Orenda was still stewing over Quiroris’s stupidity when she returned home, and as she certainly didn’t want to be around him, she made her way as quickly as she could to the library. The school was decorated with posters announcing the upcoming graduation ceremony, and this grated on her already frayed nerves. This was not an exciting prospect for her, not the way it was for the other students. She had flown through her exams, written, oral, and practical, she suspected largely because no one really knew how to grade her. She had the theory and her practical subjects down, but on the topic of fire magic, it seemed that she was much more knowledgeable than any of the instructors.

Her high marks meant nothing, because they were given from a position of ignorance.

Her research had, at the very least, been valuable to the cause, but she didn’t know how much more she could learn, or how much more she could help. She was in a terrible position of one who had many skills, but no use to which to put them.

Her mood was not improved by the gaggle of people in the research room who were not studying, but standing around squawking in a way that set up a flare of emotion that she had to actively work to repress. Kassie, Tiala, and Voron were standing in the research room, huddled around the door that had been sealed and protected with magical wards, talking loudly as if they weren’t at all concerned with being found out.

She had hoped that they had not noticed her, and made to leave, but fate was determined to make her miserable, and she heard Kassie shouting her name in the annoying manner that was her custom.

“Rendy!” She shouted, “I’m so glad to see you! You could be just what we need!”

“I regret it before I speak,” Orenda admitted, “But what are you doing?”

“We’re trying to break these wards,” Voron explained, “There is a tradition among the senior students of sneaking into this room to perform divination magic- to see our futures.”

“Divination is a waste of time,” Orenda said matter-of-factly, “The future is vast and unknowable.”

“It’s a tradition,” he argued.

“And it could be… useful,” Tiala explained, “But these wards are so strong… if we try to break them, the headmaster will know.”

Orenda let her eyes unfocus and concentrated on the world beyond sight, on the pulsating green energy flowing through the wood and over the door. It was a strong magic, and it pulsed like the fire in Quiroris’s heart. She saw that it flowed from the bottom up, like a lot of earth magic, and if she burned it away at the roots, she believed she could break it fairly easily. But she was, understandably, still worried about setting a fire in a library.

“Fire magic is strong against earth magic!” Kassie shouted, “You could do it, Rendy, we know you could!”

“I could,” Orenda agreed, “But I do not believe divination to be a real thing. There’s no point. Besides, Felaern says that something was loosed in that room once, and that he’s trying to contain it. It may not be safe.” She felt her face heating as she admitted, “Besides I… wouldn’t like to light a fire in a library. This place is made of kindling.”

“Well,” Tiala considered, “It… it is true that fire magic is strong against earth magic, but… nothing is cut and dry. The more one looks at it… there are certain kinds of earth magic that have been successfully used against fire mages. I mean… one does throw dirt on a campfire to put it out. If… if the three of us cast a sort of… null zone, a shield around your spell, to keep it pushed back, and you work very hard to control it… I don’t think there’s any danger of it getting out of hand. Would you do it then?”

“You can’t cast an earth shield in the library,” Orenda said, “There is no earth.”

“Not a shield, but like a… we can just push back,” Tiala explained, “with our own wards, so we can snuff it out if we have to.”

“That’s so much magic,” Orenda said, “Felaern will know we cast it.”

“I never knew you to be so frightened of the headmaster,” Voron said as if the prospect concerned him.

“You realize how flammable you are?” Orenda asked him and he took a step back. “It isn’t a matter of fear. I just don’t think he was lying, because he has no reason to. We don’t know what he’s trying to contain.”

“I know,” Tiala said, so quietly as to be barely audible, “My father was one of the mages who... accidentally opened the portal.”

“What portal?” Orenda asked.

“Haven’t you heard the story?” Kassie asked in her perpetual excitement, “A long time ago, when the school first opened, a group of students, just before graduation, went into the storage room, and attempted to summon Morgani Magnus.”

“Why?” Orenda asked. She had heard as much, and had always wondered why anyone would want a demon in the same place where they were going to work and live.

“Because he has powers,” Voron explained, “He was born of Thesis after all. He didn’t have all his power stripped. The legends say that he still walks Xren, that he split the elves and knows how we can all reunite as one people again, as the high elves were when Thesis first made them, whole and perfect.”

“I’ve read the holy texts,” Orenda argued, “I don’t believe that there is the slightest indication that he would know that, or that it would be something that a group of inexperienced mages could do even if he did. That would be powerful, advanced magic that would change the very nature of elvenkind. It’s some… peace and love, singing around a campfire, we’re all the same, born of mother xren… nonsense.”

“They weren’t students,” Tiala said, “They were faculty. They were experienced mages.”

“High elves shared a psychic connection,” Voron argued, “we aren’t meant to be this way. We are meant to be one people.”

“Well, I’m not here to argue philosophy,” Kassie said as if the subject didn’t interest her, “But I do know that he’s supposed to have powers! And people say that you can use them to do the kind of magic that would normally tear a body apart, things like casting outside your element, divination, mind reading-”

“Speaking to the dead,” Voron cut in. “Demons have ties to the afterlife, Rendy. If we summon Magnus, we can speak to the dead.”

“Oh,” Orenda’s face fell as she considered this, “Oh, I… I see. You should have led with that. Do you… suppose the dead wish to be disturbed?”

“He was my best friend, Orenda,” Voron leaned heavily on his staff, “He told me stuff he-” he cut himself off and looked to the other two women, then back to Orenda, “He told me stuff he didn’t tell many people. He told me about the girls he really liked.”

“Yes,” Orenda said, trying to say one thing and mean another, “I understand his lover was nearly driven mad by… everything.”

She studied the door.

“You all cast an earth ward around me,” She said, “All of you. A strong one. I will not burn down a library.”

“Yay!” Kassie clapped then held her staff in both hands.

Orenda focused on the energy in front of her, flowing up from the ground, and pretended that she could not hear the screams, could not feel the fires of five hearts extinguishing, could not smell the scent of burning paper and burning flesh, could not feel the absence of the closest thing to a real home she had ever known. Her body shook as the flame ate away at the magic at its source, as the fire spread to encompass the boards that had been nailed over the door, burning away the physical barrier as well- and nothing else. Her control had gotten so much better; every time it had gotten a little easier, and now it was like breathing.

Orenda stepped forward, reached into the flames, and turned the handle. It was locked.

“I’ve got it,” Voron said, “pull back, pull the fire down under the knob.”

Orenda stepped back, keeping the fire only as strong as necessary to prevent Quiroris’s spell from popping back up, a small flame along the bottom of the door. She watched as Voron grabbed the handle and closed his eyes. She did not see the metal within the lock move to his whims, but she heard it clicking into place before he was able to turn the knob, and the door swung open.

“Everybody inside!” Kassie squealed, “You go last, Rendy, then let the wards spring back up!” She ran forward, hopped over the low flame, and waved for them to follow her. Voron hopped over next, then Tiala. Finally, Orenda stepped over the threshold, extinguished her flame, which had not caught a single page aflame, and watched the magical ward spring back to life. She looked down at the charred ashes of the boards on the floor and knew that any reasonable person would know someone was inside the room.

Then she shut the door, and locked it from the inside.