split apart into three smaller spheres instead of rebounding.

Those smaller spheres flew apart, then righted themselves and continued flying at Patrick and Sera.

Sera countered one of them with a burst of arctic wind, causing it to detonate prematurely. The explosion knocked her back, but she didn�t look hurt.

Patrick�s aura shifted from lightning to fire. It wasn�t as intense as Meltlake�s aura, but it still was bright enough that it was hard to look at. The other two spheres hit him dead-on, exploding against his shroud, but his own flames deflected most of the damage.

Most. I could see thin cracks underneath his shield. Like deflected like, but there was too much of a difference of raw power here for his fire to protect him completely.

I was surprised by his next move � he charged.

Meltlake threw a lance of flame at Patrick, but he side-stepped it, and the spear slammed into the wall behind him, melting a hole in the stone.

When Patrick came in close, he swung a burning fist at Meltlake�s face. She knocked his hand aside with her cane, then kicked him in the chest. He flew backward, a crack in his shield where she�d connected.

He threw a bolt of lightning at Meltlake as he flew back, but that just vanished as it hit her aura.

�Permafrost Cascade!�

Sera had finished her spell this time, whispering while Patrick had Meltlake distracted.

Dozens of icy shards appeared, raining down on Meltlake. She created a wall of flame in mid-air, interposing it in the path of the shards.

Sera waved a hand and the shards veered off of their path, flying around the wall and slamming into Meltlake�s aura.

I was impressed Sera had pulled off a spell like that. She must have gotten used to drawing mana from the rest of her body. Still, I didn�t think she�d be able to keep it up for long.

Jin immediately opened fire on one of the spots a shard had hit. This time, I saw a flicker of protective mana flickering beneath the shroud.

Good, that makes it more plausible this will work.

I raised my dueling cane, finished with the harder part.

Making a small mana crystal was easy now. I�d made dozens of both solid crystals and hollow ones.

I hadn�t really experimented with other shapes, but it wasn�t hard. I held the proof of that � a dueling cane, with the blade extended by two extra feet of pure crystal.

The real test was what happened when I hit the last rune, flooding the blade with mana.

Just as I�d hoped, it ran right up the metal and into the crystal.

It still wasn�t quite as good as a real sword, but it would do.

Professor Meltlake was finally turning toward my side of the room, apparently having noticed that hit from Jin.

She hurled a sphere of fire in our direction.

Instinctively, I tried to activate the ring of jumping, but it was still out of mana.

Jin stepped in front of the sphere and shot a hole right through it.

The rest of the sphere collapsed harmlessly.

Huh. Didn�t know that could happen.

I took the moment of apparent safety as a chance to charge.

Meltlake was raising her cane to meet my rush when Patrick threw a blast of fire at the floor at her feet. The explosion was harmless with her aura active, but the tremors caused her to stumble just a step.

That bought me the time I needed to close in and strike.

The crystalline blade made it through her aura, hitting her dead on, and then snapped on contact.

I saw the telltale sparks of damage to her barrier, then she waved a hand and I was engulfed in flame.

My vision was nothing but fire. Both sigils and shroud were protecting me, but the heat was so intense that they couldn�t ward it off entirely. I felt my skin crack and burn.

A burst of cold flashed over me, then the flames were gone.

I stepped back, coughing from the smoke.

Sera was coughing, too, for a different reason. I could see the hints of icy mana still around her from the spell she�d used to save me from the enveloping flames.

She clutched her chest, and I felt a sudden spike of worry as I realized how much she�d pushed herself.

Meltlake must have noticed that, too, because she threw another wave of flame directly at Sera.

Patrick tried to get in the way.

He failed.

The inferno washed over Sera, and then she was gone.

The crystal blade on the dueling cane was snapped too short to give the reach I needed to hit Meltlake again. I needed another plan.

Patrick was forming a sphere of lightning in his hands, preparing what looked like a larger attack than I�d seen him use before. I doubted it would work, but I�d have to buy him time.

I rushed to the right, trying to draw Meltlake�s attention. It worked.

She raised her hand to blast me again, but I was ready for it this time.

Haste.

The burst of speed took me out of the way of Meltlake�s attack, but it also threw me off balance. I stumbled and tripped, but recovered before I actually tumbled to the floor.

When I spun back around, I took a blast of lightning straight to the chest.

My phoenix sigil�s barrier shattered immediately, and I felt my shield sigil drain to almost nothing. Meltlake hit hard, and I didn�t have Sera to save me from another attack.

Fortunately, as usual, we�d all forgotten about Jin.

He stood behind her, dagger in hand, and stabbed straight at her neck.

Meltlake side-stepped the attack effortlessly, turned, and enveloped Jin in a blast of fire.

Addendum: Everyone other than Meltlake had forgotten about Jin.

He staggered, raising his arms to protect himself, but she continued the blast. I hurled my dueling cane at Meltlake�s back. The attack connected, but she barely reacted. The cane melted to slag a moment later.

And a moment after that, Jin was gone.

Patrick let out a growl, finally hurling the huge sphere of lightning he�d been forming between his hands.

Meltlake just shook her head and batted it aside effortlessly. �What did I tell you about investing all your mana in one attack?�

�Don�t do it.� Patrick shook his head. �But you also taught me the value of surprises.�

The sphere split apart, just like Meltlake�s had. Then, rather than flying toward her, the spheres each fired a blast of electrical energy from a different angle.

She knocked one of the blasts aside, but the other two hit her in the chest. I saw her convulse for a moment on impact, indicating that he�d done some real damage.

The spheres kept firing, while Patrick sagged from exhaustion.

I began to charge transference mana in my right hand. It was the last attack option I could think of, unless I wanted to run back to another room to try to get my sword.

One.

Meltlake waved her cane, and chunks of stone shot out of the floor, enveloping the lightning spheres. With the threat of the lightning attacks gone, she turned to Patrick. �Your control is improving � you couldn�t have managed that a few weeks ago.�

�Thank you, ma�am.�

Two.

She shook her head. �It was still a poor choice. You could have done more damage if you�d managed to extinguish my shroud, if only for a moment.�

He shrugged. �I thought a distraction was a better choice.�

Meltlake glanced around. �For what? Corin is unarmed and your friends are all gone.�

Three.

Something slammed into her face a moment later, snapping her neck back.

She staggered, then raised a hand to a bloody lip, wearing an expression of disbelief.

She hadn�t forgotten Jin, like the rest of us had.

But she had underestimated him.

I hadn�t.

The moment Jin had vanished, I knew there were two possibilities. Maybe he�d been taken out of the match like Sera had, but he was a Sunstone, with a stronger shroud than any of ours.

More likely?

He�d gone invisible, using the item I�d given him earlier in the year.

And I had a pretty good idea of his dramatic timing by now. Not quite perfect � I�d only been charging my mana for three seconds, rather than the five I needed for full strength.

But it was close enough.

I lunged forward and punched Meltlake in the face.

She flew backward from the impact, and I felt a hardened barrier cracking against my fist.

Unfortunately, I also felt her aura of fire burn me as I closed in, and that ate up the last of my shield.

A moment later, Meltlake was standing again, and she pointed at me.

All I saw was a single line of light appear from the tip of her finger, aimed right at the center of my chest.

Then there was a flash of pain and my vision went white.

When I reappeared in the waiting room, Sera was the only one in there.

No second-year student to watch over us, and more importantly, no Marissa.

I briefly considered just running back into the testing room, but it was pretty clear that I�d be breaking the rules that way. And not in a fun, �Corin always breaks the rules as much as he can while getting away with it� sort of way.

I turned to Sera instead. �You okay?�

She nodded. �Tired.� She coughed, clutched her throat for a second, wincing. �Can�t talk much. Fill me in?�

By the time I�d let her know what I missed, Patrick had appeared.

�Aww.� He folded his arms. �Almost thought we had her for a minute.�

I shrugged. �Jin still might.�

Jin appeared a moment later.

�Or not.�

�She stopped holding back quite as much once we hurt her,� Patrick explained. �The attacks she was using at first were just basic stuff, like Quartz and Citrine level. I think we made her mad.�

�Good. That indicates a degree of success,� Jin replied.

�I agree.� I looked around. �Anyone seen Mara?�

It was five full minutes before a battered Marissa appeared in the room, smoke still rising off her torn and burned clothing.

She had some sort of weird, unfamiliar crystal in her right hand.

�Man,� she mumbled, �That dragon was tough.�

There was an awkward pause.

Patrick visibly stared at the gem, then Marissa, then back to the gem.

After a couple minutes of explanation, we found that Marissa had rested for a bit, then run back into the test room once Sera had come out � much like what I�d done in the first exam.

Sera had directed her to the room with Meltlake, but unfortunately, there was a dragon in the way.

Marissa had then solved the dragon problem.

Unfortunately, that had left her too weak to do much of anything else, and Professor Meltlake had come up behind her and finished the job.

The professor showed up in our chamber a minute or so after that.

She was clearly uninjured, so it was probably the real version this time.

�Congratulations. You have successfully passed your final exam for Magic Theory class.�

We let out a holler of victory. Even Jin looked pleased.

