In the middle of the night, Olivia’s Core leveled again. She’d been a little surprised, but not terribly so; Sange had told her that early Core levels came quickly. She wasn’t too worried about hitting level ten from cultivation because she knew that only a tiny portion of the Energy she cultivated went toward her personal level; most of it went to her Core improvement and, until she started really pulling huge amounts of Energy into her Core, it wouldn’t have a significant impact in that regard. Still, she was pleased with the advancement. Sometime after midnight, the differently attuned Energy sources she’d been drawing from went dry, and she had to draw pure ambient Energy. When her Core leveled, she decided to call it a night and try to sleep until morning.

Olivia lay on the little cot, noting its lack of a blanket with mixed feelings. She wasn’t cold, but the idea that they wouldn’t include a blanket sent disturbing messages. Did they not care about her comfort? Were they worried that a student put in here might be suicidal? Was it just an oversight? She restlessly flopped onto her back, unable to sleep, her mind racing with all the implications of her predicament. Would her being suspected of a violent attack affect her standing in the competition? Would she lose points in her classes if she was held here during the day and missed them? What if she were held even longer?

In an effort to still her mind, she closed her eyes and imagined herself flying through an imagined landscape. In the past, this activity had helped her sleep when she’d been restless with worry over a presentation, test, or project launch. She imagined gliding down a steep valley road and into a green landscape filled with colorful trees and little animals. She veered toward a small pond and noticed the deer drinking from the water. Soon she was gliding over a streambed and under a bridge, and then her consciousness slipped away, and sleep found her.

A loud knock came from the door, and Olivia was startled awake. As she blinked her eyes clear, a loud click came from the door, and then it opened a crack. A familiar voice said, “Olivia? It’s Alyss. I’m coming in.” The door opened a bit more then Alyss spoke again, “You can leave us. I’m going to speak with her privately.” A man’s muffled reply sounded, and then Alyss was stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. “Oh, Olivia! What sort of mess are you mixed up in?”

“I’m not sure, but I’ll tell you, I’m not happy about the treatment I’ve had!” Olivia had let her fear slip away during the night, and she was ready for some verbal sparring if that’s what Alyss wanted.

“Tell me what happened.” Alyss moved over to the cot, and Olivia pulled her knees up and leaned against the wall; there was no headboard.

“I’d been studying in the library, and it was getting late, so I was walking back to my dorm. I saw a student, Haidis, lying on the floor in a dark hallway. I went to investigate, and then Gwinna and some ass of a professor showed up and blamed me for attacking her.”

“Right, Professor ap’Gravin. Don’t let others hear you speak that way, please, Olivia. He may be lacking in manners, but he holds a lot of clout around here.”

“Lacking in manners? He tortured me!” At Alyss’s shocked expression, Olivia told her the details of the story, about the hobbling and being stuck in this room with no real explanation of what would happen to her. She almost started to tear up, but she swallowed the feeling and focused on her anger.

“Oh, Olivia, I’m so sorry! Hobbling is slang for a class of spells that block your Core off with another person’s Energy. It’s mildly irritating to someone with very low affinity and terribly uncomfortable for someone with high affinity. I’ll give Professor ap’Gravin the benefit of the doubt and assume he didn’t know how badly it would affect you, but people will also try to see his perspective—he may have truly believed you were dangerous. I’m sorry, Olivia,” she said as Olivia opened her mouth to object, “I know this doesn’t seem fair. It really isn’t, and it only gets worse: Professor ap’Gravin has the right to investigate the matter, and he has a window of time to operate before any of us can interfere. The only person who could speak on your behalf immediately and put an end to the matter is Professor Oylla-dak, the head of the first-year class. Sadly, she’s gone on academy business until Friday.”

“So a full week? How long until other professors can intervene?” Olivia tried to keep the panic out of her voice.

“In five days, any of your professors can demand to see Professor ap’Gravin’s findings. If he has no evidence of your misdeeds by then, we can demand you be allowed to return to class.” Alyss tried to sound hopeful, but Olivia could see the disappointment in her eyes.

“So either way, I’m getting robbed of nearly a fourth of the first month’s classes?” Bitterness tainted Olivia’s words, and when she saw the genuine concern on Alyss’s face, she felt a bit of shame. If she were honest with herself, she hadn’t realized how invested she’d become in the opening competition; she’d always been competitive academically but never in a showy, in-your-face way. She’d simply done her best and let her results speak for themselves. She’d never been framed for assault before, though, and she wasn’t sure how to cope with the feeling of injustice she was currently raging against.

“It all seems rather convenient for your competition, doesn’t it?” Alyss said softly, as though she wasn’t sure she should be speaking out loud. “Olivia, you’re going to have to rise above this. If you’re truly innocent, and I believe you when you say you are, then any investigation will show that result. If Professor ap’Gravin is aiding Gwinna or others who fear your placement, then he’ll just drag his feet and announce that he couldn’t find any proof at the last minute. That means you’re probably stuck here for five full days, in which case, you’re going to have to buckle down. I can say that this won’t affect your ranking in my class, provided you do as I hope you will with the meta-elements. You’re going to miss some lessons, but I think it’s nothing you can’t pick up by reading the associated chapters a few times. Just stick with your work on the meta-elements. I’ll speak to your other instructors and see if I can get you some help. Keep up with your cultivation!”

