by J E Mueller
“Oh no, Eastyn loves what Gawin is doing. Praises him all the time for updates I don’t give him.” I found it hard not to roll my eyes. Instead I gave a forced smile. “I’ve decided to do all I can to see it ends, but they are persistent.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be bothering you with any of this.”
“I honestly prefer the real conversation to the giggling and batted lashes I’ve had to deal with all night,” Aylum admitted, not hiding his concern.
“Still, you are new and it’s not very ladylike for me to throw all my problems at you.”
Aylum gave a small laugh. “If that’s all your problems, at least that’s somewhat easy to solve. Worse comes to worst, you can just challenge him to a duel.”
I couldn’t help but snicker. “I might be able to win too if I could practice more.”
Aylum’s eyes glimmered with amusement. “You see? Nothing too bad there.”
“But…” I sighed as dramatically as I could.
“Of course, there’s a catch.” He nodded before it clicked. “Ah, you’re restricted on what you can practice. Naturally.”
“It’s problematic, though if I’ve heard right, his grades are mostly paid off and not earned. Not surprising given the types of upper class in these schools, but still good to know,” I mused.
“It would still be better to be confident and win. One cannot simply decline a duel without shame being added, which is something one with a title can’t have. I assume he has a reasonable title and therefore can’t just ignore it?” Aylum asked curiously.
“Lari, so yes,” I agreed. It was essentially two ranks under the king. My father was five ranks under holding the title of Tite.
Aylum nodded. “Then best to study and practice extra to be sure.”
“I can’t imagine when or how. It’s difficult to get away for practice,” I admitted. While I did find time, it was never long enough to really get much better. My running into Aylum was an excellent example.
Aylum looked thoughtful. “It sounds like a fun challenge. I’ll think of something.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Almost every last action is watched and monitored here. You do know that right?”
“That is where the fun part of the challenge comes in.” He winked before giving a small laugh.
“You’re not going to be able to find a way. I’ve completed three years here, I would have found one,” I insisted. The fog no one really bothered me with, but the one time I snuck out a sword I was caught rather quickly.
Aylum smirked. “I will find a way. It might take a week or two, but I will find it. Promise.”
I stared at him, unsure if he was being serious or just delusional. “Very well. Best of luck making good on your promise.”
Aylum released me, the music from this particular dance coming to an end. “I won’t need the extra luck, but thank you.” With a swift bow, he left.
Chapter Three
The new school week went on as expected. Aylum, still being new, took advantage of asking a lot of questions about the grounds and changed groups constantly. It took no time for everyone to know at least a little about him. While he seemed to never stick with one group for too long, by the second week it was obvious he had Delmar as a friend and Cressida, and Celibria as constant followers.
I wasn't surprised he hadn't said much to me aside from normal school work. There wasn't a way he could keep good on that promise, as nice as the thought was. The dorms locked us in for the night magically. Even if you managed to stay out, all the other rooms were spelled so teachers would know where to find rule breakers. It surprised me when midweek him and his group joined mine for lunch -namely due to the lack of room at the table.
Keti was catching Soleia up on the newest folly from our healing class while I laughed at how animated her retelling was. Despite the school pushing for women to be healers, some were much better off never trying to help. Soleia was lucky her family let her take destruction magic classes instead, but she still enjoyed keeping up with the happenings. At least in my class no one was fainting from blood, but none of us had a real stomach for strong smells that came with certain needed healings.
"Mind if we join?" Aylum asked as he sat down next to me, not waiting for an answer.
Delmar took the remaining seat beside him leaving no more room for the followers at the small circular table.
"Aylum dear, there's not enough room for us." Cressida giggled, batting her lashes.
"We should move elsewhere. All of us can sit over there." Celibria Motioned a few tables away.
Aylum shrugged. "Maybe we can do lunch tomorrow." He gave them a quick smile before turning toward us. "How is everyone today?"
Celibria cleared her throat. "But we always do lunch. It would be silly to break tradition now."
Aylum looked over at her blankly. "It's a weird tradition to follow someone around all day, every day, and expect the other person to want to be with you when you haven't even asked for their consent." Cressida and Celibria looked surprised and tried to get something out, but Aylum continued. "Thank you for joining me for lunch, I'm sure I'll see you later."
He turned back to us as they left in a huff. Soleia gave a small, barely muted snicker while I covered my face to keep from laughing. Keti looked surprised and mildly delighted by the whole exchange.
"I didn't think anything would work on them." Keti shook her head.
"That was satisfying." Soleia laughed, no longer trying to contain her amusement. "Poor girls just want your hand." Her laughing continued as Keti joined her.
I shook my head. "Hopefully they aren't too bitter. I don't feel like dealing with them in potions."
"They'll be sulking. Who cares, they're nasty on a good day." Soleia shrugged it off. “Probably made them feel rather Sedimentary. Cast off like the common lot of people.”
“Probably,” I snorted. I couldn't argue that. They were often mean just for the sake of being mean. This wouldn't change much.
