"How are you doing?" Sadie asked.

"Not as bad as it could be," Alisa answered.

Zen had finally realized that she needed to sleep for longer than an hour at a time, and in a startling display of empathy he'd taken to spending the night lurking under her bed as opposed to running around on top of her. It had still taken time to get used to his little noises, but by now Alisa could sleep through just about any of Zen's usual exploratory snuffles and scratches and clinks and clatters and the bumping of scales against wood.

He didn't always manage to remember that she needed to sleep the whole night. Many a time, she woke up to a bouncy eager dragon jumping on top of her at far too early a time for her comfort. But she appreciated the sentiment.

Sadie looked her over critically. "Are you done moping about?"

"For now. I can't promise I'll be happy. But, yes. I think I am."

Sadie clapped. "Perfect! Then I think it's time you came and met Gail. She’s the best. I know you'll love her. Ever since I told her about you she’s been begging me to introduce you, but, well, you’ve been busy."

"Someone new?"

Anyone from Azier who knew Sadie tended to follow her around, (which was pretty much everyone from Azier,) so Alisa had a pretty good idea of the general extent of Sadie's social circle. But the addition of dragons had changed things.

"Yes. She's from southern Renand and has a fascinating insider opinion on their current fashion trends."

Alisa's brief hope of Gail being someone she could get along with began to sink. Being from a no account town in the middle of nowhere had not lent itself to a great understanding of or appreciation for fashion. Clothing was purposeful, utilitarian, and expensive. She did love the idea of having enough outfits you could choose one to suit your mood or the event of the day, but that sort of blatant wealth was more Sadie's thing.

Alisa had several wonderful outfits thanks to Sadie's generosity, and she did enjoy shopping for them. But that was the extent of her interest. Listening to people talk about clothing got very tiring very quickly.

"Don't look like that. She knows more than just fashion," Sadie insisted with an incredibly self-satisfied expression. "Trust me. It will be great.”

Alisa felt sure it would be great. For Sadie. And probably for Gail too.

No, she reminded herself. Don't be bitter. Don't be grumpy. It's not their fault.

So she forced a smile and nodded. And quietly promised herself she would try harder.

Gail Randir turned out to be a year older than Alisa and Sadie, which explained why Alisa's path had never crossed hers before now. Alisa had seen her around, as she had seen most people at the Academy, but until now never really paid attention to her.

A glance at the dragon accompanying her quickly confirmed that the jade colored Browning was entirely enamored of Mirva. Ah. Of course.

Gail introduced her dragon as Lazren, and Sadie introduced Alisa, and Alisa introduced Zen. Zen and Lazren spent several minutes examining each other suspiciously, until Lazren determined that Zen had no ulterior motives towards Mirva, at which point he accepted Zen as a potential ally and proceeded to ignore him while he showed off for Mirva.

Zen watched the display with obvious disdain, which made Alisa want to poke him. The little hypocrite.

But, she had to admit, watching Lazren prance about was much more entertaining than she'd expected. The Browning breed of dragons were not known for their flexibility, but for speed and strength. So some of the stretches and distortions exhibited by Lazren were quite impressive. And utterly hilarious.

Somehow, Zen adopted a sort of big brother role to the two dragons, despite being significantly smaller than either of them. And younger. She wasn't sure how worked. But from the way they were behaving, he clearly had some sort of hierarchal supremacy.

"And what can you tell me about Leviir?" Gail asked, suddenly turning to Alisa. "I understand you're from much more rural area. What's it like?"

It took Alisa a moment to orient to the conversation, then she shrugged. "Hard, I suppose. Compared to here at least. My mother and I worked for the brickmakers, mostly on the manufacturing end, though we did occasional deliveries. It’s the biggest export in southern Leviir,” Alisa added with a hint of pride. “There are buildings across the world made of the bricks I mixed and fired.”

Gail raised her eyebrows. "How did you end up here? That sounds like a significant change in circumstance."

"Well, you know. I saved up, my mother saved up, and then when we had enough I came to precad to try and get in. I’ve always been fascinated by how powerscript works, but places like this are the only way to find the really advanced stuff."

"Alisa is special," Sadie interrupted. "She actually tested in without any fee."

Gail looked surprised. "No fee? You made it into the top 10?"

Alisa nodded. "Number seven. But two of those above me were going for physical, so for the magic branch I'm in the top five."

At least, she had been. Before they all became dragon mages and lost everything.

