“Huh,” Max commented.

I snatched for the ring, which just resulted in me slamming my fingertips against Max’s forcefield. I yelped.

“Give it to me,” I said.

Max didn’t. “This certainly merits some study.”

“Study? Study?! You know what that is! We all do! That’s fucking Simon’s fucking stupid fucking ring! What’s to study?!”

“I’m pretty sure none of us let Simon in here,” Kylie said, puzzled. “And why would he want to sabotage Max’s side project? I know they’ve been fighting, but – ”

“This isn’t about Max! Do you know how to build a bomb, Kylie?”

“No, but why am I not surprised that you do?”

“When a lot of people think ‘explosion’, they think ‘fire’, but fire is just a means to an end. An explosion is about pressure. To make a bomb, you have to build up a lot of pressure in one place and then release it all at once.”

“And… that’s how he blew up the staff? Why?”

“It’s not about the staff! Forget the staff! No, no; imagine this. Imagine you’re the heir to a big, impressive family, and the guy who currently has your job, who you probably admire a lot and was probably responsible for picking you, is trying to get a job at a very prestigious place but his main rival has it. But she’s a scientist, and she has a lab where she does experiments. Experiments that use force fields as safety shields.”

“Fields that are easily strong enough to contain her experiments,” Max added, catching on. “She’s done them a hundred times, no problem. But if you had some way of increasing the pressure inside them…”

“Such as a family heirloom that could reflect and magnify the force thrown at it!” I added. “You don’t get a huge amount of pressure in a boiling cauldron, but throw that in? Every nudge, every bubble, every ripple in the liquid getting thrown back twice as strong, only to bounce off the side and hit the ring again.”

“Until the pressure is too much and the force field gives out,” Kylie finished. “You’re saying that Simon tried to blow up Instruktanto Miratova.”

“And us,” I said. “And then he framed us with his stupid ‘I bet it was some curse side effect’ theory.”

Max shook his head. “It couldn’t have been about you. You were a lucky accident. You weren’t supposed to be in the lab, were you? But Miratova… you know, I’d been wondering why the Fiore would give something so important to Simon. I guess now we know.”

“And it ended up in that staff,” Kylie said. “I bet he freaked out when he couldn’t find it and sneak it out afterwards. But now we have it.”

“And now we have him,” I said. “He could’ve killed Miratova, he could’ve killed us, he tried to frame us… ugh! No more of this.” I headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Kylie asked.

“Where do you think? I’m going to go prove that that ring he’s still wearing is fake and tell everyone what he did.”

“How?”

“By punching his smug fucking face, of course. How else?”

“Kayden, calm down!” Max said.

“Calm down? Calm down?!”

“Stop and think a minute! This isn’t how we do things!”

“No, this isn’t how you do things. It’s how I’m going to do things. How many times do I have to tell you people that I’m not playing your stupid game?”

And then I stormed out. Somewhere behind, I heard Max following, calling for me, but physical fitness wasn’t high in his skillset, and soon his voice faded.

Simon had left his location on on the map, so I easily found his dorm. I marched right up and hammered on the door until Magista opened it.

“Kayden! What happened with the prophecy? Is everyone – ?”

“Everyone’s fine. Crisis averted. Can I talk to Simon for a moment?”

“Uh…” Magista looked puzzled, but stepped aside to allow me in. Her three roommates were sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, playing yahtzee of all things. Fucking yahtzee.

Simon got up and flicked his hair back with one hand, and there it was on his finger, the ring, the fake fucking ring.

“Kayden, what’s – ”

I punched him square in the face.

I’d never punched anyone before, not properly. It hurt. Two of my fingers were particularly upset, screaming waves of pain through my hand and wrist. But it didn’t seem like Simon had ever been punched before, either; he dropped to the stone floor and stared up at me in surprise while Clara jumped onto her bed with a squeal and Magistus put himself between us.

“Okay, you need to go,” he said.

“Kayden, what the hell?!” Magista shrieked.

“I knew it! It’s a fake!” I pointed accusingly over Magistus’ shoulder at Simon, who was scrambling to his feet. “How do you like that, huh? Bet you didn’t want anybody to see me do that! You tried to kill Alania Miratova!”

There was no blood on Simon’s face, but his expression was murderous. “What did you do?” he growled. “I’m going to kill you!”

“I guess that’s how you solve your problems, huh?”

