“What were you thinking? No, don’t answer that. I know you weren’t thinking.”

“He knows what he did—”

“I don’t care—”

“He stabbed me in the back!”

“Do not interrupt me when I am speaking, young man.” Ms. Denner stared him down, and Micah tried to meet her glare, but the cold intensity was overwhelming. He looked away first.

She paced in circles and rubbed her temple. Files were piled up on her desk and boxes lay stacked around her office similar to the beginning of last year.

Her fire spirit had burned low on its hearth when he’d come in, but it swayed now and grew larger with each of her steps. Micah wanted to squash it into paste.

There had been other people in her office when he had been thrown to the wolves. She had sent them out once she had heard what he had done.

She sounded exasperated. “Why would you ever think this was an appropriate way to resolve a conflict with another student? You attacked him from behind? Kept going when he was down?”

He hadn’t. Shala had sprung back up—of course, he had—and his stupid friends had tried to hold him off. A teacher had finally managed to haul him off to her office.

His arm hurt, his skin burned where the man had held him in a vice, and one one of Shala’s friends had gotten a punch in, but at least Micah had walked away on his own two feet, which was more than he could say for that prick.

He contended he’d won that fight, and consoled himself with the thought as he sat there.

“No,” she said as if coming to a decision, “that wasn’t a rhetorical question. I want an answer.”

Yeah, well, he’d tried to tell her a moment ago. She hadn’t listened. Too late. She’d missed her chance to understand.

Micah clenched his jaw and stared at the wall out of spite. He was going to keep his mouth shut, but the silence lingered for a second too long. The words spilled out of him.

“He knew! He knew I liked Anne! He told me not to ask her out because the ‘party was too important’ and said I wasn’t good enough. I believed him and then he did it himself the first chance he got! That two-faced lying sack of shit!”

Micah should have punched his stupid ‘I don’t need teeth whitener’ smile in.

She stared at him. “What?”

“Yeah. I trusted him. I thought he was my friend—”

“I assumed this had something to do with your climbing troupe, that he stabbed you in the back on a matter of earnings or—”

“No. They were in Lighthouse for the summer. And he knew I couldn’t go with so—”

She slammed her hand down on her desk. Micah jumped.

“I told you not to interrupt me.” Her voice was dangerously low as she leaned toward him. Then she straightened her spine and walked around her desk, speaking in an almost flippant tone, and that was worse.

“So what, did you think you can call dibs? Did you think Ms. Heswaren is incapable of making her own decisions? Not allowed to? Had you spoken to her about this matter then?”

Micah opened his mouth.

She cut him off, “No. Even if you had, why then would you think it was a good idea to assault another student unprovoked? More importantly, why would you do it IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE SCHOOL AND THEIR PARENTS A WEEK BEFORE THE NEXT SEMESTER STARTS!?”

She bellowed in his face loud enough that the words rattled the walls. Micah withered in his chair, shrinking as far away as he could from her without falling off.

She glanced down at his chest and snapped, “Mood ring?”

Micah followed her eyes to the murky purple ring on the cord around his neck. He bobbed his head in confirmation; remembered his manners. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. I would commiserate, but could you not have at least challenged him to a duel? Disguised your fight as a sparring match? Communicated? Anything other than this! I didn’t think you were this stupid, Micah!”

He hadn’t either but apparently, he was a fool and everyone but him knew it. What was he even doing anymore?

“No.” She shook her head and walked back around her desk. “This is unacceptable. You’re lucky the school year hasn’t started yet or I would suspend you. Make no mistake, if I ever see behavior like this again, I will kick you out of my school, am I understood?”

His voice was tiny. “Yes, ma’am.”

She found a notepad and pen and wrote.

“I’m striking your workshop stipend for the rest of the calendar year, and I’ll be sure to speak to your teachers about revoking whatever privileges you may have earned. I want your workshop key on my desk by noon tomorrow, along with two full copies of the school rules, handwritten by you. If you want to access the workshop, you better do it during school hours or hope one of your classmates whom you did not assault takes pity on you to let you in.

