The next morning Winter got everyone out of bed at an hour that Daniel said he thought was more than indecent, and after waking up Ian (who was found asleep at a windowsill for no apparent reason), they dragged themselves to a quick breakfast.

Following that, Ian resumed his activity of carrying boxes out of his room and rearranging some of the smaller ones so he’d have a little more space. Why he bothered at all – as they were going to leave the mansion soon – no one dared to ask him. Arnold joined him rather enthusiastically, while the other four headed towards what Chris and Daniel had thought was a ballroom. The idea, Chris decided, had probably come from the fact that the hall was so dark that nothing could be really deduced regarding its uses.

Leaving them by the entrance, Osburt gave them a sign to wait. He made his way to the far end of the room, there was a low rustling sound and bright light washed over the place. Chris squinted against it, but upon hearing a quiet gasp on Daniel’s side, he struggled to focus and found himself amazed by how off he and Daniel had been in thinking this had been a ballroom. Unless his knowledge on Witches’ culture was completely wrong and they were the type of society to reach for their swords in the middle of a dance, this was a well-supplied training hall.

Osburt was going around the left side and opening built-in cupboards to reveal a large selection of weapons – swords, daggers, axes, throwing knives, arrows, crossbows, sabers, a shotgun – as well as helmets, shields and armor. The last cubbyhole that the Witch opened – this one was right by the doors – contained three pistols. Chris picked one of them up (and quite nearly dropped it on his foot) and asked:

“What an old model! Do you really know how to use it?”

Chris thought he saw Winter’s lips stretch to a rather strange smile before she covered her mouth and moved along to look at the weaponry. In the middle of his struggle to comprehend what had been amusing about the question, he heard Osburt answer:

“Dad does. Me, not so much, and Ian could probably manage to hit a wall if he was aiming carefully at it.”

“Wow!” Daniel took out a large recurve crossbow. “This is… this is a model Silverfrost 65 with a magic charge! They aren’t even in production anymore! My dad’s been trying to get one for years!”

The elder Belwhite son laughed. “The owner of the factory is a family friend. He gave it to us a few years ago before they became such a rarity.”

Daniel’s jaw had dropped. He examined the crossbow and adjusted it into position, aiming at the wall. Chris noticed that the weapon had a small hollow opening close to the release, and guessed that this is where the Stone Batteries would go and provide the so-called ‘magic charge’ of each bolt.

“So light…” Daniel sighed dreamily.

“You can try it if you like,” Osburt said. “Just use the targets.”

He signed to a line of red-and-white round plates on one of the walls. Daniel whistled quietly and looked around for bolts. Chris felt himself smile. The only person he knew who could compete with Daniel’s love for bows was Milo Furman with his love for firearms. Besides, it was rare to see Daniel so excited – especially considering the entire Julia business recently. It was a nice change of attitude.

“Training or freh training?” asked Osburt, turning to Chris.

Chris directed a look towards Winter, as if asking for her opinion. She wasn’t looking their way, however, and was busy examining a collection of cleaving weapons down the hall.

“Er, well, we won’t be here that long, so we might as well start now…?” mumbled Chris, finally leaving the old pistol back in its place.

“Excellent; pick your sword,” Osburt told him, reaching for a vertical line of three blades that were hanging in separate from the rest. The Witch picked the one in the middle and took his time checking it for damage. Chris, after thorough examination of the displayed weapons, and pretending that he wasn’t throwing Winter the usual glances, went for something that resembled most the Jakkovost in his eyes: an arming sword. Chris weighed the sword in his hand, then in the other, and passed it back to his right. He nodded to himself approvingly and looked around to see that Osburt had already made his way to the large white mat in the middle of the room.

The Witch called out, “I have heard that swordsmanship is a mandatory subject in most schools in the Unfrozen. Is that true?”

Chris walked around Daniel to approach Osburt. “Only from the third to the sixth grade, it’s part of our Hunting exercises.”

“I take it you know the basics?”

Chris nodded. “Yeah, definitely.” He decided not to comment on his actual results from Hunting classes.

“Perfect. We won’t be using any shields for now.”

“Ah, thanks.”

Normally Witches exercised shields of ice that they called out on the spot, so Chris found it rather generous of Osburt to give up that option just because he was going to duel against a Hach.

“Miss Winter, will you be observing?”

Winter tore herself away from a long polearm to look up at them. Chris felt his ears go red. Back in September, his training matches were usually against Ian under Winter’s strict guidance. He wondered if this time would be the same. Without saying a word, she went to sit on a chair by the door.

It seemed that she was just going to be watching them.

Chris faced Osburt, straightened his back, and touched his earlobe in respect.