It was the last day of my first year at the Kein School of Magic and learning and I was free for the next month and a half. Yes, I could have stayed and taken lessons like many of the children from the more wealthy families did, but I needed to get away from the place.

"When are you leaving?" Arty asked me just after we had each finished our morning meals.

"Tomorrow morning," I replied.

"Do you think we will share rooms again?"

"Sure."

Arty had been a good roommate. We hadn't talked much since we only saw each other at mealtimes, but she was a nice girl and had never treated me differently than anyone else.

Arty looked at the chest near the foot of my bed.

"Are you going to buy anything fun?"

I looked at the chest. It was filled with one payment I had gotten from my sessions with Iguana. It had originally been filled with about one thousand pieces of gold, but I had spent more than half of it since. They had paid me much more than that but there was so much I would have to travel to the royal treasury in Flae to get it considering it was too dangerous to transport the remaining gold they owed me. I had been planning on visiting there anyway so I hadn't been annoyed with that.

"No," I replied. "I will give this chest to my family in Porra-Kel and then go to Flae and buy me my sword and other weapons to train with."

Arty looked a bit disappointed, "I would buy a horse.”

"Costs too much to feed one."

Arty looked at the chest again and then shrugged, "I guess."

It was nearly time to head out for morning practice so I stood up from my chair and headed for the door. Ferret had stopped coming by after the first few weeks so I could leave whenever I wanted.

"You promise you will finally show me what you have been making tonight?" Arty asked as I began to open the door. She was talking about the long cylinder wrapped in a cloth under my bed.

I nodded and left.

I arrived early to practice as usual and began doing my warm-up exercises. I was not the only one from my group that had made a habit of doing this. All of us had. It was almost expected of us to arrive early or else Bench would work you even harder than he would otherwise.

By now I had gotten used to the strenuous things Bench made us do and I would only be slightly winded and, now that summer was back, sweaty by the time training was over. The only things the past few months that had given me trouble was the mud when it rained and the cold winter months as the school didn't have any indoor facilities for the athletic side of things so I had to deal with snow too.

Today the mood was especially bright among the groups of children. Most of the poorer ones would head home to help their families during the busy summer months and were looking forward to it. I appreciated the fact that they were happy to live with their families again but, as much as learning about boring things such as etiquette and the history of Flaern, I would rather be here than in a field somewhere.

"You are up Salis!" Bench called to me.

We had just finished our usual run around the entire school. Normally we would practice our techniques, but as usual Bench liked to mix things up.

I nodded and jogged to the sparring circle Bench was standing by and was joined by one of the other boys in my group.

"This time…" He mumbled to himself, "I will win this time."

"Ready?" Bench said.

The boy and I each took our stances. We had both taken one of the more aggressive stances they had taught us.

Was the boy stupid? Even though I was much smaller than he was, I had never lost to him once. If I was in his shoes, I would have taken up a more defensive stance…

"Go!" Bench yelled.

My opponent immediately lunged at me. We were nearly the same speed, and I brought my practice sword up to meet his.

For the next minute we traded blows with our swords, our skill nearly equal. Then my advantage finally came into play as I attacked with all my strength. My attack was met, but since I had used all my strength, the blow knocked the sword from his hands. I had won.

"Not again…" The boy said and bent over to pick up the sword that had fallen near his feet.

"As usual, I am impressed by your strength Salis." Bench said. "You started the year just as strong as a normal girl your age but could now rival a boy nearly twice your age."

It was true. At first, the only advantage I had had was that I had watched sword fights in movies. Not that that was a real advantage.

"Remember," Bench spoke to my opponent, "Strength is not everything. If someone is stronger than you use their strength against them."

The boy nodded.

Bench then called the next two that would spar and I left the sparring circle.

For the rest of practice, I practiced sword techniques while I wasn't sparring. Even though I didn't talk to others as I sparred with them like all the others, I enjoyed this time immensely. There was something about swinging a sword that made me stop thinking about this world.

Immediately after morning practice I went to the place I fought a much different battle. On some days it was keeping myself awake through history and etiquette. Today it was fighting with my inability to control my magic output and with Pie Can himself.

