I ran up the Unseen Tower's floors as fast as she came down, holding a parchment with the electives. Bolded subjects were mandatory. I needed 120 CP in total to pass.

1st & 3rd semester:

Potions and Transfiguration (5 CP)

Sympathetic Magic (5 CP)

Basics of Divination (5 CP)

2nd & 4th semester:

General Magical Theory II (10 CP)

Ecto-Crafting (5 CP)

Elemental Magic (5 CP)

A Guide to Common Otherworlders (5 CP)

Summoning and Containment of Otherworlders (5 CP)

3rd semester only:

Advanced Transfiguration (5 CP)

Advanced Sympathetic Magic (5 CP)

Advanced Elemental Magic (5 CP)

Advanced Divination (5 CP)

Mind Magic (5 CP)

Ritual Magic (5 CP)

4th semester only:

Just reading the list gave me shivers. An Introduction to Mundane ID and Tax Law sounded like it taught students how to properly commit tax and identity fraud. Let's wait with this one for the third semester.

After exiting the Tower, it didn't take long to find my group. Dozen-or-so apprentices gathered around Professor Wiggs in a clearing. Trees encircled them like walls of an arena. Cracked stems and charred bushes bore testimony of battles fought between Hunter and demons above my weight class.

Two students stood in the middle, their rods pointed at one another as if they were fighting. Was "combat magic" part of the list?

Professor Andrew Wiggs sat perched on a boulder like a gargoyle. His mouth formed a stern, impartial line while the Academy students next to him sat on picnic mats. A curtain of glamour mixed with a ward meanwhile made sure that any hikers or campers who'd otherwise have witnessed the battle saw nothing and decided to walk somewhere else.

"Ah, there you are," Professor Wiggs said as he noticed me. "Come, come. It's okay, it's just the second week of the semester and this is for all the students who haven't dueled yet."

"Dueled?"

"Yes. See, our Hunters are excellent and hardworking people, but teleportation and self-duplication are things we're still working on. You already ran into Otherworlders once, but not everyone here did."

And I'd have almost died had Siris or Simon not helped.

"It's certainly beneficial for everyone to have practiced combat applications of the Art at least once. You don't know much yet, but your parents might have told you one or two tricks you might want to try out."

Parents, yes. Sure. They taught me a lot.

"You are next," Wiggs told me. "Do you want to choose a partner yourself or do you want one assigned?"

Jaclyn was next to her friends in the crowd. Her purple hair swayed in the wind like the feathers of a bird. Amateur. I had my hair tied back.

She apparently wasn't taken yet, seeing how she stopped talking to her friends when I approached. We had a score to settle.

"Ah, a wonderful pairing. Since Apprentice Carter has just come, I will explain the rules. Practitioner duels are an age-old tradition. Imagine how much less bloody mundane history could have been had those kings settled wars with duels. There are a few rules and formalities. Usually, you bow down out of respect and agree on a location, allowed weapons, victory conditions, and champions who oversee that no one cheats. But, for today, the victory condition will be merely to steal one another's pendants and rods. Any spells you already know are allowed, but the primary goal is to have fun. If you go to far and start harming one another, I must step in. I will now count down from three. Three, two, one."

Jaclyn already lifted her rod at "two". Before I could move, a cold gust of wind swept her into the dirt.

Damn, she knew elemental magic. By far the most useful discipline in a free-form battle like this. At least people couldn't see those mud stains on my black robe.

I got back to my feet and pointed my rod at Jaclyn.

"What's wrong?" Jaclyn asked. "Jealous you don't have a B in power?"

"What's wrong with you?" I asked. "You enjoy pushing others around?"

"Not sure if you noticed, but right now, I'm literally being graded on how well I can push you around!"

I clutched my rod and, lacking any other option at offense, I sent Siris after Jaclyn's hawk familiar. Her familiar flapped its wings like a soaring eagle and called up wind that could grind a mountain to sand. Its gust caught me off-guard and sent me to the ground.

The students laughed.

Damn. I came here to escape my ordinary life – not for high school drama 2.0. I try something, I embarrass myself, people laugh. Shame and humiliation flushed my face while my fingers curled in the mud. At school, I was at least special – Isa's Night Witch. Here, I was at the bottom of the pole. The weakest of weak practitioners.

Even Siris tilted his head in disappointment. "Hey! Don't leave your head hanging! It could be worse. With better shaping skills, she could have drawn the air out of your lungs and you'd have died a slow, agonizing death! Think positive!"

I had to give Siris credit. He knew how to get a chuckle out of me.

If shaping wasn't Jaclyn's strong suit, Marissa couldn't expect anything more complicated than a gust of wind. No sonic attacks, no asphyxiation, nothing. She wasn't creative enough to blow objects in Marissa's face either. By itself, wind was easy to deal with.

There was one win condition: To steal each other's pendants. Jaclyn brushed her hand over a purple heart crystal and its threads because, much like I did, she had chosen a necklace.

Everything I needed to beat her was raw willpower and determination. I ran forward and faced another gust of wind.