No. She wasn't going to think about that.

She forced a smile. "What about you? What's your story?"

Gail waved a hand. "Oh, the usual. Precad, fees, classes, ambition." She grinned. "You have no idea how envious my sister is. She graduated last year so she just missed out on getting her own dragon. This could elevate our family to a whole new echelon." She patted Lazren on the head with a beatific smile. "You're my little ticket to a whole new future."

Lazren leaned into Gail’s hand with obvious pleasure, then remembered that Mirva was there and immediately stopped purring and tried to look tough. Mirva saw right through him but didn't seem inclined to call him out. Alisa quietly agreed; it was kind of cute.

“You mentioned ambition?” Alisa asked.

“Ah, yes. It’s probably silly, but I want to beat my sister’s record. She’s always thought she was so great but it’s not that she’s any better, she’s just older. So with Renand Academy, I can face her on an even level. Me against her at the same age.”

“You want to beat your sister?” Alisa had always thought her friendship with Sadie was the closest she’d come to knowing what it felt like to have a sister, but Gail seemed to have an entirely different perspective.

“She deserves to be humbled,” Gail said with a shrug. “I know I can do better than she did."

"Isn't that a bit unfair, though?" Alisa asked. "Since she didn't know you were competing? You know what you have to beat, while she was just living her life."

"No. That doesn't matter. It's nothing to do with her, it's just a challenge that I've set for myself."

Alisa shrugged. It certainly sounded personal to her, but it really wasn't any of her business. Plus the addition of dragons complicated things. Some classes would be trivially easy now; others impossibly hard. There was no way to make a fair comparison, but before she could think how to respond Gail changed the subject.

"But, if you're top five, can you help me with a problem I've been working on?"

"Sure, depending on the problem."

"Layering problem."

Alisa smiled. "Oh, yes. Certainly. Which layer?"

"Well, I understand you're responsible for the absolutely spectacular plumage a certain LeTanieur ended up with before this whole... thing started?"

Sadie grinned at Alisa, who hedged uncertainly. "Perhaps I know something about the construction of similar spells."

"So, I've been working on this..." Gail pushed a notebook toward Alisa, who looked over the rudimentary circles with a faint smile. It was decently advanced in its theory, even if the individual pieces were all very simple.

"A water spell that looks like a fire spell?"

"Yes. The problem is here. I can't figure out how to make it flicker properly, it's always a static appearance."

Alisa nodded. "The appearance layer is like a shell you surround the spell with."

"But your— the appendages in the illusion in question reacted along with movement. It wasn’t static, which is probably why no one suspected it would be a year-one responsible. How did you make the manifest layer do that?”

“Those were all conditionals attached to the second and third layers." Alisa began to scribble corrections onto the page. "I used a conditional form with the appearance attached to it."

"Form? So the actual shape was changing, not just the image?"

"The shape was the only thing changing. The tail shifted from side to side, while the wattle bounced in time with her steps. That was the trickiest part. The comb, it just waved on a loop."

"How—"

"Conditionals can be triggered by anything, as long as you know the powerscript for it.” Alisa continued writing on the notebook as she spoke. “In this case, the trigger condition was 'movement of a particular degree' so technically it would have triggered if she'd waved her arms particularly violently or anything like that, but without knowing the conditions she'd have no reason to change her normal behavior."

"But how?"

Alisa grinned. "Oh, do you want the whole story? It's incredibly long and complicated."

Gail nodded and leaned forward.

"Well, the first problem was Francine's protective amulet. She never takes it off and it detects any magic targeted against the wearer, as well as interfering with incoming spells that aren't fully formed. So while it wouldn't do anything against, say, a rock bolt, it could be used to dispel an illusion trap with ease."

"You got a trap past a protection amulet?" Gail gasped.

"Not exactly. I'm not that much of a genius. We had to sabotage the amulet for the trap to work."

That only made Gail more impressed. "Sabotage a professional amulet? You're crazy."

"Not as much as you'd think. Whoever made that amulet, they were aiming for appearance more than substance. It looks shiny and flashy, and you can tell what it is, but it doesn't have sufficient protections against foreign overload." She seemed to be losing Gail, so she backtracked a bit. “You know how you can destabilize spells? Countermagic?”

Gail nodded. “Following so far…”

“Well, the amulet’s structure was leaky enough that it was susceptible to foreign influence. We couldn’t disable it, but we could adjust a few things.” Alisa paused and grinned, drawing out the suspense. She’d long since stopped writing. “We changed it from detecting hostile magic, to detecting all magic.”

