Reen still hadn’t returned from his mandatory off-site trip with the other year two students. Zen was still distracted and off doing who knew what with the wild dragons - though at least he’d stopped leaking so much giddy emotion through their bond, for which Alisa was grateful. Sadie… Alisa didn’t know exactly where she stood with Sadie, but they’d barely said more than a few words to each other in months. Sure, they still laughed together in class, but she couldn't remember the last time she'd gone to Sadie's house, or had her just stop by.

It all made her feel lost, very alone, and too worn out to make any decision. She did not want to fall back into that drab nothing that had consumed her in the months after the announcement while waiting for Zen to hatch, didn’t want to become that empty thing again, but it grew harder by the day.

Zen's company for the hours of classes helped, Sadie's occasional snarky asides about Francine helped, but more and more she found herself coming back to the journal Tay had given her. Time that would ordinarily have been spent studying remained free due to the shift in teaching methodology and focus on practicum over theory. Working on its exercises helped distract her.

The research journal was both a treasure trove of unimagined ideas and a frustrating wilderness of inaccuracies and contradictions. As a theoretical exercise, Alisa had first tried casting each spell discussed. None of them actually worked. It mainly resembled the frenzied scribblings of someone who recorded their dreams. Each piece seemed to make sense, but when you put them all together they formed an incoherent and jumbled whole without any purpose that could be discerned.

Some were exotic formulae in the vein of the incomprehensible doorway circles she'd found. Some were non-circular entirely, rambling off in complex lines and curves that aligned with nothing Alisa knew, most accompanied by lines of cramped description for what the journal writer imagined the spell could become.

Alisa suspected it would take lifetimes to understand and complete the work of whoever had long ago created this journal, but she could at least add her observations and analysis to it before the time came to pass it on to another generation.

Whoever wrote it clearly possessed some spark of genius, some brilliance that let them come up with an incredible variety of exotic spell forms - most of which she could feel were viable, just incomplete.

Often when she reached the later pages, she'd bring back out her notes on the doorway circles, because there was a sort of synergy to them that felt right. Like pieces of each belonged together. Page 39 had some lines that almost matched up with the doorway trigger spell, that if you drew them quickly enough would line up almost perfectly. But then it rambled off into pages and pages of circles with no relation, circles oddly shaped and with foreign lines in unfamiliar orientations.

Alisa spent hours losing herself in the study, finding the flow between symbols and words and pages, absorbing the unfinished genius of someone long gone, integrating her own intuition and observations.

She wished the library hadn't been destroyed. Many of the basic books had been replaced, a few old ones had been returned to circulation, and new copies of anything readily available had been brought in, but much of the content of a more personal nature - any scholarly journals like this one - could not be replaced. It saddened her how much had been lost forever, and she mourned that she'd never get the chance to cross-reference the insights of the past with this new knowledge.

As the school year drew toward its end, she had begun to put some serious thought into whether she should leave Renand Grand and go to another academy.

Countless other magic schools would be happy to have her: someone who'd tested into the top ten after the full three years at Renand Preparatory Academy, someone who'd decided Renand Grand just wasn't the right fit. She was all but guaranteed to be among the most impressive students they'd ever get their hands on.

Another school may not offer the dragon mage stipend or customized dragon care, but Alisa had a decent amount of money these days. She didn't need taking care of as desperately now as when she'd first arrived in Renand City.

Any one of the academies might be a better fit for her. She could leave Tay and Will to their war preparations and worry-mongering and pursue her broken dreams in her own way.

Though dragon magic had resisted her every attempt to quantify it, she remained convinced that it could be done. Even if it took a hundred variables to account for the age and breed and temperament and mood of your dragon, it could not be innately chaotic. All magic had standards, strength and flow and intensity and focus, attunement and nature and form. The formulas behind the spells they cast were well known, the physics behind the shifts of shape and substance that occurred when you drew a line of power in the air or into an object.

Dragon magic had to fit into the equations somewhere. There had to be a variable or twenty that could be inserted, an understanding to be reached.

The first, biggest problem of using dragon magic was the weight and thickness of it. However condensed you drew it, the intricacy would always be lower. Like drawing with a thick paste instead of water.

The biggest and most complicated spells required circles upon circles, all linked and sprawling out. The finest diamond point styluses could create a line so precise that such a pattern could fit onto the blade of a sword. Even with her ruby stylus, only a grade or two below diamond, Alisa's dragon magic made a line nearly as wide as her smallest finger. She'd have to stretch and contort the spell to a fairly extreme degree just to make a double circle fit on a sword's blade, let alone a complex array.

