My success with the Illuminus potion put me in a good mood for the rest of the day. Of course I’d known, intellectually, that’d be doing some magic at mage school, but not being able to cast the spell in my heart had left me feeling… well. It wasn’t the first time I’d just accepted being left out of things. A cursed kid in the comm – the nemagisto world had to avoid a lot of activities, too.

But I could still do magic!

I was still in a good mood when I received a message from Instruktanto Miratova, ominously devoid of details, asking me to come and see her at my convenience. I made my way down the hall, pacing it out for Max and trying to figure out of I’d caused any problems recently. The kitchen fire? No, that was Magista’s fault. Had I trespassed anywhere or broken into anything? No, I didn’t think so…

“Ah, Kayden.” Instruktanto Miratova looked up from her chaotic mess of a desk and smiled. That was a good sign.

“You look like you’re recovering well,” I said.

“It’s an ongoing process. But I’m well enough to run all of my classes, so that’s good.”

I nodded, wondering if the undercurrent to that message was ‘so I can maintain my work ethic as a teacher’, or if it was ‘so that bastard Fiore has no excuse to stick around’. Not my problem, I supposed.

“You wanted to see me.”

“Ah, yes. I was wondering – although it’s not really any of my business and I understand if you’d rather not talk about it – how things are between you and Taine?”

I shifted uncomfortably. “You heard about the trial.”

“Everyone heard abut the trial.”

“Right. Well, I’m… pretty sure he didn’t betray me on purpose, or anything, unlike… anyway. Nothing to do about it now, I guess.”

“Are you going to keep him as a surveyanto?”

Oh. That’s what this was about.

“I haven’t really thought about it,” I lied. “I mean, I don’t know much about most of the teachers here, except for him and you.”

She nodded. “Max is switching to me. I don’t know if he told you that. It’s not a big deal, but in my experience dormmates generally find it more convenient to stick with a single surveyanto in case of… conflicts. So it’s something that you and Kylie should think about.”

I nodded thoughtfully. It was worth thinking about. I went to respond, but before I could say anything, someone in pale brown robes bustled in. “Alania, the – ”

It was Clara. She froze, staring wide-eyed at me.

I froze, too. What the hell do you say to someone who endangered the life of you, your friends and your teachers, and embroiled you all in a complicated attempted murder conspiracy that could’ve wrongfully imprisoned one or more of you, all for personal gain?

“Yes, Clara?” Instruktanto Miratova asked.

“The, um. The transport can be ready by tomorrow.”

“Then you have some packing to do, don’t you?”

“Y… yes, Alania.”

“And remember to be very careful. Fionnrath is not a kind place to strangers. If you throw your weight around and get caught, nobody can protect you.”

“R-right.” She fled.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Instruktanto Miratova said. “She’s not in any danger. If she steps on anyone’s toes they’ll come for me, not her.”

“What is she do – ?”

“Just going on a little holiday and telling me what she sees going on. Don’t worry about it.”

“… Right.” Not that I really cared what Miratova did with Clara, not after everything that had gone down. But was there any adult in this school not engaged in some kind of shady political scheme? Was anyone at all not involved in some shady political scheme?

At least Miratova generally tried to keep us out of whatever political nonsense was going on. That was a point in her favour, as a surveyanto.

“I’ll think about it,” I said. “Is there anything else?”

“That depends. Do you still want to try to awaken that spell in your heart? Now that we know it’s dormant or bound, a different approach – ”

“It’ll be dangerous, right? Not everyone survives.”

“That’s true. The spell was compatible with you when it chose you, when you were a baby. We have no idea if it still is.”

“But if we don’t know why it’s not doing anything, if it’s bound or just hasn’t woken up or whatever… it could awaken on its own, right? Without warning.”

“Yes. The risks are the same as they were before you came here.”

“And we have no idea what it does.”

“That’s correct.”

I nodded. “I guess… I guess finding out why it’s dormant is a good idea. If something is binding it, I want to know.”

