Saturday, September 28th

Rain drizzled from the overcast sky onto the canopy. The steady pitter-patter of droplets hitting the leaves was one of five sounds in the woods. Well, four now that the screams had stopped.

The rain, the distant rapids of the river, his pounding heart, and the panicked breaths of the figure three meters to his right.

“I was worse, last year,” Micah muttered in what he hoped was a comforting tone. “It will be alright.” He wanted to say more, but he didn’t want to ruin this. He could see the mixed cloud of emotions over Mr. Flor’s head three meters to his left, illuminated by the soft glow of the raincoat he had borrowed. Frustration tempered by empathy.

Micah shut up. It was true, though, he reflected. He had struggled often enough even with [Controlled Breathing]. His new lungs were a little more adamant than that, but a vein still fluttered on his neck, and his hands and legs tingled, telling him to run.

He stood his ground. After a year and a half of this, his nerves were muted. Not numb, just … ice and stone. His body felt as cold as the chill in the air.

They didn’t have to wait long. After a minute of standing on the spot, the windwall swept over him. It was their only warning.

Like a speeding train, a rain-drenched shadow arrived in the clearing and stopped. Someone further down the chain cursed in surprise. Its translucent body snaked between the trees into the far distance, glowing with phantasmal organs. Dark hair spilled over its shoulders and it chewed on its fingernails as it stared down at him with apprehension.

Memories flashed through his mind. The branches rushing by. A finger pointing in the wrong direction. His torn backpack spilling its contents into the river. Darkness.

It had been a little over a year since he had last stood in this exact spot.

Micah met its black eyes and said, “Hello, Maria.”

The floorboards creaked beneath his socks. The hallway dimmed as they turned the corner into the gatehouse. During the early mornings, this part of the estate lay in shadows. The lamps weren’t lit either. There was a window. Ryan peered through it in passing and spotted Lisa’s aunt with the bright red hair collecting eggs from the chicken coop.

Passersby could have seen her through the gate, but they didn’t seem to acknowledge the estate at all. Maverick wasn’t back, Ryan didn’t think.

“They’re famished,” she said. “We tried our best, but there was only so much we can do.”

They arrived at a door in a part of the building Ryan had never been to before. Garen’s home was divided into four buildings interconnected by walkways, and this was the upper floor of the front left-side building. An old recreational room that Garen claimed used to be used for music and dance practice. Lisa and her family had cleared out the space.

“So thank you again for helping us with this,” Lisa’s mother said. “You’re a good kid, Ryan.” She ruffled his hair like he was ten years younger, and he resisted the urge to dodge away from her hand.

“I can’t make any promises,” he repeated for the umpteenth time, “I’m not a [Cleric], but I will try.”

She gave him a smile that said, I’m sure you will, and opened the door. Eight Draconic Salamanders cried out on the other side, but it was a subdued mewl. Two of them thumped against the [Magic Circles] they were imprisoned in. The others were too lethargic. They waddled closer to the barrier to hiss. And some were becoming undone.

They looked at him like little dreams. Parts of them wavered like sunspots in his eyes, and their colors and shapes continuously changed in subtle ways. Not so much that he noticed it immediately, but he thought that if he looked away for a few minutes, he might not recognize them anymore.

Ryan hadn’t thought he would ever see anything like it under daylight. His paintings brought to life.

He met their citrus-colored eyes and woke up for a second time that morning. “I’ll heal you.”

Sunday, September 1st

The Pretender punched Kyle and he sailed down the tunnel. He hit the stone at an angle, rolled like a sack of potatoes, and smacked into the wall.

A dozen sets of wide eyes wandered from his crumpled body over to where a second Kyle stood, wearing a clean but somewhat crumpled school uniform. Unharmed and back on his feet two days later.

His classmates, who had been retreating, ran toward the exit where a series of lasers were closing in on them.

The brown and gray bird woman half attempted to soothe the Pretender, half ordered them to stand down with words that weighed on the world. The Pretender turned an enraged eye on her and let out a huff that shook the air.

She cursed. “It is too early, the Pretender is still wearing its cloak. We have to—”

They squashed her. Their fist slammed down, and she collapsed into yellow sand. A remembered Micah stared in horror.