Jaclyn held her staff stretched out. Her smug smirk was replaced by gritting teeth focused on gathering the energy she needed. White lines of aether gathered into a wind hose which hit me like a small tornado.

But I didn't give up. I never gave up. I clenched my teeth, sank into a crouch, and slammed my rod into the ground like an anchor. Blowing away a human was hard. Even for someone as light as me, you needed tropical storm velocities to lift me off my feet. This open clearing lacked rocks, branches, debris, or other projectiles Jaclyn could toss against me to save energy. Once I put on my cat mask, even the dirt in my eyes became a minor inconvenience at best. Her strategy was inefficient and she knew it.

The rod shivered in her hands. The wind speeds sank. She panted, wheezing for breath as I lunged forward and sent Siris after her.

Siris and her hawk clashed as I stretched out my fist and headed straight for her necklace.

Jaclyn reacted. She grabbed my wrist, threw me over her shoulder, and pressed her body weight onto mine to prevent me from standing up.

"Thought we were practicing magic here, not cat-fighting," Jaclyn said. "Guess underhanded tactics run in the family."

"Are you talking about yours or mine?"

Jaclyn pushed my rod out of my hand. "Funny. I'm not the one who's Mom is on the run. Heard yours had poor impulse control and couldn't keep her fingers from getting into the wrong places. I wouldn't be surprised if you got your familiar like that."

Poor impulse control? Did she implicitly call Alice a whore and imply that I got Siris by sleeping with someone.

I didn't think about what I did next.

Jaclyn had both of my wrists pinned to the ground, but she didn't put too much effort into pinning me down. She seemed unsure if she wanted to pin me down or if she wanted to grab my necklace and take the win. Her indecisiveness proved to be my advantage. I got one wrist free and with it, I pulled her hair.

Don't look at me like that. Her fault for not tying her hair back like a sensible girl should do.

Jaclyn screamed. In the brief opening I got, I pushed her off me and reached for my rod. She pushed me away. Before this could escalate, a harsh voice cut between us.

"Enough!" he said. "Apprentice Carter. This was a low-stakes fight for finding out how to use your magic best. The goal was not to win at all costs. For your dishonorable tactics, I must downgrade you, unfortunately."

Jaclyn let go of me and let me step to my feet. I pushed grass strains off my vest and my pants as I watched the scolding voices of our spectators. Darcy shook her head wordlessly while the other students watched me the way a jury watched a convicted criminal.

Siris threw himself on my rod like a dog on a bone. "Looks like you messed up! There's a reason your typical wizard is a stuffy, wise old man. Can't do magic if you don't keep your head in the game! Can I now keep your rod?"

I have to admit, I maybe got a little bit over-emotional here.

"Poor impulse control" could mean a lot. It could mean she made demonic bargains. It could mean she kept bad company. That she slept with anyone who wasn't completely ugly. Or that she was just hot-headed. Or it could just be a stupid rumor.

Back at the boulder, a blonde apprentice boy stood up when I came. With his teeth clean enough for a poster in a dentist's office, a healthy tan, and freckles to match Isa's, he wasn't bad looking. Maybe I'd have attended prom back at my old school had they had boys like that back then.

He focused on the field, but before he went there, he whispered to me. "You should have bowed down before the fight, like this." He sank his head until he was at eye-level with me. "It's not necessary, but we often do this. It's nice to do."

"Thanks!" I said. "I'll remember it."

"No problem. If I'm ever under mundanes, you give me a technomancy crash course in exchange, okay?"

"Aren't you guys used to cell phones already?"

The boy laughed. "My parents say they produce dangerous rays that cause depression if you watch them longer than ten seconds. Can you believe it? Well, we're going to have classes on technomancy-"

"Apprentice Mark Gomez," Professor Wigg said to the boy, "it is your turn now!"

It was at this point that I noticed how Darcy lurked at the edge of the crowd.

She came closer to the picnic mats. "What were you thinking?"

"I'm currently thinking about whether Wiggs would have let Jaclyn insult my Mom in a fair world."

"I don't know. The world can be unfair, but that doesn't justify your behavior!"

She was probably right. Unfortunately, making lemonade from the lemons life gave you was a skill I had yet to learn.

This Mark, who had a badger as his familiar, was the last to have his fight today.

After everyone had good bruises, Professor Wiggs walked into the middle of the clearing and held his speech. "My fellow students. I hope you enjoyed receiving a more practical look into the Art. Make no mistake; the purpose of this course will not be to teach you how to harm each other but to show how you can protect yourselves should harm arise. I will teach the basics of avoiding Otherworlders and what to do if you or someone you know gets caught by one. Before I joined this Society, I used to be a normal reporter among mundanes before the White Cloak destroyed my livelihood. I sure wish someone had taught me what I could do! The lesson is over now. Have fun exploring our Academy's underground campus and see you next time!"

Everyone stood up. Some students walked through the forest, others chatted with each other, and yet others sought the tower that belonged to the Cunning Folk Academy.

There was a rough upper limit on how long I could thrive in social situations and I was about to reach it. My head slumped. I needed to go home.

But Jaclyn's comment made me curious. Did the Academy Tower contain clues about my mother's college years? I was about to find out.