I turned toward Aylum. "What brings you to our table today?"
"Honestly, I saw two seats and thought it was a perfect escape from the hagravens." He chuckled tiredly.
Delmar gave an agreeing laugh that turned to a sigh of relief. "I don't know if there's been much peace with them around. Can hardly escape them to show Aylum around. They are inappropriately desperate to get him alone."
Aylum shook his head, "It's rather annoying." He said before asking about our day.
As normal conversation started to take over once more Aylum smirked at me and very quietly stated, "I can keep good on that promise."
I looked at him, surprised, before glancing over and seeing everyone was already distracted. "How exactly?"
"Loopholes in how things are structured. There is one catch."
"That part doesn't surprise me." I frowned, not entirely sure if I wanted to know what it would entail. “Well, what is it then?”
"You will have to swear to keep my magic a secret," he stated even lower.
That was odd. What magic could he be hiding? I nodded slowly. "I don't see how that would be a problem, as long as it is not being used to murder someone."
He laughed. "Hardly. I'll meet you at eight then."
I wasn't sure what confused expression I could be giving him since he just laughed even more. "We are all confined in our dorms at that time."
"Just be ready." He winked and laughed again. With ease he joined back into the normal conversation as if nothing was amiss.
The day wore on, but that thought wouldn’t leave me alone. I turned it over in my mind more as the group of us walked to potions together. While we were all essentially taught together, the class was still divided into competency levels. It was one of the few I wasn’t discouraged to be skilled in, though I was certain that my mother hoped I would apply all the knowledge to healing potions and remedies instead of being interested in the entire spectrum of poisons, drugs, short term abilities, and explosives. All knowledge was fun to expl
ore.
Though, I had gotten in a bit of trouble a few times for accidentally exploding a thing or two.
I was thankful this class was set up as partner tables. Soleia and I sat next to one another as usual while Keti had to stay a bit closer to the front, not being as advanced as we were. I almost snickered as I remembered that Cressida and Celibria were at the front, shunned to the most remedial of levels. They could be bitter all they wanted, it would take some doing to bother me or Soleia in this particular class.
As we got settled in Professor Achworth made her way to the desk, carrying a rather large cup of tea. The scents of lemongrass and honey filled the room as she set it down and cleared her throat.
“Today we will be applying the last few lessons and start working on a series of team projects. Some potions take more than two hands to master and learning to work with others to complete them is just as important of a skill.” A collection of sighs and half-hidden groans filled the room. “Excellent! I knew you would all be thrilled.” She continued on undeterred. “I have been monitoring your work and have decided your groups based on who you could learn the most from.” Louder groans this time, mostly from us further back. “Before you complain, they are still section based.”
Without further comment, she started addressing the first section. Cressida and Celibria were quickly separated across the room. Tedric didn’t seem to look upset about being paired with Cressida, but Nolan looked less than enthused.
“Think we stand a chance of working together?” Soleia whispered to me.
“Do we ever?” I whispered back.
“Rarely.” She shook her head as she glanced over our section. “At least there are some decent people here to work with.”
“Agreed.” I was thankful for that.
Most of the remedial section was due to a lack of interest, which made being paired with them difficult. I hated having to take on entire projects on my own, but I didn’t want my grade to suffer.
Professor Achworth finally reached our section, the groups in front of us were already moving to grab tools and ingredients. “Soleia, you’ll be paired with Parlan. Keti with Orabella, Calum with Delmar, Kareia with Aylum.”
I blinked in surprise as everyone started moving. Oh, this would bring some interesting wrath from the followers, but there was nothing I could do about it. Instead, I glanced around for Aylum. Since Soleia was already getting up and moving, he made his way over to me as the professor handed out what potion we would be brewing.
The professor handed me the potion card before moving on to the next group.
“What did we get?” Aylum asked curiously as he leaned over to look.
With a sigh I handed it over. “A cheap slap in the face.”
He gave me a confused look.
“I had asked the professor two weeks ago how to make this one on my own. She said it wasn’t possible to do on my own and was out of my skill range,” I explained while rereading the card over his shoulder.
Aylum gave a slow nod as he read over the card. “This is a tough one. I can see why it’s not something one person can complete.”
“That part I am fine with, but if it was out of my skill level two weeks ago, why would I suddenly be able to complete it? I could see it if we had learned a lot more over the course of a few months but it hasn’t even been that long.” I shook my head, trying to dislodge the needless anger. “I suppose we should at least start at the beginning.”
Aylum opened his textbook and flipped until he found the potion. “Potion for Exceptional Invisibility. Duration time 18 to 22 minutes.” He started to mutter to himself as he read over the directions again. “This is heavily involved.” Aylum raised an eyebrow at me. “And you wanted to attempt it alone?”
“Sometimes it can be done.” I shrugged, having done just that with a few complex potions.
“Even if you had telekinesis and could move objects, with all the incantation speaking this would be next to impossible, if not flat out undoable alone.”
I gave another shrug. “Maybe. Though with two of us working on it, that may give me some inspiration on a method to do it solo another time.”
