Judging from how quickly she opened the door for me when I knocked, I had a feeling that Lea had been waiting by the door for me to arrive. It was later in the evening than I had planned, the first stars already shining in the evening sky, but I’d had a rather busy day and I’d headed over the moment I was finally free.

I didn’t even have a chance to step inside before she was on me, her hands slipping under the rough leather of my overcoat and wrapping tightly around my chest. I stumbled slightly as she leaned almost her entire weight against me and did my best to awkwardly hug her back. I still wasn’t used to this sort of contact and it took some effort to suppress the reflexive force spike I’d trained myself to cast if someone tried to grapple me, but the minor discomfort was a small price to pay for the relieved smile on her face.

“Good evening Lea,” I said quietly as I maneuvered the two of us through the half-open door. “Sorry about the time, I had a lot to do.”

“That's alright. I’m just glad you’re ok. I… when you weren’t here for dinner, I got worried.” She paused, clearly wanting to say something more but choosing not to. “Are you hungry? Erwin made extra, or I can whip something up. They’ve already gone to bed, it might be a weekend for me, but they have to be up early. Maybe some tea? I can put a kettle on, it will only take a few minutes.”

“I already had dinner, but some tea would be lovely.”

She held me tightly for another moment, then slowly untangled herself and moved deeper into the shop. I watched her disappear behind the counter, then turned to close and bolt the door. Sliding the small bar into place, I frowned slightly in annoyance. It was a very basic sort of protection, enough to stop cursory attempts to get in and nothing more. No determined attacker, even a mundane one, would be deterred or delayed by something like this. I’d already been concerned by the lack of protections on Lea’s home, but this was just unacceptable.

Digging through my pockets, I clicked my tongue in annoyance when I realized I didn’t have any proper raw materials on hand. I had the few items that I kept with me at all times, a few potions, my seeking collars, an enchanted knife, and a few other small odds and ends, but none of the transmutation materials I typically carried with me in my school bag.

Still, that wasn’t too much of an obstacle. I would just work with what was on hand. Hopefully Lea’s uncles wouldn’t mind, though I would do my best to keep things visually similar to how it was before.

I started with the bar itself, there was no point reworking the mechanism if the block itself could be sliced through with hardly any effort. Setting aside a small sample of the original wood, I transmuted and reshaped the rest of it into a medium sized stone cube. I then split the cube into three pieces. One was quickly reformed into a long spiral of titanium, that would form a more durable core for the new retaining bar. The next part was somewhat tricky, I needed the bar to be the same size but I had transformed a lot of it into a much denser material, so I would have to adjust accordingly.

A honeycomb-like structure began to form around the titanium spiral, the added air allowing me to use a more durable material than wood. It took a few minutes to finish, I didn’t have much practice with this sort of delicate work, but I’d done enough theoretical spell modification that it wasn’t too difficult. Still, something to practice more later.

With that done, the last part was almost trivial. A thin layer of wood, barely a few millimeters at the thickest spots, formed over the bar. Typically transmuting wood was rather complicated, but with a sample of exactly what I wanted on hand, it was only modestly tricky. Moments later I was left holding a bar that was visually identical to what it had been before, but that would fare much better against brute force or something like a saw. Now, what else could I do in the time it took a kettle to boil…

Lea returned just as I was finishing up melding the inefficient screws that held the locking mechanism in place directly into the now steel-cored wood of the door. She looked quizzically at what I was doing, but didn’t seem to spot any differences in the dim light shining through the nearby window, so simply handed me my steaming mug as she took a sip from her own drink.

“Thanks,” I said, enjoying the strong, smokey flavor of the drink. It wasn’t exactly to my tastes, but still rather pleasant. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting for too long?”

“Um, not too long, no. It was no trouble.”

“Sorry, I got caught up in some things. It's been a busy two days.”

“In a good way, I hope?”

I tilted my head to the side in consideration. “Something like that. Nothing to worry about.”

She started telling me a bit about her day and how her classes had gone as she led me up to her room, casting a minor silencing spell before we went up the stairs to make sure we didn’t disturb her guardians. Watching her cast was… informative. She was rather slow, and though I wasn’t familiar with the particular spell she was using, the spellforms looked somewhat… shoddy. It got the job done at least, but that didn’t stop me from keeping my magic ready to mitigate the worst of the backlash if she managed to screw something so basic up.

It was a slightly sobering experience and only reinforced my fears and desire to clean up her magical education. I’d thought that with six years of training, even if at a not particularly good school, would be enough to ensure she could at least protect herself, but I was quickly starting to reconsider that assumption.

As we stepped into her room, I offhandedly asked, “So I was wondering, what sort of combat magic have you learned? I’ve heard that Lightcastle specializes in all sorts of light magic and there’s some nifty spells you can pull off with that spellform. Smite is a low-circle classic of course, but I know you can manage some impressive beam-style–”

I was interrupted when she mumbled something without looking at me. I couldn’t quite make out what she’d said, but it sounded like… No, that couldn’t be right. “What was that?”