Micah himself thought, Move, idiot. Had he really wasted seconds staring at a pile of sand? He hadn’t been safe. His classmates hadn’t been safe. He …

Is that really me? It felt disorienting to watch himself move and fight from an outside perspective. Is that how my voice sounds to people? I look different than I do in the mirror.

Rather, his clothes, his face, even his body language, they weren’t mirrored for once.

His stupid leg was on the other side. Micah had stared at it while his memory self had limped away from the Pretender. Why did he look so exhausted from a brief scuffle with the Ape? He was in better shape than that …

He was in good shape.

While he was being honest with himself, Micah didn’t think he looked ugly. Sure, if he took a meat cleaver down the center of his skull, he wouldn’t get matching halves, but was that so important?

He’d felt good about himself and his chances a week ago. Had anything happened since then to change that?

They didn’t reject me because of how I look. Even if that— even if this is a replacement body.

He looked away from the fight and turned his unbandaged hand over, eyeing his scars in the light of the explosion.

A flawed replacement body. He would have to do something about that.

“Hold,” Chief Warrant Officer Dornan spoke and half the world froze. The fleeing students, the raging Ape, and the flames stretching out from the back of their skull. They shimmered like glass where they hung suspended in stasis. “Rewind one moment, please, and— Stop.”

Six people crowded around a pile of sand. Nineteen additional bodies in total crowded the cramped memory of a battle.

The army had sent four people, the Guild three, the Registry only two, but Mr. Walker, their vice principal, was present, as well as an independent consultant and an assistant from the mayor’s office, a sketch artist who worked for the guards, and Kyle, Delilah, Andrew, and his patrons, Bastion and Shanty.

[Memory — a Battle, a Pact, a Feast].

On its own, the Skill allowed Micah to watch or relive parts of the events of that Friday with perfect clarity. With the help of the Registrars’ Skills and a projection spell …?

Five people took notes. Two made sketches of the sand, of the avashay, of the Pretender. Both groups went through the pages of their notebooks in record speeds.

Within a certain radius around the memory Micah, the world existed in perfect detail. Beyond that, it began to blur and dim like a shadow. It wasn’t as good as the Plane of Memories.

The upside, however, was that it was an illusion. People passed through the walls as they joined or left to confer with others in the military training hall.

Bastion sometimes dipped back into the wall to hide from the crowds. Shanty floated over him and played with his hair.

Micah only had to take a step back to escape the scene. If he needed to. He couldn’t wander far, though. The Registrars needed his brain to maintain this effect. And he and his classmates were at the disposal of the adults here.

“Mr. Stranya,” Chief Dornan said without looking, “in your report, you claim that this Pijeru says their decay into sand was caused by time dilation?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did she explain why they still do that now that they are here? Or how they believe they will be resurrected?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you ask?”

“No, sir.”

“Hmph. Could be a bluff,” the man mused, clearly displeased. He checked with the others and gestured at the Registrar. “Continue.”

“Woris!” Rhul screeched and a bolt of spiraling red wood thunked into the Pretender’s temple as they loped toward Pijeru. The explosion hurled them into the wall.

Micah had his theories, of course, but he spoke when spoken to. Ms. Denner had been very clear about that when they had arrived at the army facility this morning. Besides, he wasn’t really in a talkative mood.

His level up must have helped mitigate the damage he had inflicted to himself when he had cannibalized his wind aspect, but traces lingered, and his body was still adapting to his new lungs—[Alchemist’s Lungs].

It didn’t hurt. He didn’t feel hoarse or sick. His chest just felt a little … wobbly, like a muscle so exhausted it fluttered when you moved.

The adults continued to study the scene as it played out: a shrinking archway of wind swept over them and slammed into the Pretender. They fled through the lasers.

On his far left, Kyle whispered to Delilah, “I didn’t even know Kera could use windwindsong.”

“You must have missed it. You did just get hit like a wasp nest.”

He visibly hesitated, then babbled, “I am sweet on, uh— I did sting them pretty bad.” He sounded like he’d thought of two lines to say at the same time and botched them both.

Delilah shot him a confused look. “Did you remember halfway through that wasps don’t make honey?”

“Yeah, I was thinking of bees. I’m probably more of a beehive.”

Delilah squinted at him suspiciously, but with a smile. “Sure.”

“Only a monster would punch a beehive, too.” Kyle gestured at the Pretender.