Sera broke into coughing again afterward, and I gave her a look of concern.

Professor Meltlake kept talking, though. �You�re one of few teams to reach the floor guardian room at all this year, and one of fewer to actually harm my simulacrum.�

�How close did we get to beating her?� Patrick asked.

Meltlake laughed. �Don�t think a busted lip is going to get you anywhere close to taking me down, Patrick. My simulacrum still had about ninety percent of her mana, and about eighty percent of her barrier left. That is not an insult to your performance by any stretch, however. As first-year students, you were not expected to be able to hurt her at all.�

I nodded at that. The simulacrum was probably at least a Citrine-level monster, and aside from Jin, none of us were anywhere close to that.

It definitely reinforced the knowledge that Derek had been seriously holding back when he�d fought us in the spire. That simulacrum alone was more than enough to beat all of us � and the real Meltlake was probably considerably stronger. A glance showed her aura as Citrine, but I suspected she was hiding an Emerald aura, just like Derek had.

�Given the difficulty of reaching the end of the dungeon, as well as your performance in the fight, I am pleased to give you all a rank of �A� for your final exam. Congratulations.�

We let out another cheer, except for Sera, who wisely kept her enthusiasm subdued.

�Now that we�ve completed the test, can we ask you some questions about it?� I asked.

�Of course. But keep in mind that you still may not speak to any other teams about the test. Some people haven�t finished it yet.�

�Great. Now, let�s start with the dark room��

We spent the next hour grilling her with questions about how certain puzzles were meant to be solved. I was surprised to find that everyone seemed just as interested in knowing the other solutions as I was. Even Jin had a question or two.

After that hour, Professor Meltlake smiled and waved. �I�m going to have to go � I have another test to run. If you have any further questions, you can ask me at my office at a later time.�

I nodded. �Just one last one. Did anyone do better than we did?�

�Not many,� she admitted. �But one first-year team actually managed to beat my simulacrum.�

I blinked at that. �How?�

�That�s confidential for now, I�m afraid. But I can tell you after the end of the year, if you�re interested.�

�Very interested.� I wanted to learn every trick I could for future tests and trips to the spire.

I wasn�t surprised that someone had managed to outperform us a little � there were hundreds of teams, after all.

But beating the simulacrum?

I had to know who could fight like that.

I�d definitely look forward to finding out.

�Hold on, everyone.� Sera stopped us outside the building, as we were about to split up. �Even you, Jin.� Sera�s voice was scratchier than usual, almost as bad as it had been right after her first surgery.

Jin was already ahead of us, but he still turned around and returned to the group. He shoved his hands in his pockets, giving Sera a look of mild irritation.

The rest of us just turned toward Sera, since we were already walking together. Sera was still having trouble talking, but at least she wasn�t coughing.

�I wanted to say that everyone did a great job in there, and we couldn�t have succeeded without everyone�s cooperation.�

We gave her a series of nods.

�Wish they would have let me use this. We might have done even better.� Patrick patted the sword that he�d fastened back on his hip. They�d forced us to hand over his Dawnbringer replica before we�d even entered the exam.

It was a little irritating, but given what had happened with Selys-Lyann, I didn�t blame them for being cautious with our magical weapons. I was lucky they�d even let me bring in the transference sword.

�You still did just fine without it.� Sera gave him a friendly nudge. �Anyway, I had a couple more things to say. First, I would like to ask you all to consider being on my team again next year, provided we all graduate � which I�m sure we will � and that we have similar tests next year.�

�I�m in,� Marissa replied at once. �Couldn�t hope for a better team.�

Patrick gave a cheer. �Yeah! We�ll do even better next time.�

I smiled. �I�ll be here, obviously.�

Jin winced as all eyes turned to him. �I�ll think on it.�

Sera�s eyes narrowed. �Good. I would like to include you, Jin. But there is one more thing.�

Jin tilted his head downward. �Say it.�

She nodded. �You clearly already know where this is going, but I�ll say it regardless. If you ever hurt one of my friends again, I will personally feed you to Seiryu.�

He gave her one of his signature half-nods. �Understood. If that�s all�?�

Sera�s jaw tightened just a hint. �That will be all.�

Jin spun on his heel and walked away.

Patrick�s expression sank. �Was that really necessary, Sera?�

Honestly, I thought she was being too generous, if anything.

I wanted to trust Jin again. Working with him again had been fun. We did make a good team.

But it was going to take more than just not killing anyone during one test to regain my trust.

�You weren�t there,� Sera snapped, tightening her hands into fists. �You don�t get to complain.�

Patrick winced and took a step back.

Marissa stepped in between them. �Hey now, Sera. Don�t bite off your hand just because it itches.�

I hadn�t heard that expression, but it seemed pretty appropriate.

Sera tensed again, then sighed. �Fine, you�re right. I�m sorry, Patrick. I�m just� He nearly killed someone. He could have gotten us all killed. You and Corin might be the forgiving sort, but I�m not going to just pretend we�re all friends again like nothing happened.�

�I�m not sure I can forgive him, either.� I folded my arms. �But let�s not have this argument. If we need to discuss how we�re going to handle Jin at some point, that�s fine. This isn�t the place or the time. We�re in public, and we can�t let all this slip out.�

Sera shook her head. �I said what I needed to say for now. Just know that I�ll be keeping my eyes on him. I know the reasons he gave you in the spire, but I still don�t think we know a fraction of what he�s really up to.�

�All right. If that�s done, then, why don�t we get some eats?� Marissa snagged Sera by the arm. �Nothing like punching a dragon to get my stomach rumbling.�

Patrick laughed. �You�d probably eat the dragon if it was real.�

�What, wouldn�t you? Bet it�d give me magic powers or something. Wasn�t there a story like that?�

�They say that�s how the Blackstone Bandit got so strong. C�mon, I�ll tell you about it on the way to the dining hall.�

Mara frowned. �Don�t you mean the Blackstone Assassin?�

�Naw, totally different. This guy is real � just saw him in the papers recently. Robbed a casino blind just a few weeks ago!�

Patrick continued to regale us with dubious tales of the Blackstone Bandit�s exploits all the way to the dining hall�and through much of lunch, too.

Later in that evening, I overheard Sera having a conversation with Keras back at Derek�s manor.

��Sounds too dangerous. Especially in your condition.� That was Keras� voice.

�Might be just the thing I need to get my edge back, though. You sure you don�t want to try?�

�Definitely not yet. I�m sorry. The risks are too high. We can talk about it when you hit Sunstone or Citrine.�

�Bah.�

I found the two of them inside Derek�s training room, which we virtually never used, since the rooftop had turned into our de facto location for sparring.

Still, the training room had its uses � most notably two training dummies that had powerful magical shields. The walls were, of course, also shielded.

I waved when I walked in. �What was that all about?�

�We were, um, just talking about Ceris.� Sera�s voice sounded pretty rough again, and that worried me, but I didn�t say anything. I didn�t want to come across as nagging.

In the back of my mind, though, I was making plans for heading to Vanreach Peak at some point in the future. Sheridan�s treatment had helped, but it clearly hadn�t solved the problem entirely.

Sera raised the crystalline sword. From her stumbling over her words and Keras� dubious expression, I could tell that the sword was definitely not what they had been talking about.

I decided not to push, both because she was clearly uncomfortable, and because Ceris was an interesting topic in itself. She�d had it for several weeks now, but I hadn�t seen her experiment with it much yet � presumably because she didn�t have enough mana to make it work. Either that, or she�d just been training in private.

Ceris was a legendary weapon, the personal sword of Katashi himself. Unlike the Six Sacred Swords, it wasn�t forged for mortal use � rather, it was an instrument wielded by the visage himself, supposedly for his battles against the Children of the Tyrant. They were the only living beings, aside from the Tyrant himself and the god beasts, that were thought to rival the visages in power.

If what Keras had told me earlier was true, some of those children might even be more powerful than an individual visage � which explained why even a visage might need a powerful weapon.

There were other legendary beings that might have been similarly dangerous � the old gods that had supposedly died, and monsters and servants they�d left behind. But as far as I knew, none of those were on this continent � they�d be back in the old lands that our people had left behind during the great exodus to Kaldwyn hundreds of years ago.

Because Ceris was used by a visage, however, legends about it were�varied. Some of them were clearly nonsense, like that Ceris was forged from the heart of another world that had died long ago. Others were a little more plausible; some said that it had once been used by one of the ancient gods who had died in battle against the Tyrant.

In terms of the sword�s actual capabilities, I knew even less.

I waved a hand at Ceris. �I�ve heard the stories about it, of course, but how�s it actually work?�

�We�ve been trying to figure that out.� Sera snapped back to her normal demeanor, tilting the sword sideways. The weapon�s entire blade was made out of some sort of blue crystal.

There were no visible runes on the surface, but I could see some kind of mana swirling around inside the crystal, even without my attunement active.

�What�ve you learned so far?�

Sera turned toward one of the combat dummies. �Here, watch.� She slashed the dummy, and I saw a flicker of energy as it impacted against a shield. Nothing else happened.