“I said I don’t know any,” she repeated to my horror. “That sort of magic is restricted, you need the appropriate permits to sign up for those classes, and it's really hard for merchant students to get those.”

What. The. Fuck. That was… What? I could barely imagine learning magic without combat spells. Gods above, more than half of my first year classes had at least discussed the topic and you wouldn’t survive past the first two months if you couldn’t defend yourself. What then were they teaching their students?

I must have said something out loud, or maybe she had just seen the incredulous expression on my face, because she crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at me. “I know plenty of other magic and I can defend myself just fine without it. When would I need to know that sort of thing anyway?”

I blinked, unable to quite grasp what she was saying. She blushed and looked away. “It’s not like a shield and a fancy light show would have helped me…” she stumbled over her words for a moment, “Would have helped me anyway. There were six of them, and that sort of thing isn’t supposed to happen!”

“That’s stupid,” I said sharply, “You should know better than to spoute that sort of drivel after everything that’s happened to you. I don’t care what sort of self defense you think you know, it's always better to be over prepared than dead.”

“Oh, and you’re so much better than me?” she asked. “You said it yourself, I’ve been studying magic for longer than you have. Why would you know better? We’re in the capitol, there are guards and soldiers everywhere! There’s no reason I should ever need that sort of magic anyway.”

I silently stared at her, unable to quite accept what she was saying. I thought back, trying to remember how she’d been as a child. She was worried about something, I decided after a moment, but she didn’t want to say anything so she was being petulent about something else stupid.

“This isn’t an argument we are going to have,” I stated firmly. “When we have time, I’m going to teach you some basic combat spells and help you clean up your foundations. I don’t know what they’re teaching you at that school of yours, but they’re clearly not doing a very good job.” She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it as I continued on regardless. “Now, what’s actually bothering you?”

“What?”

I raised an eyebrow and stared at her silently.

She sat down on her bed, folding her hands in her lap and stared at the wall several inches to the side of my face. “I’m worried about you.” What? “We’ve been talking all about me, but… you’ve changed a lot. And, I… I heard some worrying things today at school. And when you didn’t come to dinner… Um, you said last time that you’re here for the portal, right?”

“Yes?”

“Well, the government has been telling everyone that it's like… a trade thing. Everyone was encouraged to set up shops and stalls in the surrounding squares and merchants and people like you were coming in from far away and stuff, but… well the headmaster told us what’s actually going on.”

I was having some trouble understanding where she was going. Had she figured out that I was an Avalon student? I had been meaning to tell her in private and it just hadn’t come up yet, but that didn’t seem right. What was she…

“It’s actually a portal to some terrifying school filled with horrible monsters!” she exclaimed, “The headmaster warned us to avoid interacting with them as much as possible and I read some stories about that place. Avalon, it’s called, and they do all sorts of terrible stuff there. It’s a deathtrap where the students are all encouraged to kill each other and they have duels to the death and the professors are all evil sadists and…”

She finally looked over and probably noticed the exasperation I hadn’t managed to fully hide on my face. “I’m serious! Be careful Orion, those are dangerous people! Just… stick to the other merchants and don’t trade or whatever with those psychos. I’ve been living here for years now, I’m sure I can help you find whatever it is you are looking for. Better yet, just… you said you were studying somewhere abroad, right? Just try to transfer to Lightcastle and we can be together again and–”

I crossed the room in two long steps and sat down beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. This wasn’t exactly how I’d been hoping to tell her and it was… annoying that she’d heard so many negative rumors, even if they were probably pretty accurate, but there was no helping it.

“Lea,” I said quietly, “I’m not here for anything the portal can provide. I’m here because the portal is here.”

It took her a moment to parse what I was saying, but when she did her eyes widened and she turned to look me in the eyes. “You mean… you’re…”

I nodded. “Yeah. It’s… not as bad as you make it out to be, but well… it's not a very safe learning environment, that's for sure.”

She half cringed away from me, and though she didn’t push the arm holding her away, it still sent a spike of pain shooting through my chest. “The headmaster said that we should… stay away from you. That you’re dangerous and evil and that we should never be alone or go anywhere with any of you.”

“That's… probably good advice, actually. He was a student there a long time ago so he knows what he’s talking about. A lot of my classmates are not very nice people and wouldn’t think twice about hurting you.”

“But not you?”

“I would never hurt you Lea. Never.” I tried to sound as sincere as I could, but I wasn’t sure how well I’d managed. After a moment, I decided to default to one of the strategies fiction had taught me over the years. Humor could often beneficially lessen the tension during stressful conversations. “Not unless you’re into that sort of thing, I don’t judge.”

For once, it seemed to have worked, because Lea burst out laughing and buried her face in my chest. I’d forgotten how much she liked doing that, though back home her mother and my father had been the targets of her ‘affection’ more often than I had been. Apparently my skinny frame hadn’t been as ‘warm and huggable’ as my much more muscular father.

“Tell me about it?” she asked, rolling onto her back with her head nestled in my lap.

“Of course. What would you like to know?”