“Kayden what on Earth – ” but Magista was interrupted when Simon lurched forward. She and Clara each took one of his arms and held him back; I made a grab for his hair, but Magistus had swept me up with one arm and was half-dragging, half-carrying me to the door.

“Don’t defend him!” I protested. “He’s a killer!”

“You need to calm down,” Magistus insisted, tossing me out the door. He stood in the doorway, braced against the frame so I wouldn’t be able to shove past him, just as Max jogged up behind me, red-faced and wheezing.

“Nonus,” Magistus said.

“Magistus,” Max gasped. “What’s going on?”

“You’d know better than me. I think you should take your friend to see the kuracar.”

“Did he hurt you?” Max asked me. I shook my head.

“Nobody in this dorm poses a threat to your witch,” Magistus said. “But you should get him out of here all the same.”

Max glanced over Magistus’ shoulder. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Come on, Kayden.” He took my arm and started pulling me down the corridor.

“Nonus – ”

“It’s Max, actually.”

“Oh, is it? Then act like it.” With that, he slammed the door, leaving Max and I alone in the corridor.

“So how did it go?” Max asked as we headed back toward the dorm.

“It all played out a lot better in my head,” I said. “Seemed pretty straightforward.”

“Yeah, this is why I never do anything while I’m still angry. You punch him?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe when they’ve calmed down a bit, we can try reasonable conversation. Physical violence tends not to get complex points across very well, in my experience.”

“Worth it. And technically, I proved my point, and when everyone’s stopped freaking out they’re going to realise he has a fake ring and we can explain why.”

“But we have the real ring. We could’ve done that without demonstrating the fake.”

“Yeah, but this way, I got to punch Simon.” I wriggled my fingers to make sure everything was where is was supposed to be. “I didn’t expect it to hurt so much.”

“Fascinating detail about the human head; it contains some very strong bones designed to protect the most important organ in your body, with very few points of articulation. You might’ve heard of the system, it’s called a ‘skull’. Whereas hands, designed for a wide variety of dextrous work, contain rather more delicate bones, a lot of pressure and pain receptors, and multiple points of articulation. So – I’ll try to put this simply, it might be a bit complicated for you – if an inexperienced person were to connect these two systems with a great amount of force, one would expect more damage in – ”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’ll wear knuckle dusters next time.”

“That’s all I ask.”

Kylie looked up from her tablet as we entered the room. “Did we win?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“You punch him?”

“Yeah.”

“Well that’s what really matters. What now?”

“Now, we need data,” Max said. “There’s a lot of analysis I can’t do, but with my notes on – ”

“Data? Why do we need data? You’ve got the ring right there. Why not just go with Kayden’s plan?”

“You mean punching?” I asked. “That didn’t turn out as successful as I wanted, but I’m perfectly happy to try again.”

“No, your previous plan. We should just tell a teacher. This is their problem, isn’t it?”

“Right.” Max sounded a little put out. “Right, yes. Of course. Our point of contact is our surveyanto, so…”

“He’s in Australia,” I said.

“Then let’s talk to Miratova,” Kylie said. “I’m seeing her at three tomorrow for a prophecy lesson, so we know when she’s available. And she’s the one who got hurt.”

“It’s not regular,” Max said, “but under the circumstances… wait, you’re certain she’s recovered? The Fiore is still running her classes.”

“Only for initiates,” I said. “She says she’s fine.”

“Hmm. That’s… alright then.” He got back to work cleaning up. Kylie disappeared once again behind her bedcurtain. I laid back on my bed and stared at the roof.

Kylie’s prophecy problems; nothing to do with me, apparently. Which meant my interpretation of the desert prophecy was wrong. Miratova’s lab explosion; nothing to do with me, apparently. Everything had fit together so neatly. I’d been so certain. And now I wasn’t sure of anything.

Well, I didn’t have to worry about being kicked out of Skolala Refujeyo any more. No fretting about trying to fit in at home or getting a bad apprenticeship. I had pissed off the entirety of the Magistae dorm, but they’d calm down once Simon couldn’t explain why he was walking around wearing a fake heirloom. And he wouldn’t be a problem once we explained things to Miratova. He’d be expelled at the very least, right? He’d have to be expelled. In the space of about an hour, all of my problems had disappeared.

Except the trial, of course.

I glanced at the picture of my parents on my desk. Did they know that Matt might die? That their only son might be a murderer?

That was a problem for later. Here and now, I had ones I could control.

Here and now, most of my problems were about to go away.