I folded my arms. �So, it can be used to�hit things. That�s very impressive, Sera. Truly, it is a blade without equal.�

Sera turned back my way and rolled her eyes. Sighing, she said, �Pay a little more attention, will you? Here, I�ll make it easier. Keras, if you would?�

Keras held up a hand, conjuring a ball of fire and hurling it at Sera before I could react. I had a moment of fear and alarm before Sera raised Ceris to intercept the blast.

What happened next was peculiar. She didn�t cleave the fireball in half like I might have expected Keras to; instead, the sword flashed for an instant and then the ball of fire distorted, seeming to stretch out toward the blade. When the flames reached the crystalline surface, they vanished entirely.

A moment later, the inside of the crystal was swirling with crimson mana.

As I processed what had just happened, she turned and swung the sword at the dummy again. Flames burst across the dummy�s surface as the blade made contact, leaving wide cracks in the protective shield.

Sera was grinning as she turned back toward me. �Get it now?�

I nodded, impressed. �It absorbs and discharges mana. How do you make it work?�

�I just think about the spell that I want to absorb and it pulls it toward the blade, then absorbs it. The range seems to be about ten feet, and it isn�t automatic. I have to mentally command the sword to do it.�

I rubbed my chin. �The fact that it can read your intent is interesting � that�s a pretty sophisticated enchantment. How do you discharge the stored mana?�

�By hitting something. That doesn�t seem to require any special effort, just a certain amount of pressure on the impact. Means I have to be careful � dropping the sword from far enough will set it off.�

�Can it absorb more than one spell at a time?�

�Nope. Have to discharge the last spell before you can store another one.�

That was unfortunate, because I was hoping to be able to mix mana types inside. Having a relatively safe and reliable way to make compound forms of mana would be extremely useful. �What�s the capacity on it?�

Keras interjected there. �I�ve been advising against trying to test that. If we hit the limit, the whole sword could explode. The last time I heard about an artifact exploding, we had to take a city off the map.�

I winced at that thought. �That�s�bad, yeah. But we really need to find out before she can use it in a combat situation, otherwise it could explode at an inopportune time.�

�Right, I�ll make sure we break it precisely at explode-o-clock.� Sera folded her arms.

I laughed. �That�s not what I meant. A powerful Enchanter or Diviner might be able to figure out the capacity. There are spells for testing material capacities, similar to what my mana watch uses for testing personal mana limits.�

�Thought of that.� Sera set the sword down on a nearby table. �Problem is that no one seems to know what the sword is even made out of. Thought the blade was just some kind of hardened mana at first, but it�s definitely not.�

Keras walked over to the sword and tapped on the blade. �It�s similar to a type of crystal I saw once before. It was a green gemstone with ancient enchantments. Unfortunately, I don�t know what that was made out of, either. Normally I can use stone sorcery to get a feel for the composition of most types of stone, but the enchantments on this artifact prevent me from sensing it properly.�

�That might block Enchanters or Diviners in the same way. Hrm.� I took a look at it with my attunement on. The aura around it was colorless right now, which didn�t tell me much. It clearly wasn�t just a Quartz-level item, so it probably used a completely different form of enchanting than modern ones, much like the Jaden Box.

�I�ll see if I can start researching spells for analyzing items. Could be useful, considering the number of magical items we�ve come across that don�t use standard runes. I don�t know if the spells will work, but it�s worth trying.�

Sera nodded. �Thanks.�

�Have you figured out anything else about it?�

Keras shrugged a shoulder. �It has some standard magic sword properties. Tougher than steel, but it�s hard to say if that�s because of enchantments or the crystal itself. It�s sharp, but nothing particularly impressive. Then there�s this.� He picked up the sword, then hit the target with it several times in rapid succession.

I could hear a faint ringing in the air each time he struck, with a slightly different tone � like musical notes.

I blinked. �That�s�really strange. Is it doing anything other than making sound?�

�Can�t tell.� Keras set the sword back down. �Might be some kind of vibration based attack, but if so, it doesn�t seem particularly potent. It seems to change based on where I hit the target, so it might also be some kind of information for the wielder.�

�Information?�

�I think the tone might indicate points the sword considers more vulnerable than others. If it was built for use against powerful monsters, for example, the tone might be useful for finding areas where scales are thinner, or that sort of thing.�

�Like knocking on dungeon walls to find a hollow spot. Huh.� I�d thought of some pretty strange ideas for enchantments over the years, but that definitely wasn�t the type of thing I�d ever considered. �That�s�weird, but I suppose it could be useful.� I thought about it for another moment. �Does it make a different noise when you have a spell stored inside?�

Keras� eyes and lips narrowed as he considered. �Haven�t noticed a difference, why?�

�If the sword is about storing and distributing mana, and it also has some kind of weak point detection, maybe it can be used to detect for elemental weaknesses as well.�

�Not bad.� Keras tapped his fingers against the table. �I hadn�t thought about it, but that does make sense. I generally don�t bother with figuring out monster weaknesses.�

Probably because you�re so powerful you don�t have to worry about them, I realized with a hint of amusement. But the rest of us mere mortals need to strategize more.

�Wish we had an easier way to test that.� I finally said. �I could build an elementally aligned shield sigil, but it�ll take a while.�

I considered the idea of testing it on a summoned elemental for an instant, but then I realized that was horrifically immoral and dismissed it entirely. Fortunately, no one else brought it up.

Another idea did occur to me, though. �Keras, what about that bond you can make with weapons? Wouldn�t that give you a better idea of how it works?�

Sera frowned. �We talked about that. There are some risks with trying to make a contract with an artifact with unknown properties, especially when we know at least one of them involves absorbing mana. We�re probably going to try it, but we wanted to figure out what we can from safer tests before we make a decision.�

That sounded wise. �Have you figured out if there are only specific types of mana it can absorb?�

�Seems like any of them, at least from what we can tell.� Sera formed a little sphere of ice in her hand, picked the sword back up, and absorbed the spell into the weapon.

There were a lot of possible applications for that. �Could you store a healing spell inside, and then use it to heal someone later?�

Sera blinked. �You want me to use this as a healing sword? Really? That�s your brilliant, non-standard application for this?�

�Hey, I just learned about it. Besides, you know that�d be hilarious.� I folded my arms. �Okay, better one. Teleportation.�

Keras whistled. �That�s not a bad idea, actually. Most people around here block offensive teleportation with their shrouds. But if you could get the sword to hit them directly, it�d be inside the shroud, and completely ignore that defense.� He glanced at Sera. �You�ve got travel sorcery. You should try that.�

She shook her head. �Summoners can learn teleportation spells at higher attunement levels, but I�m a long way from that point. Especially now.� Her expression sank.

�You�ll catch back up.� Keras patted her on the shoulder. I winced on her behalf, but she didn�t seem to mind the contact. She�d never been as sensitive to random people touching her. �Maybe Corin could help with that?�

�We�ve talked about it, and I don�t think using my attunement to strengthen her is a good idea while she�s still recovering. Overcharging her mana is what got her into this in the first place.�

�Agreed,� Sera added quickly, with obvious nervousness in her voice. �Maybe after I get back to the point where I was before the spire.�

Keras glanced at me, then back to Sera. �No need to hurry, I suppose.� From his tone, it was obvious he disagreed with the decision. He didn�t seem like the type to prioritize safety in general, so I could see why.

Fortunately, he didn�t push. He jumped back to the last topic instead. �Anyway, teleportation was a good idea. Maybe you can find some other clever things to store in there eventually. For now, though, it�s an amazing defensive tool if nothing else.�

That was certainly true � being able to pull a spell right out of the air was a great way to stop an attack spell without much effort. I thought Sera would be missing out by using it exclusively for defense, but she could make that choice on her own.

�I�ll think on that some more,� I offered, turning to head back out. �And I�ll get to looking up item identification spells.�

I�d already done a bit of research on the Lesser Identify spell, and I knew the theory of how to cast it, but I hadn�t practiced with it yet. Besides that, I needed a stronger spell to get much useful information.

�I�m sure you�ll come up with something that helps our enemies slightly less than a healing sword, if you try hard enough.� Sera snickered. �But one more thing before you go.�

I paused. �Hm?�

�I�m not just tinkering with a sword. I�m getting back in fighting shape in general. I appreciate you all putting up with my weakness during the last test, but I�m done with dragging everyone else down. Next time we have a group exam, I�m going to be the one leading the way.�

I grinned. �I�ll look forward to that.�

�I�ll need you to do more than just that. I�m going to need a consistent sparring partner.�

I frowned. �Why not just train with all of us?�

�I will to some extent, of course. But Patrick always holds back, and I can�t get as much out of fighting close-range fighters like Mara and Derek.�

I could see the logic there. Her attunement was built for summoning � which she lacked the mana to do effectively right now � and ranged combat. Training against melee fighters was still useful for her, but it didn�t let her practice her main skills.

Patrick was a better match for her, but I didn�t disagree with her evaluation. He�d want to go easy on her to avoid bruising her ego, but that would stunt her ability to train effectively.

�Okay.� I nodded. �You�re on.�

Sera grinned. �Meet on the rooftop in two hours?�

�I�ll look forward to it.�

Over the next few days, I spent a bit of my time practicing the Lesser Identify spell.

