The next day, the glow of the rose had faded, leaving a stick with thick, transparent petals, a dead and obviously manufactured thing. I tossed it out and gritted my teeth through meditation with Max. He seemed pretty sure this would help me, and I didn’t want to ditch him after he’d put in the effort, but come on. Meditation took forever. And it was so boring.

Besides, I had things to do today.

When I was free, I went out to climb the cliff. No, not that cliff. I went to the valley. My rope and pitons had come through the shop, I still had some pants to wear with the climbing harness, I’d had tons of experience climbing… I was ready. I was ready to scale the steep edge of the valley and get a little more information on where the hell it was.

I took my time with it, of course. Climbing was old hat, but the pitons were new, and the valley wall was almost twice as high as the school roof I’d broken my leg falling off. But hold by gentle hold, taking the time to hammer the pitons in well, I made progress.

It was going so well, until I slipped.

The slip shouldn’t have been a problem. I’d taken much higher falls before. But here’s the thing – when you’re climbing a cliff with an enchantment to catch you if you fall, then when you lose your grip, you should push your whole body away from the cliff as hard as you can so you don’t cut yourself up on the jagged rocks on the way down.

When you’re climbing with a rope and pitons, you should absolutely not do that.

This occurred to me about a tenth of a second after I’d automatically launched myself into the air, and it was far too late to stop now. The piton I’d just so carefully hammered in pulled free like an old nail being torn out of wood; I flew back, down, onto the grass.

I knew how to land from a fall. It had been a while since I’d had to, but some things don’t leave you. It was a bad angle; I landed wrong on my left arm, felt something crack, but rolled properly, taking the weight onto my shoulder blades and turning it into horizontal momentum. I stopped rolling face-down in the grass. Nothing hurt too much; maybe I wasn’t hurt.

“That,” I told the grass, “was extremely stupid.”

The grass didn’t respond.

I went to get up. Oh, that’s where all the pain was. It had been hiding in my arm, ready to ambush me, and boy was there a lot of it. I used my other arm to clamber to my feet, feeling out each movement slowly and carefully like a scout ready to observe and retreat from any further pain ambushes. There were none.

My lower left arm had limited movement and couldn’t be straightened without nauseating pain. Dammit. I’d been so good about not needing to see the kuracar.

Malas was having a conversation with Clara when I arrived. He looked up at my approach.

“Ah, Kayden. It’s been a while. I was beginning to suspect you might have stopped being reckless.”

“Hey, only about half of the things I see you for are my fault.”

“And is it your fault this time?”

“… That’s not important. I came because my arm isn’t moving properly.”

Malas laid his fingertips lightly on my elbow and nodded. “Clara. The ulna is fractured in two places. There’s some light bruising and muscle damage, nothing notable. How should I treat it?”

“Are the bones still where they’re meant to be?”

“Yes.”

“Then magic them together.”

“Are you sure of that answer?”

“Yeah. You said bones, skin, hair and veins respond well to your magic because of how they heal naturally. You have to be careful with muscles, because their healing depends on use, and nerves are almost always a bad idea. But if it’s just bone, you can glue it with magic and it’ll be fine.”

“Very good. What about pain relief?”

Clara turned to me. “Are you in pain?”

“Only if I move my arm at all.”

“Magic the bone, and he doesn’t need pain relief,” she said. “If he does still have a lot of pain, you could treat it with Aurora’s Tears, and counteract the magical rise in body temperature with a few drops of Sandsmoot.”

“We also have morphine, vicodin or paracetamol,” Malas pointed out. “Once again, you jump straight to magical solutions. Pain relief generally doesn’t require a magic potion.”

“All of those have side effects.”

“So do Aurora’s Tears and Sandsmoot. If there’s a complication, would you prefer to deal with a chemical one, or a magical one?”

Clara crossed her arms. “By that logic, you should just put the arm in a sling instad of using magic.”

“I’m not saying to never use magic. I’m saying you shouldn’t automatically favour it without weighing all possible solutions. Using my spell has downsides, and a sling has downsides… which do you think I should use?”

“The spell,” Clara admitted. “Using a sling would just drag things out for no reason. And the muscles would weaken. Also there’s a chance for further damage while the bone’s still fractured, especially in someone so accident-prone.”

“Hey!” I protested.

