When I get back from the movie, Xander is in the room working on his glosscomp.

“Hey, what were you up to?” he asks.

“Just saw a movie with Laura.” I shrug off my jacket and shoes.

He laughs. “She told me.”

“Oh.”

“Well, she told me you were going to a movie, not how it went. So, how was it?”

Xander, I think to myself, why do you try so hard? I turn around and smile at him. “It was fine. The movie was alright, I think it was called...”

“Surgebreak.”

“Right.”

Xander grins. “She asked me what kind of movies you like.”

Since when do I like action movies? Ian considered for a moment. Maybe I used to like them, now that I think about it. Action movies once allowed me to live vicariously through the lives of confident, cool practitioners. But after going through Menocht, something like Surgebreak seems almost boring.

Xander leans back in his seat. “So? Did anything happen?”

“We talked, we laughed, I walked her there and back.”

“Nothing else?”

I roll my eyes. “No.”

“Ian,” he exclaims. “You should live a little.”

I snort. “I’m sure something more along the lines of what you’re expecting will happen at the formal.” I’ll give it my best effort, at least.

His expression turns serious. “Look, I know you’re an introvert to begin with...but I don’t want whatever...accident you got yourself into to put a downer on the rest of the year.”

I turn away. “I’m fine, Xander.”

“Alright, if you say so.” At least he lets the topic rest.

—

As the week goes on, I find myself growing increasingly excited...not for the dance, but for the party two days after.

I did end up contacting Sylvestri’s representative, and even though she made me feel like a plebeian for doing so, I got answers to all of my questions. From what the representative said, it sounded as if every primary practitioner of the Dark Art within a hundred miles had been invited.

She also answered my questions about the dress code: formal, suit and tie. She did hint that guests might spice up their wardrobes to display their decemantic prowess, but I wasn’t able to discern exactly what she meant. She also gave me the address of the venue as well as the time that the gates open to the manor: 5:00 pm.

Wednesday comes and goes, and with it the second decemancy class. It’s just as disappointing as I remembered it, and I’m happy to leave. I considered asking Professor Durning if I could observe what higher level classes are working on, but she told me that such classes didn’t exist. They’re offered on the syllabus, but as nobody takes Death affinity as their primary affinity...nobody has progressed past Death Affinity I.

I couldn’t fully mask my disappointment when she said that, and I’m sure she noticed. But she didn’t say anything further, probably because, as a senior with only 30% affinity, I’d never get past Death Affinity I, anyway.

—

The night of the dance comes. Laura and I are in a group with Xander and a few other friends, and we’ve all planned to meet up outside the shuttle station at 9 pm. While I haven’t donned formal clothes in a while, dressing well is one of the things that mother beat into me at a young age, and I’d be hard-pressed to forget how to properly layer a dress shirt and how to knot my tie. I have to go under the bed to find my good pair of dress shoes in their once-opened box–a gift from my Aunt Julia last year. Altogether, with the suit, tie, and shoes, I look decent. I comb back my hair and gel unruly strands in place, and soon enough, it’s 8:50.

While I had originally been planning to go with Xander, he hasn’t come back to the room, so he must have gotten ready earlier. I’ll meet him at the shuttle station with the others.

When I get down to the doors leading to the shuttle, it’s almost 9, and I’m the only one there. Which is fine; I’ve been to a few dances, and the girls are typically a few minutes late. Mother insists it’s just the way things are.

But none of the guys have arrived yet, either. I check my watch: Now it’s officially 9. How am I the only one from our group here? I refer to the group message to make sure I have the meeting time and location correct.

I can’t help but feel paranoid as the seconds tick by. What if someone knows about my real affinity and has kidnapped my friends as ransome?

That’s so stupid, I tell myself. Stop stressing out.

Xander’s friend Walsh is the first person to arrive.

“Hey,” he says. “You look great.”

I smile. “Likewise. Who are you going with?”

“Erica-Jane Sommers. You’re going with Laura Benvolio, right?”

I nod. “Yeah. You have any idea where the others are?”

“Pretty sure a bunch of them are at a party on the Arts campus.”

Really? “Oh, wow.”

He reclines against the wall. “I went for a few minutes, though didn’t stay long. It’s crazy over there–they have these insane ice sculptures, and a few of the pyromancers have been putting on light shows.”

No wonder people haven’t been answering their glossYs. Whatever–I’ll wait.

Soon, twenty minutes pass.

“I think we should check on them.”

Walsh looks up from his glossY. “They are pretty late...can you try calling Xander? He’s the one that led the others over.”

