Battle magic was never one of Alisa's favourite classes, but today... it was going even worse than usual.

Francine LeTanieur. She wanted to shake the chancer again, make it give her a different answer, but there were only enough names for everyone to be partnered with one person. Unless she traded with someone, which was unlikely with Lane Ryvas in charge, she’d be stuck with Francine.

Reluctantly, Alisa handed off the chancer to the next student beside her and walked to stand beside Francine.

"Oh, you. Interesting."

"Just don't." Alisa said wearily. "I don't have the energy to deal with your petty vendettas today."

"Vendetta? Me?" Francine tittered. "You're the one who keeps conspiring with Beliren to make my life miserable. I do appreciate you laying off these past months, by the way. Thank you for finally growing up a little."

Alisa gritted her teeth against Francine's overly-sweet condescending tone. It was the sort of voice that made her want to incite violence, and with Lane watching them that would be unwise.

"I always thought you had more potential than you showed," Francine continued. "You know I'm willing to forgive you if you'll change your ways."

"I don't need your forgiveness. I haven't done anything wrong."

"You harassed me for three years. I don't deserve even one apology?"

"You started it!" Alisa caught Lane looking at them and lowered her voice. "If you'd leave Sadie alone, this would never have been a problem. You're just a stuck-up entitled jerk."

"Entitled? You should be looking at Sadie for entitlement. I've worked just as hard as you have to be here." Francine raised her chin arrogantly, and Alisa bit back an angry retort.

She couldn't deny that Francine did put in a lot of effort. She did just as well in practicals as Alisa, better sometimes, and did well in the tests. But it galled her to see someone so rich and full of herself who had everything a girl could want and then some put others down for no real reason. She and Sadie were nowhere near the same level; Sadie's family could afford to send her to Renand Grand, and Sadie had more spending money than Alisa's family would earn in a year, but Francine's exorbitant spending made Sadie seem conservative.

Lane Ryvas's voice rang out across the arena. "Today's partnership exercise is intended to increase your ability to trust and rely on those who were on the opposing 'team' for our battle practice. You all need to be united, it's no good if you start thinking of any of your classmates as enemies."

Alisa grimaced and glared at Francine. Their enmity had nothing to do with teams, and everything to do with Francine being arrogant and biased.

"You're going to be working together to solve a maze and escape from a prison. I have the course set up to accept five pairs at a time, so if you're not one of those I list or partnered with them you should return in three hours."

Alisa smiled, relieved. This had been scheduled as an 'all day' exercise, but if they would be taking turns that meant she'd have some free time to work on other things.

Their turn came in the second group, and Lane Ryvas showed them to the testing area. The exercise was complicated in its execution, though simple in concept. Alisa and Francine were blindfolded in two sections of the maze, while Gold and Zen each watched from above. Gold could see Alisa's half of the maze, Zen Francine's, so it relied on their dragons cooperating to convey communication between them, as well as precise timing and spellcasting to unlock sets of paired doors to progress.

Alisa wondered, as she stumbled through the obstacles blind and increasingly frustrated, just how sadistic Lane Ryvas had to be to come up with something this convoluted.

'Francy is at a door with a large squiggle and a smaller circle and some lines,' Zen conveyed unhelpfully.

By focusing very hard on their link, Alisa managed a few brief glimpses of what Zen was looking at. It still felt weird and foreign to inhabit his senses even momentarily, but it was easier with her own sight blocked off.

She felt her way along the wall and came to a door of her own. She wasn't used to reading spell circles by touch, but this one was large and clear enough that she could piece it together.

"Tell Francine this circle is paired to hers with an inverse--" she started, but Gold rumbled something and a moment later Zen translated.

'Francy wants you to add a decay layer to the array.'

"Why?" Alisa asked, running her hand along the circle again. "I don't see why that would help."

'She says the link is vulnerable to modification on your end and without the array the doors will open.'

Can you give me a closer look at her circle? Alisa strained to see clearly through Zen's eyes as he hovered low over Francine, getting brief snatches of Francine's irritated lecture as she tried to explain to him the meaning of each line and circle.

