As it turned out, when Delph wasn’t picking something up. It was someone. Nolan and Loretta were waiting at the plateau beside Damien’s room when he and Delph returned.

“Ah, right on time,” Delph said. “Good.”

“You told us to get here an hour ago,” Nolan said.

“As I said,” Delph said with a sage nod. “Right on time.”

“So what are we doing?” Loretta asked, glancing at Damien. “Is Damien helping?”

“He’s already gotten his training, from the looks of it,” Nolan said with a chuckle. “Where are we going though, Delph?”

“So impatient,” Delph said, pursing his lips. “We’ll get there when we get there.”

“You’re normally supposed to say that after we actually start going to the place in question,” Nolan observed.

Delph rolled his eyes and swept his hand down in a cutting motion. A thin gray line trailed behind his fingertips, stretching open to form into a ragged portal. The professor dropped into an exaggerated bow and gestures for them to enter it.

“Then I apologize, great princes. Please, enter.”

“I’m a woman,” Loretta pointed out. “Wouldn’t that make me a princess?”

“You‘ll be whatever I tell you to be,” Delph growled. “Get in the portal, you little goblins.”

Damien chuckled and stepped through the gray light.

The world shifted and his foot hit grass. Faint sunlight trickled down from between the canopy above, warming his skin as a breeze brushed past him.

Damien moved out of the way so he wouldn’t get in the way as Nolan and Loretta followed after him.

Delph walked through the portal and it snapped shut behind him. The professor harrumphed and brushed past them, heading down a beaten path in the grass.

“Quickly now. I don’t have all day,” Delph grumbled.

“Wait,” Damien said, memories resurfacing as a cabin came into view. The roof had been patched somewhat recently, judging by the newer wood near its front. “This isn’t yours.”

“Is it not?” Delph asked, not stopping. “Oops.”

He strode up to the door and, before he could knock, it swung open.

“Have you been here before?” Nolan whispered to Damien.

“Yeah,” Damien said. “This is-”

“My house,” Mel finished, her arms crossed as she walked out from behind the doorframe. “There are more children here, Delph. Why do you keep bringing them? I agreed to help with one or two, not four.”

“Numbers have never been my strong suite.”

“Not much has been,” Mel said with a sigh. “Well, you’re here now. Come in.”

They obliged. Once they were all inside, Mel shook her head.

“Sylph is still practicing with Havel. Not only are you bringing extras, you’re also early.”

“Damien finished his practice early,” Delph said with a shrug. “It’s not my fault he ran out of energy so quickly.”

“You ran out of energy?” Loretta asked, raising her eyebrows. “What were you doing?”

“Getting chased around Blackmist,” Damien replied. “Delph is a psychopath. I don’t know how he didn’t accidentally hit a bystander.”

“Thank you,” Delph said.

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“Enough,” Mel said. “Delph, what do you want me to teach the kids? I can tell that Damien is completely out of Ether, and Sylph has her own training that she needs to follow. What do you want me to teach the others?”

“How to fight,” Delph replied. “I’d do it myself, but I am finding myself rather preoccupied as of the last few months. Of course, I’d be happy to swap. You could deal with the Corruption, and I could teach.”

He sounded almost hopeful. Mel snorted. “Keep dreaming. Leaving my house for that long sounds miserable. You can keep all your camping and spending weeks without a shower to yourself,” Mel said. “Now get out of here. Come get them in a week.”

“Wait, a week?” Nolan asked. “I’ve got classes to keep up with. I know Damien and Sylph kind of have excuses, but I can’t skip.”

“Aren’t you a noble?” Mel asked, cocking an eyebrow. “If I recall correctly, you’re House Gray. Nobles always have excuses.”

“I am no longer in the running for Heir. My privileges have been… somewhat reduced,” Nolan replied. “If I don’t do well in school, I won’t have a future.”

“I’ll handle the teachers,” Delph said. “This is a special training exercise. They’ll understand.”

