With a sad huff, I set my empty teacup down and turned away from the window. The cafeteria used some nifty enchantments on its tableware, I particularly appreciated the one that prevented anyone from spilling anything, but bottomless drinks wasn’t one of them.

After a busy and uncomfortable morning grinding through assignments and stretching my sore mana, it was nice to just relax for a bit. The cafeteria didn’t often serve food from my homeland, so it was comforting to see the familiar breads and cured meats I’d grown up with. They’d even gotten the drinks right, I hadn’t had this particular blend in well over a decade but it tasted just as I’d remembered.

Looking over, I noticed that Miranda had finished up as well, sitting primly in her seat with her hands folded in her lap and the empty dishes pushed to one side. I smiled, it was nice that she’d enjoyed the food I’d chosen for her. I was pretty sure I’d gotten her usual favorites in addition to what I thought she might like to try, but it was good to know for sure.

“So then,” I clapped my hands together, “onto the main reason I asked you to meet with me.”

She sat up, leaning forward slightly and adjusting her dress. The style suited her, though the color was a little odd. Typically only a married mother would wear that color and cut, and Miranda was neither as far as I knew. I didn’t say anything though, I’d found she got uncomfortable when I commented on her appearance too often.

“I need to do something about Brenda. It’s not super urgent, but I’m worried about this turning into something serious. I can’t imagine her family would find me a particularly good match for their daughter and I’m also worried about attracting more negative attention than I can handle.”

Miranda took a moment to gather her thoughts, biting her lip as she clearly thought about how to respond. “That's not quite where I thought this conversation was going” she finally said, “But I think I see what you’re worried about, even if I really think you are overreacting.”

“Oh?”

“Orion, you’re really overblowing this entire situation. I know you’re a better caster than I will ever be, but there is a reason you came to me with this sort of problem. You’re uh… not very good at this stuff.”

She stopped abruptly, swallowing heavily and adjusting her dress again. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’d like to think I’ve grown past denying that my flaws exist. Continue.”

She didn’t look like she fully believed me, and honestly I couldn't judge her for it. I’d been particularly vicious towards her in the first few weeks after I’d let her go and that first impression had never really faded.

“Well, first of all, I don’t really think it's going to be as bad as you clearly think it is. You’re pretty well established as one of the best in our year and you don’t really have very many enemies left. Mistletoe was really the only one who had actual bad blood with you, and she vanished at the start of the semester.

We talked about this last time, you’re a lot scarier than you give yourself credit for. There aren’t very many students in our year or the next who are going to bother you, not now.”

I nodded slowly. She’d said something very similar when I grilled her on thursday. In her words, I’d mostly proven myself strong enough to not be worth antagonizing.

“Secondly, I don’t think the situation with her family is nearly as bad as you think it is. I’m pretty confident they won’t do anything to you, and after next year that won’t be much of an issue anyway. She’ll be gone by the time any of the students strong enough to target you directly will be allowed to do so.”

“You think she’s going to take the option to withdraw?” I asked sceptically.

“Oh absolutely. Even if she doesn’t want to, I guarantee her parents are going to pull her out. She doesn’t have the talent or the will to manage fifth circle spells, not in just the next few years. She was struggling to get third circle spells working at the very end of last year and I don’t think she’ll have much better luck now.”

That was a very good point. One of the requirements to progress to the next year at Avalon was the ability to cast that circle of spells. Since the difficulty of progressing to the next circle increased exponentially, many would never be capable of casting anything beyond the first few tiers. For that reason, Avalon had instituted a slightly more forgiving process for students to ‘get out’ instead of the usual ‘try until it kills you’ approach they used most other years.

If after your fourth year, you couldn’t manage to cast a fifth circle spell, or even if you could but didn’t want to continue for whatever other reason, students were given their one and only chance to leave peacefully. They could relinquish their Avalon membership and the tuition they had already paid and make a clean break with the Academy.

It was one of the reasons there was such a sharp drop between the number of fourth and fifth years. Somewhere between a third and a half of all remaining students ended up leaving that way. It made sense that Brenda would probably end up doing that. She definitely didn’t have what it took to cast the 8th circle spells required to graduate, meaning she would die if she didn’t leave.