That seemed to catch her by surprise. “Uh, yeah.” She looked ahead, but her smile became more genuine.

Micah fought back a scowl. Get a room, you two. They didn’t have to rub it in other people's faces.

Some of the adults seemed to have noticed them, too. One of the Guild employees cleared her throat. “None of the reports I read last night mentioned Kerataraian using magic to aid the battle beyond this point. Were her contributions that minor or did she not assist at all?”

Kyle and Delilah shot up straight. Micah answered for them, “No, ma’am. The only other ability she demonstrated was the use of stonewindsong, but that was after the battle had concluded.”

“One moment before we move on, then. Mr. Lenz, could you rewind to the moment before Mr. Jonasson was struck?”

“Certainly,” the Registrar said. The frozen flames began to recede and the students walked backward, picking up speed until the scene flickered and blurred. Then Kyle stood his ground again, brandishing a giant axe made of fire.

“Jump forward a few seconds at a time?” Mrs. Dawes asked, but she didn’t watch the battle unfold. She had turned to look down the hallway.

The scene stuttered forward in silence until a blurry Kerataraian stepped around the corner behind their classmates.

“There.” She pointed. “Where was she all this time?”

“In the intersection, ma’am,” Andrew answered that question. “She … joined late.”

“What was she doing there?”

“She searched the area, I assumed to keep an eye out for traps, then joined us, and helped us escape …?”

“Is this about the incongruities you noted in your investigation?” Dornan asked.

The mayor’s consultant spoke up, “Incongruities?”

“The wall that cut the students off from the balcony,” Mrs. Dawes explained. “Somewhere between when the avashay first contacted the students three minutes ago and before they flee this hallway a few moments from now, that wall will drop.

“We believe Pijeru should have noticed her kin and fled deeper into the floor, away from the balcony. The metal pieces of the contraption that control the walls snapped, yes, but we found scuff marks which indicate the stone had been forcefully lowered at rapid speeds.”

“You think Kerataraian was the one who trapped us in,” Kyle realized aloud, “to what? Use us as bait?”

She snapped and pointed at him. “We’ll see it play out in a moment, but keep this in mind when we do …” She gestured at one of her coworkers.

The man flipped through the heavy folder he balanced on one arm until he found a clipped bundle of pages. “Pijeru,” he read in a dispassionate voice, “‘did she the exit block? Why? We found her. She should flee. Tuhrie. Stop. Let the children leave. There is nothing exciting about murder. This is not a game.’”

Pijeru had said that before they’d crossed the pit trap. Thanks to his Skill, Micah had been able to transcribe it verbatim.

“Kerataraian: ‘She wants them to hunt, no?’”

“Ah.” The consultant nodded. “That is somewhat damning.”

Micah couldn’t say he was surprised. He had written that report yesterday. He did feel a brief flare of anger, like an acid pit in his gut, but he took a chilled breath to soothe it.

This was already shaping up to be an exhausting morning. What was the point in being angry at her now?

“It’s a good thing you noticed, however,” the mayor’s assistant said. “How did King Lee put it? ‘When dealing with people, you wanna have jewels and insults in equal parts. Draw a line in the sand and drag them over it.’”

Micah blinked at the man. That reminded him of something he had done, but after a night of sleep and waking up to reality, he’d dismissed the idea. It was childish. Insulting even …

The Pretender punched Kyle and he sailed down the tunnel.

They burned underneath the heat of the lasers and a cloak of magma.

Rhul pushed Micah off that ledge.

“Did you think we couldn’t see the way you looked at him?” the memory of Delilah snapped after saving him.

Chief Dornan grumbled again, “Hold.” His suit strained and he groaned as he knelt next to the edge of the platform. His jaw worked, looking down on Micah’s past self hanging there, and he tapped his knee impatiently.

Micah prepared himself for the inevitable criticisms, but the man didn’t address him this time. He turned to Delilah, who stood over an illusory abyss.

“I’m sorry. Let me get this straight. Ms. Piper, you suspected a stranger might have ill intentions toward one of your classmates—a wounded classmate, no less—and you allowed them to lag behind, alone?”

“I, uh— no, sir?”

“No, you didn’t suspect he might have ill intentions or no, you didn’t allow your classmate to lag behind?” he asked and tilted his head toward the scene where the answer to both questions was obvious.

