The bell was ringing and Yet is late for class. There is no point in hurrying, a minute late is as bad as ten. He keeps pace. Leans against the class door. Waits in case a straggler is coming. Adjusts his coat.

Ngalse and Giriladze Preparatory Academy (or NG Prep) is by definition - not by reputation or merit - the preeminent Secondary Educational institution of the country. The best and brightest youth that the nation has to offer. The shining lights of Amiqer.

That's the mission statement. That's the tagline on the brochure.

Nothing for it then, Yetabo Idwuare twists the bright brass handle and swings the door wide. Sixteen sets of eyes settle on him; volume drops, but talk keeps on. His narrow plastic lectern lies at the front end of the room, knocked on the floor. No clear suspect. One or two kids out of their assigned seats. No one is angry or hurt. Seems like a brisk bedlam, far short a full pandaemonium. Yet cheerfully decides class can be salvaged today.

"Future leaders of our! Great! Republic!" Yet sweeps four long paces to the front of the classroom, whirls halfway around on one heel, and casually swipes up a chalk shell from a wall rack. "Good! Morning!"

"Good morning Mister Idwuare," replies the class with a whiff of mutiny. Yet compares, considers; finds the salutation insufficient. This is going to be a challenge, he can already see students slouching. Poor posture, unbuttoned uniform vests. Untucked undershirts, the sly cunning of teenage rebellion.

"I said good morning."

"Good morning Mister Idwuare," intones the class again, clearer this time.  Yet nods, placated. He takes a moment midstride to step on the tipped lip of the lectern, then without another motion - but for his shoe - deftly uprights it.  It stops mid-upswing with a thump against his open palm. 

He knows he mustn't grin. "There we go. Better," he grins. Yet slides toward a relatively clean section of the slate-blue blackboard and strikes in loose flowing handwriting. The school provides chalk sticks, but Yet always prefers the old traditional rough-limed sea shells.

Is magic evil? He writes in bold sloppy letters.

Then below it he writes - Jifat? Ilyone?

"Okay, first thoughts on the readings?" Yet sweeps a hand out to petition some responses. He makes sure to hold a reassuring, muted smile and waits patiently for teenage restlessness to outpace surliness.  The students are still new to Yet. New enough he still carries a list of their names tucked into his teaching folio, though tries not to use it.

The kid on the far right is Irabe. Athlete. Outgoing. No surprises yet. The foreign one behind him speaks a fluent, barely accented Freedman. He's called by something tough to say - full of soft palate sounds. Rixi? Yet thinks it sounds like a Neung or a Jioxing name, but would rather not guess. Center back is Lodzishvili.  Accent thick as oat soup, but follows the lectures well enough. Middle of the pack is Banabe, the chubby one. Sits with Amet, the wheezy voice one. Behind them Farhad, the square head one. These are the regular kids, too quiet to get a read on, haven't stood out much yet. Maybe they'll turn out to be shy, maybe they'll be delinquents.

Still no raised hands. Yet starts cooking up a slow glower, just to give the kids a sense of a time limit.

Iio is up front. Dumb as a rock, may God bless him. Hasn't figured it out yet, either. Yetabo hopes to think he never will. Roald Iio is flanked on either side by his little friends. Took less than a week for their nicknames to stick. Strides and Koko. Yet gives it a good 1 out of 3 chance they are his lectern vandals, he likes them already.

Meanwhile Kimbe Ode is tucked back and left, with his friends Hamir and Jed.  There's a good 2 out of 3 chance they are his lectern vandals instead. Yet is much less amused by that chance fraction -

Oh, a hand! There are only two girls in the first bell class, and the reluctant rising hand belongs to one. Duanna Enhe.

"Yes. Miss Enhe. What do you think?" Yet points, stepping back and to the side of the chalkboard.

The girl leans forward with a hunched, tense posture. "Professor, are you saying magic is evil?" She asks bluntly. Yet would take her tone for rudeness if he didn't see how hard it was for her to speak up.

"I'm not saying anything, that is the question we are raising together today," he says kindly.

"But why would you teach us magic if it was bad?" She follows. She puts on an iron glare, but is also visibly starting to bodily shake with nervousness.

Poor kid. Yet raises a finger and his voice, making sure to address the whole class. "Ah! But I am, personally in fact, not teaching you any magic! So - question stands," he pauses again and searches faces for one that isn't glazed over. "How about the readings?" Amet looks like he's paying attention, might even have something to say. "Amet! What do you think the Mindaro Jifat thought about magic?"

Amet starts a bit. His droopy face isn't very expressive, but he wrings together bone thin fingers as he wheezily speaks up. "It was bad."

Yet gives him a moment to elaborate, during which the boy makes as anguished a look as his placid face is capable of.

"He um. Said that the Heavens belong to God. And um. Magic is like, doing stuff that only Heaven should do."

"Sorcery," Yet clarifies.

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"Uh yea."

"What does he think about Witchcraft?" Yet asks.

"I... I don't know? I assume he thinks it's bad too," Amet winces.

"But he doesn't talk about it much, does he?" Yet muses, looking out over the class with a practiced meaningful expression. "Seems strange, you'd think as a man of the Church he’d consider Witchcraft a far more unnatural craft," he shrugs it off casually.

One of the boys loses his composure and interrupts. "The whole reason we're here is to learn magic," he complains. Kimbe. What an entitled whiner. Yet maintains a genial smile.

"Partially," Yet hedges. It isn't helpful if the kids shut down and start wrecking themselves against conclusions. The goal is more questions, fewer answers. "But your education is our first priority, the experimental parts of our curriculum are less important than your future."