I had gotten to the point in my magic studies last month where I finally could not keep up with the others in my class. I was surprised I had kept up for as long as I had but still had slowly fallen behind the other children. Now I had had my time in class cut in half and spent that time figuring out how to work with an unpredictable source of power.

There was one thing I had proven much better at than any other child had. It was my mental sparring with Pie Can himself. I had become better at it than he was. Now he trained me by making me watch for his sporadic attacks in which he helped me find any weak spots I had and to train me to keep my defenses up at all times.

During this training, I had also learned how to talk to him without letting him into my mind. I did this by learning how to recognize thought over the desire to invade. I wasn't exactly sure how I could tell the difference, but I did.

I will see you in a few months. Pie Can, who had long stopped speaking to me verbally, said in my head. I will try to think of better ways to teach you while you are gone. I felt a touch of mischievousness come from him. Also, expect harder attacks from me.

I looked at Pie Can. Do your worst.

A smile appeared on his face. It wasn't very noticeable, but it was there.

Unlike the first of the year where I had been looking forward to learning magic, I now hated it. The sheer randomness of my magic output had almost made me quit my training altogether because of my frustration. The only magic I could do reliably was anything involving crystals and even then I had to be careful unless I wanted to blow up the crystals I was using.

I had worked around my problems with crystals, eventually. This involved crystals that could store magic power, like the ones used to power the light crystals above each door in the dormitories among many other places.

The only problem was that these crystals were more expensive than most of the other types and I hadn't been able to get one until those greasy bankers had sent me some of my money. I also had to pay for the most expensive kind which would be better able to absorb my power if it went too high.

I turned to the door and left the room. Considering my magic practice had to be limited by my inabilities, I now spent the rest of the time training. Today it was with Medic and archery instead of swordsmanship, and as soon as finished eating my noon meal, that's where I would be heading.

"Hey there, 'Instructor Salis'" Dorito said to me as we met outside the dorms as usual. Also, as usual, he was with his friends, but by now they had lost interest in me and only Dorito and Caldren paid me any attention.

"Do you know if we will be in the same group again in the fall?" Caldren said.

"So you can be with Helnion more?" Dorito grinned at Caldren.

Caldren sighed. He had long stopped protesting to Dorito when he brought up the subject and looked to be more tired of hearing it than being embarrassed.

"Have you talked to Callic about it?" Caldren asked me, shaking his head.

"He said none of you will need me anymore," I replied. And for that, I was happy.

"Thank the Deity!" Dorito knelt and raised his arms.

"But this means we will have to go back to listening to Callic," Caldren said.

Dorito lost a bit of his happiness at Caldren's words.

"And we will learn even harder math," Caldren added.

Dorito's shoulders slumped.

"Way to be such a downer Calren," Dorito gave Caldren a disappointed look, "You could have waited longer to say that."

Caldren ignored Dorito, "Could you ask Callic to let you stay our tutor? We learn best with the four of us in a group."

"Want her to ask Helnion too?" Dorito gave Caldren a knowing look.

This time Caldren blushed.

My stomach rumbled.

"I will go eat," I put my hand on my stomach.

"Good idea. Those whelps might eat our food if we take too long," Dorito motioned to his friends, and left.

"Bye Salis," Caldren left.

I watched them leave for a second. I may have been on relatively good terms with the two boys but I did not respect them. Dorito's treatment of those under him socially was horrible and Caldren, while being more well mannered and polite, went along with everything and, as far as I was concerned, that was just as bad as doing it yourself.

If I never had to see any of Dorito's group again, I would be happy. I knew this would not be the case unless I left the school and never came back to Kein again. Even if I chose to leave, I knew I would see them at least one more time.

"Are you sure you will not stay for the summer?" Medic asked me as I waited for practice to start. "You have improved rapidly over the last few months and it would be a shame to lose some of it over the summer."

There was one thing I had learned over the past year about Medic. It was that she had some rivalry with Bench and, from what I could tell, she wanted to win me over and make me choose archery over swordsmanship when the time came for me to choose between the two.

"I have plans," I replied.

I also wanted to take a break from all this training. As much as I enjoyed both of them, I wanted to relax for at least a few weeks.

Medic didn't show any reaction to my reply, "Let me know if you change your mind." She walked off.

