It Ends in Fire

by Andrew Shvarts

  Professor Hapsted doesn’t notice any of that. He just turns to Talyn, head cocked with curiosity. “Our esteemed foreign visitor speaks! Please enlighten us, Good Prince. What lies beyond the Null?”

  “We don’t call it the Null,” he explains. “The place you go when you use your magic is the Realm Between.”

  “Between what?”

  “Between our world, the world of the living,” he says, gesturing around our room. “And the land of the dead.”

  I remember that shape I saw through the fog all those years ago, tall and lean and blurry, with way too many limbs. I shudder.

  The rest of the class goes on pretty much the same, with Hapsted droning on about the nature of magic, the perils of the Null, and for some reason an odd digression on the history of luggage. I’m bored out of my mind. If I wanted to study abstract theory, I could bury my nose in a book. I came to this school to learn new Glyphs, to become a skilled Wizard. I came to this school to do.

  My next class is even worse. Besides teaching us magic, they want us to learn things like history and politics, which is absolute torture. Professor Pentacoste, a plump middle-aged woman with her red hair up in a bun, strolls back and forth, expounding on the glorious First Fathers, the brave men blessed by the Gods to master magic, who tamed a wild and lawless continent to create the Republic of Marovia. Never mind that the First Fathers were brutal tyrants who slaughtered thousands of Humbles and enslaved thousands more. Never mind that every word she speaks is pure unabashed propaganda. I have to bite my cheek just to stay silent.

  Talyn is in this class, too, and he’s struggling as much as I am, maybe more. At one point, he lets out a groan, and at another, a weary sigh. I catch up with him after the class ends, and we walk side by side through the quad, our feet crunching neatly over the fallen leaves. “Tell me you found that class as excruciating as I did,” he says. “Tell me I’m not alone.”

  I know he’s reaching out, but the footing here is treacherous. I want to agree with him, but in a way that won’t attract suspicion. So I deflect. “I take it you’re not a fan of how we teach Marovian history?”

  “Am I a fan of being fed horseshit and told it’s cake? No. No, I am not.” He cranes his head up to the sky. “It’s going to be a long two years.”

  “And do all scholars in your kingdom tell the truth?”

  “No, our scholars lie as well,” he admits with a shrug. “But they’re much less self-righteous about it. Funnier, too.” He turns to me, a single eyebrow cocked as his intelligent brown eyes take me in. “I have to admit, though, you surprise me. A girl who charges Marius Madison with a knife and admits the Marovian history lecture is a lie? Are you sure you really belong here?”

  I keep up the smile, even as I’m cringing inside. I’ve shown too much, and he’s too close to the truth. “In New Kenshire, we value skepticism and independence,” I say, because if he’s going to mark me as an outsider, I might as well lean into it. “We’re part of the Republic but we do things our own way.”

  Talyn lets out an appreciative laugh. “It’s funny. When I arrived, I assumed you Marovian Wizards were all the same. But now I see how divided and different you really are.” Hierarchies within hierarchies, castes within castes. He’s seeing the same things I am, even if I can’t acknowledge it. “May I ask a favor of you, Lady Dewinter?”

  “You may.”

  His mouth twists to a crooked smile. “Will you walk with me after class again? I suspect I’ll need another outsider to talk to so I don’t entirely lose my mind.”

  I smile back, genuinely this time. “I think I can agree to that.”

  Finally, at my last class of the day, I get what I was looking for: Introductory Glyphcraft. Fifty of us meet in a wide outdoor amphitheater on the western side of the campus, sitting on tiered benches around an elevated stage. Fyl’s in this class, too, along with Desmond, so I slide up next to them. They’ve got their Loci out. Fyl’s holding a nice old-fashioned set of sandalwood wands, engraved at the handle with the Potts House crest, while Desmond has a pair of jagged obsidian knives that sparkle darkly in the light. I eagerly roll my bone knives out. “Do we finally get to use these?” I ask.

  “Really? You’re that eager to start carving Glyphs?” Desmond asks. “I’ve been dreading this humiliation all day.”

  “It’s better than falling asleep in Basics of Rhetoric,” Fyl groans, burying her face in her hands. “That’s not an exaggeration. I literally fell asleep. On the first day. Professor Reens decided to demonstrate her art of rhetoric by yelling in my ear.”