Leaving had never been an option for me, so I’d never given it much thought. Only students who had paid the steep fees the Academy charged were given that option. As a ‘scholarship’ student, I was in for the long haul no matter my chances of graduation.

“I guess that does make sense, but that still leaves almost two years for something to happen.”

“Orion, think about this logically. What are you actually afraid of? You are always exceedingly careful, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you caught off guard outside a safe zone. That leaves honor duels the only real way to target you, and you’re always careful not to give anyone grounds to challenge you.

Honestly, even if you did, can you truthfully tell me you’d lose against any one student in our year?”

I opened my mouth to respond, then closed it. “Do you think I would?”

She shook her head, “Orion, I know it sounds like I’m sucking up when I say this, but you’re amazing. You can cast fourth circle spells, right?” I nodded, “Right, as I said, you’re amazing. There might be like, five or six others in our year who can do that already. Maybe. Brenda’s an annoying idiot, but no one is going to try to attack you because she pissed them off.”

I was still unconvinced, but she had a point. I’d apparently had an overinflated estimate of how skilled my classmates were. Was it really that strange that I might have overestimated the threat as well?

“Ok, let's say you’re right. That still leaves me with the question, what should I do?”

“Well, who says you need to do anything at all?”

“What?”

“I mean, just continue on as is. You can reciprocate her advances if you want, or just continue to mostly ignore her. She might be useless, but even a tangential connection to her family could help you over the years. She seems pretty into you, but I doubt she’s going to really do anything unless you take the initiative.”

“You think it will be that easy?”

She shrugged, “I don’t really see why not. Your main goal for these next few years should be securing your position and consolidating your gains. From everything we’ve discussed over the years, your main weakness is recourcess. Avalon gives students a lot of materials, but you're going to eventually need things that won’t be provided to you. There’s a few simple ways to manage that, but I doubt you're going to go for any of them.”

“Why’s that?”

“You’re too independent. You’re skilled enough that quite a few people would be willing to sponsor you, but you’d never accept the conditions they would require.”

“Oh. Yeah…” she was right about that. I knew I was something of a control freak, but I just couldn’t see it as enough of a problem to need dealing with. I was just being cautious.

“Anyway, that means you’re going to need to earn money and make connections. I can help you with the latter, but I’m not really sure what to do about money.” She smiled ruefully, “My plan was always to find a rich husband to take care of me.”

“You know, that's not a half bad idea.”

Her eyes widened slightly and she pulled back in her seat. “Please Orion.”

“Oh you know I like you too much to pimp you out… not yet anyway.”

That clearly didn’t reassure her, but she relaxed slightly nonetheless.

“In any case, I’ll take that all into consideration. I have some things to do later, so feel free to run along.”

She stood up at the clear dismissal, brushing out the hem of her long skirt, and turned to leave.

“Oh and Miranda. Remember where exactly you stand, hmm?”

She nodded sharply. “Yes Sir.”

“Very good.”

She didn’t run, it would have been impossible in her current attire and an obvious sign of weakness regardless. She simply walked away very quickly, the sound of her heels vanishing into the general hubbub of the cafeteria.

I watched her go with a conflicted expression on my face. She was troublesome, but still too useful to lose. It would be a shame when I had to liquidate her. Two years, yes, she probably had at least two more years. After that? I’d have to wait and see.

I picked up my empty teacup and leaned back in my chair, letting my gaze drift out towards the distant lakeside. Mother once had a dress just like that. The fabric had been different, we hadn’t spent our money on the fine silks Miranda preferred, but it had been the same cut and color. It was gone now, burned away just like everything else.

It would be such a shame.

Yvonne Guillaume Marc Pierr –‘just call me Liam’–groaned weakly into his pillow. He hadn’t felt this terrible since he and his brothers had snuck into the family wine cellar when he was a boy.

With another groan, he levered himself into a somewhat upright position and leaned back against the wall. The hard stone was pleasantly cool against his bare skin but his head was spinning from the movement. It felt a lot like the end of his fifth year, when the backlash from a failed spellcast had nearly shattered the mana channels in his soul.

