by V. St. Clair
“Yes, and he asked me to tell you that even though you spent the last five weeks at his house, he still doesn’t like you. He also said something about kicking your butt the next time you fight, but I didn’t really know what he was talking about.”
Hayden snorted in amusement.
“We had hand-to-hand combat training every day after I finished getting my brain pummeled by his mom and Edgar—their attorney. By the way, don’t mention where I’ve been to anyone; Mrs. Trout will get in trouble with the Council if they know she was the one helping me, and I owe her family enough favors as is.”
Zane nodded and then began peppering Hayden with questions about what it was like to live with the Trouts for five weeks, and whether their house was cooler than the Frost estate.
“I bet Mrs. Trout was a nightmare to deal with,” Zane commiserated.
“Actually, I kind of like her,” Hayden countered mildly. “Sure she was demanding and not really…motherly, but she didn’t treat me like a dumb child, and she had a way of making me see things from a different perspective,” he added fairly. “It’s a shame she’s related to Oliver and Lorn, but I guess you can’t have everything in life.”
Zane laughed at that and said, “Hey, I just realized…you outrank Oliver and Lorn both now! They’re just heirs, but you’re a Head of House! Now they can’t call you low-class anymore.”
“I doubt that will stop them from insulting me in any way they can, but I’m not really bothered by it these days. Truthfully I’d probably feel weird if they stopped antagonizing me every chance they got; pretending to be friends with them in their house was weird enough.”
“So was it hard, learning everything you needed to learn to win against the Council?”
Hayden made a comical face and said, “I’ve never studied anything so hard in my entire life, even here.” Zane pulled a sympathetic expression at that.
“I don’t guess you’ve bought all your school things yet, since you just got back?” he changed the subject abruptly.
“No, and I wanted to get some new clothes too now that I know I can afford them,” Hayden agreed. “My pants are about three inches shorter than I need them to be—which everyone from Mrs. Trout to her gardeners pointed out to me at some point during the holiday.
“Good, because I’ve been slacking and haven’t gotten my things either, so we can shop together. Change out of those robes before all the girls around this place go misty-eyed at the sight of you, and let’s get a move on.”
Hayden rolled his eyes and began rummaging through his bags for something else to wear, saying, “Very funny.”
“I’m not joking,” Zane grimaced. “You’re all tall and aristocratic looking, you have freakish Source power, you’re a war hero for crying out loud…and now you’re rich. All I can say is I’m glad I became your friend back in your first year, because I intend to follow in your wake and pick up my share of glory and pretty girls as well.”
Hayden picked up an object at random and threw it at his friend’s head; he thought it was a furry scarf, but it turned out to be Felix the fox, who had been sleeping on Hayden’s bed before he came in.
“Oops, sorry about that,” he apologized with a wince as Zane caught his familiar deftly and set him back on his feet. “But still, you’re an idiot.”
As they descended the main stairwell and made their way towards the west side of the grounds where the equipment shops were located, Hayden was forced to concede that Zane might not be so dumb after all. Four different girls tried to talk to him before they’d even cleared the castle, three of whom he’d never met in his life before today.
“See? What’d I tell you?” Zane gloated as Hayden turned down an offer for a date just outside of Kly’s Elixirs from a second-year, a little stunned by all the attention.
“This is ridiculous—these people barely even know me,” Hayden grumbled, pushing open the door and entering the shop to search for ingredients with Zane in tow. “Besides, I thought everyone knew I was with Tess now, so why are these other girls bothering me?”
Zane shrugged and then lifted his eyebrows at something behind Hayden.
“Hey Torin, I didn’t expect to see you in here,” he waved, and Hayden turned to see that, indeed, Torin was standing in front of a barrel of hydra scales, weighing some out on a hanging scale and adding it to a basket he was carrying.
Torin looked up at Zane’s greeting and came over to greet them, smiling.
“Hayden, Zane, it’s good to see you boys again. Bonk has already been to my cabin to beg for bacon scraps, so I knew you must be back by now.”
Hayden scowled and said, “Bonk just finished eating half my lunch before we came back to Mizzenwald; he shouldn’t be foraging for scraps.”
Chuckling, Torin said, “I’m not surprised. He’s been mooching food off of people for over fifty years now. So, did you win your suit? Ash hasn’t returned from Kargath yet—or if he has, he hasn’t stopped by to see me.”
“Yeah, I won.” Hayden grinned. “And Master Asher is still there with Willow, having some kind of meeting with the High Mayor about all the Fia stuff that happened last year. Apparently the High Mayor is still sure they’re hiding things and wants to fine them for it.”
Smiling wickedly in a way that was reminiscent of his son, Torin said, “It’ll doubtless be good for him. I’ll bet he’s bored to tears sitting around with all those stuffed suits, arguing over ledgers.”
“You seem happy about it,” Zane pointed out.
“That boy of mine can’t sit still for five minutes to save his life when he’s bored. He’ll be driving everyone in the room insane with his antics by now, and if any group of people deserves it, it’s the Fias,” Torin explained, still looking pleased. “Besides, boredom drives Asher to some of his greatest research projects, because he lets his mind wander when he’s not interested in what he’s doing.”