When I cast Lesser Identify on an object, another aura would appear around it that only I could see. Rather than demonstrating the power of an object like a traditional shroud, the aura displayed by Lesser Identify was color-coded to show the highest concentration of mana in the object.

For example, when I cast it on Selys-Lyann, it showed a blue aura, indicating water mana. Or maybe ice mana. I couldn�t actually tell the difference, because both water and ice had different shades of blue auras, and I didn�t have a lot of samples to compare.

Because I found the basic colors hard to tell apart from composite ones like ice and lightning, I didn�t find the spell particularly useful. It was a good foundation for more powerful information gathering spells, though, and I used it as a way to practice using my mental mana without causing myself the intense distress of draining it continuously.

Once I was confident I could cast it properly, I tested it on Ceris. The resulting aura was pure white and sort of sparkly, which didn�t correspond to anything in my book. That was neat, but not very useful. I told Sera about the results and promised to continue studying.

Beyond that, I tested it on Trials of Judgement. I�d been looking for good ways to figure out how it worked, and this was my first real chance that didn�t involve asking someone for help.

Unfortunately, the result was nothing at all. No glowing aura. The book probably had runes to protect it from detection magic, and they were stronger than my spell.

I was still tempted to take the book apart to find the runes, but I resisted the urge. It wasn�t worth the risk of causing the book damage.

I looked up some more powerful identification spells, but none of the ones in the Quartz and Carnelian range were powerful enough to break through the book�s magical defenses, and they didn�t give me any more information.

I did find a Sunstone-level version that was just called �Identify�. That would tell me several more piece of information about an item, but it cost eighty mana to cast, and I couldn�t manage that yet.

I�ll get there at some point, though.

The more important discovery from all of the practice was that I could cast information gathering spells in general, even if I wasn�t a Diviner. There were a few things that required the Diviner attunement, like making memory crystals, but most of them just required having mental mana.

That knowledge gave me several new options to explore.

I practiced another spell � one I�d first seen when researching Diviners � and left the manor.

I had some tracking to do.

The Arrow of Direction spell literally made a glowing arrow that pointed to my target. There were several variations, but I could only cast the most basic version, which lasted a few seconds. It also only worked on targets within a few miles.

Finally, it required a physical item connected to the target to use as a focus. Pieces of the target�s body were best � blood, hair, that sort of thing � but something invested with the target�s mana would work as well.

In this case, I used a business card.

I didn�t find my target at a bar or a seedy casino like I�d pictured.

Instead, they were walking at a park just north of campus, accompanied by a small, intensely fluffy dog.

I found myself hesitating when I got a few feet away, uncertain on how to start the conversation. Fortunately or not, they did it for me.

�Corin, when I told you to track me down, this wasn�t exactly what I had in mind.� In spite of the chastising message, Sheridan was grinning brightly.

I waved the business card. �I figured the rune on the card stored some kind of information on how I was supposed to contact you. But I didn�t have a spell for extracting that information, and honestly, just using your mana to track you seemed faster.�

Sheridan laughed. �I applaud your corner-cutting abilities. You pass the test.�

I nodded. I�d expected that there was a reason the card didn�t just have an address on it. �I thought about just asking Derek where to find you, but I figured that would have been less impressive.�

�You�re quite right. He�d have sent you to my house, and I�d have to be more formal there. Hold on a second.�

Sheridan reached into a bag at their side, retrieving a small ball and tossing it in front of the dog. The dog rushed toward it, barking lightly.

The ball began to roll away on its own.

�That�ll keep Mister Eviscerator entertained for a while.�

��You named your dog Eviscerator?�

�Mister Eviscerator. The title is important. He�s very polite.� Sheridan clasped their hands together. �So, business or pleasure?�

That sounded like a trap question. �Maybe a little bit of both? It would be a pleasure to do business with you.�

Sheridan chuckled again. �I�ll give you credit for the effort, but your intentions are obvious. We can keep it professional today. What do you need? Sera doing okay?�

I nodded. �She seems to be recovering fine. That�s not what I�m here about right now.�

Sheridan expression shifted for a moment, giving me a hint that s my answer had been unexpected. �Good, good. What can I help you with, then?�

�I need information. Hard to get information.�

�Well, then you came to the right place, assuming you can afford it. Let�s go have a seat, shall we?� Sheridan glanced back toward Mister Eviscerator, who was still chasing the rolling ball, and then led me toward a nearby park bench.

There were other people in the park � mostly students, and a few other local civilians � but no one that looked to be close enough to overhear our conversation.

�So, what do you want to know about?�

Everything. But I can�t afford to ask about everything I want to know. I�m going to have to get some of my answers from cheaper sources.

�A few subjects. Some we might not be able to discuss in public.�

I glanced around again, but there still wasn�t anyone within earshot, as long as we weren�t yelling.

�And what are we starting with?�

�I�d like to know what you know about Tenjin�s disappearance.�

Sheridan raised an eyebrow. �That�s not exactly a small issue. You sure you want to get involved with that sort of thing?�

�I already am. How do you think I got my second attunement?�

�Ooh, fascinating.� Sheridan folded their arms. �Okay, I�ll do a pure information trade for a bit about that. Elaborate about your Arbiter attunement, and I�ll tell you a bit of what I know.�

I nodded. It was a better trade than I would have hoped for. I wasn�t sure I could trust Sheridan, but there were enough people who knew what had happened with Katashi that I didn�t think this was a particularly difficult secret to discover without my help. Especially for someone with Sheridan�s apparent resources.

�So, remember that time when Mizuchi attacked everyone outside the spire a little while ago�?�

I summarized what had happened with getting my brand, then retrieving �someone� for Katashi and bringing them to the spire. I didn�t tell Sheridan about Vera�s identity or what happened with Orden�s betrayal. If information had a price, I could sell that later.

�Based on your account,� Sheridan began, �I think you would be better off asking me a different question. You most likely know more about Tenjin�s situation than I do.�

I frowned. �I assumed that kind of thing would be your area of expertise. Forbidden knowledge and such.�

�Not everyone who deals in information has the same focus. �Forbidden knowledge� is a very broad subject matter. I happen to deal primarily in forbidden magical knowledge, as opposed to political secrets, the affairs of the gods, and that sort of thing.�

That definitely limited my avenues of conversation, but it did provide me with a better idea of what I should be asking about. �Okay. More specific question, then. Are you working with my brother, Tristan, on whatever he�s been up to?�

�No.�

�Just �no�?�

�You�re asking because of my sister�s dealings, I assume?�

I nodded. �And because of your association with Wydd.�

�Ah.� Sheridan smiled. �You gave away something you shouldn�t have there. I wasn�t aware your brother had an association with Wydd.�

�I just assumed��

�That people who work for Wydd would be aware of each other? That would completely defeat the point of some of our positions. We�re often asked to spy on each other, in fact. Some portion of any group entrusted with forbidden knowledge is going to abuse that knowledge.

�The fear that we�ll be discovered by one of Wydd�s other servants is one of the factors that prevents those abuses. For all I know, you could be working for Wydd right now, and seeing if I slip and say something I�m not supposed to.�

�Wouldn�t you have means of identifying each other, though, in case you needed to share information?�

Sheridan waved a hand. �We have identification phrases and such, but that can be faked. In general, we simply report to our superiors, and they tell us any other contacts we need to know about.�

That sounded extremely frustrating, but I could understand the reasoning behind it. �Okay. Were you approached about working with whatever group Tristan is working for?�

�Ah. A much better question, and the answer is �yes�. I deemed the risks too extreme. As such, they did not tell me any important details. As I said, I likely know less than you do.�

I rubbed my chin, processing that. �Okay. Speculate with me for a moment. Who could be the mastermind behind Tenjin�s disappearance? Who would have the resources to coordinate an effort that could keep him gone for this long?�

�Without knowing where Tenjin is, there�s very little I can do to answer that. Ask something else.�

This wasn�t going the way I wanted, but I slowly nodded and considered. �What can you tell me about the Whispers as a whole?�

Sheridan shrugged. �Not much. For starters, there isn�t just one group of Whispers. They�re really separate organizations, each dedicated to one of the visages.�

�And you�re a Whisper of Wydd?�

Sheridan shook their head. �No. Whispers are secret. I�m actually publicly in Wydd�s employ.�

�What does that make you, then? A priest?�

�Hah! Not in the slightest. I�m a magical theory researcher. All of the visages have people like me, who serve in various roles without any sort of fancy religious status or title.�

�I don�t suppose you could tell me who some Whispers of Wydd are?�

Sheridan shook their head with a grave expression. �No. And before you ask, not at any price. That�s not the kind of information that I can sell.�

�Can you tell me more general information about their organization, then? Hierarchy, roles, positions?�

Sheridan shook their head. �Sorry. I don�t like being this evasive, but you�re better off asking an actual Whisper. And even then, they�re probably not going to tell you.�

I sighed. �Okay. Different approach, then. Do you know anything about anyone else who might be working directly with Tenjin�s kidnappers?�

�Yes. Your brother. But you already knew that, didn�t you?�

�I don�t think I should confirm that.�

�Hah! Good. You�re learning.� Sheridan glanced over to her dog, then back to me. �If these are the only sorts of questions you have, I think we should wrap this discussion up. I�m not going to be able to help you much with it.�

�Okay. Something more in your area of expertise, then.� I pointed to my right hand. �I�d like to learn more about my Arbiter attunement.�

�Ah.� Sheridan smiled. �Now that is more my area of expertise. I take it you already know the basics?�

�Yes. I know how to transfer mana to others, either to restore their mana or exceed their current maximum capacity. But I�ve been thinking about the implications of that, and how they might relate to how I received my attunement in the first place.�

�In what way?�

�When I transfer my mana to someone, I can permanently increase their safe capacity, but only by a fraction. And I�ve been told that I can only do that safely about once a week. This is, presumably, because the body can only acclimate to a certain amount of additional mana at once.�

Sheridan nodded. �That�s correct.�

�When Katashi gave me the brand, though, it seemed to be storing a tremendous amount of mana inside. And I also saw Katashi enhance someone else�s attunement, increasing it by an entire attunement level. In both cases, that would involve an increase in mana that is much greater than what I�ve been told is �safe� to give someone with my attunement.

