Alder woke up bleary-eyed and to the rough feeling of something pulling his hair. He blinked a few times, trying to clear his eyes and make out the smudge that was waving in front of his eyes. “Whuh?” he muttered, squinting at the strange shape as it moved away from him.

“My god, you’re a mess.” said a familiarly accented voice.

Alder’s focus moved away from what he realized was a hand and onto Louie, who was standing in front of him with one hand holding his head up by the hair. Last night had been rough. After parting ways with Alys, the two of them had made their way to a bar Louie knew of called the Rat’s Tail, where they helped out the owner for most of the night. Alder didn’t find the work physically draining, he was a trained swordsman after all, but having to weave through crowds, wash dishes, clean, and basically do whatever he was told for most of the night had taken its toll on his mind and left him passed out at one of the tables.

Louie released his head and it fell limp for an instant before Alder summoned enough willpower to keep it up. He yawned and sat still for a moment, staring at the table while he gathered himself. In the time it took him to realize he was hungry, Louie, who had walked off soon after letting him go, returned with two bowls of stew. He placed one in front of Alder and began to eat his own while standing.

“Better get used to this,” Louie said between bites as Alder sluggishly began to dig in. “This is pretty much the only gig I’ve got, unless you’d rather be a pickpocket.”

“We’re going to be doing this again?” Alder half asked, half whined.

“Every night.” came a matter-of-fact grunt from Louie.

Alder slouched in his chair and continued eating, disheartened. They ate in silence for some time, Alder slowly and Louie with speed.

“Not going to run off are you?” Louie asked sharply after finishing, eyes staring into Alder’s, trying to find any spark of dishonesty in his reply.

Alder continued eating, finishing his stew and finally becoming fully awake.

“My word is worth something.” he said, quoting himself from yesterday and staring straight back into Louie’s eyes.

Again they had a short stare-off, mimicking the day before almost exactly, before Louie nodded and broke eye contact, scooping up Alder’s bowl and returning behind the bar to what the blond boy assumed was the kitchen. He stood up and moved from his table near the wall and closer to the centre, where it was more open, to begin his morning stretches. He heard the noise of running water and scrubbing from the kitchen, and then Louie shouted out:

“I’ll try to ask around and find us some work for the day.”

“What about Alys?” Alder shouted back.

“What about her?” Louie replied indignantly.

“We should meet back up with her.” Alder bent down to touch his toes

“No thank you.” Louie enunciated each word clearly, emphasizing his dislike of the idea.

“She offered to help!” Alder said, straightening.

“Yeah, well, I don’t like her.” the water stopped, and after setting down the bowls he’d just washed, Louie returned to the main room and only raised an eyebrow at Alder who was sitting on the ground, legs open and leaning to the side to grab his foot. Alder paid no mind to him and kept talking.

“Why not? She’s nice!”

“Nice? I don’t think we met the same girl,” Louie flippantly threw a hand up in the air and leaned against the bar. “She’s stuck up.”

“She still offered to help, and a wizard always keeps their word!” Alder finished stretching and walked up to the bar as well, standing right in front of the taller man who was about the same height as him due to being leaned over.

“Your daddy tell you that?” Louie mocked, rolling his eyes.

“My teacher did, yes.” Alder forged ahead, only mulling over what to call Edward for a single moment. Louie noticed, and stored that hesitation away for later. “And if you only let people you like help you, does that mean you like me?” Alder teased back.

Louie worked his jaw in frustration. “I tolerate you because you’re helping me.” he said, choosing his words deliberately.

“Then you can tolerate Alys.” Alder said, a smug twinkle in his eye.

Louie stood, looking down on Alder with a stern frown. “You tryin’ to order me around?”

“I just think she’ll be able to help us out a lot.” Alder said, looking up at Louie.

“You just want to ask her about magic.” Louie accused.

“It’s a win-win, isn’t it?” Alder smiled, feeling confident in his victory as Louie’s face grew angrier as he tried to think of an argument.

“Fine!” Louie threw his arms up. “But how do you propose we find her?”

“You said you knew the way to the school, right?” asked Alder, an excited twinkle in his eye.

---

“Woah,” said Alder, his neck craned as he took in the large building ahead of him. It was something of a mish-mash of architecture. Buttresses and spires here, arches and stained glass there, and an old bell tower towering above the rest of the building. Strangely, that seemed to be the most solid part of the whole thing. It was all strong stone and wood, of course, real to the touch as Alder could attest, brushing his hand along the wall beside him as they walked inside, and yet something about it seemed like the whole building would change, move, shift, or disappear around them, leaving only the chiming bell behind.

“I won’t be able to guide us further, just so you know.” Louie said grumpily. He disliked the whole area, seeing it as a den of kids who lived in the lap of luxury, people who’d never really struggled or worked an honest day in their life. It irked him. As such, he avoided the place as much as he could, and had no idea what the layout of the interior was like.

“Let’s ask him,” Alder said as he approached a boy about their age in grey robes and wielding a staff with a blue gem on the tip. “Excuse me!”

The boy stopped walking and turned towards the newcomers, giving them an odd look?

“Are you supposed to be here?” he asked rather rudely.

Alder took it in stride.

“Yes! We’re looking for a friend of ours, Alys Merwen?”