Delilah hesitated, and Micah understood why. She couldn’t easily refute him without looking like a liar, so she must have chosen to rephrase her answer instead.

“I noticed the avashay seemed especially hostile toward Micah, so I told my familiar to protect him. I had other concerns to deal with at the time, sir.”

“But you did knowingly allow him to lag behind with a possible threat. Why? Why not bring him to the center of your group, or order the stranger to step aside? How are your actions toward Mr. Stranya here any different from what Kerataraian might have done when she trapped you on this floor?”

“I— What!? I saved him,” Delilah insisted.

“After you put him at risk!” he shot back. “I held my tongue earlier, but it looks like this is a pattern of behavior for you.”

He pointed back at the tunnels. “You detected the attention of an unknown entity and rather than communicate that to your group, you went off on your own, let them break up into search parties, and willfully disoriented them with magic to use them as bait, again, while an unidentified threat was in the area.”

Delilah’s expression withered and died. Unlike before, she didn’t look at all surprised by the man’s statements. She listened to him like a nightmare come to life.

“Your overconfidence and antisocial behavior nearly got twenty-seven of your classmates killed. Under any other circumstances, that kind of behavior would have been frankly criminal if you asked me.”

It was the mayor’s assistant, oddly, who spoke up, “With all due respect to your expertise, man, these are not different circumstances. Chief Dornan, the Pretender is not some mindless monster like the other threats of the Tower. We can and will blame them for their actions. These students found themselves in the path of two very sick individuals and tried their best to get themselves and each other out of a bad situation.”

“I understand that,” Dornan said patiently, “but their mistakes weren’t specific to the threat they faced. There were students among this group who were, and now even more so are, ridiculously high-leveled for their ages by the standards of yesteryear. These students helped organize this trip, they had a responsibility to guide their peers, and they all failed to some degree or another.

“Ms. Grant invited first-year students to the tenth floor when she knew well enough neither she nor the haphazard group she had assembled would be able to protect them.

“That [Cook] allowed his group to splinter off because they valued the opportunity to hunt a rare monster for experience over the safety of their classmates.

“Mr. Stranya here let past experiences and his own stubbornness cloud his judgment and pressured his fellow students, who are much less experienced than him, into a confrontation with a known monstrous threat rather than risk an encounter with an unidentified humanoid one.

“The Towers aren’t playgrounds. The only reason nobody died was that you were willing to lay down your lives to protect your classmates. That and sheer happenstance. That’s commendable. It is also unacceptable. You can’t make up for risking other people’s lives by risking your own. Especially if you pressure others into doing the same.

“Look at Jonasson here. He has half as many levels as you do, and it’s a good thing he had an item to save his life. Otherwise, he would have died trying to save yours.”

The man gestured, and Kyle’s eyes widened at the sudden attention when everyone glanced at him. He stammered, “I, uh— I’m two years older than Stranya, sir …?”

“He’s still your senior, son! Honestly, I wonder what Denner is teaching you all in this ‘school’ of hers.”

Kyle shuffled from one foot to the other, looking ready to bolt through the wall.

Micah mulled the man’s words over and nodded to himself. That sounded about right.

He glanced at Delilah, but he couldn’t find it in his heart to be angry at her, even if she had screwed them over with that spell of hers. He didn’t always think things through himself and, at the time she’d cast the spell, she couldn’t have known in how much danger they had been.

“They did organize this trip through our school,” Mr. Walker said, “so you can trust, Chief Dornan, that we will be reviewing their performance once school is in session again. Thank you for your insights on that matter.

“However, I would like to say that despite a few errors in judgment, I personally am proud of my students’ accomplishments. How they fought for one another, but especially the diplomatic and strategic accomplishments they have brought before us here today. I suggest we focus on those in the time we have …?”

Dornan took a deep breath through his nose and said, “Of course. Please, continue.”

It took three hours to get there. Micah stood still while a dozen adults dissected their experiences. They watched him take the Pretender hostage, his desperate pleas to his classmates to flee without him, his bickering and threats.

“Keep walking, Kerataraian,” his remembered self said. Over a dozen sets of eyes glanced at him. “Their kin can do as they will; you’ll have made a [Giantslayer] of me.”