“And if something is binding it, do you want to unbind it, or make sure it stays bound?”

“I don’t… I don’t know.”

“Something to decide on when you get there, then.” Magista wrote something down on one of the many pieces of paper scattered about her desk. “Alright, then.”

After the meeting, I dropped by the shop and found a simple spellbook, the kind with a lot of recipes and not too many dense paragraphs of theory. I wasn’t sure what to do about the spell in my heart, but there was magic that I could cast right now, and I intended to.

“What’s this?” Max gasped in mock surprise, when he came back to the room to see me reading it. “Kayden? Reading an actual book? With words?”

“I’ll have you know, it has a lot of big pictures,” I bit back. The words were out before I realised that this was not, in fact, the cutting remark I’d been going for, and instead made me sound like a complete dumbarse.

“Well, if you love big pictures, you’re going to love runecrafting class, which is in fourteen minutes.”

“Already? Shit.” Why did they schedule all the beginner magic crafting classes on the same day? At least I’d be taking this one with Max. I quickly changed into the special robed I’d purchased for the class, designed so that I could reach under them and access the mage mark on my chest without having to undress at all. I seriously doubted they’d have us draw ichor on the first day, but I wanted to get used to them. The robes werey puffy enough that they didn’t make the shape of my chest stand out, but I sort of felt like they should. I checked myself in the mirror at every conceivable angle, just to be sure.

There were a reassuringly large number of red robes in basic runecrafting, so that was something. Apparently, unlike potioncrafting, this was something that students saw the value in picking up right away, so nobody should know way more than me. Well, at least they’d know more than me at the same proportion as I was used to. Presumably the legacy students would still be know-it-alls.

Desks were lined up in the middle of the classroom, as normal, but down the right and left sides of the room stood little cubicles made of privacy screens, for those who might need to undress to access their ichor. I relaxed at the sight of them. My robes should be fine, but if not, I had the option of privacy.

The instuktanto who bustled in (I’d learned my lesson and looked up this one’s name in advance; he was Instruktanto nimus, which I had to assume was one of those invented legacy names because nobody in their right mind would name a child Animus) had to be in his thirties, but he looked like someone who’d reached old age at twenty three and decided to stay there. Darting black eyes peered out of a wrinkled black face surrounded by a birds’ nest of short wiry hair that was far more grey than it really should be. He wore earrings of little purple stones (amethysts?) dangling on gold chains that swung around chaotically as he jerked his head, and I kept expecting them to tangle in his hair. His fingernails clearly hadn’t been trimmed for some time, and he looked like he’d had about four hours of sleep in the past week but was dealing with it because the opportunity to come and speak to us was the most amazing thing that had ever happened in his entire life. He darted up to the front of the room, took a long swig from the cup in his hand that I had to assume contained coffee, and stared wildly at us. “So,” he said. “Runecrafting.”

We all waited to see if there was going to be more to this statement. After a little while, there was.

“Writing has always been viewed as a practice with great power. From times gone past, when literacy was rare, it was not just a special and important way to record information, but in many cultures it was said that the letters themselves contained magic. Nordic runes are a particularly popular example, and even today there are commonfolk – and, yes, also the occasional mage – who will attempt to use them for this purpose.

“Of course, the modern system of runecrafting is rather more sophisticated. These days, we treat the writing of magic rather differently to the writing of words; we treat it more like designing an electronic circuit, crafting the effect of the magic by guiding it on the correct path. That is why the runes you see in use today are many orders of magnitude more complicated than the set you’ll see in a diviner’s bag.

“This year, we’ll be focusing on learning the basic units of runecrafting and how they can go together. We’ll learn to identify and draw some of the more common runes you might use, and learn how to break down complex runes into their constituent parts and read them. It’s a lot of memorisation and a lot of practice, but you’ll walk out of here understanding the basics of a new, magical language that you can use to change the world as you please. So!” He clapped his hands together. “Shall we get started?”

