As she made her way up the steps to the Mage’s Circle, as she passed through the Grand Arch into the Lecture Wing, as she walked by a snickering clutch of her fellow instructors without saying a word, and as she rounded the corner into her hallway, she felt a deep, unshakable certainty that, as bad as things were, they just couldn't possibly get any worse.
But she was wrong, because her classroom was on fire.
Eyes bulging, jaw hanging, she dropped her armload of parchments and sprint-waddled down the hall, casting a hastily prepared smother spell on the closed classroom door as she ran. "Help!" she called hoarsely, "Gods, help! I need help here!"
She reached for the handle, but the door flung itself open at her approach. Sweet smelling orange smoke dumped into the hallway; coughing, Instructor Winselle waved up a gust of wind, clearing her view into the room. Red and yellow flames jumped and danced, filling the room ceiling to floor, but she could feel no heat from them.
Neither could the children; almost her entire class was seated at their desks, perfectly calm, perfectly still, unconsumed by the cool flames. They all stared straight ahead. They were chanting—shouting—in unison, reciting something awful in a language no one had spoken aloud since the first vertebrates crawled from the sea.
Hand held up to shield her eyes from the blinding light, Instructor Winselle took a fearful step inside. She followed the students' eyes to the front of the room, where she found a familiar idol, engulfed in fire that was burning its way into the top of her desk.
"Gee!" someone said over her shoulder. Instructor Winselle spun around to find Devan standing there in the doorway of her classroom, gaping at the carnage before him. He looked over her way.
"Instructor Winselle!" He pressed his hand to his forehead. "What did you do?"
---
"This is extremely unpleasant," Devan said in a quiet tone of voice.
Winselle got some small satisfaction from that. Devan was quickly learning a lesson that all mages learn from a very young age—when you're being suspended upside down by invisible magic forces, the blood tends to rush to the head, and shouting while in that state makes it feel like your eyes are going to pop. In years gone by, one of her instructors had used it as a de rigueur method of quieting down an unruly class. She always promised herself she’d never do it herself, but today was a special occasion.
"Could someone please tell me what I’m being accused of?" he whispered at her from across Headmaster Parnick’s vast, elegantly appointed office.
"I'm sorry, Winny," Headmaster Parnick said. He seemed to take no notice of the boy’s pleas. "I just don't know what you want me to do. If you came to me with proof..."
"Search his quarters," Instructor Winselle hissed through clenched jaws. "You want proof, Parnick, you'll find proof there. These books he reads, these crime novels, they're nothing but—"
"Winny," he said, "we don't close any avenues of study to curious young minds. It's not what we do here." His lips curled up in a congenial grin. "And besides, it's not like you caught him reading the Vega texts on Sex Magicks when he was twelve."
Instructor Winselle shook her head but held her tongue. No one should ever have to work professionally with people who knew them when they were going through puberty.
"That's how this is going to be?" she whispered fiercely. "You're going to 'reductio ad absurdum' this whole thing away? He broke into my home and violated my property."
"How?"
Instructor Winselle craned her head backward. "He had help. Obviously."
"From whom?"
She looked away, trying not to swear at the kindly old man. "I...I don't know. But he's clearly—“
Headmaster Parnick cut her off. "He's clearly going to start bleeding from the ears if he stays up in the air much longer."
For a long moment, Instructor Winselle glared at the headmaster. Then, finally, she pointed two fingers at Devan. The boy rotated 180 degrees and was dropped to his feet. He staggered, caught himself on the back of a chair, and sat down.
"Thank you," Parnick said, nodding.
Instructor Winselle shook her head, unable to look at the old man.
"Wait outside, I'll talk to the boy,” said Parnick.
She shot an angry look over at Devan, who shot an angry look right back at her. She sighed sharply and closed the door behind her.