Oh! That was it. Slumping back down onto his sweat soaked pillows, he closed his eyes and called out, “Three, get me. The red bottle. From the cabinet. And some water.” His voice was weak, but he was confident in his work. He heard the creak of hinges as the cabinet opened, then quiet footsteps approached his bed. Glass clinked as two containers were set down on the bedside table.

With a pained gasp, he pushed himself onto his side, bracing with his elbow as he reached out for the small glass vial. The enchanted cork came out with an easy flick of his thumb and he threw back the entire thing in one disgusting swallow. It burned going down, like acid eating into his tongue and throat.

The feeling didn’t stop when it reached his stomach, simply spreading out to fill his entire chest with the painful sensation. The vial dropped from limp fingers, rolling off the bed and clattering to the floor.

Despite the burning, Liam sighed in contentment as the worst of the pain receded in an instant. He grasped blindly for the cup and downed it in three big gulps, spilling most of it onto his already soaked sheets.

“Fuck I forgot how much that hurts.”

Sitting up, he set the empty glass down on the table and looked sadly down at the cracked vial. That was going to be expensive and time consuming to replace. “Three, remind me I need to brew up another batch of soulsooth elixir. And clean this up.”

The construct moved silently to obey, the spectral figure floating down from beside his bed to sweep up the bits of broken glass. It was his greatest creation, a seventh circle spell that could create near-permanent, semi-sentient constructs to act as servants or fight to protect their summoner.

It had been a ruinously expensive project and one he hoped to keep secret for as long as possible. After all, the most impressive part of the spellwork was that the constructs were utterly invisible to everyone but the caster, able to deceive even sophisticated wards and sensory magics. Servants like that weren’t particularly useful if everyone knew you had them after all.

Taking a deep breath, he peaked at his mana. It was in a much better state than it had been when he’d woken up, but there were still some irregularities and damage. He made a mental note to avoid casting any particularly demanding spells in the next few days. Fortunately, he didn’t have anything important coming up.

A careless flick of his wrist cleaned the sweat and grime from his skin. Two floated up beside him just in time to receive the clothing he’d been too out of it to remove the day before. It was a much more limited version of the construct, but still good for basic tasks.

“So what's on the agenda today?”

Text appeared on the board over his desk, laying out the work he’d planned for the day. He frowned slightly at the top point, ‘Finish Mass Animate’. It was underlined three times and written in larger letters than the rest of the tasks. If only it was that easy. What else was there…

He groaned as he got to the final point. Right, he still had to finish twenty more doses of haste elixir. It was a notoriously tricky potion, requiring both excellent brewing skill and the ability to cast the fifth circle version of the spell flawlessly. He’d found a reliable buyer for the stuff back in his fifth year, and it had been how he funded his work ever since.

Unfortunately, that meant that he’d gotten positively sick of making the stuff. Sixty doses a month meant a full day of work that he usually split up into three irritating sessions. Despite his experience with it, he still couldn’t relax while making it. Any lapse in concentration could mean a failed batch, and the ingredients were expensive enough on their own. Added with the risk of potential spell backlash, though that wasn’t nearly as likely to kill him now as it had been when he’d been a fifth year, it made the entire experience dreadfully dull yet stressful.

Well, he would start with that then. He definitely felt up for it. A moment of effort confirmed that he could still cast the spell even with his currently strained mana pool, and he smiled as he felt the effect settle over him like a warm blanket.

Crossing the room in a blur, he layed out the ingredients and equipment he needed on his workbench, easily weaving around the ethereal form of Three as it went about changing his sheets and making his bed. Taking a seat, he let the effects of the spell fade, heart pounding in his chest and face flushed with exhilaration.

Even after three years, he couldn’t get over how amazing the spell was. It made him feel superhuman in a way that few other spells could match. Unfortunately, it didn’t really help with spellcasting speed, affecting only the physical movement of the user. It was also a little bit too finicky to use when doing something as delicate as this.

A pulse of mana activated the heating array and he set the small crystal cauldron he’d found worked best into the center of the circle. One batch now, breakfast, then the other three he decided. He wondered how Orion was doing. The effect of the mana strain shouldn’t have been as bad for the boy as it had been for him, his smaller pool would have protected him from the worst of the side effects, but he couldn’t imagine it was particularly pleasant either way.