Great, memorisation. But on the plus side, more magic that I could do. And, unlike the potion, this magic would come from me, powered by my own ichor; I wouldn’t just be assembling the pieces to let magic water do its thing, this would be mine. I definitely wanted to get started.

A handout was passed around, containing what Instruktanto Animus called a “simple, basic rune”, which didn’t bode well for the future, given its complexity. It was a series of at least twenty complicated interlocking lines and loops that came together to form a vaguely circular shape.

“This,” he explained, “is a holding rune. It’s for stability. Most runic circles are, as one would expect, circular, and if you want the power going through them to be consistent and stable, the easiest way to achieve that is with a holding rune. This is where the spare magic waits when it’s not moving through the rest of the runic circle, so you don’t overload your circle. It basically tells the magic, ‘stay here’. It’s used to hold magic in a spell so that it doesn’t all go off at once, and it’s also the central component of most anchorage runes, such as the familiarity rune. For those of you planning to take familiars or fetishes, this rune is exceptionally important to making sure that you don’t die. For the rest of you, you’re still going to need this one if you ever want to use runecrafting for anything remotely complex. So, today I want all of you to practice tracing the rune I just handed out. You will not pass this class until you can draw this, and several others, from memory.”

Ugh. Why did learning real actual magic have to be boring?

I expected Max to be able to draw the holding rune already, and I was, of course, correct. He drew it flawlessy in about thirty seconds with quick, confident strokes while I carefully traced the first few jerky lines.

“Why are you even taking this class?” I muttered. “I’m sure you know everything in it already.”

“I can’t be sure unless I take it, can I? Anyway, it’s a requirement for the more advanced runecrafting classes.”

I tried not to feel jealous. It wasn’t my fault or Max’s that he had fourteen years’ head start on me.

Instruktanto Animus was sweeping around the class, glancing at peoples’ work and occasionally stopping to chat briefly with them. The massive disparity in class starting ability was obvious; about half the class was carefully tracing their first rune, like me, and the other half looked markedly more confident, with a handful of students, like Max, already finished. He came over to us. “Ah, Max. I see your runes have really shaped up. Much better angular precision these days.”

“Thank you, Instruktanto.”

“Why don’t you move on to scribing the basic set I just emailed around? I’d like to see your general competence.”

Max nodded and pulled out his tablet. Instruktanto Animus turned his intense gaze on me. “And you, I don’t believe I know?”

“Um, Kayden.”

“Fantastic to meet you, Kayden.” He switched his cup of probably-coffee to his left hand to hold his left one out, which I shook, cautiously. His hand was shaking. How much caffeine was he on? “You’re new to the wonderful world of runecraft?”

“Uh, yeah. Still new to this whole magic thing.”

Instruktanto Animus grinned in delight, like this was the most amazing thing he’d heard all day. “Fantastic! You’ll be starting your education on the right foot, then. You’re going to love runes, I just know it.”

What was I supposed to say to that? “Um, I hope so.”

Instruktanto Animus was already shuffling off to talk to the next table. I turned back to Max. “So you know him?”

“A bit. He runs this two-week educational program once a year, for kids who want to learn a bit of early magical theory and see if being a mage is the right path for them.”

“Oh, he has a summer camp?”

“It’s not… it’s an educational program. That takes place in the winter holidays, if you must know. Although it is in America.”

“In the American summer? Like a summer camp?”

“Well, yes. It’s an educational program that possesses some superficial similarities to a summer camp.”

“So your new teacher is your childhood camp counsellor?” I asked, having entirely too much fun.

“… Yes. It’s not surprising. The pool of educators in the mage community is fairly small. Not counting exclusive private tutors, or course.”

“That is the most rich kid thing you have ever said to me.”

“Oh, I highly doubt that.” Max raised an eyebrow, joking. “I must have groused about the substandard state of the caviar here to you at least once.”

I rolled my eyes and turned back to my rune. Head start or not, it was just drawing little pictures. How hard could it be?