  “In her defense, it was really funny,” Desmond says, and Fyl punches him in the arm. Grinning, he turns toward me. “Neat Loci. Are those military issue?”

  “My father was given them as a ceremonial honor for his service,” I lie, because the real truth is, we pulled them from the cold, dead hands of a decorated Wizard after we attacked his caravan. “Can you back up a moment and explain why this is going to be humiliating?”

  “Because none of us know how to carve Glyphs?” Fyl says. “I mean, my mother tried to teach me, but she’s not exactly some great master Wizard herself.…”

  “My father can make a pot of water boil,” Desmond says. “I don’t know how he graduated from here. I really don’t.”

  “And it’s not like we can afford fancy private tutors,” Fyl follows up. “Not like some people.”

  I follow her eyes and there he sits on the opposite side of the amphitheater. Marius Madison. He’s wearing the Vanguard uniform, a crisp gold suit with stag heads for the buttons. His friend Dean, the hulking boy from the ferry, slumps next to him, scratching at his curly beard. I make the mistake of meeting Dean’s gaze, and his mouth crinkles into a cruel grin. “Hey, New Mark!” he shouts. “You sure you’re sober enough for this? I’d hate to see you accidentally blast a servant girl into twenty pieces!”

  “No, she’s merciful, remember?” Marius replies. He’s not pretending to be better than Dean, not anymore. Why bother when the lines have been drawn? “She’ll make sure the girl is just blown into ten pieces.”

  A raucous laugh rolls across the room, even as Fyl rolls her eyes and Desmond glowers. “Welcome to the Order of Nethro. Where things can only get worse.”

  A rap of knuckles cuts off the laughter, and we all turn to the front, where the class’s professor has entered the amphitheater. “Now, settle down, pupils,” Headmaster Aberdeen says with a chuckle as he strides onto the stage. “You’ll have more than enough time for merriment later.”

  Of course it’s him. Of course. Even with my newfound resolve and purpose, seeing him makes my blood run cold. I breathe hard through my nostrils and dig my nails into my palms and force myself to swallow down that anger. Right now, he’s not the monster who slaughtered my parents. He’s just the professor who’s going to teach me to carve Glyphs. Glyphs I’m going to eventually use to kill him, sure, but he’s just the teacher for now.

  “I imagine you’re all very eager to get started,” he says, moving to a wooden table at the center of the stage. “This is, after all, why you’re really here. To learn the ancient art of Glyphcraft. To become Wizards! I remember when I was a young man, arriving at Blackwater. It was long ago, far longer than I’d like to admit. I’ve forgotten much of that time…” he says to mild chuckles. “But I’ll never forget how excited I was the first time I laid eyes on the Codex Transcendent.”

  Then he reaches down to pick up a massive book, which he slams down on the table before him with a resounding thud. We all go silent, our eyes transfixed. This book is enormous, so thick he has to grip it with both hands, overflowing with pages. It’s bound with thick worn leather, and a half dozen chains are wrapped tightly around it, connected to a shifting crystal lock. “The Codex Transcendent,” Aberdeen repeats. “The single most valuable book in the world. The sum of all the knowledge of every Wizard who has passed through these halls. Every Glyph known to us lies in these pages. Basic Glyphs. Advanced Glyphs. Forbidden
Glyphs.” He runs a hand across the top, almost lovingly. “All of them are here.” His eye twinkles as he gives us all a warm smile. “And no, I won’t let you borrow it.”

  He pivots, turning the book sideways, so we can get a look at how thick it is. Gods. There’s got to be hundreds and hundreds of pages. Are there really so many Glyphs out there? Is there really so much to know? “When I first saw this book, I thought, well, that’s not so much. I could memorize all that. I could become a Master Wizard. After all, I’ve got that keen Selura intellect.” An amused murmur ripples through the room, and a few Seluras cheer. “But you may be surprised to know that even now, as the headmaster of this school, I can only carve maybe half of them. And only a hundred or so well. Why? Because it turns out, to my great chagrin, the secret of Glyphcraft is not memorizing Glyphs. It’s learning how to carve them well. The precision of your stroke… the deftness of your cut… the subtle arcs, the delicate curves… all of these are what truly matters.”

  Of course. Sera had always emphasized that precision mattered, and she sat with me night after night trying to help me perfect my strokes.