The boy averted his eyes and cringed a little. “Oh, her.” he emphasized ‘her’ in an annoyed tone. “She’s probably holed up in her room.” the young wizard leaned in, seeming to forget about his earlier dislike for the two of them in the interest of sharing a juicy piece of gossip. “I heard she was out with her boyfriend when another guy she was seeing noticed and they both broke up with her.” he leaned out again. “I can’t believe she was with two guys, she’s usually so uptight around here, but I guess women can be-”

He noticed Alder was glaring at him, and even Louie had a slightly disgusted face. The grey-robed boy coughed and pointed to a hall off to their left. “That way’s the girl’s dormitory.” he said and made his getaway at a quick pace.

Alder shook his head at the young wizard’s back before turning left and walking determinedly down the hall. Louie, much to his annoyance, was forced to follow. The hall was about as unremarkable as any hallway at a great school of magic could be, which is to say, not unremarkable at all. The floor has a vibrant and plus red carpet, the walls were carved of a pure white stone, though not so white as to hurt the eyes, and were decorated with paintings of the many accomplished alumni who’d once lived in these dorms. As they were in the female wing, they were, of course, all women. Alder read a few as he moved past them and noted great names such as ‘Alvira Morktooth, bane of Wingerton’, ‘Mahanna Isle, creator of a dozen spells’, there was even one that only said ‘Portia, student of Renaya’. He wasn’t sure how being a student was considered a great deed, but surely the wizards knew what they were about.

Alder, in his observation, also noticed that Louie was acting nervous. It was the first time he’d seen him that way since their confrontation on the rooftops. His muscles were tensed, eyes darting this way and that but not focusing on any one thing, as if he expected one of the candelabras to suddenly break out into song.

“Don’t like the school Louie?” he asked.

“Don’t like magic, more like.” he muttered, and Alder was slightly surprised at the quiet honesty in his voice.

They reached the lobby of the dorms, a place of understated luxury rather than the more gaudy displays of the hall leading to it. It was furnished with ample and multi-coloured couches, a dark wooden table, and a desk with a nameplate that read ‘Madame Indica Croswell’, behind which stood a crabby-looking middle-aged woman with a frown and two brown eyes fixed right on them. The two visitors walked up to her, Alder with a friendly smile and Louie with his eyes still watching the walls with suspicion.

“What’s your business?” the woman asked sharply as they approached.

Alder was a little shocked at her rudeness but got straight to the point.

“We’re here to see a friend of ours, Alys Merwen.”

Her face went from ‘untrusting’ to ‘blatantly skeptical’. Alder smiled, big and bright, and Louie met her eyes with glare as if daring her to say something about it.

“Names?” she asked.

“Alder and Louie.”

Without breaking eye contact, or changing her expression at all for that matter, she slowly reached over to a drawer of the desk and opened it, revealing a single fist sized crystal cut into an octahedron. She picked it up and brought it to her mouth, seeming to push some mana into it as she did so, as evidenced by a slight glow.

There was a pause and a low humming ‘brrrring’ noise from the crystal that repeated a few times before being abruptly cut off with a tired “Yes, Madame Croswell?”

“There’s an Alder and a Louie here to see you.” she said gruffly into the crystal. Alder watched on in fascination, and even Louie seemed somewhat intrigued.

“Augh, those… those…” came Alys’s voice more distantly this time, as if she was turned away from her crystal in agitation. “Send them over.” she finished weakly. The crystal emitted a dull click and stopped glowing.

Madame Croswell’s surprise was only seen in the minute widening of her eyes before she said: “Room 11, first on your left.” she indicated the hall to her own left with an outstretched hand.

“Thank you!” Alder said cheerily. Louie maintained eye contact with her over his shoulder until they made it to Alys’s door. It was unadorned except for the number ‘11’ painted in gold. Alder raised his hand to knock and the door opened, surprising him.

“Come in, I just need to put together a few things and I’ll be ready.” she said, stepping away from the door so they could step in.

Alder and Louie surveyed the room, one with curiosity and the other with veiled suspicion. They took in textbooks, regular books, the spare robes, her tidy desk, and Alys all the while grabbed things and put them in a knapsack she had on her bed. She took a few of the books, some paper and a feather pen, a spare set of robes, and a box she took out of one of the drawers on her desk.

“Ready.” she said simply after all that. Just in time too, as had Alder continued looking much longer they would have seen the romance novels she keeps inconspicuously tucked between ‘Magic Circles for Beginners’ and ‘Magic Circles for Intermediates’. Hidden in plain sight, as they say, though admittedly her skills could use work in that area.

“Alright,” said Alder with a nod as he looked to Louie. Alys followed his gaze and the tall boy turned his eyes away from ‘The Knight and the Princess’ surreptitiously tucked between two magic circle textbooks. ‘Not very sneaky, is she?’ he thought. Alder and Alys were none the wiser to what he’d seen.

“Let’s go then.” he left the room and began to retrace their steps out of the school, but not before one final stare-off with Madame Croswell. “I asked Larnie last night if he’d heard about any issues in his area that needed solving. Fortunately, some old lady’s fence got busted about two days ago. We’re gonna grab some wood from the market, haul it over there, fix the fence and get paid, got it?”

“Got it!”

“Understood.”

The trio headed off.