Aiken slammed his fist onto the headmaster’s desk in irritation. Who wouldn’t be seething with anger after someone gave them such a dumb answer? “You, brought us here, and won’t even tell us why?! And what do you mean we can’t go back home?!”

Headmaster Fendora remained calm, but exhaled dejectedly. “Well, I figured this would happen. Again, I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you anything useful right now.”

“Yes, you can, Natalie,” Bryan crossed his legs. “What about that attack in the city? I’m sure you know something about that.”

She clamped her eyes down, unable to tell us anything about that either. “Listen, right now, the most I can say is, you need to start seducing the duchess,” she said to Bryan then looked at me, “and you need to become a tier five mage as quickly as possible. Work together and figure it out, otherwise all our asses are on the line.”

Bryan and Aiken sat around a table for lunch after. “So that was useful,” Bryan said sarcastically.

“I’m sorry, man. When is she due?” Aiken asked.

The usually playful man put his sandwich down and gritted his teeth. Aiken encouraged him to breathe, and gave him time to reply. “Three months,” he said. “Just when things start going good in my life, this happens,” a weak titter escaped him.

“Well, you’re the head librarian and I’m a mage. If we try hard enough, we should learn how to get back home soon. Let’s try our best, okay?” Aiken tapped him on the shoulder.

Hmm, so three months, huh? I better get started then, Aiken thought. When he returned to class, Lana questioned him about his whereabouts during the lunch break. He wasn’t sure what her family put her up to, so he would’ve kept her at arm’s length. However, if he wanted to help Bryan make it back in time for his son’s birth, he would have to use all the connections he had. He smiled, “We never hung out, huh? Wanna get ice-cream after class?”

Lana froze. Her hazel eyes were locked onto Aiken. “How come?” she muttered, then cleared her throat. “Yeah, that sounds great.”

Lana didn’t know how to feel. She’d always do horrendous things to Aiken, but he suddenly acted like he could see right through her. After belittling him for so many years, he still saved her and her father from death, even whilst his family was dying. And what’s worse, he treated her so kindly after all the things she did to him. How could you forgive so easily? she wondered. Her feelings of guilt made her weep, but she would always hide her tears.

Aiken’s mind was filled with a plethora of other issues. What were the tiers that Headmaster Fendora mentioned? Why were they important? Who should he try to build relations with? What was the best way he could advance his magic? Was it okay to manipulate a naïve fifteen-year-old girl like that? What would he and Bryan have for dinner? All pressing issues that weighed heavily on him.

A huge part of him couldn’t even believe he really was in some other world yet. It all felt like an overly realistic dream. But Aiken was like that, he didn’t question his situation, no matter how bizarre it was, because his life was filled with constantly shifting situations that he never had enough time to analyse and come to terms with. The only thing he could ever do was just roll with the punches.

Although, it was a bit difficult to apply that in a world full of magic.

He decided to start with Lana, sole daughter of the Lyons family. Just as he said, they went to get ice-cream and then enjoyed idle chit-chat as they walked around Wizzier City. He bought her a green bracelet she kept eyeing and she hugged the life out of him. Aiken ruffled her hair, “Finally, you’re not brooding as much as before. I’m glad to see you smile once in a while.”

“W-why?” Lana stopped.

“Hmm?”

“Why are you being so good to me?” She squeezed onto the bracelet. “Shouldn’t you hate me?”

Aiken smiled a little, “Sure, I can do that. Maybe I should.”

Lana winched, expecting to get berated.

“But, in the end, I think hating you just hurts me more than it hurts anyone else anyway.” Aiken shrugged, “We all make mistakes, right? So,” he put his hand out to her, “why don’t we just leave it at that and move forward?”

Lana gazed at him with teary eyes, “Y-yeah. That, sounds good,” and took his hand. She intertwined her fingers with his and walked with a genuine smile. “Hey, Aiken? I’m sorry, for everything. I hope you can really forgive me.”