Malas laid a hand on my arm briefly. “There. Try to move it now.”

I did. There were still a lot of little aches, but the lancing pain was gone. “Perfect. Thanks.”

“No problem. If you’re careful, you might be able to keep it intact all the way to the end of your initiate semester.”

“But then you’d be deprived of my charming presence, and do any of us want that, really?”

When I got back to the dorm, Max was freaking out.

“What happened?” I asked. “Is everything okay?”

“Okay? Look at this.” He thrust his tablet towards me. I skimmed the message; an invite from Magista, to a party in about a month.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “Magista’s having a ‘good-luck-Initiates’ kind of party. I forgot to mention.”

“You forgot to – well. We were going to have to do this again eventually. I’m surprised she held off this long, to be honest.”

Kylie pulled back her bedcurtains to frown at him. “It’s just a party. If you don’t want to go, don’t go.”

“I cannot simply decline to go,” he said, rubbing his temples. “It is really not that simple.”

“Isn’t it? What’s she gonna do, physically drag you there?”

“No, but she would make remarks, and it would be known that I didn’t attend.”

“So then you don’t get invited to the next one. Isn’t that what you want?”

“Just think,” I said, “once you graduate and become your family’s mage, your entire life can be like this.”

“Do not remind me,” Max groaned. “Although I feel I need to point out, there is more to the job than silly parties.”

“Why do you even want to be the Nonus?” I asked. “You hate politics, so why become a politician?”

“Because somebody has to. I suppose you’ll be going, to make a scene with your boyfriend.”

“Hey now, jealousy isn’t productive,” I said. “Kylie, are you coming?”

“Will there be snacks?”

“There’d have to be, right?”

“I’ll come if there’s snacks.”

“There you go, Max,” I said. “You’ll have us. Nothing to worry about. Also, and I feel kind of silly pointing this out, but these people are like… your classmates. Not the Queen of England or whatever. They’re all going to chill out, and so can you. Well, except Simon, but maybe he’ll still be at his thing.”

“The observations of Lumina ended yesterday,” Max said. “Simon and the Fiore should be back at school by now, along with everyone else who attended.”

“Well, maybe Magista won’t invite him.”

“Her own roommate?”

“Well, maybe he won’t be able to go, because I’ll have put him in hospital.”

“Hope springs eternal, I suppose. In the meantime, I have a class to get to. Please try not to punch anyone in my absence.”

“Who said anything about punching? There are so many ways to fight that are more creative than punching.”

“You’re only saying that because you hurt yourself last time.”

After he left, Kylie asked, “You’re not actually going to go pick a fight with Simon, are you?”

“What? No! I was just teasing.”

“Just making sure.”

“I punched him one time, right after I found out he put me and Miratova in hospital, and I did it to prove he was guilty. I’m not some aggro who runs around punching people I don’t like. You know me better than that, Kylie.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She pulled out her tablet and started reading something. I pulled out the rune circle that Miratova had made for me.

Focus and channel the energy, right?

I sat on my bed, got as comfortable as I could, and closed my eyes. Breathe in, breathe out. According to Max, if I practiced meditation, I should be more aware of my body and better able to focus my thoughts. I felt the breath coursing through me. Felt the muscles in my back and chest. Felt the blood pulsing through my body. Felt deeper in my heart, searching for the nugget of power that I knew was in there.

Man, was I hungry. Had I eaten breakfast? Was it too late for breakfast?

Focus, Kayden! Observe the thought and dismiss it. Observe the feeling of hunger and dismiss it. Maybe the cafeteria would have waffles. My schedule wasn’t synced with greenwich time, but sometimes they still had waffles out from…

Breathe in. Wrap the memory of waffles around the air in your lungs. Breathe out, and release the memory.

‘Wrap the memory of waffles around the air in your lungs’? That was nonsense! Had I seriously just had that thought?

Breathe in…

“Hey Kylie,” I said. “You want anything from the cafeteria?”

She didn’t answer.

I opened my eyes. Kylie was staring into space over my right shoulder. I recognised the blank expression; she was channelling.

I started recording on my tablet, just in case. This again? Miratova’s staff was gone. Did something else threaten to kill someone? Just how dangerous was this school? Forget the dangers of Initiation, it’d be a miracle if we all lived long enough to even walk into the Pit.