Micah sighed. They looked at him like they expected him to be embarrassed. He wasn’t. He accepted their glances, the idle comments, and felt a little angry. Part of him still wished he had clawed the Pretender’s eyes out and damn the consequences.

After thirty minutes, his feet began to heat up and itch.

After an hour, he practiced conjuring drops of water behind his cupped hand, out of sight, and tried to shape them to places where he had been injured in the past.

His blind sense of his surroundings, thanks to his domain, helped him reach places that he couldn’t quite picture, like his shoulder blades, but watching his past self move and fight was a surprisingly helpful reference for putting his awareness into perspective.

After two hours, Shanty began to flick drops of water at him when she thought nobody was looking.

Micah didn’t know what she expected him to do about it—she didn’t say anything—but he tried arresting their momentum. He failed. He couldn’t expand his domain right now so he only had a few centimeters to sense and react to the drops before they landed.

The rare times she missed, he orbited them around himself and slung them back at her.

Finally, after three hours, they stood in the open air next to that terrace. “A handful were recruited by the Dwarf herself,” Pijeru said, “along with their friends and families, because she saw something in them. Talent or expertise.”

“Stop here,” Micah spoke up. He said it for their benefit. He had already stopped the memory himself, and Mr. Lenz, the Registrar in control of the illusion, blinked. “The next minute is private.”

The assistants and investigators glanced up from where they furiously scribbled away in their notes.

Chief Warrant Officer Dornan hesitated. “If there is any information in there that is vital to the security of the Five Cities—“

“It’s private.”

Mr. Walker had assured them this morning, when they’d sat down to sign those papers, if there were any moments in their memory that contained sensitive information, were too hard to watch, or otherwise undermined their dignity, all they would have to do is say the word and they would skip past them.

A long moment passed in which everyone stared at him and Micah stared at the opposite wall.

Mr. Lenz was the one to break the silence, “The memory Skill only continues for about seven minutes anyway. I believe you mentioned it ends with you saying goodbye to your classmates?”

“It ends the moment I exit through the portal.”

“In that case, we could—“

“We have to watch those last six minutes,” Dornan said, “just to be safe. I want to see if we can glean any information from the mannerisms of the other soldiers, and our diviners need more sketches of the avashay in different lights in any case.”

“Understood,” Micah said. In his mind, he created a wall of blue crystal so dark it may as well have been black. He held it up to the looming disembodied eyes in his brain and sped through the memory until the moment they stood on that hill again.

He dropped the wall and shoved the memory at those eyes.

The illusion flickered as the scene changed. The Registrar had to scramble to keep the spell from unraveling.

After more than four hours in total, they finally broke for lunch.

Shanty flicked a few drops of water at him. Micah froze them in place.

The training hall was much more spacious without an illusory tunnel in its midst, but the haphazard buffet the army cooks had set up was in the cramped hallway outside.

“It seems like you’re doing our job for us,” Bastion commented when Micah joined the line behind them, “I don’t know if we should be sponsoring you or employing you.”

“Delilah and Tuhrie did all the work in bringing us together— Oh, but once I get my alchemy license, I would be happy to sell you potions?” The line moved forward. “Are you looking for work yourselves now, or will you be continuing your investigation?”

“That is both very unclear and, now officially,” Shanty whispered in a conspiratorial tone, “classified. But we’ll probably continue to work around them. We got pretty far.”

“You did?”

She nodded. “We know where their beds sleep.”

His eyebrows shot up. They had located their city already? “Did you know about them beforehand? Because you’re also a spirit … of … Vim …” His heart sank as he said it. He pictured a world of yellows and blues, and a rare spot of green.

Had Shanty been so aloof when she had been human or was that because of them?

“The court of Vim stretches far,” she reminded him, “though I suppose the avashay specifically might be members of the same inner court as us—memory.”

“That could give us a foot in the door,” Bastion said, “or it could be a hindrance considering their history with the Vim.”

“I doubt their hatred extends to all the courts if they are working with the Pretenders.”

“Uh, I think those actually might have been assigned to them,” Micah pointed out, “and it’s the Dwarf who is working with them …?”

She hummed with lighthearted frustration.

“Either way,” Bastion said, “our unique history has given us a lot of experience with different cultures. We’re good candidates for diplomatic missions.”