"I'll try," Alisa finally conceded. Her link with Zen wasn't something they'd ever practiced using in this way, and she couldn't hold the image steady long enough to actually take in Francine's half of the spell. She charged her stylus and ran through the motions a few times in the air to be sure she remembered how, then set the ruby tip against the stone of the door and began drawing.

The fifth layer of a spell governed retention, stabilization, and dispersal. A typical spell lasted as long as its form remained as instructed. A fireball had an inherent time limit, since as soon as it impacted its target it would break apart into flaming pieces, each of which retained only a fragment of the original spell's intent and would quickly disperse into the gooey spell residue of spent magic.

A stability circle could be used to either hold the fireball in its spherical shape for longer, if you wanted it to burn through the target rather than dealing splash damage, while a decay circle could be used to destabilize it quicker if you wanted it to come apart in midair and rain down fiery fragments over a wider area.

Adding layers to an active spell was tricky enough without being blind, but decay was one of the easier circles to add. It was far easier to encourage magic to lose its imposed properties than to impose more.

It took three failed attempts before Gold and Zen managed to coordinate enough to provide active feedback as Alisa slowly drew, but the whole time she continued straining at Zen's senses, catching snatches of Francine's continued attempts to walk Zen through the spell.

It was oddly endearing, overhearing her patient attempts at explanation while Zen ignored her and gossiped with Gold. He may have outgrown his crush - or transferred it to Adrena - but he still seemed drawn to the beautiful dragon.

It felt odd, like spying, to see this side of Francine she'd never noticed before. If only she weren't such an arrogant rich brat and stopped constantly putting people down, Alisa might have been able to get along with her.

Once she finally got the final doors to open, Lane's voice instructed that they should remove their blindfolds. The next portion, they'd be guiding their dragons through an equally challenging aerial obstacle course.

It took a lot more arguing to convince the dragons to submit to being blindfolded, but before long Alisa and Francine were shouting instructions to each other as each mentally guided her dragon through the maze above them which only the other could see.

It was the sort of double-track thinking that Alisa had never practiced much before this year, but was emphasized heavily in combat magic classes.

By the time the maze was finished she felt mentally exhausted. Francine slumped down beside her, while Gold and Zen lay sprawled across the ground nearby.

“You need to work on your communication skills.” Francine laughed. “It doesn’t matter how many times you say ‘go that way!’ if I don’t know what way ‘that’ is.”

Alisa joined in, the past hours of travail too vivid to let the hints of criticism in Francine’s voice get to her, and laughed along. “Like your made-up words? Anti-windward? How am I supposed to know what that means?”

“If you spent more time with fliers you’d know the terminology. You did quite well today.”

Alisa’s laugh died in shock. “A compliment? From you?”

Francine shrugged daintily. “I always thought we should be good friends. If only you had a modicum of sense.”

“If by friend you mean mindless groupie, no thanks.”

“No, I mean friends. You have something most of these don’t. A drive, a passion, same as me.”

“Huh.” Alisa chuckled softly. “I’m sorry to say I really never thought you had anything to recommend you.”

“Sorry to say? You’ve made it more than obvious through your actions the past four years.”

“Well, now that we’ve worked together, I… you’re not as bad as I thought. You do know what you’re doing with magic, so that’s something. But why can’t you just leave Sadie alone? If you could stop being such a jerk to her, we could all get along. What is it between you two that makes everything so antagonistic?”

Francine’s voice turned sharp. “She doesn’t belong here, and the sooner she accepts that and gets out the better off everyone will be. Your insistence on protecting her from the consequences of her ignorance and lack of drive are only postponing the inevitable. I don’t approve of people with potential wasting it on those without.”

“Are you… jealous? That I’m friends with Sadie?”

“You really are unbelievably arrogant. Not everything is about you, Veyara.”

Alisa almost choked, a laugh of unbelief bursting out before she could stop it. “Me, arrogant? Coming from you? Hah.”

“And here we were doing so well.” Francine sighed and leaned back. “Could you just not bring Beliren into this, ever again? If you don’t force me to remember that she exists, we’ll get along just fine.”

“Sadie is my friend. You don’t get to dismiss her like that.”

“Then we’ll never be in agreement.” Francine flipped her hair and turned away. “Let me know if you ever come to your senses.”