Hayden supposed he could see that, since Asher did have a tendency to always be moving around and was involved in about a hundred different things at any given time. His mentor also had a knack for making people nuts when the mood struck him, but Hayden always thought that was just because he was a bit spiteful.
A third-year girl entered the shop just then, took one look at Hayden standing there with the others, and left the shop, blushing.
“Is it going to be like this all year?” Hayden grumbled, annoyed.
“I hope so,” Zane said with relish. “I love seeing you all awkward like this.”
“Not enjoying all the attention you’re getting these days?” Torin asked shrewdly, watching the girl leave the shop.
“Not really,” Hayden admitted. “It’s a little unsettling after spending most of my life as a nobody and then the last five years as a pariah. Now all of a sudden people don’t care so much that I’m the son of the Dark Prism, because I have a stupid Medal of Heroism in my bag upstairs and I managed to fumble my way through a series of deadly battles with the help of much smarter friends and familiars.”
Torin gave him a commiserating sort of grimace and said, “You may have the Frost looks, but you’re nothing like your father was at your age.” He paused momentarily before continuing. “Aleric was about your age when he started to make a name for himself as well—him and Asher both. I remember them strutting about like they owned the place, basking in all the attention and doing everything they could to get more of it.”
“I can’t really imagine Master Asher being that arrogant,” Hayden said truthfully. “I mean, he’s very self-confident and he doesn’t really care what people think of him, but he isn’t obnoxious like Oliver Trout or anything.”
Torin rolled his eyes and said, “Believe me, at your age I could hardly stand to be around him most days. He and Aleric both had egos the size of Kargath—there was no telling them anything.”
Zane’s eyes widened and he said, “I guess that explains why he’s always gotten along with Oliver, even though he knows Oliver is a jerk.”
Torin shrugged as Hayden asked, “What happened? Why did he change? Was it just because of my father…?”
“More or less,” Torin nodded. “You have to understand how it was after Aleric lost his mind,” he explained slowly. “Asher suddenly went from being on top of the world to being despised and blamed almost as much as Aleric. All sorts of careers were suddenly closed to him, he became someone not to know. To fall from such a great height to the lowest of lows…well, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. It was heartbreaking to watch him struggle through it all, knowing there was nothing I could do to help him.”
Zane let out a low whistle and said, “I never thought about it like that before. I guess it makes sense that he’s a little…eccentric now, or that he just stopped caring about what people think of him.”
Torin nodded. “He eventually salvaged some of his reputation and made a place for himself here, and truthfully I think he enjoys his job and especially the research, even though he moans continuously about teaching and having to make lesson plans.”
“I thought he’d never made a lesson plan in his life,” Hayden arched an eyebrow. “He always tells me that he’s just making things up as he goes along, and when Fia Valay was here last year he said there were no lessons of any kind written down…”
Torin snorted. “I suspect he’s planned everything very carefully, even if he doesn’t write anything down—which is probably for the best since his office is disorganized enough to qualify as a disaster zone.”
As Hayden had accidentally demolished the Prism Master’s office a few months ago, he doubted whether even Asher could manage to junk the place up as much as before since it had been rebuilt, but he knew it probably wasn’t from lack of trying. The Prism Master often insisted that he was too intelligent to be organized.
They bade Torin farewell and split up outside of Kly’s Elixirs, Hayden heading to Pounds of Prisms while Zane went to restock his supply of conjury chalk. In the past, Hayden had dreaded entering the prism shop, mainly because the owner made no secret of his great dislike for him, but by last year Hayden had proved himself enough to earn the man’s wary neutrality rather than outright disdain.
He entered the shop now, much less concerned about the attitude of others than he had been at the age of twelve, to find the shop owner examining a prism through a magnifying lens that was attached to his eye—almost like Hayden’s circlet—working with his gem cutter. Knowing that this was a delicate process that could produce disastrous results if done incorrectly, Hayden remained silent as he moved about the store, examining the boxes of prisms that lined the walls.
A few years ago I was only allowed to buy two different kinds of these…now I can pretty much get anything in the shop.
It was strange being a mastery-level student in Prisms, especially when he reflected on his humble beginnings. He had shown up several days late for his first year of school not even knowing what the five major arcana were, let alone how to use any of them. He grimaced at how ignorant he had been then and how it must have looked to the Masters who expected the son of Aleric Frost to be something great.
Well, at least I’ve caught up. Not a lot of fifth-year students can claim mastery in any subject, even their primary major.
He selected a clear diamond and a crystal prism from their respective boxes, unsure of what the difference was between them in terms of what they could do, or even if there was a difference. He also picked up a violet prism, the rarest, strangest, and arguably the most powerful of the prisms. After holding it up to the light and looking through it for a minute—it still gave him a headache if he turned it too quickly—he carried his prisms up to the counter.
The owner of the store held up his index finger upon his approach but said nothing, continuing to smooth away some minute flaw in the prism he was working on, and Hayden stood there patiently until he finished working and lifted the magnifying lens away from his eye.