“It’s strange, though, do you remember that museum we met Liandran in back in Lin? It would’ve been what, ten lifetimes ago? Eleven?”

Bastion frowned, and she poked him in the shoulder. “You know, you were a knight but got yourself mixed up in a bunch of spy business cause your order was so corrupt. He wanted to hire you for an investigation into the holy mountains.”

“I don’t remember a museum … I remember the mines.”

Shanty made a face. “Yeah, but the museum had these fossilized eggs on display that archaeologists had unearthed in the Western Forest. I remember reading the placard and it said something about the fossils belonging to birds but that their bone structure resembled human babies. It was super creepy. I told you they were creepy but you were too busy acting like a super serious spy to pay attention to me.”

“So? Humans have migrated across worlds, and we supposedly originated from a planet that doesn’t even have magic. Why not them?”

“Yeah, but in Micah’s report, he said that Pijeru said that her people think that their planet died four thousand years ago. How long does it take for stuff to fossilize?”

“Weeks,” Micah popped her bubble, “under the right conditions.”

Shanty visibly deflated. “Oh.”

Mr. Jung had mentioned using fossils as ingredients in passing once, but Micah had only learned that tidbit himself yesterday while skimming a research paper on the merits of artificial fossilization in alchemy.

He hadn’t gotten very far but he looked forward to reading more on the topic once he got back to the library.

Bastion grabbed a few sandwiches and two cups of coffee and stepped away. “I’ll see if I can drag your principal away from whatever meeting she’s in. Whenever she talks to military types for too long, her imperialistic side starts to come out. We’ll talk more later.”

Micah waved them goodbye and copied his choice of lunch. He stretched his legs up and down the narrow hallway while he sipped on a rare cup of coffee.

Cathy and Sarah had joined them from the next gym over. They’d spent their morning having a bunch of mages test and study their new windsong Skills. He overheard something about a mixture between druidcraft and witchcraft.

“With a sorcerous foundation for them, of course,” Cathy chatted away, “but Principal Denner has met [Druids] with similar Skills so it’s nothing new, just ni—”

“Except that few witches or druids attune to metal or radios,” Sarah said.

“Yeah, that’s what I was about to say. It’s niche. To us. To them …? We might have a problem. Delilah told me the avashay can all hear radio signals, but uh … I don’t know if it is because this is new or I just don’t speak the language yet, but you are all noisy. Like, really noisy,” she briefly raised her voice with a note of honest frustration. “You sound like simmering teapots, and paper being crumpled up, and buzzing insects. And some of you mumble incoherent gibberish all the time.”

“It’s our auras,” Mr. Walker explained. “The flow of magic through our bodies can generate radio signals and other forms of electromagnetic radiation. We tend to unconsciously protect other people from the harm our auras can cause, because we do live in a society, and our auras can protect us, but that doesn’t always extend to objects if we aren’t aware of them, let alone noise. Most people don’t like to be quiet. Many like to draw attention to themselves or their businesses. It makes adapting some of the technological blueprints we receive from our partners Overseas … difficult to implement in public spaces.

“We’ll have to see about teaching you to control your Skill, Ms. Grant, or find a way to silence the noise.”

“One of the army mages already offered to do that when we leave … but the spell would only last an hour. So yes, I would be grateful for your help, sir.”

“But if the avashay got their own Paths and Classes now,” Kyle said, “aren’t they loud themselves?”

“Possibly, but studies in the past have concluded that the auras of different species and peoples with sorcerous bloodlines differ just as much as Classes do. Vats, trolls, Northerners, even bound familiars; they may only generate signals in a limited capacity, not at all, or generate entirely new ones.”

“That’s— Ah!” Cathy swiveled on Kyle, and Micah paused for a step as he squeezed past their group. “What did you do? You shut up.”

He relaxed and took another bite of his sandwich.

“I used a Skill, [Closed Aura]?”

She excitedly waved a finger back and forth between them. “If I can’t control this, will you be my new best friend?”

Near the end of the buffet, Mr. Lenz was stirring fire and honey crystals into a cup to brew himself some tea. He glanced at Micah twice when he wandered by and perked up. “Mr. Stranya. Ah, food. Good. I hope this process wasn’t too demanding of you. I can only imagine how rough it must have been to relive some of these experiences so soon.”