She shook it off. “Did I – ?”

“No. You’ve been having false alarms again?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, I haven’t noticed any until right now. But with Miratova teaching us to consciously channel, maybe it’s just… happening for no reason?”

“You couldn’t channel without the mirrors and stuff, when you tried to activate the circle. Were you trying to channel now?”

“No.”

“This is probably not great, then.”

“Or it’s probably nothing. The Eye didn’t speak, so the danger’s passed. It’ll either come back or it won’t.”

“Well. Last time this happened there was an explosion, so forgive me for being nervous. I was going to go get some food, but if your Eye is playing up I should probably hang around in case it speaks.”

“I’ll come with you. I want to see if they’ve put out that honey carrot thing yet.”

“Gross.”

They had not put out the honey carrot thing, but nor were there waffles. We both consoled ourselves with nachos.

“You know,” I said, “if we wanted to eat junk every day, nobody here would stop us. How’s that for motivation to get through the Initiation?”

“Ah, yes. The fear of death wasn’t motivating me enough, but with the promise of daily nachos, I just might do it.”

“Everyone’s so preoccupied with the death thing. Magistus was talking about that, too.”

“Yeah. Because it’s death. It’s kind of been in the future until now, but we’ve got a month of classes left, then two weeks to ourselves to panic, and then maybe death. This might be your last six weeks alive. What are you going to do with it?”

“Eat nachos, probably,” I said.

“Such ambition.”

“I’m holding on to a positive attitude. Looking towards a future where I win my trial, we all make it through the Inititation, and everything is great.”

“Preparing for the future, huh? So you’ve started learning Ido, then?”

“I’ll get around to it.”

“Kayden, it’s an entire new language.”

“Yeah, the easiest language in the world to learn. Literally. That’s the point of it, right?”

“Yes, but it’s still a new language!”

“Nachos. Bold choice.” Max sat down next to us and began nibbling at a sandwich. There was an excitement in his eyes, the kind of excitement he got when he started doing something extremely interesting like analysing endless maps of tunnels with maths, or painstakingly deconstructing a staff with impossible patience.

“New project?” I asked.

“No. Well, yes. But not yet.” He let his excitement light his whole face. “I just had a meeting with Instruktanto Miratova. Remember the whole thing where we explained that Simon was trying to kill her?”

“Yes, I definitely remember that.”

“Right. Well, I sent her my notes on the staff to support my hypothesis about her power fluctuations, remember? Anyway, she’s been looking at them. I guess she likes my methodology, because she wants me to work in her lab after Initiation.”

“Congratulations!” Kylie said.

“That’s great, man!” I added. “Doesn’t she normally take wizards and masters and stuff?”

“She could take people of any age,” Max said modestly. “It’s not unheard of for acolytes to end up helping out on projects like this. But it’s fairly unusual.”

“And you were chosen by the person you’ve hero worshipped since forever,” Kylie said. “Fantastic.”

“I don’t hero worship Miratova, I respect her as an accomplished researcher,” Max said stiffly.

“Sure you do, mate.”

“Oh,” I said, “and you should know that Kylie’s curse was playing up again, so don’t cut open anything that might explode.”

“It’s really no big deal,” Kylie said. “False alarms happen sometimes.”

“Well, you know what they say. Once watching an accidental bomb nearly take your friend’s head off, twice shy.”

“Hey, your arm’s all scuffed up,” Max said. “What happened?”

“Nothing, nothing. Just ordinary, everyday bumps and bruises.”

“… uh-huh.”

And that’s when I did the conversational equivalent of launching myself away from a cliff by asking, “So, what are you going to be working on with Miratova?”

Max said some words. I nodded politely and asked him to simplify. He said some more words. I asked him to simplify, again. Eventually, I pieced together that he was looking at something to do with the way power moved through runes, or something, and looking for the best order to string them in. I think.

“It’s not exactly cutting edge science,” he said modestly. “I’ll basically be one of the assistants making sure the equipment works and ‘cleaning the glassware’. But it’s a great learning opportunity!”

“I’m happy for you,” I said. Max and Miratova, Clara and Malas, Kylie was mastering her spell, Magista was building her network and Magistus was dating the hottest guy at school. Even Simon got to go to cool events with his family. Everything was moving forward for everyone.

Maybe that luck would be coming my way next.