Chapter XIII

The first day of classes completed, Kizu fell on his bed and slept. But only for about an hour. Mort woke him up by pulling on his earring.

“Stop that,” Kizu complained. “You’ll get it infected.”

Mort didn’t seem very concerned about the idea. Instead he climbed up on Kizu’s head and waited. Finally, Kizu sat up with a sigh and left his dorm behind.

In the common room, a few other third years were gathered. They seemed to be playing some sort of card game. Whenever one of them set down a card, a different card would leap into green flames. Kizu noticed the boy he had punched and moved to hurry past.

“Kizu!” someone said from the group. He looked back and saw Gregor, the drummer from Music F. All eyes turned to look at him. He felt Mort fidget on his head.

“The witch boy,” one of the boys said. “Heard you were a slimy creature that came out of a bog and consumed the body of the boy you now inhabit.”

“I heard that monkey of yours has your soul trapped in a jar,” another interjected. “And that your body is just a flesh sack he puppets around.”

Kizu kept walking, leaving their laughter behind him.

The cafeteria was almost empty. By the time he arrived most people had retired for the night. Only a few stragglers still ate desserts and snacks. Several of them studied with their food set to the side looking entirely forgotten.

After he and Mort ate, he decided to follow their example. The two of them made their way to the library. This time though, Mort jumped into the satchel before they entered.

“Pardon me,” he said to the librarian. She was the same girl as the day before. He held out the student directory to her. “I wanted to return this.”

She took it and asked if he needed help finding anything else.

“Actually, is there a divination section I can look through?”

“Back left corner. It stretches from the floor up to about seven meters. Anything specific you’re looking for?”

“No, just browsing. How late is the library open until?”

“Usually we close up everything around midnight. However, the schedule switches during the last week of every semester so students can study all night. But that’s no time soon.”

He thanked her and went to where she directed him.

There were easily hundreds of books on the topic of divination. Several of the books were written in different languages, so he was able to eliminate them from his search. No point in checking out a book he wouldn’t be able to read. It took him a while before he decided on, Detecting and Determining, a Guide to Location Divination. The librarian checked it out to him with no issue. She tried to pull him into small talk about the library’s history, but Kizu deftly managed to excuse himself before she drew him in too deep.

Once in his room again, he spent the night working on his light reading while Mort explored and made himself at home in the chamber. While Basil’s clutter in the room made moving around difficult for Kizu, as he tripped and hopped around objects, it created a paradise for Mort. The monkey grabbed random rags and strips of cloth and worked on making himself a nice little bed in the corner above Kizu’s.

The book informed him of different methods in which someone might contact or find an individual far off, but several of the simplest methods involved complicated summoning circles and chalk made with specific ingredients. The crone never used those sorts of tools. He wished he still had her wooden bowl. She’d taught him how to read the near future with it, but he knew it could scry the present too. The crone often used it to spy on other witches in the basin. But she never taught him any of that. Probably worried about him attempting to contact family, she’d withheld any divination information on how to reach out long distances or watch someone.

He wondered if there was a shop in town where he could buy the necessary tools, but then realized he didn’t have any money to spend. He was completely at the academy’s mercy for his needs. Still, he resolved to explore the town and locate a shop in the next few days.

When morning came, he managed to get another couple hours of sleep before he had to drag himself off to History F. Somehow, he managed to keep his eyes open in the class. He didn’t do the homework, but at least he wasn’t alone. Half the class didn’t bother with it.

Professor Krimpit droned on about a treaty passed that supposedly shifted the balance of the world hundreds of years ago and deposed a monarch. Kizu barely listened, trying everything in his power to keep himself from nodding off. Krimpit had already kicked two other bored students out of the class for tossing a tiny fireball between each other under their desks. Krimpit hadn’t even looked up from his chalkboard as he ordered them out. Kizu wondered how he had noticed. He must have some level of magical detection. Either that, or he just heard some noise that Kizu hadn’t.

He scanned the lecture hall, looking for more familiar faces. He stopped and stared. Directly behind him, Sene sat with a piece of parchment on her desk. She seemed to be folding it into a hat.

Krimpit still kept his back to them as he wrote on the chalkboard. Kizu took advantage of that and slipped into the seat beside Sene.

“Sene?” he asked.

“Nope,” she said, not looking up from her folded parchment. “Try again.”

“Ione?”

“Ding, ding. Congratulations.” She handed him the parchment hat. “Here’s your reward. What will you do next?”

“So, you’re not the Sene in my brewing class?”

“I am neither Sene, nor am I in your brewing class. Well done. Have you considered pursuing a career as a detective?”

“Well, at the very least, you’re a lot more talkative than Sene.”

“Low bar.”

“Is she your sister?” he guessed.

“Unfortunately. Twin. A curse set on me on birth.”

“Ah, well, I’m Kaga Kizu.”

“I know, I asked your pal about you yesterday after you stormed out of class. Absolutely hilarious by the way. And you’re in my Music F and Elemental F classes. And next semester we’ll have Politics F, Rejuvenation and Restoration F, and Alchemy F together.”

“Why do you know all of this?”

“Trying to keep track of my competition. Thankfully, I still maintain and defend my position as the academy’s worst student. But only by a thread.”

“You two,” Professor Krimpit said. Disdain dripped from his words. “Do you believe the class to be a deaf as they are dumb? Remove yourselves immediately.”

Ione stood and slung her bag over a shoulder. She walked from the class without a second glance. Harvey passed him his bag with a grin and a thumbs up as Kizu followed after Ione.

He was surprised to find that she waited for him in the hallway.

“Aren’t you worried you’ll be kicked out of the academy?” he asked.