Micah hesitated, stuck between wanting to move around and not wanting to be rude. His sandwich gave him a moment to think. He awkwardly shrugged and stayed where he was.

“I, uhm, have the memory stuck in my brain anyway.” He couldn’t pretend none of this had happened. Not this time. “The standing around is, uhm … not bad, but …”

“Maybe we should have asked for chairs. You look so disciplined, it’s easy to forget.”

“Not disciplined enough, apparently.”

Even if Dornan hadn’t spoken up, it was hard to deny the truth when they had to watch their childish behavior and mistakes play out over and over again.

“Ah, that. I hope we haven’t been too demanding with our criticisms or our excitement either.”

“Excitement …?”

“Aliens,” Mr. Lenz said, “an advanced ancient civilization raised from the grave, and glimpses of what the Dwarf had been doing in the last century …”

Micah didn’t know if he had ever seen an adult with stars in their eyes. Maybe once or twice, but it felt different this time when his own emotions on the matter didn’t line up.

He was excited. A little bit. This was exciting. He was living through historic times but … buried so deep beneath other things, it was hard to acknowledge that at all.

Mr. Lenz was like a sparkler in comparison, and Micah stepped closer with a smile to bask in the lights radiating off from him.

“I think we’ve only scratched the surface of the changes last year if the avashay got here back then.”

“Definitely! There has been so much work to do, so much paperwork, restructuring our systems to account for the new workload, helping others with theirs …” He shook his head at the memory of the exhaustion. “But I don’t need to tell you that. The Alchemist’s Guild has probably been under more stress than any other organization in the League.”

Micah made a face and an awkward noise. “I, uhm, haven’t had much to do with the Alchemist’s Guild— Yet! Someday, hopefully, when I’m working toward my license, but I’m too young and went to the wrong school for that now. My classmates and I have been mostly devouring the Guild publications with envy.”

“But you’re so high level for your age!? I would have assumed— most of the youths I have met, who have gained so many levels in the last year, did it because of the changes. Those who have taken a year off from school to explore, or people involved with the guilds.”

“I have been … trying to keep up,” Micah mumbled, “on my own terms. Oh! This might be rude to ask but have you … leveled from …?”

“Seven months ago,” the man said proudly, “much sooner than I had anticipated, and to think I might level up again so soon. Have you had a chance to test out your new Skills?”

Micah shook his head. “I read up on them, of course. Second thing in the morning. But most of them are better suited for a lab.”

The two Skills he had explored the most were his memory Skill and not even a new one, but an old Skill. [Candle]. He could use it again! Well, most of the time. He was still getting used to the flames’ eccentricities.

“About that,” Mr. Lenz said and his tone shifted to something more cautious. “I understand how you must have felt, what you had to do to keep your classmates safe, but I hope you know that making a pact with an odious entity once doesn’t have to be the defining factor for one of your Classes forever.”

Micah nodded quickly and took another bite of his sandwich.

He hadn’t thought to hide the Class from Mr. Walker yesterday, his mind had been elsewhere, but people seemed to think he had gotten it because they thought he thought he had made a pact with some ‘dark entity,’ which …. wasn’t wrong per se. But his pact with the Pretender wasn’t the reason why he had gotten the Class. There was an older pact Micah had made.

“—especially because it’s such a legal liability,” Mr. Lenz was saying, and he blinked as he was drawn from his thoughts.

“What? I mean, uhm— Excuse me, sir, legal liability …?”

“[Pact Warrior]. It’s on the list of Classes that investigators can substitute for probable cause to arrest suspects, request search warrants, and do other stuff like that. Like, when there has been a robbery, how guards can search the residences of any local [Thieves] without evidence? No …? You didn’t know.”

He vehemently shook his head. How was he supposed to have known that? Did that mean he was on some kind of list …?

“As I was saying, you don’t have to be a [Pact Warrior]. You could just as easily be a [Guardian] for what you did, or a [Paladin], or a [Witch Knight]. Take my advice, when you find the time, sit down with a book of Classes. Just leaf through the names and maybe some short descriptions and see if you can find one that speaks to you, then meditate on that. It will give you decent chances when you next level up, your Class will change its name. And you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

“I’ll … I’ll look into that. Thank you, sir.” Micah wouldn’t make any promises.