This was the biggest blow to her dreams, this insurmountable flaw. She'd tried pushing the smallest amount of power possible through the stylus, to hold back, but it wasn't about quantity but substance. A single drop of magic tainted by dragonfire made a point wider than the shaft of her stylus, and even on a good day it didn't ever go smaller.

Hand cast spells were easier to adapt, since they were rarely as intricate, and it was easier to draw in the air than on an object, but still the necessity to scale everything up limited her abilities substantially.

Why did everything have to change? She'd been happy. Life had been good. She'd finally, finally gotten to where she wanted to be. She was learning magic, making friends to the best of her ability. She had enemies and allies, goals and adversity. Expert teachers, the most expansive library in the region. Everything she needed.

And then the Traitor had ruined everything. In his grand sweeping plans to purge the corruption and unite the local countries against aggression, to build a dragon mage army that could swoop in and stop any conflict anywhere, he'd somehow swept Alisa up in something too big and too ridiculous for her to handle.

She found she'd started writing the word 'why' over and over in her notebook, and brought her hand to a stop.

She missed Reen. She really missed Reen. Ever since the second year class had departed for their secret off-site training, she'd found her mood trending downward more often than not.

They'd talked about everything, and he was so confident and strong. He knew when to sympathize and when to tell her to stop being silly, could read her moods and drag her back from the edge.

Years of practice looking after Lia, she supposed bitterly. She didn't want to be another burden on him. It was easier to be strong when she knew she didn't have to, but could choose to.

Where are you, Zen?

They'd promised to be together forever, to always be there for each other, but these days it felt more like they were adult siblings who'd gone their separate ways.

Alisa slammed her notebook shut, closed the journal a bit more reverently, then stood up. She was going to find Enna. She'd make no progress in this mood, and she was tired of drowning in her own thoughts and worries.

If she was very lucky, Zen might be there trying to show off to Adrena. The korish hadn't shown any indication of interest in the aelanir's antics, but that had never stopped Zen in the past.

It took about a half hour to walk from the year one village across campus to the year three section. She was surprised to see how much closer together the year three houses were, with much smaller dragon yards. Enna's was easily the largest, many were no bigger than a town lawn. The reason became obvious quickly - much of year three had rajori, dog-size slender wyverns with vaguely ratlike features, or leoryx, looking rather like overgrown furry chickens not more than half again as tall as Alisa.

Some had blazes or ederyn or silverbacks, and she saw one vastras sprawled across its yard, but on the whole it seemed that year one had gotten the bulk of the bigger dragons.

Enna's house was easy to distinguish by the massive spiky dragon lying on her stomach beside it.

Adrena raised her head and growled in welcome, a gruff rumble that might have scared Alisa if she hadn't spent the past half a year around dragons of every description. She was used to their little variations of sound now, and could tell from the speed of the growl that it was a calm and pleasant thing, not a precursor to violence.

Adrena's side still missed several scales that hadn't grown back in yet from her altercation with Gold. Alisa wanted to ask who had won in the end, but it seemed improper to do so.

She tapped on Enna's door, which unlatched and opened almost as soon as she touched it. She stepped inside and the door swung itself closed. Alisa turned to look, and saw several complex arrays had been drawn into the back of the door, filling it almost completely.

Enna sat at her desk, deep in concentration, and didn't seem to have even noticed Alisa entering. She felt suddenly awkward and turned her attention back to the door, examining it until Enna finished whatever she was doing.

"Alisa, welcome. Have you considered my proposal, or just here to talk?"

"You did this?" Alisa asked, pointing to the enchantment arrays on the door. "How?" She could figure out some parts of it, a lot of the pieces were standard spell construction, but some of the innovations - particularly around the hinges and latch - were unfamiliar.

"I was studying interactive spellwork before all this." She waved a hand to indicated the new individual house, the dragons, and all the changes to their lives. "Once the good teachers fled, I had little choice but to continue on my own. It hasn't been easy, but I've still been able to make some progress. Nothing compared to a professional, but it works."

"How does it open the door? You'd need the spell to extend onto both sets of hinges, but it stops at the edge."

"They're preset with inputs. See here? This little bump? That's the indicator for connections. The hinges are already set up for accepting spell control. Most spell doors would have a little box that goes there, connected to each other and the latch." She held out her hands to show the size of the standard box, a little bigger than a hand.