Winselle dropped onto a bench across the hall. From there, she could hear the headmaster's basso profundo tones. He would stop from time to time, and she could hear Devan respond, but she couldn’t make out what either of them was saying. Their discussion followed a distinct pattern—Parnick's tone would become stern; Devan's would become contrite. Parnick's would become comforting; Devan's would become complimentary. Parnick's would become jovial—more than once, he even laughed out loud—before remembering what he was doing and turning his voice stern again.
At long last, the door opened, and Devan emerged. Instructor Winselle rose from her chair and stared holes in him as he approached.
"Instructor Winselle," he said slowly, looking down at the floor. "I know that you and I have never gotten along, really, but I want you to know that it's important to me that we have a good relationship." He sounded like he was trying to remember some key points Parnick had suggested that he say.
Arms folded across her chest, Winselle stared at him impassively.
"And I want you to know that I won't hold this against you this fall when we do our instructor evaluations..."
Winselle closed her eyes and smiled acerbically. She shook her head.
"...And that if there's anything I can do to help find the person who did this terrible...terrible...thing...please let me know."
She opened her eyes. Devan was staring directly at her. He had that punchable, stabbable, ant-swarm-feedable smirk plastered across his face.
"Here," he said. "I want you to have something." He dug into his pocket and produced a single gold coin. He reached down and took her hand, placed the coin in her palm, and closed her fingers around it. "For your troubles."
He winked at her and strutted off down the hallway, never looking back.
Devan
"‘For your troubles’?" Allister was nearly doubled over. "Oh gods." His laughter echoed off the low ceilings of the cistern, deep below the residential floors of The Collegium.
Nalan shook his head slowly at Devan, his expression bordering on reverence. “How are you here?” he asked. “How are you not…uhh…”
“Rotting on a corpse pile in one of the service tunnels?” Devan finished the question for him. Leaning on his cane, he smoothed down the front of his tunic with his free hand. “Style, Nalan. Style.” That elicited fresh peals of laughter from Allister.
"I don't understand," Breigh said. She wiped a trickle of Instructor Winselle's cinnamon whiskey from her chin. "What is 'For your troubles'? Why is that funny?"
Allister shook his head at her. "You still haven't read Cliven the Clip."
Breigh cast her brilliant blue eyes upward. "I'm busy not being a ridiculous child."
The other three members of the group covered their mouths and moaned, “Ohhh!” laughing as they did. Allister scoffed and snatched the cask away from Breigh.
Nalan joined the others, sitting down on the brick footpath that ran beside the school’s underground reservoir. "Cliven the Clip," he said with quiet reverence, "is the greatest thief of all time. He always has a plan. He never gets caught. And at the end of each job, he goes and sits down with the mark—“
"And the mark—the victim—he always suspects him," Allister interjected, "but he can never prove anything."
“And Cliven” Nalan pantomimed flipping a coin, “he flips a coin to the guy."
"A coin he stole from the mark," Allister pointed out, pretending to catch the coin. "And when he does it, he always says..."
"For...your...troubles!" Devan hid a smile as his two friends sang out in unison. He looked over to Zella, who was stretched out on a low stone bench.
Zella shook her head slowly at the duo; that made Devan laugh out loud.
"And this...Cliven..." Breigh asked, drunk enough to at least get partially caught up in the boys' fanaticism. "Is he a real person?"
Allister raised the cask high in the air. "He is now."
Devan beamed as he looked around the room. When he was younger, Devan had always had a terrible time making friends. For years, it had just been him, his cane, and Nalan—it felt like he’d been born with Nalan. His life had changed immeasurably that day when he fished that book out of his uncle’s bag.
Nalan hooted and pounded Devan on the back; it nearly knocked the wind out of him. "Seriously, D," Allister said, handing the short cask to Devan. "You ever get tired of carrying your huge, twenty-pound balls around, let me know. You can borrow my scrotum gurney.”