“Are you sure?” Nolan asked, eyeing Delph carefully. “I’m serious, Delph. I can’t afford to get kicked out.”

“Bah. They won’t argue with me,” Delph said. “Just do what Mel says. She’ll teach you more than any of your professors could, so long as its about combat. The old crone is almost as good as me.”

“Keep talking like that and you’ll find out just how much better I am than you are,” Mel said, leveling a cold glare at Delph.

The professor smirked and snapped his fingers, forming a gray portal. He stepped into it, then turned and glanced back before the rest of his body could vanish. “Try not to let her kill you. It would be pretty inconvenient.”

With that, Delph vanished through the portal and it snapped shut behind him, leaving them alone in the woods with a very peeved woman.

“Uh… sorry?” Nolan tried. “He’s a bit of a handful.”

“I should know. I’m married to him,” Mel said.

It went so quiet that they could have heard a cricket fart.

“How?” Damien finally asked. “I don’t think I can imagine much worse fates.”

A slow, predatory grin stretched across Mel’s face. “By being just as bad, of course. Now, let’s get started. Delph has told me all about his pet projects, but I’m afraid he neglected you two a little.”

She gestured to Loretta and Nolan, then tapped her foot impatiently until they spoke.

“What do you want us to say?” Loretta finally asked. “I use Water magic, and Nolan uses Wind and Earth.”

“Bah. I don’t care what magic you use. I’m not training you to cast spells. Your teachers can all do that without wasting my time.”

“Then…” Nolan started, but Mel cut him off.

“I can tell from the concentration of Ether in your bodies that neither of you have awoken your cores. Am I correct?”

“That’s normally something that happens closer to Year Three, isn’t it?” Nolan asked.

“Normal is an excuse for mediocrity. Your core can evolve at any point, but it needs sufficient stress and Ether to work with. At the moment, you have neither.”

“Really? Not even Damien?” Nolan asked. “He’s got so much Ether that he doesn’t know what to do with it.”

“His core is already evolved, as is Sylph’s.”

“Of course it is,” Nolan said with a sigh, looking more resigned than annoyed. “Why wouldn’t it be? I don’t suppose he was born with it evolved?”

“Last year,” Damien said. “Delph.”

“Ah. That explains it. Was it fun?”

“Not even slightly.”

“And yours will be worse,” Mel said. “Damien had a lot of extra Ether to work with. Neither you nor Loretta have the same privilege.”

“So what do we do?” Loretta asked. “Eat a bunch of medicinal herbs until we have excess Ether?”

“If it were that easy, everyone would do it. Most would fail and shatter their cores, but they’d still try,” Mel said. “No, we’ll be doing things a little more organically. It isn’t just excess Ether that allows your core to evolve. It’s also the amount of stress you’re under, along with a little bit of how well you can control your mental energy.”

“Forgive me if I’m wrong,” Loretta said slowly. “But why am I getting the feeling that you’re just going to run around, trying to kill us while stuffing us full of medicinal herbs until you force out a core evolution?”

“Oh, I like you,” Mel said, turning to shuffle through a bag near a bookshelf and pulling out two small canvas travel packs. She tossed one to Loretta and one to Nolan. “Delph has you trained well. Start running, kids. If I catch you, you are not going to have a good time.”

Nolan burst into motion with a blast of wind that buffeted Damien’s hair back. He shot out the door, not even bothering to say anything else. Loretta was hot on his heels, although he wasn’t quite as fast as he was. Delph would have been proud.

“Well, that was fast,” Mel said, tapping her chin with a slender finger. “Delph has them trained too well.”

“Are you not going to chase them?” Damien asked.

“Not yet. I’ll let them tire themselves out first,” Mel replied. “I’m going to handle you first. I always keep some extra medicinal herbs around in case someone dumps some trainees on me.”

“Forgive the question, but does this happen often? I thought Delph only started teaching recently.”

“It isn’t always him,” Mel replied with a shrug. “Have you met Cheese? I trained him as well. Whisp’s request.”