“When you leave my office, you are going straight to the infirmary. You will apologize to Mr. Shala for attacking him from behind like a coward. You will beg for his forgiveness and hope, for your own sake as much as his, that he is well, or I fear what his parents might do to you.”

That was too much. Micah could live without the workshop after school—he had enough on his plate anyway. Shala was the last person he wanted to apologize to right now.

He opened his mouth, caught himself, and grit his teeth. If he said something though, it would only make this worse. It wasn’t fair.

“Afterward, you will run two laps around the Tower. If your apology is not sincere enough, if you misspell a single word in your copies, if you lag one step on your path, there will be even greater consequences. Am I understood?”

He swallowed and forced out the words, “Yes, ma’am.”

She waved. “Go!”

Micah shot out of his chair. He gave her one last look of acknowledgment before he turned for the door.

“Oh, and Micah,” she called after him. Because of course, there had to be something else. “Don’t think I am not informing your parents and sponsors about this.”

His hand hesitated on the door handle. He forced himself to nod and left.

Don’t think about it too much. He just had to get through this. He pushed his anger down to softly shut the door behind him.

The secretary and a young man he didn’t recognize gave him the side-eye as he walked out. The teacher who had hauled him off waited for him.

Micah addressed him, “I’m supposed to—“

“I heard. The infirmary. Walk.”

Shala had a bloody nose. His lip was torn. His face would no doubt bruise. That was only the surface injuries. Micah didn’t know if his nose was broken or if he had a concussion. He didn’t care.

Some voice inside of him tried to make him feel guilty for not preserving his friend or friendship, but Shala was the one who had thrown that away, not him.

He used his anger to shove that voice down, then shoved his anger down alongside it.

With a clenched jaw, he said, “Shala.”

Shala sat up on the examination table. The nurse had been tending to him, but maybe he did have a concussion if he hadn’t noticed them walking up until the last second.

His expression turned guarded. “What are you doing here?” He spoke clearly, though he had to move his torn lip gently around some words.

Micah chose his words with equal care. “I came to apologize. I am sorry for the way I attacked you. It was—“

“Shut up,” Shala hissed.

He frowned. “I have to—”

“You’re so immature, Micah. We could have talked, but you chose not to. So I don’t have to sit here and listen to your forced apology. We have nothing left to say to each other.”

The nurse said something to the teacher behind him, but Micah didn’t hear it. He was fixed in place and wrung his hands. He had been the one who had chosen not to talk?

He couldn’t help himself. If he was going to get in more trouble for this, so be it. “You knew I liked her.”

“So? You’ve known her for how long?” Shala left the rest of the words unsaid, but his argument was obvious. And stupid.

Who cared if those two had known each other their entire lives? It didn’t factor in. Except, it apparently had. For her.

“You had your chance to ask her out. And you wasted it. She made her decision. Can you at least respect that?”

“ … You’re right. We do have nothing left to say to each other.” Micah turned to his teacher. “I tried. He doesn’t want my apology right now. So can I go run my laps?”

He glared, glanced over his head at Shala, and nodded at the door. Whatever signal Shala might have given him, Micah didn’t see it. He didn’t miss his chance to leave.

Anne and he both froze in the hallway when they saw each other. She’d been rushing toward the infirmary and … she knew. She knew it all. It was obvious when she called out to him.

“Micah, wait!”

He walked the other way. Before he turned the corner, he glanced back but she didn’t chase after him. The moment she’d reached the infirmary, she had stepped inside.

He ran his laps.

By the time he finished the first lap, his new classmates had discovered their school’s private entrance and now lounged in the grass, similar to some of the other climbers in the plaza.

Maybe some knew about what he had done and his punishment. If so, he was too deep in his forest of thoughts to care.

All he had done this summer, all of his training and studies, had been to prepare for when his friends returned. He had wanted to improve so he wouldn’t slow them down. So he could be proud of himself. So he wouldn’t have to spend another school year desperately trying to keep up. He’d been patient. He’d waited. And they left him anyway.