“Oh, very nice,” Zella said over the laughter. She rolled over onto her side to throw a sardonic look at the four of them. “So, he spends the night listening to Maestro Olgi’s Tribute to the Tone-deaf and he's the Clip come to life. Meanwhile, I lead the team into a mage’s lair. I nail a dead-perfect inflection of one of the school’s most powerful mages. I even lift the coin Devan flips her and the whiskey for our victory party..."
She looked slowly from face to smiling face, then looked away and said, with quiet theatricality, "...and no one's even asked me to dance yet."
Devan pursed his lips and nodded, seemingly deep in thought. "You might want to think on why that is, Z." The others burst out laughing.
Before he'd finished talking, Zella sat up, throwing empty cups at him, grinning and yelling, "Hey, I'm an amazing dancer."
Minding his leg, Devan winced as he sat gingerly down on the floor by the edge of the water. "Yes, m'love." He took another pull off the cask and raised the bottle to her. "And an amazing squad leader, Zella!"
"Zella!" The other three bellowed back.
"And you know who's an amazing safecracker?" Devan continued, pointing the cask at Nalan. Nalan was busy trying to fish Zella's cups out of the cistern. "Look at that. The man has a mortal aversion to leaving behind evidence. To the guy who saved all our asses by finding that counter on the lock. Nalan!"
"Nalan!"
Nalan's face turned deep crimson. "I don't think it was all like that..." he mumbled. "I came this close to missing it."
"Hey," Zella said. She plopped down beside her ruddy-faced comrade. "I was there." She shot a look over at Devan mimicking Nalan’s dour expression. Devan rolled over on his side giggling. "I don't know anyone else who would have found that counter. Don't sweat the stuff you almost did wrong. Drink to the stuff you did right. Right?"
As usual, Nalan didn't make eye contact with Zella, but he was at least smiling. "Right. Right."
Allister looked over to Devan, as if expecting his turn to be cheered. Devan just locked eyes with him for a moment. The displacement ward, he wanted to say. How could you have missed it? But while he didn’t speak a word, the look on Allister’s face told him that the message had come through clear as day.
Allister just kept smiling as he turned away. Saying nothing, he kicked his feet slowly in the water. Devan turned and caught Zella watching him. She grimaced at him, then turned away.
Breigh snatched the bottle back from Devan, mid-gulp. "Then I shall drink to being the mightiest hall monitor in all the six worlds," she bellowed with a hearty laugh. She proceeded to pour the remainder down her throat, then tossed the short cask toward the reservoir. Nalan dove and caught it by the neck. "By Coraphice, Devan, when will you give me a challenge that befits a warrior born?"
"You really talk like that, don't you?" Allister asked quietly. "You're half-wrecked on hundred-proof homebrew and you still talk like that."
She ignored him. "Have you seen me fight in the pit? Do you even know what I'm capable of?"
With a sureness that belied his inebriation, Devan drug himself along the ground and over to where Breigh sat. He reached behind her head, grabbed her roughly by the ponytail, and put his forehead to hers. Staring dead into her eyes, he growled, "Oh yes, Breigh of Fold and Fael. I know what you're capable of."
"Then give me guardsmen to pummel!" she snarled, her lips inches away from his. "Give me assassins to best! Give me lions to rape!"
Nalan looked uncertainly over at Allister. Allister just waved his hand about dismissively and rolled his eyes.
"I tell you this, Breigh, captain of the field at Collegium Hill." Still eye to eye with the platinum war goddess, Devan spoke with an intensity that shook his entire body. "If your heart pounds as the drums before the cavalry charge, then I will give you war. I will give you war." He released his grip on her hair and pointed a finger in a face. She shuddered ecstatically. "I tell you this now: when next we take the field of honor, you will be there not to watch as others do great deeds. You will be there to earn laurels of your own."
"Grrrahh!" Breigh growled at him with a fierce and fearsome smile. "Take me."
"He's taken!" Zella called over to them with a laugh. "Besides, you'd ruin him for all other women, and I have plans for him."