He decides to change track, pointing to Rixi, who'd been squinting, bent over his notes and writing belaboredly. "But does Wayir Ilyone agree with Jifat? Rixi?"

"Raichau," the boy corrects him. Yet presses a thumb fiercely into the knuckle of his forefinger. Raichau. Remember. Raichau. Yet doesn't offer an apology even though it's deserved and due. He can’t show weakness in front of teenagers.

"He is more practical," the boy continues carefully after a moment. It occurs to Yet in that same stay that it was unfair to pick one of the foreign students to represent this half of the argument. Sends the wrong message.

"I see, in what way?" Yet has made his mistake - chooses to commit, learn from it and do better next time. He moves to the chalkboard again, as the discussion hasn't made for any good notes so far. He positions the chalk in hopeful hand hovering.

“He says it’s bad if you do bad things with magic. But it’s good if you do good things.”  Raichau frowns. “He uses hard words.”

Yet grins. “He does! Ilyone was a wordy fellow wasn’t he?” Some unhappy faces: the kids don’t seem to share his enthusiasm for the literary. That’s okay, they’re young yet.

Abandoning the board again, Yet grabs up his folio from the lectern instead. “But what does he mean when he says this:” Yet raises the pages and runs his finger to a hastily scrawled note.

‘wherefor is the phosphor-salt touch begraced, yet the kindling somant bedamned?’

“Little bit ob - tuse. What do we think he means. Iio,” Yet points to Roald in the front row and the boy flinches in a thick witted surprise.

“He wants to start a fire, but he can’t find striking matches?” Roald says with a tragic high level of certainty.

“That’s a good thought, but let’s take the sentence apart first. Koko,” Yet gambles Roald’s friend is running on half a dram of brain. Head nod, palm curl inward, invitation to hypothesis.

The boy looks to Roald as if for approval. “Is phosfor salt a chemical?” He asks.

“That’s right. He’s talking about gunpowder.”

“Gunpowder? Oh, uh -”

“Quick correction. Gunpowder is a potash salt, not a phosfor salt. Don’t get me in trouble with your Alchemy teacher, Ilyone was... not much a chemist. Sorry. Please continue.”

“Um. Okay. Is a somant a spell then?”

“Good question. Getting the right idea. The word somatic means physical, sometimes used to mean motions and gestures. That implies a somant is someone who makes gestures.”

“Is that a real word?” the boy asks, suspicious.

“Probably not,” Yet admits. “But poets get to break a lot of rules.”

“Okay. And kindling, not the stuff but the act - is fire? Fire-making?”

“I think you’ve got it. Bring it together, now.”

Hikole “Koko” Mmende tones an assent, seems more confident with an answer in hand. 

“The writer is asking why fire magic is different than gunpowder alchemy, because the Church approves of one but not the other.”

“A very good question -”

“So sorcery is fine,” Kimbe impatiently blurts.

“We’re not necessarily saying that yet,” Yet says, biting back a less patient reply. “Even though they’re less strict about it today, the Agiazic Church maintains that Sorcery is still a sin.”

“So sorcery is a sin,” Kimbe needles again. With his beady little eyes.

“Not saying that either - after all, it’s the policy, purpose and position of this Academy that sorcery can and should be taught - responsibly - to students.”

Kimbe leans dismissively back into his seat with his arms crossed. He huffs.

“So you don’t know,” he demurs.

Yet thinks honest hard about throwing his chalk. Gives it a real consideration, before drawing on the well of his self-restraint.

“While I am pleased that you all appear to have read the homework, it is clear to me that we didn’t spend enough time thinking about what our two authors really meant.” 

Yet knows that isn’t entirely fair. Duanne seems to be following. Raichau is sharp enough that language is less barrier than shin high fence. Koko needs some coaching, but is clearly sentient at bare minimum. Kimbe is being a pain, but Yet bets he’ll brat less if there’s a grade attached to his argument. Still. The kids can do better than ‘Magic Good, Magic Bad’.

Room for improvement.

Yet pulls a boxy brass watch from his pocket, tossing away a flake of lint. “Homework! You’re going to read from page -” he checks from his copy of the text. “Eighty two. That’s the account of Rahul of Shayam. You’re going to write me one half page, making it easy, just two paragraphs, what do you think about the way King Varapsut uses power. Political power. Sorcerous Power.”

The class groans, a disproportionate melodrama over a half hour’s worth of work.

”For our discussion - I guess we’re on blue cycle next week, so Tuesday - I also want you to think about what Rahul’s perspective is. Think about what he thinks about the King, and why that might be different than how we feel about Varapsut today.”

The brassy, penetrating ring of the class bell ends the session and the 16 children neatly leap to their feet.

“Have a good weekend, I’ll see you Tuesday,” Yetabo repeats a few times, to the individual students who are polite enough to offer him goodbyes. It’s not a bad class. He watches them file out in their dark grey uniforms, with their too many books and their hormonal neuroses, too early yet to be sure what kind of people they’ll become.

He likes this batch. Maybe not Kimbe Ode. But Raichau and Enhe show promise. The Irabe boy will be useless in class, but he’s got a good heart. Even Roald Iio starts to grow on you, despite being a lunkhead.

It’s a shame someone wants to kill the boy. What a nightmare.

Yetabo Iduare, Saint Sanctified of the Agiazic Solist Church and part-time secondary school teacher opens his notes in the quiet moments between classes and directs his pen to an empty space.

To Do, he writes. Foil Murder. Buy rice.