“Why would you even need to do this on your own?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“I don’t have a reason truthfully. I just like the challenge.”
An amused smile crossed his face, “Well then, let's get started.” We went over the ingredient list before splitting up, gathering the tools and things necessary to begin.
I was surprised with how easy he was to work with. Aylum seemed to have that flawless grace to fit in anywhere, and aside from that moment at lunch, I never saw him bothered by anything.
As class neared its end we realized an important fact. “We have one chance to make this work before it’s due,” I stated bluntly, not liking that there would be no time for a do-over and if it didn’t work at all that would reflect heavily on our grade.
Aylum shrugged as if it was no big deal. “The worst part is going to be the timing of things before the end. It needs less and less sitting and more particular actions. We’ll need to figure out a good system for that. If I’m timing this out right, the last stage should be just before the next weekend, which is helpful since it’ll need incantations and work every five hours. I’m sure professor Achworth will give us a night pass for that.”
I glanced over the end of the potion instructions and pulled out my calendar seeing he was right. “And just before the herbology trip too. At least that will be a fun adventure if we can pull this potion off.”
“We can, I haven’t failed a potion yet.” Aylum beamed proudly.
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Neither have I. This is still very difficult.” I had only ever failed the ones I made up on my own, never anything straight from a book, but he didn’t need to know that.
Aylum nodded, not at all deterred. “We have one huge advantage here though.”
“And that would be?”
He smirked, a bit too happy to relay this information. “I have completed the lesser invisibility potion before. This is just an extended version.”
I nodded slowly. The lesser seemed silly to go after, only getting about seven or eight minutes of invisibility time, but that was a good fact to know. “Well, I expect you’ll have some good input on this project then.”
With a smile, he gathered his things as class ended. “I won’t let you down.”
Chapter Four
I wanted to be optimistic, but as the sky started to dim as evening approached, it faded. It wasn’t even time yet, but I could not fathom a way around the intricate magic set upon the grounds and building itself. Instead of dwelling on the inevitable failure of whatever Aylum had planned, I set about getting my bit of school work done.
I glanced at my small pile of work. Divination didn’t sound exciting. Practicing it could be fun, when it worked, but assignments were more study than application. Herbal spellcraft was wonderful, but I had already finished all my work for that class. Potions obviously was a team project and didn’t need additional work tonight. Healing I couldn’t practice much without, well, a subject to heal. There was always Spellsayer work to study, but the language of spells was annoying to practice alone.
It needed to be done though if I wanted to have my spells work flawlessly and my incantations to never falter. Reluctantly, I picked up this semester's text and started to review last week’s work. It seemed dull going over the words without pulling any magic, but the last thing I wanted was to accidentally curse my living quarters. Though it may provide some excitement for the week.
A knock on my window startled me. I paused wondering if Soleia threw a rock up from her balcony to mine, it was our normal way to communicate at night. A second knock confirmed it was no stone and I carefully moved to the balcony and moved the curtain aside.
“Aylum?” I was surprised to see him there. The walls were supposed to be unscalable. I opened the door and whisper yelled at him, “How in the four dragons
did you even get up here?”
He snickered. “I told you I found a way.”
I glanced outside, noticing some of the windows around us open and motioned for him to step inside. “How did you even manage not to be seen?”
“I have some odd magic.” He shrugged before continuing . “If you’re still interested in extra practice, I’ve come up with three ideas. We can practice here, outside, or my chambers. Though I suspect the last one is a no.”
I stared at him, not sure what to say. “I can’t even imagine getting outside to practice.” I shook my head again before really looking at him. “How did you get up here?”
Aylum gave a small laugh. “Okay, that gets into the part you’ll have to keep a secret, agreed?” I nodded and motioned for him to continue. “Will you please silence the room?”
I raised an eyebrow at him but cast the magic anyway. Only the owner of the room could cast a quieting spell. “Get on with it already.”
Aylum snickered. “Fine.” In one quick motion he removed the sweater he was wearing and a set of wings stretched out behind him.
I gaped, the words coming out before my mind could even register my lips were moving. “Dragon wings?” I took a half step forward, but stopped before I tore my eyes away from them and looked Aylum in the eyes. “This is a big secret to trust someone with.” I shook my head. “What are you? How is this possible? Why even trust me? Are you a dragon?” I forced myself to stop asking questions, despite having several more.
Aylum gave a small laugh. “It is possible because yes, I am a dragon.” He held up a hand before I could continue. “Yes, I can turn fully into a dragon. This is a between form, and no, I don’t always have wings, just in this form. As for the why, well, I trust you.”
There was silence for a moment. “You don’t really know me though.”
“You are always honest, as much as you’re allowed to be anyway. It doesn’t take much to notice that.” Aylum shrugged, as if that was explanation enough.
Something felt off about that though. “My gut says there’s more than that. Being fairly honest means I’ll likely not tattle on cookies snuck from the kitchen unless asked directly. This is far too big for the week and some odd days we’ve known one another.”