Devan shrugged at her. "You heard the lady." Breigh snapped at him with her teeth and backed away.
"Come, tiny man," she growled, deadlifting Allister from where he sat and throwing him over one shoulder like a sack of flour. "I have need of you." Then she turned and pointed at Nalan. "And you. In case I break this one."
The blood drained instantly from Nalan's face. "Run, Nalan!" Allister laughed hysterically. "Save yourself!"
"You leave him alone," Zella said, shooing Breigh off with both hands. "You know he can't."
"Yeah," Allister said. "A fine thing that would be, meeting his intended in two weeks with a crushed pelvis."
"One will have to do, then," Breigh said, smiling warmly at Nalan, who was gazing off at the water. "You'll make a fine husband, Nalan. Cheris is near to learning what a lucky lass she is."
"Yeah," he said and turned to head back to his quarters.
"Not like Z," Allister said, getting more than a little lightheaded from being upside down. "She already knows how lucky she is." He winked at her.
The room fell uncomfortably quiet. Devan looked over to Zella; her smile dimmed, her gaze became distant and drifted to the floor. Devan shot an annoyed scowl over at Allister; neither of them needed a reminder that Zella and Allister were less than a year away from their betrothal ceremony.
Zella
When Zella was three, a mean girl who lived down the hall accused her of being betrothed to a razorpig. When she was five, her best friend swore that her aunt had been betrothed to a monster with three heads. At ten, the big fear for everyone in her class was to marry someone ugly. At thirteen, it was to marry someone who was fat. By fifteen, it was someone with a small cock.
In The Tower, as soon as children were old enough to string words into sentences, they began swapping tall tales and horror stories about Unveiling Day ceremonies—the day after a young woman’s eighteenth birthday when she is first introduced to the man she’d been promised to at birth. Arranged marriages were an archaic tradition for an institution as progressive as The Collegium, but it was a necessary one for the purposes of population control. Or so the theory went.
The thought of her own Unveiling Day terrified young Zella, and not just because of the stories she’d grown up with. The idea that her future had already been decided, that it was being kept from her by her dearest relatives, that she had no way of knowing what her life would look like after the age of twenty...The older she got, the more fixated she became, with scenarios playing themselves out over and over in her mind’s eye continually, all day and every night.
Finally, on the day of her twelfth birthday, she made her mind up. She picked the lock on her mother’s promise chest and rifled through its contents until she found a copy of her betrothal agreement. The name on the line beside hers read “Allister of Targe’s Rock”. The name wasn’t familiar, but then, boys and girls were kept in separa
te classes until the age of fifteen.
Even so, The Tower wasn’t that big a place. Someone always knew someone with a brother who would be willing to pass a secret letter. And so it was that young Zella and young Allister arranged a secret meeting in the unused hallway behind the servants’ galley.
He wasn’t hideous. That was an immediate relief. And quickly, he proved to be funny (at least for a twelve-year-old, which was fine, as she was also a twelve-year-old). In the five minutes they’d stolen, she found he was polite, if a little crude, and charming, if a little rough around the edges. In short, he was a boy—not a monster, not a brute—and he was more scared of her than she was of him.
They kissed on the lips—eyes open, mouths tightly shut—and that was that. She wouldn’t see him again for four years.
But as those years went by, Zella found herself spending almost as much time reflecting back on that afternoon in the unused hallway as she had spent before predicting her future. And the more she did, the more sharply it came into focus for her that, if Allister hadn’t turned out to be someone she could laugh with and talk with and stand to be with, well...that would have been her life, like it or not, and there wouldn’t have been a thing she could have done about it. She went from being afraid of her future to being deeply, deeply angry about it.
They both turned sixteen, and word was spreading fast in The Collegium about Zella. She’d put in endless hours in the Preparatory Salon, and as a result, she had logged some of the best scores in the Trials since the school’s founding. It was then that someone’s brother passed a secret letter to her.
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