She barked a short, humorless, laugh. “Nope. That’s not how the university works. You can be demoted, sure, but there’s nothing under F classes. So long as ma and pop keep forking over the bills, I’ll be here.”

“And after the academy?”

She waved a hand, batting the idea from her. “Not my problem right now. I bet we’ll all be dead by then anyway. And my parents taught me not to invest in uncertainties.”

They sat down on a bench in a nearby courtyard.

“So you just plan to fail every class?”

“Hardly. I’m only failing eleven out of the twelve, not including combat.”

“Any chance the one you’re not you actually happen to be the best at divination in the academy?” he asked with very little hope.

“Wrong sister. You need to ask Sene for divination help. She’s the top student in every subject with the exception of one.”

He sighed. Somehow he doubted Sene would be willing to help him out. “So what can you do? Fight?”

“I know how to make others fight for me,” she corrected. “Delegation. Life is incredibly easy if you know how to conjure someone else to solve your every problem.”

That peaked his interest. “Could you conjure anything or anyone? Anytime?”

“Depends,” she said suspiciously. “What do you want and when?”

“My sister,” he said without reservation. “Could you summon her here?”

“Dead?”

“What?”

“Most people who ask me to conjure someone, it’s a dead gal.”

“No. Just estranged from my family. Not dead as far as I know.”

“Well it doesn't matter either way. I can’t conjure a person who actually lived. Some divination touches on talking to spirits, but I don’t do anything like that. I could conjure anything nonmagical easily enough.” She kicked the dirt a few times. In a moment, a small puppy appeared inside a perfect summoning circle. It yipped at them and wagged its tail.

Kizu reached down and picked it up. It squirmed in his arms as it attempted to lick his face.

“Amazing,” he said. “Where did it come from?”

She shrugged. “Nowhere. It came from what I believe a puppy should be. As far as any researchers have figured out, you conjure up the idea in your mind. It only exists in the moment right before us. When I dismiss her, she’ll pop out of existence forever. Or at least, until I summon her again.”

“Could I summon her too? Would she be the same dog if I copied what you did exactly?”

“Only as much as Sene and I are the same.”

Even so, he decided to try it. He set the puppy down and knelt in the ground and drew in the dirt, copying Ione’s markings as exactly as he could. He pressed a finger to it and tried to summon forth an exact replica of the dog in front of him. He felt the magic channel into the design on the ground.

A dark brown blob of flesh heaved itself from the dirt. It panted heavily out of the three orifices on its back and dragged itself around by the single limb that stuck out from its stomach area. It moaned, teeth rattling.

“Wow. Very pretty.”

“I’ve never done this before,” he said. He staggered to his feet. The conjuring left him feeling light headed. “Um, how do I dismiss it?”

“Depends on what you’ve got and your strength to control it. It will probably fade on its own.”

Even as she said the words, the monstrosity started evaporating.

He looked away from it, not wanting to meet its eye as it faded away. His first conjured creation, and it was a mangled creature.

“Next time,” Ione advised. “Try starting off conjuring a nonliving thing. Might be a tad more successful.”

The bell rang overhead, saving him from any further conversation. As he left though, he noticed humor glinting in Ione’s eyes.

When he reached the training courtyard for combat, lined up beside Evie. He expected to go back into shield work immediately. But Arclight just laughed at them and sent them all to run laps. He actually enjoyed the activity. It was menial and simple, just running in circles. But rewarding in its own right. Though he wished the uniforms were designed with more airflow in mind. He was covered in sweat after just a single lap.

The other students panted and flailed their arms around as they ran, looking extremely silly. By the end of class, they all were scattered in the dirt, collapsed from the overuse of exercise.

Back when he had lived with the crone, she had an acquaintance who had been some sort of necromancer. As the students lay in the dirt groaning, they reminded him of the old necromancer’s zombies as they moaned on the ground.

Arclight laughed at them all as the bell rang and said she looked forward to seeing everyone again in two days.

This time at lunch, he ate alone, reading through the divination book a bit more. He tried sketching out some of the ritual patterns, but they were uniquely structured. The conjuring one he’d attempted earlier in the day had been easy in comparison. It, at least, had been contained within a simple circle. The divination ritual’s pattern sprawled out of the page, stretching out in seemingly random directions. Eventually, he shoved it aside and just glared at his sketches.

“What’s up?” Harvey asked, plopping down in the seat next to him. He passed him a piece of parchment. “Here’s the homework assignment you missed again.”

Kizu glanced it over and sighed. What a pain.

“Thanks,” he said.

“You definitely work fast,” Harvey said. “How do you do it?”

“Do what? Fail my classes?” Kizu asked.

“Not classes, girls. Day two and you’re already running out of class with one. What’s your strategy?”

Kizu stared at him blankly. “I talk to them?”

“But like, I never even told you that she was the girl that asked me about you yesterday. How did you know when you approached her?”

“I didn’t. I just wanted to ask her about something.”

He scratched his straw colored hair. “I don’t get it. You didn’t even have a conversation starter. You left your monkey in your dorm again.”

“I have no idea what you want me to tell you,” Kizu said completely honestly.

“Can you teach me?”

“Harvey. I was raised for the last ten years by an old crone in the woods. My time was spent doing chores and helping brew potions. I never once saw someone my own age during that time, let alone girls. I have zero experience with what you’re asking me for.”

Harvey’s brow furrowed. Then his eyes widened. “You used a love potion?! No way? Can you share some with me? Just a tiny bit is all. A few drops. Just enough to help me catch someone’s attention.”

Kizu rolled his eyes and went back to his book.