�I considered whether or not that might be related to Katashi being more powerful than I am, but that doesn�t make sense. It�s the target�s body that is relevant, because it�s their capacity that is being strained by the additional mana.�

Sheridan�s smile broadened. �You see a contradiction. Someone�s body can only handle a certain amount of mana, but Katashi somehow bypassed that restriction in both cases.�

�Meaning that either he was willingly risking our health by giving us an amount of mana that would be unsafe, or, more likely, that he has a method to give people large amounts of power without compromising their safety.� I took a breath. �I want that method.�

Sheridan sighed and scratched the back of their head. �Of course you do. Don�t you have any easy questions?�

I chuckled. �What�s your favorite food?�

�I said easy ones. Okay. What are you offering?�

�For the first question or the second one?�

�For information about Katashi�s methods.�

I reached into my bag and pulled out the mana regeneration bracer. �I tested it. It works.�

Sheridan shook their head. �A few weeks of testing isn�t going to be enough to satisfy me.�

I�d expected that. I pulled a hairpin out of my hair and offered it to Sheridan.

�What�s this?�

I smiled. �I could tell you for the right price.�

�You�re cute, but hiding the value of what you�re negotiating with isn�t going to get you anywhere.�

�It�s a magic lockpick. Put it into a lock, it opens it.�

Sheridan turned the hairpin over in their hand, considering. �Interesting, but no.� They handed it back to me. �I�ll make this a little easier for you. Use your Arbiter attunement on me.�

�That�s all?�

�I want to know what it feels like. And it should permanently increase my mana, if only a little. That�s nothing to scoff at, even at my level of power.�

I nodded. Sheridan extended their hand. I removed my glove, took Sheridan�s hand, and channeled mana into them.

�Tingles a little bit.�

�Don�t move.�

�Sorry, sorry.�

I continued concentrating until my hand burned, then released Sheridan�s hand.

�Interesting.� Sheridan flexed their hand experimentally, examining it. �Thank you for the experience.�

�So, what was the hidden objective behind that?�

Sheridan�s eyes fluttered. �What makes you say I had a hidden objective?�

�Your personality.�

�An excellent answer.� Sheridan smirked. �And you�re right, but I won�t answer that particular question. You�ll find out eventually. As for your previous question, however, I can give a little bit of insight.�

�What can you tell me?�

Sheridan leaned back. �Are you aware that attunement designs have changed over time?�

I nodded. �There are different generations of attunements. Either the goddess herself or the visages are still improving them somehow.�

�Correct. One of the elements of attunement design that has changed over time is how quickly they can grow.�

�Meaning that it used to be harder for your attunements to get stronger?�

�Mostly easier, I believe, although I haven�t studied the details of every individual generation of attunement.�

�But why make those sorts of changes? And if there are mechanisms in place for that, how do they work?�

�Excellent questions.� Sheridan retrieved something from their pouch; the mana watch I�d given them. �You made this little device to measure the amount of mana that someone can safely use.

�Every attunement has something similar built in. Or, several somethings, really. Functions for measuring the amount of mana in the body, and storage functions that determine how the values have changed over time. And also functions for determining the health of the body.�

I could follow the logic. �So, the attunement stores what your last maximum mana was, and continuously tests you to see if you meet certain conditions. If you do, your maximum mana increases.�

�And at certain thresholds, the attunement unlocks entirely new functions,� Sheridan explained. �Carnelian, Sunstone, all of those levels are mana thresholds built into the attunement. And they did not always exist.�

That was new to me. �They didn�t?�

�The first attunements just gave all their abilities to the attuned immediately. The result was a form of mana poisoning that was almost always fatal. Attunement levels and the safety thresholds for mana growth are designed to prevent that.�

�Okay, that explains a bit, but it doesn�t�� I stopped as it began to make sense to me. �Katashi didn�t make my friend�s attunement more powerful. He fundamentally changed how it works.�

Sheridan nodded. �I can�t say for certain, but that�s what I suspect. He most likely changed the values in the rune to say that she was ready for a higher level attunement. In theory, the safety functions in the attunement would still prevent it from flooding their body with too much mana all at once. Your friend�s mana capacity probably increased gradually over the course of several weeks at the maximum possible rate that the attunement deemed safe.�

And Marissa spent those few weeks feeling sick and under-performing.

Still, I knew a lot of people that would be happy to be able to have their attunement level increased rapidly without any significant effort.

There had to be a greater downside than I was seeing.

�If that sort of thing is a possibility, why aren�t all of our attunements designed to increase in power automatically by a certain rate every day?�

�Every time you cast a spell, your body acclimates to using that type of mana. Using mana types and amounts that your body has not acclimated to properly can cause your body harm. If your body had a tremendous amount of mana, but you had never used mana before, and you cast a spell that used even a tenth of it, you�d kill yourself. Because of that, attunements generally require a degree of mana usage before your capacity increases.�

�Why would Katashi make an exception, then, if it�s an important safety function?�

�He was probably able to evaluate your friend�s situation and determine that they could handle it. For example, some types of mana are safer than others. You can safely have � and wield � more life mana in your body than fire mana. If your friend was a Mender, for example, Katashi may have been able to increase their power with minimal risk.�

I nodded. Marissa was a Guardian, and life was one of her mana types. Her attunement was generally defensive in nature. It made sense to me that there would be a lower risk of damage from saturating her body with extra mana.

She also trained constantly, and it was possible her body was able to handle a higher amount of mana than what her attunement was giving her.

The overall answer made sense to me, but it was disappointing. It meant that there was no quick and easy way for me to just change someone�s attunement to Emerald and give them a tremendous amount of power in an instant, even if I figured out how Katashi had done what he had done.

Still, there were avenues I could explore with this knowledge. If Katashi somehow knew that Marissa could handle more mana than she was currently getting, maybe I could figure out how he knew that and learn to do the same. If so, I could potentially accelerate the power growth of other people when it was safe to do so.

And there were some other options I�d have to think about as well.

�What about things that increase mana capacity without exercise, like lavris fruits and enhancement elixirs? How do they work?�

�I�m not an expert on those, but there are a few ways they could work. Lavris fruits and similar foods probably strengthen the body in ways that help it tolerate more mana. It�s possible they also simply use up some of your mana in the digestion process, which would effectively be the same as casting a spell.�

Sheridan took a breath and then continued. �Enhancement elixirs work more like your attunement; they flood the body with mana. That can be useful in moderation, but as you�ve seen with your own attunement, there�s a maximum benefit you can achieve without causing the body harm.�

I rubbed at my chin, thinking. �Okay. But none of that explains how the brand worked that Katashi gave me, or how he changed that into an attunement.�

�You�re quite right, that�s something different. Unfortunately, it�s not something I�m allowed to explain.�

�You sure there�s nothing else you can tell me?�

�Anabelle Farren.�

I blinked. �What?�

�Head researcher for artificial attunements in Caelford. If you really want to know how that brand worked, or how to give someone else an attunement in general, you should talk to her.�

That sounded like something that I absolutely needed to do, but that I couldn�t do immediately. Caelford was weeks away by train, and I wasn�t done with the school year. And even if I was, I didn�t find it likely I�d be able to slip away to Caelford any time soon.

Still, it was good to finally have a name of someone I could talk to. It was both a lead on how to research my own abilities and potentially relevant to Tenjin�s whole situation.

�Anabelle Farren,� I repeated. �I�ll look into that. Thank you.�

Sheridan smiled. �Good. Now, I think I�ve given you enough secrets for one day.�

I nodded and stood up. �Thank you. You�ve been a tremendous help.�

Sheridan waved a hand dismissively. �You were entertaining. That�s a good enough exchange for me.�

After talking to Sheridan, it occurred to me that I still hadn�t heard anything from Derek about the other Theas sibling.

There was a part of me that was still tempted to confront Elora directly. She was a key part to all this, but she was also vastly more powerful and influential than I was, and I wasn�t sure if I could deal with her safely. Things clearly hadn�t gone as she�d planned, and I didn�t know if she was still working with Tristan or not.