When he met Hayden’s eyes at last, he didn’t look angry. He didn’t exactly look pleased either, but Hayden had learned to take what he could get.
“Just the three?” he asked with interest, examining the prisms Hayden had set on the counter and recording them on his ledger to charge the cost to the school. Hayden had a new appreciation for those ledgers after spending the better part of last year with accountants running the school.
“Yes, why? Are there other prisms I should be interested in?” If so, that was news to him, because he’d only ever seen Master Asher work with clear and violet prisms.
“I just assumed that now that you’ve been cleared for all materials, you would want one of everything.”
Hayden momentarily turned back to look around the shop. There were boxes of the individual tints in the mastery-level—though only a few in each, as they were clearly not popular.
“I might come back for others at some point, but I thought I’d start with the basics until I get into class and figure out what Asher wants me to do.”
“I suppose you’re already planning some way to get into trouble this year, since you can’t seem to avoid it,” the man changed topics abruptly. “Thinking about taking on that schism that’s marring the grounds for a bit more fame? Mind you, I wouldn’t be upset if you wanted to seal that thing off for us….Gives me the willies just thinking about what might come through there next.”
“Knowing Asher, he’ll probably make that my final exam for the year.” Hayden grimaced, and to his surprise the man actually smiled for the briefest of moments. Wonders never cease. “But no, I hope to have a very boring, normal year for a change.”
“Hmph, we’ll see about that.”
On that slightly ominous note, Hayden left the shop with his new prisms and went to buy new clothes from The Magnificent Mage, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what the owner of Pounds of Prisms had said. Now that he thought about it properly, it did seem horribly likely that he’d end up inside that schism at some point this year—maybe in a freak magical accident, knowing his luck.
He made a mental note to confirm with Master Asher that he didn’t plan on punishing Hayden by sending him into a realm of anti-magic that he knew almost nothing about, and then tried to push it from his mind.
He found Zane after he was finished shopping, and the two of them discussed what they thought their classes were likely to entail this year while they walked back upstairs with their purchases. Zane was going on and on about learning to transport living creatures this year.
“—don’t understand. I’ll be able to conjure or send animals through my circles now,” he said in an exasperated tone, obviously frustrated that Hayden wasn’t properly awed by this. “I could summon our familiars to us in a fight, maybe even inside the challenge arenas. Actually, I need to remember to ask Reede if that’s even possible, since the arenas aren’t technically a real place…” he drifted off, lost in thought.
Hayden watched Bonk fly in through their open dormitory window and reflexively offered his shoulder as a perch.
“But wait a minute…” he frowned at his friend, the image of Bonk stirring something in his memory. “You summoned Bonk to us way back in our first year, when we got translocated to that stupid cave full of wargs who wanted to eat us. If you hadn’t done that, our corpses would be fertilizing mushrooms right about now.”
Zane snorted in amusement and said, “Well, yeah…but I have no idea how that happened. My circle wasn’t nearly strong enough to bring a live creature through—especially a dragonling—it really shouldn’t have worked at all. I went back and did some calculations afterwards, and even if I had been trying to summon Bonk—which I wasn’t—he should have died during the transition.” He made an apologetic face.
Hayden glanced down at his familiar.
“Then how in the world did he manage to come help us?”
Zane shrugged. “How should I know? Reede reckons it’s because he’s so…you know, weird…he’s like the Hayden Frost of dragons—his magic doesn’t always make sense.”
&
nbsp; “Thanks,” Hayden said flatly at the perceived insult.
“Oh, you know what I mean.” Zane rolled his eyes. “Your Foci are messed up and your Source power is crazy for no good reason, that’s all I mean. We all know that Bonk is super powerful but really odd, and his magic doesn’t always work the way it should.”
Changing the subject, Hayden said, “So now you’ll be able to actually summon animals to us by choice? What about people?”
Zane frowned. “No, unfortunately we don’t get to learn translocation stuff until our mastery year, so that’ll be next year for me.”
“Wonder if Asher will start teaching me how to translocate myself now that I’m in his mastery Prism class,” Hayden mused out loud.
“I hope so, then you can tell me all about what it’s like and give me a leg up on the competition before next year. I’ve got to start working my butt off to try and convince Reede to take me as an apprentice in the next year or two, or I’ll miss my chance forever.”
Hayden stared thoughtfully into space for a minute before speaking again.
“I want to ask Asher if he’ll let me apprentice to him on his research, but the last time I asked he almost murdered me with his prisms at the very thought.”
Zane frowned. “Well, yeah, that’s not really encouraging…but wasn’t that back in first year?”
“Yeah, it was. He told me later that he didn’t want to risk repeating history, with me turning down the same path as my father, and all the blame he would get again for it.”
“Well, after everything he went through last time, I can’t say I blame him…but maybe things have changed, now that he’s seen you work over the last three years. It’s obvious you’re not even a little bit like your old man, or Asher wouldn’t still have your back after all this time.”
“Yeah, maybe. I guess I should ask him again,” Hayden decided at last, sincerely hoping that this time he didn’t get attacked by his mentor for bringing the subject up. He had done a terrible job with his resolution not to get beaten up last year, but was hoping for better results this time around.