“I’ve met him all right,” Damien said, shaking his head. “He’s strong. Really strong. I still don’t know what magic he uses.”

“You won’t learn from me. I don’t show favoritism toward my students, unlike Delph.”

Damien grunted. “I can’t say I can complain about all the help he’s given me. I’d be dead if he he’d treated me like another student.”

“Perhaps. But, nonetheless, you are a little more difficult. Your core has already evolved, and there is little more I can do to improve it. It’ll expand naturally with time, of course, but that cannot be rushed without risking shattering. I could just give you more combat training, but I’m not so sure that would help you much either.”

“I can get that anywhere,” Damien said with a nod. “Not to look down on your skills. I’m sure you’re an incredibly powerful mage if you can stand up to Delph, but he can teach me normal fighting too. If he brought me here, I presume he wants me to learn something else.”

“Of course he does,” Mel said with a sigh. “He wants me to give you my mental energy techniques.”

“That… doesn’t sound all that useful,” Damien admitted. “Perhaps that’s just my ignorance talking, but I don’t use mental energy to fight more than remotely casting or holding spells. I’m not interested in attacking people’s minds directly. It brings me a fair amount of distaste.”

“That’s not where my talents lie,” Mel said, shaking her head. “You can use mental energy for a lot more than just reinforcing your spells. It’s a powerful tool that can help you control your own body and emotions. Delph mentioned you have been having difficulties with your powers?”

“Some,” Damien said slowly. “But I’m not sure how much of them can be fixed with simple mental energy.”

“It can do a lot more than you think. In the end, any magic within us is still in our body. Delph didn’t tell me everything, the annoying bastard, but any inability to control your own magic can be remedied with sufficient mental energy.”

“If you and Delph think it’s worth a shot, then I’ll try it,” Damien said. “But it would be very dangerous to intentionally bring this out. Before we start, I need to make sure this won’t risk accidentally activating magic that I’m trying to keep contained.”

“I can’t make any guarantees. It’s your body,” Mel said with a shrug. “But it won’t bring it out any more than you losing control normally would. I’ll simply be training your willpower and mental fortitude until the point where you can recognize and repel outside influences on your mind. As a result, your finer control over magic and Ether will improve significantly. Provided you can complete my training, of course.”

“You don’t sound very optimistic.”

“Of all the students that I’ve had try to learn my techniques, only two of them have succeeded. One was Cheese, who already had such incredible control over his mental state that I don’t even know how much he learned from me, and the other is Dean Happenstance.”

“The Dean?” Damien asked, aghast. “But he’s easily in his thirties! When did you teach him?”

“I’m going to pretend like you didn’t just insinuate I was old,” Mel said, cracking her knuckles. “Enough wasting time. Are you willing to learn or not? I’ll give you a choice, unlike the others. This will be considerably more painful for you than it will be for them.”

“Of course I am. I can deal with pain.”

Mel nodded and gestured for him to follow her. The two walked out the back of the house and into a small garden, where a circle of runed stones had been set up in the center of a gazebo.

“Sit.”

Damien obliged, crossing his legs and resting his arms on his knees. “By the way, is this the same thing Sylph is learning?”

“No,” Mel replied flatly. “You’ll get time to ask her what she gained later. Focus on yourself first. If you leave this rune circle before its over, you will have failed. If you faint, you will have failed. There will not be a second chance.”

“How will I know when it’s over?”

Mel smirked. “The pain will stop.”

“Fair enough. So what do I do?”

“Just stay awake. That will prove sufficiently difficult. Oh, and don’t use your companion for aid. Do this completely on your own.”

“Gotcha. I’m ready, then.”

“No, you aren’t,” Mel said, shaking her head. “But let’s see what you can do regardless. Good luck. Remember to direct your anger at Delph when this is all over. This was his idea, after all.”

She pointed a finger at the runes. They flared with golden light, quickly turning black as a cold sensation started to creep up Damien’s feet and into his chest. Then the pain started.