The house was empty and quiet again. He sat on the stairs and watched the breeze as he waited for someone to open the door.

Leafed stems of smoke crawled out from under one of the doors in the hallway. They were tiny and had a green and brown sheen to his eyes—well, to anybody’s eyes. Nobody else could see them. But their look-smell reassured him he was in the right place.

Gently, he rapped his knuckles against the wood. After a second, there came the delayed sounds of panic. Boots on deck. Someone hissed a curse. Metal tinked against glass.

“It’s me,” he spoke to the closed door, “ … ‘me’ is Micah.”

The sounds stilled. Brent wrenched the door open and said, “In.” As he herded him in, he shot a glance down the hall.

Micah stepped into a space like a bear’s den. It was dark and hazy. A thick herbal smell covered the unventilated room of four teens. A large shisha stood between the beds. Brent shut the door and kicked the thick towels on the floor back in place.

The room dimmed then until the only sources of light were a dim lamp on the far wall and the glowing coals in the tray. Their orange light caught on the phantom images of green and brown leaves in the vapor.

“Micah,” Kyle groaned from the foot of the right bed. “Do you want to get us kicked out of school?”

Lukas lounged on his elbow on the far left and smiled. “Did you get kicked out of school?”

Micah was almost afraid to ask, “Is … Is he your new roommate?”

Brent and Kyle had been stuck together again. Micah hadn’t helped them move in, but he had seen them in the hallways during the Great Migration of Last Week Or So. He hadn’t known who their other two roommates would be.

He thought the second years had been allowed to request roommates in a form. Maybe Brian would be the fourth?

Then again, Micah couldn’t see any of them going through the hassle of filling out a form.

Lukas put an arm up as if to welcome him into his home, turned, and dropped it on the mattress. “Dude,” he addressed the ceiling, “I heard you picked a fight with the Mini Shala.”

Micah scowled. “He had it coming—”

His smile grew. “Yeah, he did!”

“What are you doing here?”

“Chilling,” Brent said. It seemed impossible, but over the course of the summer, he had grown even taller. Now, he looked like a walking bear hug. The mattress sunk and the bed creaked as he sat. “Why? Don’t tell us they got to you, too? If you’re looking for volunteers, you’ve knocked on the wrong door.”

“No. No, I was wondering if you or Kyle maybe had any plans …”

Kyle less so, but Brent was pretty social now that he was here. He would sometimes hang out in the common areas or go out for kebabs or pizza with any classmates who were around during break.

He had kind of wondered if they might have something similar planned for the first years, who were closer to his own age.

“Maybe later. It’s too busy right now. You can hang out if you want. And try some?”

“No, thank you.” Micah kicked off his shoes and climbed onto Kyle’s bed.

He didn’t seem to mind. He even scooted over as if to give him room to sit, though Micah sat a bit to his left behind him.

“If you stay, you’re joining one way or another.”

“No, I’m not.”

“No, no. The smoke is in the air, y’know?” Lukas tried to explain. He took another hit and exhaled a pile of leaves from his mouth as twin vines snaked out from his nose. They rolled over his skin.

“See?” He pointed. “You breathe that in.”

Micah ignored him and asked Kyle, “Are you allowed to smoke this?”

Brent chuckled. “Obviously not on school grounds. I thought you knew that.”

That wasn’t what he had meant. He continued to look at Kyle until the rogue shrugged. “School’s cramped. It’s shit.”

Micah wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he was low on trust right now … not he could press the issue with the other two around.

Maybe he didn’t have a blood test scheduled for a few weeks. Ms. Denner had seemed busy.

“There’ll be even more people around next year,” Brent said.

“Assuming there will be a next year,” Micah mumbled.

Kyle held a hand out. Lukas stretched to hand him the hose and he took a hit. For a long moment, the only sounds came from the heated fluid and the world outside their door. He exhaled and asked, “So. Why’d you start a fight?”

Micah told them.