I decided to ask Derek first. �She�s not around,� he explained.

�Around?� I asked. �What does that mean?�

�She�s apparently been in Dalenos for a month or so.�

I stared at Derek. �Isn�t that around when the grand cathedral in Dalenos exploded?�

I deliberately didn�t mention that my mother was also in Dalenos. This news strengthened the possibility that Elora was working with Mother in some way.

Derek shrugged. �That doesn�t sound like her style.�

�But kidnapping a visage is?�

�That was unusual for her, admittedly. But blowing up a major place of worship seems too�messy for her. She values precision. Organization. The kind of random destruction caused by something like that wouldn�t appeal to her.�

�But you�re not ruling out that she could have been involved?�

Derek sighed. �No. I can�t rule anything out at this point. I wouldn�t be surprised if it was a part of the same organization that she�s working with that caused the explosion, I�m just saying I doubt it was her personally.�

I nodded. �Do you have any way of getting in touch with her at a distance? Wayfarer, that sort of thing?�

�I already sent her a few messages. She hasn�t bothered to reply. She�s probably still angry about�well, lots of things.�

That was inconvenient, but I could work around it. �Okay. Point me to your Wayfarer, and I�ll contact her.�

�I�m not sure that�s a good idea.� Derek frowned. �If she�s reminded that you exist, that gives her a reason to start paying more attention to you.�

�Is that a problem?�

�You do not want Elora Theas� attention unless you can control that attention.�

I twisted my lips in concern. I didn�t like the sound of that. �I�ve managed to keep up with Sheridan so far. I think it�s worth a try.�

�Deni and Elora are not the same�but it probably won�t hurt. Okay, I�ll give you some directions and write my friend a note.�

Derek gave me a letter, as promised, and sent me to a Wayfarer on the other side of town.

I wrote a brief letter, hoping it would get me an effective response.

I spent the next few days feeling like garbage.

I knew, intellectually, that it wasn�t worth worrying about what I�d done during the test. I�d failed anyway, after all, and there were far greater matters of import in my life.

And it wasn�t like I�d been entirely forthcoming with everyone about everything else in my life, anyway. I wasn�t above withholding information if I thought it was important.

And graduating was important. My goals might have expanded lately, but that didn�t mean I could give up on graduating.

Still, I couldn�t help shaking the feeling of disappointment in myself.

Ultimately, I think it was because I�d let someone down that I actually respected.

I was used to being a failure in my father�s eyes.

And my mother? Well, I had no idea what she felt about me now, because she hadn�t seen fit to write me or visit.

Vellum had always been critical of me, but she�d also been eminently fair. I think that was why I respected her as much as I did.

And by omitting a little detail on that test, I�d violated a contract in my own mind. I didn�t feel like I deserved her trust.

But I also didn�t have the confidence to just go and tell her about it.

It was silly. I�d failed the test anyway. It wasn�t like she could double-fail me.

Probably.

Either way, that wasn�t what I was worried about.

I was just ashamed.

It was fortunate that most of my finals were already over, otherwise my scores might have suffered during that time.

Maybe it would have helped if I�d shared my feelings with someone else.

But I�d never been good at that.

Why am I so weak?

I asked myself that question many times, but I never found a good answer.

I still wasn�t in a good frame of mind when Jin came to visit, and seeing him certainly didn�t make things any better.

Neither did his news.

�I believe we are both being followed.�

I nodded to him. It was hardly a surprise at this point.

I knew someone had broken into my dorm, and I�d figured out a plan for following the trail, but I hadn�t followed it yet. I�d had too many other things going on.

I also knew that Derek was having someone follow Jin. I wasn�t sure if that was still what was going on, or if whoever was following me was also following Jin.

Either way, it was worth finding out what Jin knew, and looking into it further. �Do you know who it is, or why they�re doing it?�

Jin shook his head. �No, but they appear to have countermeasures for my attunement.�

�That implies that they�ve done their research on us, and that they have considerable resources.� I rubbed my chin. �Okay. Let�s go find them.�

Jin blinked. I think I startled him. �I didn�t think you trusted me.�

�I still don�t. But I�m reasonably confident you�re not involved in what I found, I�m in an awful mood, and I�m tired of waiting for potential enemies to act against me. I�d rather get ahead of this. You up for some walking?�

�Yes,� Jin confirmed. �I am.�

�Give me a bit to get my things. I�ll meet you by our dorms in around an hour or so.�

Jin nodded and headed out.

By �my things�, I meant putting on Selys-Lyann, my sigils, and my demi-gauntlet. I was going loaded for a potential fight.

The next thing I did was check in with Derek. �Are you still having someone follow Jin?�

Derek shook his head. �No, Jin was stuck in the hospital for so long that I told my contact to stop bothering with it. I�ve considered putting a tail back on him now that he�s up and about, though. Why? Is he acting suspicious?�

�Because someone is still following him.�

Derek frowned. �Well, that�s awkward.�

I sighed in agreement. �Yeah. I�m going look into it. Can you help?�

�I�m busy. But use the stick if you need me?�

I nodded. �Will do.�

Then I excused myself to go tell Keras where we were going.

�Do you want me to follow you?� Keras asked. �I�m not great at stealth, even with the mask.�

I considered that, then agreed. �Give me a few minutes.�

It took me about a half an hour to put together a basic Arrow of Direction enchantment. It was a two piece item, like a return bell. When active, the main item would show the user a glowing arrow that pointed toward the anchor.

I threw it together in a hurry, so it was the weakest version of each of the runes. That meant the range was limited to about a mile, but I still thought that would be plenty. The concept was useful enough that I wanted to make more of them later, but this would be good for the moment.

I kept the anchor in my bag and handed the detection item to Keras. �You can use this to follow us from a good distance away. If you see us, you�re probably too close. Jin is pretty perceptive.�

�Are you expecting trouble?� Keras raised an eyebrow as he asked.

�Very possible.�

Keras grinned. �Good. I haven�t had a decent scrap in a while. Let me get my trouble coat.�

I met Jin back at the dooms, then we headed into my room.

�What�s the plan?� He asked.

�We start here.� I pulled up the cut in the carpet, revealing the enchantment that someone had placed on my floor.

�And that is�?�

Right. It was easy to forget that other people didn�t necessarily read runes the way I did. �It tells someone that we�re here. Someone planted it here while I was away.�

�And we�re going to ambush them when they show up?�

I shook my head. �No.� I drew my sword, causing Jin to take a step back. �Oh, sorry. Not attacking you. I�m taking this with us.�

After a moment of consideration, I re-sheathed Selys-Lyann and pulled out the Jaden Box. �Retrieve: Transference Sword.�

I used that sword to cut out the section of floor that had been enchanted. I�d used the other sword because Selys-Lyann had a chance of freezing the whole thing, which I didn�t want to risk. Moreover, a cutting aura was more suited to this sort of job. Sawing at wood with a sword blade would have taken forever, but the transference sword�s aura made it easy.

�What are we doing with that?� Jin sounded curious now, rather than scared.

�Store: Transference Sword.� The sword vanished. �We�re going to trace it back to the source.�

I hadn�t just learned the Arrow of Direction spell to find Sheridan � I�d learned it because it could trace the connections between magic in general.

Using Trials of Judgment to find Tristan was one option, but that wouldn�t work as long as he was inside the spire.

Tracing an enchantment to an anchor, though? That was basic stuff.

I slipped the enchanted floorboard under my coat and we headed out of the room, locking it behind us.

�Let�s go find some trouble.�

I was pretty excited about using the Arrow of Direction spell at first. Seeing a glowing line that led straight toward whoever had planted the enchantment in my room sounded great in theory.

In reality, though, we had two major complications.

First, distance. The enchantment was much further away than I�d expected. My initial Arrow of Direction spell didn�t work at all.

With some effort, I managed to cast the Citrine-level version, rather than the Quartz one I�d been practicing. That found the target, but the spell still only lasted a few seconds.

I didn�t have the mana to cast that repeatedly.

So, after we walked for a bit, I stopped and changed my plan.

�I�m going to try to make a second enchantment on the floorboard that traces the first enchantment.�

It was almost identical in concept to what I�d just made for Keras earlier. I didn�t have the second item to use as an anchor, but I didn�t need to � the two items were already connected.

I still couldn�t make it stay on all the time, but by making it an enchantment, I could pass it to Jin and he could use his mana to activate it. That way, we could share the mana costs by passing it back and forth.

The enchanting process was a little shorter this time, since I didn�t have to make the anchor part, and I�d just done something similar earlier in the day.

�You sure this is going to work?� Jin asked.

�No,� I admitted, �But I want to know if it will.�

If it did, maybe I could eventually modify Trials of Judgment in a similar way. It would need to be a much more powerful version of the enchantment than I was capable of casting right now, but anything that fed into my longer-term plans like that was useful.

The enchantment worked perfectly.

I was almost surprised, honestly. I�d been in such a bad frame of mind after what happened with Vellum�s class that I�d been beginning to doubt my abilities as an Enchanter in general.