Alisa looked again at the circles covering the entire door. "Do you ever get discouraged? It's so..."

Enna shrugged. "It may not be pretty, but it gets the job done. Not everyone can afford the tightest, smallest, most precise. There's plenty of folk who'd be happy for a spelled door even if it came with a full array like this. For some it would even be an advantage, a talking point. 'Look at our door, it was personally inscribed by a dragon mage, isn't it beautiful?' I'm sure I can market myself well enough to get work."

"So you're not going to be joining the army? When you graduate."

Enna snorted. "What army? We're barely enough to make a dent in any actual conflict. Give it another five, ten years, maybe. Once all the dragons are older, if we practiced together the whole time? Possibly. Right now, we're a useless rabble. No, I'm taking the reserve package and going my own way."

"Reserve package?"

"You'll find all the details when you get closer to graduating, but basically it lets me take a reduced stipend and remain 'on call' while doing whatever I please until a sufficiently dangerous crisis comes up. I'd be paid three or four times more if I agreed to continue active training, but do I look like the sort who wants to run around throwing spells at people?"

"You did a pretty good job the other day."

"Not because I want to. That's just reflexes. You can't spend half a year practicing nonstop without getting some pretty good alertness."

"Where were you training? I don't think I've seen you since around when the eggs hatched."

"We were training in Lilin."

"Lilin? Is that a town? I'm not familiar with Renand geography."

Enna's expression closed. "It's nowhere you'd be familiar with. And I'm actually not supposed to talk about it."

"Is that where year two went?"

"I hope not. I wouldn’t have been ready a year ago, and I doubt these guys would be either."

“Is Lilin that dangerous?”

“Sshhh, don’t say that name where anyone could hear you. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“Are there wild dragons there?”

“No. Nothing like that. Wild is entirely the wrong word to describe it. It’s… I can’t, you’ll have to see for yourself. If they’re still requiring it when you come close to graduating. Maybe it was only this year.”

“I doubt it. They’re already rounding up more eggs for next year’s applicants. Do you think there will be any applicants?”

“Yes. Of an entirely different sort than we who’re already here.” Enna smiled a sad smile. “I’m sorry that you’ll never get to experience this place as it was. Renand Grand Academy of Dragon Magic is a different school altogether.”

“Are they changing the name?” Alisa asked, appalled, but also understanding. That made sense, to make that change, if they wanted to attract the sort of students who’d want what they now offered. Her class had been casualties of a different sort.

“Already have. It’ll be changed on the gate for next year.”

“So Will is going all in on the dragons. I wonder why it’s so important?”

“Will?”

Alisa blinked. “Oh, sorry. It’s something… it’s stupid, probably. Tay, my…” she struggled to think of a word to describe him. “Well, he calls The Traitor ‘Will’ so… it’s just something I picked up.”

“Someone that close to The Traitor has been visiting while I was away? I’m glad this is my last year. I can’t imagine having to put up with this getting yanked around with no warning nonsense for another year.”

“Or two,” Alisa said glumly.

“If you want out you could probably test into year three if you study over the break,” Enna suggested. “The curriculum is so much easier now than it was a year ago. I’ve heard you’re solid on theory, and the practicums are more repetition than knowledge.”

"Really? You think so?"

"I see no reason to believe otherwise. You may need to make friends with one of the teachers to get access to the curriculum over the summer but I've seen it happen in the past. Not often, but with the changes it should be much easier these days."

"Doesn't the age of the dragon have something to do with it too?"

"Only a little. Adrena won't be fully mature for another seven or eight years, but since she'll reach full size in another year no one will be bothered."

“There are aelaniri in year two,” Alisa mused. “It would be nice to be in the same grade as Lia and Reen.” The three of them could share classes, spend more time together… “I’ll have to see if Tay can arrange something.”

“Tay? The one who calls Lord Traitor ‘Will’?”

“Everyone calls him ‘Traitor’, isn’t that worse?”

“Maybe. But I hear someone said it to his face, he only laughed and nodded. So he seems fine with it.”

"Seems.” Alisa shrugged. “I guess I sympathize a bit.” The more time passed, the more she felt Will and Tay had to be justified in what they did. Perhaps still in the wrong; if she’d been a Renand native, she suspected she’d have had stronger feelings on the matter. But, then again, from what she’d seen and heard no one from Renand raised much of a fuss. Perhaps Tay was right and the councils needed to be purged, if everyone knew it and nobody mourned their loss.