Lukas shot up on his bed. “Dude, if you had asked me, I could have warned you Mini Shala’s an asshole. And of course, she’d never pick someone like you over one of their own.”

Micah scowled. He wasn’t even being condescending—well, he was. But it didn’t sound intentional. He sounded genuinely sympathetic, and it wasn’t like Micah could say he was wrong. It made it hard to be angry at him.

So then where was he supposed to direct his anger?

“Oof. You alright?” Brent asked.

Kyle surprised him, “I doubt beating the other guy up made him feel any better.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted. “I just— I have other stuff to focus on anyway. I wanted to study ahead and— And I need to buy my books.” His voice caught. He drew his knees up to his chest. “I didn’t even have to pay for them. All I have to do is prepare and somehow, I feel like I’m back at the end of last year, in the middle of exams. And I can’t do this again.”

He couldn’t spend another year paying the price for skipping ahead. The summer break was supposed to have been that, a break, but he had spent the entire time training. For a lie. Now what?

“Dude, are you … crying?” Lukas asked.

Kyle turned.

Brent groaned as he sat up at the edge of his bed. “Here.” He held the hose out. “If you want to try, it’ll help you relax.”

Micah wiped his eyes and glanced at the bubbling fluid, but Brent leaned in to hold a hand over his eyes.

“Nope. Don’t look. For once, try not to question everything. Trust us?”

Micah hesitated, but closed his eyes and accepted the hose when Kyle passed it to him.

He definitely didn’t trust Lukas, but it didn’t matter. He’d been able to see the fluid’s patterns before he even stepped into the room, and he could sense and taste them the moment he took his first unfiltered breath.

As he drew on the mouthpiece, he knew what he was breathing in. He could sense its quality, feel its warmth fill his chest like a blanket on the inside.

It was nice, but it wasn’t enough. He could also sense how long it would take for the real effects to kick in. So instead of letting himself be disappointed, Micah helped things along.

Part of the fluid was physical. His wind spirit helped him absorb that into his bloodstream. The other part was magical; he simply took control of it with his spirit and moved it where it needed to be, and then …

Micah melted into the mattress. His tension was gone, but his body felt heavy. The bed covers felt so soft against his skin.

When he exhaled a hazy canopy and opened his eyes, the other three were grinning at him.

“He actually did it,” Lukas sounded impressed—and still condescending.

Brent was better. “And? Taste is great, right?”

Micah shrugged. “I’ve never tried before, but I bet I could do better.”

He chuckled. “Not at the price they sell it for.”

“Point. I don’t really know much about … this. About anything, really. I’m so, so stupid,” Micah giggled.

“I could tell you all about this if you want to listen,” Brent said, “can't help you with school stuff, but I can give you lady advice.”

“Rule number one,” Lukas commented, “don’t cry.”

“Also, maybe try to be more like you are now,” Kyle mumbled. “You can be kind of—“

“A lot,” Brent said.

“—intense,” Kyle finished. “Sometimes.”

Micah eyed them dubiously. “ … I think, if any of you knew about getting a girlfriend, you wouldn’t be smoking shisha in a room with three other guys.”

“Oof,” Kyle said, voice dry. “The savagery.”

He groaned. “You don’t also have to condescend to me. Lukas doing it was enough.”

“Kind of hard to uh …” Kyle trailed off for a long moment. They lay there and waited with no sense of urgency. “‘Conascend’ to you …? Nevermind. You gotta grow up, runt.”

“It’s the last week of summer break, too,” Micah mused. Mostly to tease them, but it made Brent sit up.

“Wait, you’re serious? Look at me.” Brent spread his arms out as if to show something off, though Micah didn’t see what. It wasn’t like he was a girl.

“Uhm?”

“Micah. I’m tall, I can cook, I hunt monsters for a living, and I know how to have a good time.”

“ … Oh.”

He supposed that made sense. It was just … his bed was unmade. His backpack was open, a few bent papers poking out. A pile of laundry lay on his chair, an unpacked box under his bed. Last year, his uniform had often looked sloppy. And he had a bit of scruff around the edges where he hadn’t shaved.