  “And yet I imagine you’ve had enough theory and abstraction! Perhaps a demonstration is in order.” Aberdeen presses his hand on the book’s front, and the chains unlock, sliding back into the crystal lock like serpents retreating into their burrows. He opens the book to the first yellowed page, which shows a Glyph I recognize: on the left, the triangle of Ice Base, on the right, two diagonal cuts for Sphere Form. Sphere of Ice. Even I can do that.

  Clearly, I’m not the only one who thinks that, because a groan runs through the room. Aberdeen notices it, nodding. “Ah, yes. I know what you’re thinking. You know how to do this. Everyone knows how to do this. Even the lowest, commonest, most disreputable Wizards in this Republic can make a Sphere of Ice.” He claps his hands together. “So let’s see it, then. Marius Madison, if you’ll do the honors?”

  “Of course, Headmaster,” Marius beams, hopping up to his feet.

  “And another.” His eye roams the room, like a hawk searching for its prey, before alighting on us. “Fylmonela Potts! Would you care to join him?”

  Fyl looks like he just threw a spear through her chest. Her mouth opens and closes wordlessly as the blood drains from her face, before she finally swallows deeply. “Yes, Headmaster,” she chokes out. “I—I would be honored.”

  Desmond and I share a worried glance, but it’s too late. The ship is in motion, and there’s no turning back. Fyl makes her way to the front of the amphitheater as everyone stares at her. She and Marius take the stage, and the contrast between the two couldn’t be clearer. Marius is preening, confident, taking out his fancy Loci with a little spin, even as Fyl raises hers with a trembling hand, her face paler than I’ve ever seen it. I feel that deep, aching secondhand embarrassment, the kind that is somehow so much worse than when it’s your own. “Hail Vanguard!” Dean shouts from the stands. “Show that Nethro how it’s done!” A few other students, some of whom aren’t even Vanguards, cheer.

  “All right,” Aberdeen says, turning the book toward them. “Let’s see it!”

  I feel them enter the Null before I see it, that aching pull within my chest drawing toward them. Their heads jerk back as their eyes turn to a glassy glimmering starscape, black speckled with twinkling white and spiraling blue. If I joined them in the Null, I’d see them actually carve the Glyphs, but I stay in the Real, so all I see is a single flicker of motion in front of them, feel the world throb with the electric pulse of magic. In the Real, it’s a second, less than a second, and then they’re both back, and hovering in front of each is a glistening sphere of ice. I shoot Fyl an encouraging smile. She did it, right? She made the sphere?

  Then I see Aberdeen’s face as he observes the orbs, see the smug twitch of his smile. “And here we have it. A perfect demonstration.” He paces in front of them and takes Marius’s sphere, raising it for all of us to see. “Examine this. A wonderful specimen, if I may so myself. Perfectly spherical. Its surface smooth as silk. Its size ideal for a hand. And its density…” He smashes it down against the table, hard, so hard a few students jump back, startled. The table shakes, but the ball remains intact. “Solid as a rock.”

  He sets it down, then reaches out, taking Fyl’s, as her face drops with embarrassment. He holds it up for us to see, and even I have to admit, it’s a bit of a mess. “And here we have a counterexample. The shape is uneven, lopsided, more like an oval. The surface is brittle and jagged. It’s far too small, hardly more than a pebble. And as for the density…” He squeezes, barely, and it crumbles to slush in his hand. “The less said, the better.”

  Everyone in the room laughs, except for me and Desmond. Fyl stares down, her cheeks bright red, her Loci limp in her hands at her sides. And Aberdeen is there all the while, that kindly old smile on his face. This is theater, all of it, theater to establish those with power and those without, theater to make the Mariuses of the world feel strong and the Fyls of the world feel weak. Theater to put us in our place. I feel that anger again, burning behind my eyes, balling my hands into fists. It’s all built into the system here. The cruelty, the competition, the constant humiliation and hierarchy. This is the Republic at its purest.

  “Don’t worry, Lady Potts.” Aberdeen gently squeezes her shoulder. “We all need to start somewhere.” And she nods politely, because what else can she do? Marius takes a grandstanding bow, and she makes her way off the stage back up to us. When she sits down, her breath is caught tight in her throat and her eyes shine with tears.