Training soon started, and I heard nothing more from her until just before it was time to leave for the evening.

"Very good." She said.

I had been shooting at a target about fifty meters away and had gotten most of my shots close to the center. I was not the best in my group and I was nowhere near as good as the best in the school but I was satisfied with my level of progress.

"A few more years of training and the king would be proud to have you as part of his guard." She said, her usual emotionless speech making her complement sound hollow.

I wondered if that's how people felt about me. Not that I gave many compliments to begin with.

Medic was probably the most emotionless person in the school after me. Unlike me, however, I guessed that the reason she didn't show emotion was not because she was not good at it; it was that she did not have many emotions to begin with or they had trained it out of her. Maybe.

"I'm not changing my mind about staying," I said.

Medic appeared to ignore my comment and moved down the line to the next child.

I left the archery range as soon as I could and headed straight to my room. For the first time I had invited people to my room, and I didn't want to keep them waiting.

Inside the room I found that my guests were all already there. The first person I saw was Arty, who was sitting on her bed and chatting with Ferret. Yes, I invited Ferret. On my bed lay Helnion, who had taken a liking to sleeping there while she waited for me to get back. There were also several other girls there. It was almost everyone that had had a bucket of excrement dumped on them by the boys at the beginning of the school year.

"Are you finally going to tell us what we will do?" Ferret was a bit excited.

"Get revenge," I said.

"Revenge?" Almost everyone said at once in shock.

I walked to my bed and pulled out the large cylinder Arty had asked about this morning and then sat on Helnion as hard as I could, waking her up.

I unwrapped the cloth from the cylinder.

"What is it?" Arty asked.

"A non-lethal long-range cabbage delivery system," I said.

Everyone looked at me completely confused.

"You'll find out later," I was looking forward to their reactions.

"You still haven't said what we will do," A girl said with irritation.

"You will do nothing but watch," I replied, "Bringing you all would only get us caught."

"Caught?" Another girl asked.

"Like last time," I said.

Ferret's eyes and mouth suddenly went wide, "You are not going there are you?"

The other girls immediately realized what Ferret was speaking about and began whispering amongst themselves.

"They will expect us to come again," Ferret continued.

"I know. That is why I am going alone."

"No! Salis, it is not worth it!" Ferret was getting more angry by the second, "I will let none of my friends go through that again!"

I got off the bed and opened my chest. I then pulled out a cloth bag and then took out one of the three items inside and tossed it to Ferret. I then tied the bag around my waist.

Ferret caught it and looked at it for a second.

"A communication crystal?" She asked.

"So you can watch."

Ferret looked at the crystal again.

"I say we let her try!" One of the other girls spoke.

"Y-yeah." Another girl said timidly.

"But if they catch her…" Ferret said.

"Catch Salis?" A third, older girl said. "She was hard enough to catch at the beginning of the year, just imagine what she is like after all the training she has done."

Everyone looked to Ferret. It annoyed me that everyone thought I needed her permission to do this. I would do it whether she wanted me to.

"Okay," her face becoming more serious, "But if something happens, we will come for you."

The other girls were all smiling now.

"Give them your worst Salis!" The first girl said, "Whatever it is you are doing with that thing!”

The rest of the girls soon joined the first in giving me words of encouragement.

"I better go now," I said after I began to get annoyed at all the chatter.

"Already?" Ferret asked. "We still have a few hours before sundown and I will not get to see you after tomorrow."

"I need to prepare some things," I replied.

It was true that I needed to do some things before I made my way to that certain grove, but there was no way it would take me the two or three hours until the boys began to gather. Being around Ferret and her friends for this long was more than I ever wanted, another two hours would drive me insane.

"If you say so…" Ferret said with disappointment.

I re-wrapped my toy and then walked to the window and opened it, Helnion following me.

"Is Helnion going with you?" Ferret had a bit of jealousy obvious in her voice.

"I need her help for a part of my plan."

Ferret looked like she wanted to argue but soon looked like she decided it was better not to.

"May Attish help you," Ferret finally said.

As much as it would be nice to have the Deity over Justice on my side in this, I highly doubted he would over some fight between children.

I didn't reply and jumped out the window.