Micah guessed he just thought guys looked better when they were more … proper, maybe. Organized.

He frowned and took another hit. “So,” he exhaled, “what am I supposed to do?”

“If you really like Anne and think you have a shot, you can try to win her over, but it will be ugly. Drama. ‘Sucks.”

Micah agreed wholeheartedly. Today had been awful.

Brent reached out, and he passed the hose back.

“You want my advice? Those two are kind of right. You gotta’ grow up. I don’t mean like, grow up to be tall, but stand tall. Man up. Throw yourself out there. Don’t be afraid to ask someone out, even if it’s just because she looks good. Worst thing that can happen is you don’t go on a second date, but you’ll enjoy the first.”

The words made sense, but in the same manner of words like ‘eat healthy’ or ‘study so you can get a good job’ made sense. They were expected, obvious even, but there was a difference between knowing that and having it told to him straight-out. It felt … grounding. He wasn’t the only one who had to go through this.

So … were there any girls he thought looked good? Tons. He went to a sports school with a ten-minute walk to a gym.

But none of them were Anne … and most were older than him by a year or two. They felt like big sisters to him.

There were other grade skippers, of course, but they were all friends with Anne and he didn’t know them. She was the only one he had paid any attention to.

He really missed her … Maybe he shouldn’t have hit Shala after all. They could have talked. Maybe she would be worth the drama?

“Aren’t you skipping a few steps? Worst thing that can happen is she says no,” Lukas was saying.

“Worse if she says ‘ew,’” Kyle countered.

“Ha! You would know.”

“No, when I ask girls out, they tell me they aren’t interested in guys at all.”

“Ouch. Wait, what? Who told you that?”

Brent sounded bemused, “I saw you hook up with Lou’s friend at the arena.”

“Didn’t work out.”

They talked, but Micah was stuck on Kyle’s first comment. He hadn’t needed to hear that, because now he couldn’t help but picture a girl saying ‘we’ to him, and it made him feel like ants were crawling on his skin. The leaves in the smoke began to itch—

Brent puffed out a ring of smoke.

Micah’s eyes went round and he sat up, ants forgotten. “Ooh, can I try? Please?”

“Sure.”

He handed the hose back, and Micah filled his lungs like he was in combat. He wasn’t sure what to do then. He had no idea how to breathe a smoke ring. So, he improvised.

When he exhaled, he shaped the smoke with his spirit. It drifted toward the ceiling like a laurel crown made of long, toothed leaves, glowing a soft green and silver where he had infused it with his aero.

When it hit, it broke into leafed stems that formed a canopy over them, leaves pulsing in a wave of green light.

“You cheated,” Brent accused him.

“Whoa,” Lukas said. “How do you do that?”

Micah‘s heart leaped. He hadn’t realized they would share in a bit of what he saw. But just as much as he wanted to share his world with others, he wanted to share in theirs as well.

“How do you do it without magic?”

“You have to use your tongue—”

Lukas’ eyes shot back down. “Are we still talking about smoking?”

“—and sort of goldfish it, y’know?”

“Goldfish …? Oh! Like jish?” he asked. He pulled his cheeks together.

“Not that much. And only while you’re exhaling. Push your tongue down. Like huhth, you see? Ungg—“

“Hngg—“

Lukas started making splashing sounds with his tongue and bottom lip.

Kyle imitated a goldfish.

“—then just make an ‘o’ with your lips and sort of roll it out.”

Micah tried. And failed. And laughed when the moment broke for all of them. When Kyle stopped laughing, his voice cracked and he croaked.

Micah stared. He had never even heard him laugh before. He tried to get him to do it again, then Kyle tried to shove him off the bed, so he went back to practicing smoke rings.

Even if he couldn’t physically do it, he could still shape one, catch it on his left arm, and twirl it around or throw it at the others like a hoop.

He couldn’t move his right arm. It was made of stone.