Seeing that glowing line appear when I turned the enchantment on� there was something magical about that.

I grinned and passed it to Jin. �Try it yourself.�

�This rune?� He asked.

�Yeah. Just a bit of gray mana.�

Jin activated the rune, then stumbled back a step in surprise.

I laughed. �Yeah, the arrow is a little startling at first.�

�Indeed.� He chuckled, straightening his stance. �Shall we go?�

We followed the arrow for an hour. Then another hour.

I felt bad for Keras, who presumably was still following us.

After a moment of questioning that, I reached into my pouch and tapped the anchor, casting an Arrow of Direction. I knew anchors could be traced in reverse now, so�

�.Yeah, Keras was still behind us. I couldn�t tell the distance without a different spell, but it was clear that he was following the same path that we were, rather than being in the direction of the mansion or something.

I gave him a silent thanks as Jin and I continued toward our unknown destination.

Most of the walk had been relatively quiet, but I didn�t mind that.

I was getting used to working with Jin again, and I was pleased to have someone with a better stealth skill set for this kind of mission, even if I didn�t entirely trust him.

�Any idea if we�re getting close?� Jin asked.

I shook my head. �There�s an Evaluate Distance spell, but I haven�t learned it. It�s on my list.�

We walked a little further.

It was sort of nice, for a while.

�Corin, I�d like to apologize again. I should have been honest with you.�

I sighed. I�d hoped this wasn�t going to come up, but I�d known it was probably inevitable. �I still can�t forgive you, Jin. I�m not sure if I ever will. But I�m willing to work with you on this, at least. We�ll see how that goes.�

Jin nodded. �I will endeavor not to disappoint you again.�

Our destination was not what I�d expected.

I�d imagined a lot of possibilities.

The Vice Chancellor�s office seemed plausible. He was one of the few people who knew about what we were up to at all, and keeping tabs on us made a degree of sense.

A mansion for a noble, like Elora Theas or Lord Teft, also seemed like a strong possibility. Both of them had the means and potentially the motivation.

I�d even considered the possibility of running into my mother, and learning that she was back in Valia and watching me from a distance.

Also, I may have pictured a wizard�s tower and a cave with a dragon.

So, when we exited the campus and headed into a residential area, I was a little surprised.

I was doubly surprised when I found myself wandering into an area with run down older apartment buildings.

I was triply surprised when we headed into a dark alley adjacent to one of those buildings.

I was not, however, surprised when the dark figures dropped from the rooftops and surrounded us.

That part I�d been counting on.

Jin reached into his coat.

Someone in the front of the group � they were all wearing hoods and black neutral masks, so details were tough to discern � spoke up. �There�s no need for that. Don�t start anything and we won�t need to, either.�

Jin slowly nodded and removed an empty hand from his coat, opening it to show that he was unarmed.

The leader stepped forward. As they drew closer, I noticed a single green gemstone in the center of the forehead of the mask. �You�re a long way from school, kids. What brings you out here?� Something was altering their voice when they talked, giving it an unearthly quality. Maybe the mask itself, if I had to guess.

I decided to be direct. I tossed a glowing floorboard into the gap between them and us. �That.�

The leader snapped their fingers. Another figure stepped forward, knelt down, and picked up the board. Then they walked back and whispered something to the leader.

The leader spoke again. �Ah, that. Just a routine bit of work for hire, nothing personal.�

I shrugged. �Okay, nothing personal, then. Just point me toward whoever hired you.�

I heard a chorus of laughter from all around us.

More laughter than there should have been, given that I could only see six people.

I turned my attunement on, but that didn�t reveal any invisible watchers. Every one of the cloaked people was attuned, though, and showing Sunstone-level.

Not good odds, even if there weren�t others hiding invisibly, and I couldn�t be confident of that. My attunement couldn�t break through stronger forms of concealment magic.

Jin spoke up. �Perhaps we can make some sort of arrangement?�

The leader waved a hand. �Afraid not, friend. We have a reputation to maintain.�

I frowned. �And who are you again?�

�My, my.� The leader tapped their mask. �You haven�t heard of us? We�re the famous crew of the bravest of rogues � the Blackstone Bandit!�

My jaw opened for a moment before I regained control of my expression. �The train thief? The one based on a fictional character?�

Another series of laughs from around us.

Fortunately, the leader did not appear offended by my statement. �The very same! But I must assure you, our leader is both quite real, and most proficient at the art of roguery.�

��Roguery? Is that an actual word?�

I was pretty sure that was not a word. It sounded made-up.

The leader waved a hand. �That�s not important. Either way, I must commend your efforts for making it this far, but your quest is at an end here. Run home, children.�

�Wait.� Jin raised a hand. �What if, hypothetically, we wanted to join the Blackstone Bandits� crew?�

I shot Jin a look. I don�t know what kind of look it was. I�m not sure there�s a word for a combination of shock, horror, and admiration occurring all at once.

I�m going with shorrorulation. If they can make up words, so can I.

There were a series of whispers from among the hooded figures.

�While we are honored that you wish to join our most prestigious crew, you�ll need to wait a year or two. When you�ve graduated, we�ll find you. There will be tests. You may or may not know when you�ve been tested.�

Well, that was an interesting gamble, but it certainly didn�t get us what we needed right now.

Another question occurred to me. �Does your group have any relationship with the servants of the Tyrant in Gold?�

The group went tense, and I realized I may have made a mistake.

The leader simply folded their arms. �Now, why would you ask something like that?�

�The original Blackstone, the fictional one, had a connection with the Tyrant, yes?�

�Ah,� the leader made a hand signal and the others seemed to relax. �Yes. That�s all purely fictional, I assure you. We have nothing to do with those cultists.�

I nodded.

That was not what their reaction told me.

I�d hit a nerve somehow. That didn�t necessarily imply that they were actually working with the Tyrant, but there was clearly some kind of history there.

I glanced from person to person briefly, but I didn�t see any of the glowing marks on shoulders that Keras had warned me to look for. Just normal attunement marks, in normal locations.

That was good enough information for now. If they�d had the shoulder marks, I might have tried to signal Keras somehow to come in and do something, but for now, I didn�t have enough information to make a move.

And with at least six people, in their own territory, starting a fight without a good reason was a bad idea.

�I don�t suppose you could at least give us a hint about who hired you?� Jin asked.

�A hint?� One of the hooded people behind us said. �I love it. Go ahead, Jade. Give them a hint.�

Ah, so the person in front wasn�t the actual leader, then.

That made sense. It meant the actual leader was able to watch us without being watched in return, and lowered the risk that we�d attack them directly.

�Jade�, the person I�d previously assumed was the leader, raised a hand to their mask, giving a look of consideration.

After a moment, they said, �Someone with great power who may yet be your friend or your enemy, depending on how you play your hand.�

That was absolutely terrible hint.

But I�d take what I can get.

�Thank you. We apologize for intruding on your territory. We will leave you now.� Jin replied.

�We didn�t say you could leave,� Jade replied.

We tensed. I almost reached for my sword.

�Ah, just kidding. Get out of here, kids.� Jade waved a hand. �And walk safe. There are unsavory types about this late at night.�

Jin and I headed back toward the dorms at a rapid pace. We did not want the Blackstone Bandits� crew to change their minds.

�I�m sorry that we failed to learn the identity of our pursuers.� Jin offered after a time.

I shook my head. �We did. We just didn�t find out who hired them. I�d call that a success.�

�Perhaps.� He shook his head. �But it doesn�t feel that way.�

�It�s progress, at least.�

We slowed down a bit when we got back to the school grounds.

I turned toward Jin. �Any ideas on who that clue might point to?�

He shook his head. �It could be any number of people. The �with great power� is the only true hint, in my mind. That could be political, economic, or magical power � but it still narrows the field to a degree.�

I nodded. �I concur. We can most likely rule out other students, and probably our teachers.�

Leaving powerful nobles as options, independently powerful attuned like Derek, and foreign powers like Keras or the Tyrant.

We stopped before reaching the dorms to talk a bit more.

�What are our next steps?� Jin asked.

I frowned. �I don�t know. I�ll talk to Derek and see if he has any ideas. Maybe he�d have some ideas on who might be connected with the Blackstone Bandit.�

�He doesn�t seem like the type to work with thieves.�

I shrugged. �You never know. It sounds like whoever hired that crew has either lost interest in us, or decided to take a different approach. For the moment, I think we�d best just keep our eyes open, and communicate if either of us learns anything.�

Jin nodded. �I can agree to that.�

�Good.� I hesitated for a moment, then added. �Thank you.�

He raised an eyebrow. �For?�

�Coming to me about someone following us. I appreciate the information.�

�Of course.� He hesitated, looking like he wanted to say something more, then simply concluded with, �You�re welcome.�

�It doesn�t change what you did before,� I added hastily.

Jin shook his head. �I did not expect it to. But I hope that perhaps, over time, you can learn to trust me at least a bit again?�

I drew in a deep breath. �I�d like to. But I don�t know.�

Jin gave me that crooked smile of his. �That�s a better answer than you gave me before, at least.�

�It is.� I acknowledged. �Good night, Jin.�

�Good night, Corin.�

I met with Keras on the way back to the manor.