Gail’s mouth dropped open. “Whaaat!”

“So she spent the first hour convinced that everyone around her was plotting against her, then the rest of the morning growing increasingly sure her precious amulet was broken. She took it to an artisan in the city for repair, and that’s when we struck.”

Sadie giggled, enjoying Gail’s reactions as much as Alisa was. They’d never had the chance to properly gloat over the victory in the chaos that followed that day’s other events, and it felt so good to share the story of her prowess with an eager audience.

“I already had the illusion in place,” Alisa continued, “a two-point shroud trap across the entrance, set to activate when it detected a specific spell thread. We tested it extensively before deploying, certain everything would work perfectly. All we had to do was wait for Francine to come by and be sure she ended up tangled in the trigger thread. So we found a roof, cast the spell, and once she was coming lowered it down…” she mimed the motion, paying out an invisible line. “She didn’t notice a thing. We ran back to the gate, only to discover… someone had broken one of the shroud powerscripts!”

Gail gasped, completely caught up in the story.

“So I had to redraw it, with only minutes remaining until she came in and we lost our chance. But, I did it, just on time, and you know the rest.”

Gail leaned back, exhaling heavily. “Wow. That is way more complicated than I’d imagined! So, how did you layer the illusion into the powerscript?”

“Enchantment array. The layers are linked side by side instead of being drawn on one at a time. It leaves you much more vulnerable to dangerous backfires if drawn incorrectly, but it’s really the only way to set up a location-based trap. Anything personal requires close contact and that wouldn’t work in this case. Too easy to track down who poked you in a group, especially with that many lackeys. It’s safer to layer when hand casting, the backlash will only be of the current layer, so much less likely to explode. Plus you can try again. But if you’re inscribing into a surface, the rules are different. It needs to all be laid out flat—”

“I know about enchantment arrays,” Gail interrupted. “My problem is in linking the illusion transformation in.”

Alisa nodded, trying to recall the specifications of Gail’s original question. “Right, you’re trying to make water look like fire?”

“Right.”

She picked up the pen and resumed work on the circles. “Easiest way is to make a conditional form based on distance traveled. Give it three forms to cycle through, set it to something short so it flickers fast, and no one will be able to tell. Fire tends to be repetitive as it is.”

“I haven’t learned about conditional forms.”

“Have you learned conditional anything?”

Gail shook her head.

“The earlier the condition, the more difficult it is to integrate,” Alisa warned. “It’s risky to go tampering with form if you don’t know what you’re doing.” She grinned. “Fortunately for you, I do.”

She drew out a second set of circles beside the first, linked with a conditional transition into a circle.

“This will loop it through the three forms, the condition is ‘time elapsed’ and the form is a flame shape. Now we just need to paint the appearance on…”

Alisa switched to layer six and started scribbling in the defining elements of a fire bolt. She had to pause twice to check in her notes for reference - she hadn’t fully memorized all the possible spells, only the ones most interesting to her, and even then it paid to double check until you were absolutely confident of your ability.

“All set! This is the important part here.” She pointed to the conditional circles. “Most of the rest of what you have is good as-is, but you have to layer these in at the second stage before you trigger the effect or it will be a mess.”

Gail smiled and picked up the notebook, looking it over. “Thank you! I’ll let you know how it turns out.”

“Thanks,” Alisa said, to be polite, but she already knew how it would turn out. It would be perfect.

Then her smile froze as realization struck her. She’d used standard magic calculations, not accounting for dragon magic. Would any of the elements be impacted by that shift? The scale of the circles could be changed without a problem, but the nature would be disrupted and the effect shifted. The power levels would be skewed, but… no, she was pretty sure nothing would be broken. None of her changes, at least.

She stood, intending to call after Gail, but the older girl had already left and Alisa wasn’t sure where to find her.

She considered running after her, but decided against it. It would be fine. After all, it was just an exercise. And it would be embarrassing to admit to forgetting something so foundational. Everything would be fine.

“I need to go check something,” she said, hastily gathering Zen in her arms. “See you!”

She ran outside and closed her eyes, trying to remember the circles. She drew quick and large, repeating the spell over and over until she got it right. Flickering blob of fire-coloured water, check. Dangerous side effects, none. Usefulness? Questionable, but that wasn't her job.

She exhaled with relief. Now she could be confident. It worked exactly as intended. Perfection.