“Oh, about that...” Olivia paused, unsure she wanted to finish her statement, but she felt like she could trust Alyss. “Um, I was cultivating last night, and I was reaching for sources of attuned Energy, and I felt lots of differently attuned pools of Energy in the ceiling. Is it safe to cultivate from there?”

“Hmm? Let me see here.” Alyss closed her eyes and concentrated for a while, and then she opened them and smiled. “I think you’re feeling the Energy traps for the wards on this room. They’re designed to absorb certain types of Energy, and if you found them with your inner eye, then yes, you should be fine drawing it off. It won’t break the wards.” In a way, Olivia was glad to hear this, but, in another, she was disappointed—she’d kind of liked the idea that she was doing something so clever or challenging that the people who’d designed the wards hadn’t thought of it.

“Alyss, do you think I still have a chance in the competition?” Olivia asked quietly as Alyss stood up and straightened her robes.

“Oh, definitely. Not overall, perhaps; you’ll lose a lot of points in alchemy and enchanting and probably physical education by missing a week, but you should be able to keep up with my class and Core Cultivation. And, Olivia, the best awards come for those two classes. Don’t forget; there’s also an overall prize for the top-scoring cohorts. Don’t give up!” With that, Alyss moved to the door and placed her hand on the brass plate. When it clicked, she opened the door and turned to Olivia, “Either I or one of your cohort will bring you news later today. Chin up, Olivia.”

Olivia sat on her narrow cot and stewed. She kept running through the events of the previous night in her mind and grew angrier and angrier each time she remembered Gwinna’s rich, throaty voice saying, “Olivia has an air affinity!” Olivia was not a violent person; she’d had to act violently in this world a few times, but never toward someone as mundane as a fellow student. That being said, she was feeling very violent right now.

As she felt her heart racing and grew conscious of her murderous thoughts, Olivia clenched her fists and forced herself to take deep breaths and think about something else. She thought about when she’d been struggling to perfect her cryo-pod prototype before her presentation to Vynatek; she’d been stressing about myriad things: some bad press generated by one of the undergrads she’d let go, one of her chief investors going bankrupt, her mother’s breast cancer relapsing, and her absolute lack of a love-life. The pressure had mounted to the point where she’d had an actual panic attack. When she’d checked herself into the university medical center, afraid she’d had a heart attack, the old, silver-haired doctor who’d seen her had given her some excellent advice: focus on what you can control and let the rest sort itself out.

Olivia decided to follow that advice now. She couldn’t control the fact that she was locked in this room. She couldn’t do anything about Gwinna right now. She could, however, study her texts, work with her meta-elements, cultivate, and exercise. Speaking of exercise, she was hungry, and she needed to use the toilet. She moved to the door and banged on it, listening for a response. A few moments later, the lock clicked, and the door opened, revealing Professor Thain’s weathered, bearded face. “Yes?” He asked, clearly making an effort to be patient.

“I have to go to the bathroom, and I’m hungry and thirsty.” Olivia knew it wasn’t his fault she was in this predicament, but she couldn’t help thinking of him as a jailor.

“Of course, of course. I’m sorry; we haven’t had anyone in here for a while, and my routine’s a bit off. I’ll take you to the bathroom, but please don’t do anything to get yourself in trouble. I’d hate to hobble you again. Also, I’m sure breakfast is on its way. We tend to be pretty far down the delivery list for the cafeteria.” He opened the door and pointed further down the hallway. “Bathroom’s the door at the end of the hall. Go ahead; I won’t follow you in. There’s no other exit. Please hurry, though; I don’t want to stand in this hallway all morning.”

“Thank you,” Olivia said, walking past him, down past the other two pairs of doorways, and then opening the door at the end of the hall. Inside was a sink and a toilet, and not much room to use them. She took care of her business, splashed some water on her face, and then walked back to her room. Professor Thain nodded with a smile on his face, then locked her back in. Olivia sat in her windowless cell and, with new determination, took out her spellcrafting book.

So far, she’d learned the patterns for two meta-elements and gotten fast enough to complete one of them before it started to decay. She knew that if she pushed the woven Energy out of her pathway, she’d create arcfrost. She just didn’t want to do it yet, because she was afraid it would level her. She could use more practice with magma—she couldn’t quite create the full weave before it started to decay, but right now, she wanted to expand her repertoire a little. She flipped through her text to the next meta-element: plasma. It required a mesh of air-attuned Energy and fire-attuned Energy. According to her text, it was one of the most dangerous meta-elements to create, requiring a lot of fine control to keep the product from harming unintended targets, including the caster.

Olivia started with her notebook and pencils, drawing the pattern for plasma over and over. She spent fifteen minutes on her first draft, learning all the twists and knots, then she worked to draw it faster with each successive attempt. When she could draw the whole pattern in less than a minute, she put aside her drawing tools and assumed her lotus position. She turned her mind inward and slowly drew forth a strand of air-attuned Energy, then the fire-attuned strand, and then she meticulously began to weave the pattern for plasma.