“Sure.” I set up a call between the two of us. However, he doesn’t accept it from his side.

“No response?” Walsh asks, unsurprised.

“Yeah,” I sigh. “Can you wait here in case anyone else comes? I’m going to head over to that party and drag people back over here.”

“Sure.”

I turn away and shake my head, surprised that I’m the one trying to make everything go smoothly. It’s dark enough–and crowded enough–that I levitate myself over the snow-covered path without attracting attention. Good thing, considering Aunt Julia would be disappointed if I ruined my shoes on the second wear.

I hear the explosions before I see them: bright, bursting spheres of flame that fill the central courtyard of the Arts Campus’ residential area. As I get close, I see a few people standing at the gate leading to the central courtyard.

“Only practitioners allowed in after 9,” one of the guys says. He holds up a flame in the palm of his hand.

I raise an eyebrow and hold out my own hand, manifesting black energy onto my palm. “We good?”

“Let him in,” one of them calls out. The gate opens and I walk into the debauchery beyond.

—

The vitality in this place is off the charts: I can’t believe how many people they’ve managed to cram into the courtyard. It’s not for nothing that they’ve decided to close the party off to non-practitioners.

I’m at a loss as I consider locating Xander, Laura, and the others in this mess. If it were summer, I could just thrall insects and use them to search the party’s guests. The winter night, however, is noticeably absent of small, inconspicuous living things.

A girl approaches me from the right. “Looking for someone?” she asks, smiling coyly.

“Yeah, a group of friends,” I reply. “They’re all regs.”

She makes a face. “The regs are mostly hanging out by the living sculptures,” she murmurs. “But you just came in. Why’s a practitioner like you hanging out with a group of regs?” She frowns. “Also, why don’t I recognize you? Are you a transfer student?”

I set off in the direction of the ice sculptures. “Thanks for your help,” I call out.

“Good luck, transfer student,” she replies, her words slightly slurred.

Nobody else tries to talk to me as I make my way over to the sculptures, probably because they assume I’m a reg. The Arts campus is small, so most people know each other.

“Ian? You’re here?” a voice calls out. I turn to the left and see Justin, my animancy-mentor, leaning drunkenly on another friend. “Nice!”

His friend turns gives him a look. “You know this guy?”

Justin wipes his arm over his mouth. “He’s a decemancer. Primary affinity decemancer!”

“Oh?” The friend, a tall guy with pale skin and slanted eyes, grins. “So you’re better than this dummy, right?”

“He’s just started!” Justin calls out.

I roll my eyes. “I’m better than him.”

Justin seems too out of it to protest. “Well,” his friend says, “I hope you have a better night than mine.”

“Thanks,” I reply grimly. I hope the others can at least walk. Even though much of the group are Xander’s friends, and I’m not too familiar with them, I doubt that they’d willingly get hammered at a rave before the formal. A more likely scenario is that someone spiked the drinks.

My hunch is, unfortunately, verified a minute later: A pack of at least fifty regs are barely conscious and leaning against each other, the smell of beer and vomit wafting around them. Some pyromancer is heating the floor of the entire venue, so they aren’t going to freeze to death, but they look awful.

When I find Xander and the others off to the side of the group, I raise my eyes to the sky and sigh: “Great.”

—

I message the group chat first to inform Walsh of the current situation. Then, I approach my five incapacitated companions and gauge their collective ability to walk.

“Mm...Ian...thanks for coming to get us,” Xander coughs. “Someone must’ve spiked the drinks,” he explains. “I’m totally out of it.”

Xander seems the highest-functioning of the bunch, if that’s any indicator of my chances of successfully walking them back to Campus Central.

It would be so, so easy to use decemancy to drag them back. There are so many ways to do it, too, ranging from directly controlling the bones in their bodies to creating composite bone skeleton minions to carry them back princess-style.

Instead, I resign myself to making a few trips.

—

With Walsh’s help, we get everyone back in their rooms by 11:00 pm.

“So much for the formal,” I say.

He shrugs. “They’re never that much fun, anyway.”

—

When Xander gets up on Saturday, he appears to have a massive headache. “Shit,” he moans from underneath his covers. “I feel dead.”

“You’re fine,” I retort. “The worst has passed.” Passed into the toilet, anyway.

“Help me to the nurse?”

“Sure.”

He comes back an hour later with a less-severe headache and a bout of fatigue, though ends up sleeping the entire Saturday away.

Sucks for him. Finals start Wednesday.