He whispered something into the Dean’s ear. She frowned but nodded.

“That’s fine,” Whisp said. “Take care of the finals. I’ll deal with it.”

She launched into the air, vanishing in moments and leaving everyone staring at her back with baffled expressions.

“Well then,” the judge said, clearing his throat. “I’m Teg. I’ll be the judge for the semifinals and finals. We’re on a bit of a schedule, so you’ll have to excuse me for being prompt. Are the two of you ready?”

Damien’s hand twitched, but he just nodded. Sylph did the same.

“Then you may begin.”

Teg sounded a little bored, but Damien ignored the man. Sylph enveloped herself in her magic, fading into the background.

The miniscule amount of Ether floating within Damien’s core wasn’t going to be of much help against her. Damien forced his headache to the back of his mind, reaching into his back pocket.

He kept his eyes on the sand in front of him. It was looser on the stage than it had been in the arena that they’d trained in, and Sylph’s camouflage didn’t let her walk completely without a trace.

Several terse moments ticked by. A grain of sand shifted to Damien’s left. His hand tightened on the papers. Then, abruptly, he threw himself into a roll. He came back to his feet, but there was nobody behind him.

“Damn,” Damien said. “Thought she’d attack me.”

A line of darkness carved through the air, nearly catching Damien across the side. At the last moment, he managed to hurl himself out of the way and avoid the attack. If it hadn’t been for his weeks of training with Sylph, he never would have heard her coming.

Sylph flickered into view for a moment before fading away again. A small frown crossed Damien’s face. She looked exhausted. Even if she managed to defeat him in this round, the chances of her winning the finals were nonexistent.

Damien grabbed several of the papers from the wreath and slammed them onto the ground. The runes lit up on impact. A pillar of fire roared up around Damien, blocking him out from the rest of the arena.

Then he sat down inside it, setting the other papers on the ground in front of him and yawning. He could still see outside the ring through the flickers in the flame, but passing through it without getting injured would be impossible.

“Sitting in a fight?” Teg asked, disapproving. “Finish him, girl. The boy is toying with you.”

Sylph faded into view. “I can’t. I don’t have enough energy for a ranged attack, and I can’t get to him through the fire. I only have enough energy for one or two more spells.”

Damien gave her a wide grin. “I’m planning my next move. I don’t think there are any rules on a time limit, are there?”

Teg’s eye twitched. “There are not. There never needed to be one.”

“Fantastic,” Damien said. He leafed through the thick pile of papers. “I’ve got a few of these, so I might be thinking a bit.”

Sylph’s eyes widened. She immediately sat down and drew a deep breath, trying to relax and recover Ether.

“What do you two think you’re doing?” Teg asked. “This is a fight! You can’t just… sit down.”

“I’m thinking,” Damien replied. “A plan is an important part of a winning strategy. I don’t know what my opponent is doing, but I’m not dumb enough to rush someone stronger than I am.”

One of the papers started to wrinkle and burn. Damien took another slip from the pile and replaced it, reigniting the flames. Teg drew a deep breath, but Damien didn’t look in his direction.

Sylph had less Ether than the rest of them, but that meant she could take every bit of it farther. Without any Ether for the final, she was doomed to lose. However, if he could buy some time for her to recover, she’d get a lot more out of it than any of the other students.

Damien considered trying to win the round himself, but he dismissed it immediately. If Mark won his round, there was no way he’d stand a chance against the boy. The strategy he used against Nolan would be worthless against Mark’s armor, and the boy had much more training than he did. He’d used too much Ether in the previous fights, so his only advantage was gone.

Whenever one of the rune papers faded, Damien replaced it. He’d packed quite a few of them, and most of them had survived his previous fights.

Teg’s face progressively turned a darker shade of red with every minute that passed by. He gritted his teeth and stood with his arms crossed, tapping his foot impatiently.

Minutes turned to nearly half an hour. Dean Whisp appeared in the sky, looking at Teg with a baffled expression.

“What in the seven planes is going on?” Whisp demanded. “Why is the semifinal still going?”

“They’re refusing to fight,” Teg snapped. “This has never happened before, but there’s nothing in the rules about how long a fight can take!”

“Well, we’ve hardly had people refuse to fight before,” Whisp said, glancing from Sylph to Damien. “Isn’t this the girl that won every fight in one or two moves? Why – oh. You’re out of Ether. Hm. Interesting.”

Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten the scary lady’s attention.

Damien glanced at Sylph. She looked much better than she had when the fight started. Damien doubted she’d been able to recover all of her Ether, but maybe she’d gotten enough to give her an edge in the final.

He grabbed the remaining papers and tossed them into the fire. They went up in a flash. Within a few minutes the remainder of the fire started to die down. Damien stood, stepping out from the flames once they’d lowered enough.

Sylph’s eyes opened. She rose to her feet as well and Teg let out a sigh. “Finally. Just… fight, will you? This is just pitifu–”

Sylph blurred forward. Damien didn’t try to move. Her blade stopped against his throat, drawing a thin line of blood.

“I surrender. That was a killing blow,” Damien said.

Teg’s eyes looked like they wanted to bulge out of his head. “Why, you little–”

“Teg,” Whisp said sharply. “That’s the end of the match. He surrendered, and we clearly need to change the rules. The loophole is our fault, not theirs. Finding unique solutions to problems is admirable. As far as I’m concerned, they were just smarter than we were. Brains are just as important as brawn in a fight.”

Whisp gave Damien a thoughtful stare. He swallowed, wondering if he’d just made a serious mistake. He walked off the stage, Whisp’s keen eyes tracking his back. He strode back to the waiting area and sat down as the other students watched him with shocked expressions.

“You wily bastard,” Mark said. “You were just buying time for her to recover her Ether, weren’t you?”

“Enjoy your match,” Damien said, the corner of his mouth quirking up. Semifinals wasn’t such a bad spot to lose, after all.