“You say that now? After I made my great speech about hate and stuff?” he took a sarcastic tone.

Lana rolled scoffed and rolled her eyes, “Oh, shut up.”

Once they were done making up, Aiken made his way back to school to find Instructor Watkins. She was peering diligently at some papers, “Where the hell have you been? Don’t get cocky just ‘cause you did some brave stuff. Now fan me and rub my shoulders.”

“I only have two hands, you know?” he retorted. “Here,” he rested a bag with a couple tarts on her head.

“Are you trying to make me fat?”

“Maybe. You could do with more, backstage personnel, you know?”

She took a while to realise what he meant and turned around. “How dare you?!” She munched down on her tart. “Anywhay–”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Aiken said, setting up a constant gentle breeze magic and placing some thin sheets of ice to give them some makeshift air conditioning.

“I noticed Lana Lyons was getting chummy with you today. So, here’s a file on her family. You didn’t get that from me.” Watkins began chomping away at the tart again.

Aiken decided to uphold his end up the deal, so he grabbed a pen and paper and drew the magic diagram he used for water. “Here you go. Keep feeding me intel, and you’ll have more of those. And maybe more tarts so your butt gets nice and round.”

“Language, mister…” she poked him in the cheek.

He grabbed her hand, then ogled at it, “Wait, you’re married?!”

A glint of annoyance was pronounced in the way she glared, “I don’t like the fact that you’re shocked.” She continued working, “I’m not married. It’s just easier to turn away people if they see a ring.”

“Damn, lady. That’s cold. Say, can you tell me what’s the deal with tiers and how I can increase my tier?” he questioned.

She looked around at him yet again, and guffawed, then suddenly stopped. “Wait, you might actually be able to rank-up! There’s a contest coming up soon.”

Watkins briefed him on the contest and said she’d enter his name into it. Apparently, it was supposed to happen a few days ago, but it got postponed because of the attack on the city. So, he had just over a week to get his shit together and hope that he was fit for a rank-up in tier.

Sunset eventually came and they both went home. On the way home, he heard light footsteps and turned around to find a blade on a warpath to his neck. A thick block of ice made the person’s attack deflect off its smoothness. Aiken backstepped and trapped his feet in ice. However, a dazzling and blinding light spread forward in front of the person and blinded him for a while.

Aiken squinted in reflex and encased himself in a dome of ice. The minute he came out, ready to battle, the person was long gone.

An assassination attempt? That couldn’t be any old bandit trying to mug someone, Aiken surmised. Somewhere, somehow, someone wanted him dead. A chill ran up his spine and he scurried through the darkness of Wizzier to return home.

Had he gotten involved with forces he couldn’t see after the attack on the city? He pondered if returning home was a good idea, because he didn’t want to bring danger to the place Bryan rested his head. No matter what happened in this world, he couldn’t let Bryan get hurt. The man was a soon-to-be father.

Despite knowing how dumb it was to stay out at night, he decided to do just that. “Bryan,” he activated his communication device called orby, “something happened. I can’t risk coming home tonight. I’ll be at your office tomorrow.”

Aiken went to the city square and sat on a bench. The place was well-lit, and had a decent patrol of guards. He thought he could weather the outdoor elements, but it was much too cold, so he found an inn for the night.

He went to the fireplace to warm up a little. Those guys used fire, huh? He looked at the magical diagram floating right next to the fire and wondered just why he could see those diagrams but other people couldn’t. He was convinced he wouldn’t have survived past the attack on the city if they saw and used the diagrams that he did.

He went up to his room and committed the fire diagram to memory. He started with a little flame no bigger than a pea dancing on the tip of his index. Slowly, he increased the size until it was about as big as a human head, but decided against continuing past that point. He was indoors after all, and didn’t feel like practising fire magic outdoors after the attack was a particularly good idea.

The next morning, Aiken went straight to Bryan’s office, only to find that it was an absolute mess. “Did you have a hissy fit?”

“Aiken,” Bryan sighed, “someone broke into the office last night.”