�So, did you pick up anything I may have missed?� I asked.

�I wouldn�t presume to know what you noticed, but there were a considerable number of additional members of their group still waiting nearby, both inside the building and atop it. That is not a small organization, Corin. And I believe you found one of their bases of operations.�

I frowned. �Or that whole encounter could have been staged. I don�t see why they would have had a monitoring device in that sort of location. It seemed like just an ordinary neighborhood.�

�Operating out of a seemingly ordinary neighborhood seems like a pretty good way of keeping your group of thieves from being obvious,� Keras pointed out. �It�s not like they�re going to have a big building that says �Blackstone Land� on it.�

I chuckled. �I suppose. Although given how lighthearted they sounded, I wouldn�t be surprised.�

�Don�t take their levity as a sign of weakness. They were well-organized. Professional. They had people with ranged weapons aiming at you at all times. You were wise to withdraw when you did.�

That only made me more nervous. �Any clues on who they work for?�

Keras shook his head. �No. Did you catch any names? I wasn�t close enough.�

�Jade.�

�That�s not a good sign.�

I nodded. �Because it�s a gemstone name?�

I remembered what he�d told me before.

�It might just be because they�re mimicking the stories about the Blackstone Assassin,� he offered, �But I wouldn�t want to bet on that. I�d advise you to stay as far away from those people as possible.�

�For what it�s worth, I didn�t notice any of those shoulder marks you told me about.�

Keras gave me an approving expression. �Good of you to check. Keep watching for those.�

�I will.�

We got back to the mansion without incident. �Thanks for watching over me.�

�No problem. Get some sleep.�

�You, too.�

He shook his head. �Not just yet for me.� Keras cracked his neck. �I�m still wearing my trouble coat, and I never got to use it.�

I never found out what kind of trouble Keras got into that night, when he came back in the morning, his clothes were torn and he was in the best mood I�d seen him in a long time.

I asked him if he�d gone back to fight the Blackstone Bandits, but he just replied, �Nothing like that, Corin. Don�t worry about it.�

I didn�t ask any more questions after that. I had a feeling that I didn�t want to know the answers.

I spent just a little bit of time trying to research the Blackstone Bandits. Unfortunately, articles about their group were interspersed with so many references to their legendary namesake assassin that I couldn�t find much reliable information.

Derek told me that he didn�t think they usually did work for hire, but he didn�t know too much about them, either. Most of what he�d heard was that they considered themselves to be �heroic thieves� working against the corruption of large banking institutions like Haven Securities.

That certainly explained the number of bank heists and train robberies that were attributed to them, but it was hard to tell if there was really only a single group, or multiple groups using the Blackstone Bandits� name. I was leaning toward the latter, since so many of the crimes seemed to be in Caelford, rather than Valia, and the Caelford heists seemed to have slightly different methodology.

While I found it fascinating to read about them, I couldn�t justify spending more time on it. If they really were just hired to watch me for a while, it wasn�t worth investing my time and minimal resources into trying to dig deeper.

I�d have to find way to figure out who had been following me eventually, but for the moment, I had higher priorities.

At the beginning of week twenty-seven, the entire student body was called to a meeting on the same grassy area where the orientation had been held.

�Good morning, students,� Chancellor Wallace began. I hadn�t seen her much during the semester, but she still had a powerful presence on the stage. �Congratulations on making it this far into the year. Your dedication to this point is commendable. But you�re not quite finished yet.�

She folded her hands, turning her head to scan from side to side. �As I�m sure many of you remember, the traditional final exam for the first year as a whole involves a climbing expedition into the Serpent Spire. Normally, this involves a group of five students entering with a teacher. Unfortunately, it will not be possible to hold that exam this year.�

There was a murmur in the crowd.

The chancellor waved a hand. �Quiet.�

It was surprisingly effective, nearly instant. I felt a tingling in the back of my mind�some kind of mental attunement at work?

Whatever the effect was, it was so brief that I didn�t have a chance to analyze it or try to chase it out of my body. It was already gone.

Out of curiosity, I activated my attunement. I immediately regretted it.

I couldn�t see the chancellor�s aura through the haze of thousands of others.

I turned it right back off, rubbing my eyes.

The chancellor continued. �The reasons for the change are unimportant, but they have required the implementation of a replacement exam. Over the next two weeks, groups of students will be sent to complete their final examinations. Vice Chancellor Bennet will provide the details.�

She stepped back, allowing the vice chancellor � once again in a military-style uniform � to step up to the lectern to speak.

The vice chancellor�s expression was always stern, but he looked unusually grim today. His eyes showed exhaustion, and his jaw looked like he�d been clenching it tight.

He took a deep breath before speaking. That probably wasn�t a good sign. �The spire test is what normally separates students who are merely academically proficient from those who are truly ready for the next step in their training for service. You�ve all survived simulated spire exams throughout the year, but a few hours in a test room can�t show how you�d survive in a dangerous environment for an extended period of time.�

The vice chancellor paused, taking another breath. �For this examination, you will be broken down into teams of five. Those of you who still have an existing team that has survived up until this point will retain that team. Your team will be assigned a second-year student and given a deployment date. On that date, you will be sent into a training facility to the north of campus.

�You will be given an assignment and seventy-two hours to complete it. You will be expected to pack equipment for surviving in the wilderness for three to ten days. You will be briefed for your mission when you are on-site, and mission-specific equipment may be provided to you at this time.

�This test will be a culmination of everything you have worked on this year. You will be graded not only on the successful completion of your mission, but also any casualties to your team, your efficiency, and your judgment.� He turned to the chancellor, nodding to her.

The chancellor stepped back into position. �Your deployment information should have been delivered to your rooms this morning. If you have not yet received it, you can check with the administration department. Deployment dates will vary, but they begin in two days. While you all have done well to reach this point, bear in mind that last test will be your hardest, and you would be wise to earn any additional points you can through other means. Your graduation is not assured, but if you work hard, it is achievable. Good luck. You are all dismissed.�

With that, we dispersed.

Sera nudged me. �I�m going to go check my mail. Strategy session back at home in a few?�

I nodded mutely. We walked together toward the dorms for a few minutes, splitting off when our buildings were in different directions.

I was still a little hesitant to go back to my old dorm room. Not because I had any real fear of assassins at this point, but because I still wasn�t quite comfortable with the idea of running into Jin again.

I was feeling a better about him after we�d done the whole thing with finding the Blackstone Bandit�s crew together, but there was a part of me that also felt like any sort of renewed trust in him was a trap.

I needed to sort through that at some point, but I wasn�t quite ready to talk to him again yet.

And I definitely wasn�t ready to to potentially spend seventy-two hours with him during our next test. That was going to be challenging.

Aside from Jin, I was still worried about the possibility that people were watching my room. I checked the area first, but I didn�t see anyone overtly suspicious.

I cautiously made my way inside.

Nothing inside the dorm itself looked to have been tampered with, but I found multiple pieces of mail that had been slipped under the door.

Most of it was junk, simply because I hadn�t visited in a while.

There were three things of note.

First, I found the deployment assignments.

I did what was obviously the smart thing and ran toward the explosion.

Some others reacted similarly, showing a similar lack of self-preservation instinct.

Others drew weapons.

Marissa ran after the fleeing horses.

Oh, right! Horses.

They ran right past me, obviously terrified from the sudden burst of sound and fire.

I was a little surprised they were free to run at all � they must have been detached from the carriage while they were being fed. This was unfortunate timing.

Unfortunate or, more likely, well-planned by a traitor who needed as many distractions as possible.

Sera was only a few feet away from the carriage, holding her head. The sound of the detonation must have hit her hard at that range.

Patrick stepped in front of her, glanced around, then pointed his hand at the flames. �Extinguish.�

The flames flickered, but didn�t subside.

�Was anyone in there?� Someone asked. I couldn�t tell who.

I rushed over to Sera, who was slowly rising to her feet. �You okay?�

She pointed at her head, then frowned. �Mm,� was all she managed to say.

�Can�t hear me?�

She stared for a moment, then half-nodded uncertainly.

�Resh. Patrick, can you take care of the fire?�

�Trying, but it�s not working. This was a powerful spell, and I�m specialized in lightning, not fire.�

I nodded to him. Then I pointed to Sera, raised my hands up, and made a throwing gesture.

�Wha?� Sera mumbled. �Oh!� She shook her head. �I think�maybe�� She coughed, then took a breath, and began to chant. �Goddess watching from up high, send us snow from the sky!�

I�d expected her Permafrost Cascade spell, but what she conjured was just a bit different. Globes of snow appeared above the carriage and descended, weakening the flames.

The other two Elementalists approached, joining Patrick�s efforts and finally managing to extinguish the flames.

We quickly cleared away the wreckage of the top of the vehicle and confirmed that, fortunately, no one had been inside at the time of the blast.

�What the resh was that?� Kyra asked.

�Explosion,� Patrick explained.

�I caught that, genius. I mean, how�d that happen?�

Rupert picked up a rod from the center of the cabin. It was etched with runes and split in half. �This,� he said, �Looks like an enchanted item.�

All eyes turned to me.