  “Fyl,” I say, “That was—”

  “It was nothing,” she cuts in, swallowing hard to get the words out. “It was my fault. I know those Glyphs. I could’ve done better. I could’ve practiced more.” I reach out to try to pat her shoulder, but she swats my hand away. “It’s my fault. Don’t try to make this better.”

  “Would any others care to try?” Aberdeen asks, as if he were being sincere.

  And before I can think better of it, my hand shoots up.

  Fyl glances at me, stunned, and Desmond just shakes his head. “Lady Dewinter,” Aberdeen says, somewhere between surprised and amused. “Come on down.”

  Gathering my Loci, I stride down through the seats and climb onto the stage. Aberdeen calls on another student, a broad-shouldered Zartan girl named Terra, and she lumbers down to stand by my side. I barely even notice her, though, because it’s taking every ounce of restraint I have to maintain my composure around Aberdeen. He’s standing right there, just a few feet from me, no idea who I am. He smells like old books and sawdust, and I can make out every sparkling little moon on his robe. I could kill him right now if I wanted. I could kill him right now.

  No. The mission. I take a good look at the Codex Transcendent, overflowing with knowledge, possessing every secret I so badly want, and pretend I’m just studying the open pages closely. The Zartan girl lines up next to me, holding two long curved daggers as Loci. “All right,” Aberdeen says, “Begin!”

  I take a deep breath and slip into the Null.

  The world fades away around me. I’ve never been in the Null near this many people, and I can see all of the students in the audience through the haze, see the dozens of flickering red lights that are their slowly beating hearts, like a sea of lanterns on the other side of a storm. The fog seems thicker here, like the Null is denser, and it takes more effort than usual to push through it, to raise my hands and carve. I glance to the side and see the Zartan girl stab her dagger into the skin of the world, see her thick biceps tense as she drives the Loci deep. Sweat streaks down her brow, and in the molasses fog of the Null I can actually see her exertion, see her intensity radiate off her like plumes of purple smoke.

  I turn away. Eyes on my own. My Glyphs have always lacked precision, but I suspect I’m better than Fyl and probably better than this Zartan. With a solid inhale I raise my right hand and press my Loci in, gently, cutting in just enough. I carve the triangle Glyph of an Ice Ba
se, and it glows a vivid blue before me, and I feel its cold soak through my skin, feel frost dance at the edges of my hair. Then I raise my left hand and carve the second form, the two diagonal cuts. The Glyph solidifies in front of me and starts to take shape, folding in on itself to form a hovering frozen sphere. It’s not as good as Marius’s, but it’s not bad, not bad at all.

  I glance back at Aberdeen, and he’s in the Null with us, flesh and blood, observing everything we do. His eyes flit to my sphere, and I see a glimmer of approval.

  So I jerk my left hand down hard, cutting my Glyph in half.

  In the real world, it’s barely been a second. But here in the Null, a whole crisis plays out. My sphere of ice throbs, pulses, trembles with untamed energy. Its smooth surface cracks and shatters, tendrils of ice bursting out like grasping hands. There’s a noise coming out of it, a terrible rending noise, like a knife scraping against the inside of my skull. The Zartan girl screams.

  Aberdeen’s on it. Moving faster than I would’ve thought for a man his age, he shoves past me, and in each of his hands is a Loci, gnarled ivory shafts twisted in spiral strands. Unicorn horn, the rarest of all materials. Aberdeen weaves them through the air with incredible precision, like an artist dazzling a landscape onto canvas with a pair of brushes. His Glyphs are like nothing I’ve ever seen, the base a whirling sequence of increasing horizontal bands, the form an interconnected cage of at least two dozen diagonal cuts, forming a glowing golden mesh. And even more amazing, he carves both Glyphs at the same time, one with each hand, moving independently of each other. I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t even know it was possible.

  So this is what a Master Wizard is like. This is what I’m up against. Even here in the Null, my heart plunges. How the hell am I ever going to take on that?

  I jerk back into the Real, just as Aberdeen carves the last line of his Glyphs. My sphere explodes with a deafening crackle, like an ice shelf breaking off a glacier, shooting shards of jagged blue in all directions. The Zartan next to me throws up her hands, and I dive back, knocking over the table, sending the Codex Transcendent tumbling. In the stands, students scatter and duck.