“Ah, shoot. I was supposed to bring my colleague a cup of tea.” He dropped another fire crystal in the lukewarm cup and hurried off.

“That goes for you, too!” he said to the other group in passing. “You all fought remarkably!” His smile was earnest. His words still killed the mood, and the man didn’t even stick around to notice it.

Sarah and Cathy were confused by the sudden shift in the mood. The others filled them in about what the Chief Warrant Officer had said.

“Did he rip into how shitty our group cohesion was?” Sarah asked.

“It’s mostly just, if we had fought smarter, not harder, we might have been in less danger,” Kyle said. “I mean, he’s not wrong. We met a creep in the Tower. Murderers exist. If that had been a level thirty [Fighter], we would have been in just as much danger. Or more. At least the Pretender wanted a specific kind of entertainment while they tried to kill us.”

“Is this the moment you say, ‘I told you so?’”

“You and Stranya did want to leave right away,” Andrew admitted.

Kyle grinned. “I am always right, but …” He glanced at Delilah and softened his tone. “Nah. Shit happens.”

Chief Dornan and his assistant waited for them when they filed back into the training hall. “I have ears, you know?” he said and handed them pamphlets from a stack in sets of three. “We could use more people who can keep their heads on straight when things go sideways, especially in our Chemical and Medical Corps. And we could use more people who are willing to fight to the bitter end. Keep us in mind for your future after graduation. We’ll teach you how to fight smart—”

“Smart but not hard, huh!?” Mrs. Dawes rushed over to them when she got wind of what he was doing.

Kyle and Sarah only got a single pamphlet, Micah noticed.

“I don’t know if you heard, but the Climber’s Guild has dibs on these students.”

“I’ve seen how much you’ve done for them.”

“More than you have.” She tried to shoulder him aside. “Don’t listen to him. Sign up with us and we’ll teach you how to fight smart and hard.”

Micah split off from their bickering and cautiously approached the mayor’s assistant.

“Uhm, excuse me, sir? I hope I am not interrupting you. I had a thought and didn’t know who else to approach about it.”

“No, no. Go ahead! Of course, I have time to hear a thought from the youngest Stranya,” the man closed his folder and beamed at him. When Micah gave him a questioning look, he explained, “I work with your mother. And I have met your sister. Now, what is this thought of yours?”

“Oh, uhm …” Micah caught himself before he could ask, Prisha? He probably meant Maya. “I was hoping we could review a part of my memory one last time, if your schedules allow for it, and you could tell me if my idea was completely stupid or not?”

The man’s eyebrows shot up. He tucked his folder underneath his arm and gestured toward the Registrars. “Lead the way.”

Micah stood on that hill again. One last time. A group of people stood in a ring around him and watched in impatient silence.

“—a boon to be granted to my classmates,” his past self said, “everyone here … and all of my friends.”

The Pretender cocked their head a millimeter to the left.

Delilah led them through the parameters of their pact, the Pretender played along, and when the spirit shook Micah’s hand, they mouthed a word. The mayor’s assistant spoke it aloud in eerie symmetry, “Fascinating.”

A chill went down Micah’s spine. “And?”

“I’ll have to bring it up with the mayor but … maybe. Yes. We could use this. A pretty big insult to draw a pretty big line in the sand, but after how they greeted us, attacking our children …”

“I don’t like this,” Chief Dornan said. “I don’t like how it played along. Look at its eyes. The Pretender had to have known what Mr. Stranya was thinking. If anything, this is a trap.”

Both Sarah and Kyle spun on the man with clenched jaws and wide eyes. They looked like they’d had to stop themselves from shouting, Thank you!

“I’m sorry,” one of the younger Registrars attending for the experience spoke up, “but you must also think about the precedent this would set. If we insist on this, will we have to watch our every word in future dealings with the avashay or these spirits?”

“Salient points,” the man said, “but, as I said, this is out of my hands. I will have to bring it up with the mayor. We’ll be in touch, Mr. Stranya.”

The Pretender turned away from his past self and met the eyes of his present for one moment. They stared at each other across time.

This was definitely a trap, but it was a trap set for him. His classmates had told him about the levels and Skills they had gotten from their feathers. Sometimes even multiple levels in the same Class. Compared to what he stood to gain, what was a little danger?

A boon. For all of his friends.